West Stand "Holes" / Wall

Those windows are the old store rooms dressing rooms that are under the stand if I'm not mistaken
Apologies just seen previous post

 

The points made in the OP do make sense, and do tally up from what I can see. But I don't know why it needs a full scale investigation from the Supporters' Trust to get any info.

Frankly, I find it difficult to know what to believe, the Council are happy to say that they've issued a safety cert, but will conveniently not go into details of what conditions have to be met, while our new CEO looks like he would struggle to communicate what he wants to eat to restaurant waiting staff.

I have to hope that closing the stand was not a financial decision, because that would mean one of two things. Either, the club is being run by idiots, or the club is currently suffering from serious cash flow problems, that they need to get a short term injection from Sheff U fans, to the cost of revenue from home fans in the long run. Sadly, the refusal to relieve the Head Coach of his duties would also support both of these points.

 

It wouldn't surprise me at all if we're having cash flow difficulties.

The last accounts to 31/5/2020 showed a cash balance of £770k. Debtors were just under £5.8m. Short term creditors were £5.5m and long term creditors, just under £500k.

We've a year of covid to account for (remember no settlement was reached with the players to reduce wages), a few sales out, a few sales in, the alleged £500k costs of the playoffs and the MacDonald compensation and legal costs. And likely a general operating loss to swallow.

Our cash position has diminished greatly in the last few years and I wouldn't be surprised if come the end of the season we may be close to needing an injection of funding to continue operations. Given most of our home income is season tickets and there seems very little scope to add much more home support, we're reliant on the banked season ticket money and whatever they can muster from away supporters.

I'd be beyond surprised if we don't see 2 or 3 sales in January.

 

If we were indeed struggling financially I would have thought this would have been the first thing said to appease fans. Given that they haven't, I'll assume we're not overly.

 

I think its worth noting though that in 2020 we generated an operating loss of £3.06m.

Its also worth noting that we don't receive income from player sales up front, its generally over the course of a contract. So what shows as a loss and what shows as cash are 2 different things.

 

Thats why I quoted debtors and creditors. Creditors are slightly higher than debtors, so we owe more out as at 31/5/2020 than we were owed.

Obviously we're 17 months after that period and a heck of a lot has happened. But if you look at 2020, we show £3m of player sales and still make a loss. That was pre covid and not taking into account the £1m+ hit