"We should have moved to the Arena"

- We approaches MPRFC on multiple occasions and they said they didn't want us.
- Even if they did there is no guarantee how financially viable a deal would have been, nor how stable the future of any agreement would have been.

"We should have stayed at HP"

- Heritage Park did not have the ground grading either. It didn't even meet Cat B, we would have been relegated at the end of the season if we were still at Heritage Park.

Both of these phrases render an argument irrelevant as if anything else depends on the clause before then it would not have been possible.

Plus if we move the Arena in the near future we go bankrupt with having to pay back the £250,000 FSIF grants.

Last summer when DMPRFC hosted our friendly matches at the Arena, I had a very interesting conversation with their new chairman and the crux of it was frustration that he wasn't in a position before he was elected to the position to offer the Arena as an alternative solution. He was very keen for us to use the Arena as a shared facility and a wider community sports hub.

I know many are not keen on the Arena but as I have mentioned earlier every option should remain open or revisited especially after this debacle on the grading of Blackwell Meadows. Personally I believe there will be a point where redevelopment of Blackwell will have to be weighed up against a return to the Arena however divisive this could be.

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"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

I think we have a stable future at BM alright, but not the kind of stability you'll like.

If we ever got promoted to the FL, we would have three seasons by which we would have to reach a capacity of 5,000 which must include at least 2,000 seats.

Where are we going to fit 2000 seats at BM?

I know it's a serious question in one sense but 4 years ago I was belting to Sunderland RCA & Whitley Bay, whilst watching home games in Bishop Auckland to watch Darlo and now we have people worrying that our new ground that is less than 4 months old won't be right for Football League

I know we have to progress and see the possibilities but the club are working at this long term plan, lets just hear what they have to say before worrying too much.

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Yep Mowden situation has changed, didn't realise it was a new chairman but they suddenly were willing to talk.

Personally wouldn't want to go back but my opinion is not a reason not to if we ever had to have that discussion.

However the 20 year lease and FSIF grants are two big reasons.

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The thing is Les, I don't think they actually are working on a feasible plan allowing a return to the FL. All they had was a plan to get back to Darlo, to have a ground suitable for NLN and eventually NLP, but there isn't a plan for the FL. I say this, because if there was, they wouldn't have started by raising money to build structures that will have to be knocked down. If they had a long term plan that simply would not have happened.

At the AGM they said that going full-time was nowhere near possible in the near future, so I think they have taken the approach that getting into the FL won't happen for a very, very long time. Essentially, we'll worry about it when it happens (beacuse it won't).

I think it might be time for the board to admit at the Fans Forum that don't have any realistic plans on getting back to the FL. Without a miracle or a very rich investor of course.

Two big negatives, yup. I'm not saying there is any easy option. One might cost us a lot of money (i.e. paying back grants and the RFC) the other might mean giving up on being back in the FL.

As a matter of interest, do you know how much the grant was in total?

I pray that the board have some safeguarding points in place to get out of the lease if it transpires that we can not develop BM to meet our needs... However, from what's come to light this week, I don't have any faith that the board did negotiate such a clause..

As for the FSF money, how much is it? I'd much rather raise money to pay it back than raise money to invest in a ground that is going absolutely nowhere.

We have plans to Category A we took more than 150k I believe as we were eligible because of promotion but didn't hit the 250k limit for Step B.

We may not have league plans as yet, I guess the 5 year plan would need to start looking at this although priority would be to get us to category A which an idea is another 350k after we have paid 150k for the seated stand.

The club plans will hopefully advise on this, after the last 5 years if our biggest worry is how do we get the ground ready for FL then we have done something seriously right these last few years.

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Between £200k and £250k has been received in grant money. There would almost certainly be a financial implication to the rugby club from breaking the agreement as I think they had put well over £100k into the development as well.

I am not sure why a clause like that would be put in. The point of these agreements is the commitment. Strictly speaking what would constitute not being able to develop to our needs?? The ground has four sides and a water pipe. There is obviously the space of you use wisely - and there will always be options.

Really simply speaking a 2,000 capacity terrace could be thrown up at the currently undeveloped end and there is your 5,000 requirement.

Getting seats is a challenge. Is the requirement really 1,000 seats on 2 sides of the ground. Or is is 2,000 across two sides of the ground?

I see your point in putting things into perspective. I would like to see the plans for a FL ground before I put any more money into developing a ground that will never be sufficient for a Football League club... so if the board are going to commence the next funding stage then I'd expect them to have plans available for fans to see on April 21st.

For the FL it is 2k across 2 sides. The clause is vital. The rugby club could turn round tomorrow and say no more development, that's it. You may ask why would they ever do that, but it's about legally safeguarding the club. The RFC don't have to let us build so much as a toilet for the next 24 years.

That's kind of a faith based view that everything will be alright (or that some miracle will happen) but hard facts and plans would be a lot more comforting for us atheists.

Yes, I'm glad that we now have worries about the ground rather than the club ceasing to exist, although its rather like replacing the worry of death with the worry of being in a persistent vegetative state for next 20 years.

True, this can be done. But where do the extra 1750 seats go? It's simply not physcally possible given the structures we have built.

I am willing to give those who have got us this far the opportunity and time to develop the ideas and advise what's possible. If that's faith then fair enough, trust me I will still be asking questions all the way through and checking facts but if I had the time & skills required then I would get involved as opposed to watching from the sidelines.

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I'm with you there, and if I had the time and skills (or lived anywhere near) then I'd be on board too. I'm hoping to get to the Fans Forum though, and I'm sure the feasibility of FL plans will be much discussed.

A 5,000 capacity via terracing is fairly straightforward.

The hard bit is ticking all of the other requirements/facilities, primarily, as Lo has already stated, the seats.

I've had a look at the league 2 grounds and by far the most basic is Accrington Stanley
http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leag ... anley.html

Further to the above, if you look at some of the grounds in the National League such as Braintree, Bromley, Guiesley and North Ferriby, they look extremely basic
http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leag ... rence.html

So with this water main under the pitch at blackwell is there no way we are allowed to put a permanent stand ontop of it ? Ive seen a picture of the layout of it and its on the side of the pitch that we really only have chance of putting bigger permanent stands in

No we can't. Our only option would be to pay to have it diverted.

What we should have done is moved the pitch away from the clubhouse. That way the pipe would intersect the corners and give us the full length where the seats are now and the full width behind the opposite goal to the tin shed. It would also have allowed us to potentially fashion something in front of the clubhouse. The reason for not doing this is probably that there's a rugby pitch behind the seated stand so the RFC would have said no. Im assuming this is the reason we didn't set the structure of the seated stand further back to allow more rows to be added. Had we done that it would be cost effective to add those rows and allow us to look forward to the play offs which are now beyond us.

What? You have completely lost me. If we had paid to move the pitch and all the floodlight etc. We would now have enough seats to compete in the playoffs?

Even though the ground in its current set up is more than capable of adding the extra seats as an extra module and is part of a longer term plan to develop the ground.

Not what I said. If we had set the seated structure further back from the pitch it would have allowed us to add more rows easily.

Had we moved the pitch back we would have allowed for enough space to create a FL ground. Please explain how we achieve a 5k capacity with 2k seats on what we have now?

I don't know specifics. But my betting is big terrace at current empty end / potentially a terrace and seating combination.

Some sort of structure from end of club house to where the water pipe starts at the same end. Add our extra 290 seats (that takes us to nearly 600 anyway)

Honestly I can't say I know. What I can say is that a plan to get to 5,000 was said to be in place and was due for launch as part of a 2017 fundraising drive beginning on 21st April...

You did literally say we would now be looking forward to the playoffs based on moving the pitch.

I actually didn't. I said that the rugby pitch behind is possibly the reason why we didn't set the seated structure back from the pitch. Had we done so then we would be. Read my post properly

See...

I am not sure when you buy stands in modules it is simply a case of easily adding more rows. You would need to purchase a brand new set of seats?

Friday night is big for me. If it comes out that BM can't get developed to EFL standard then we won't raise much more money going forward. People will not invest in a structure that doesn't get us into the EFL eventually. The statement from the DFCSG says we want to get back into the EFL. Is this hope or is there a plan?

Exactly i just hope we can get to the EFL standard or all that money the board has used to put into BM plus the grants is just a big waste. Theres alot of good suggestions specially about getting the main water pipe diverted but that will also cost a few quid too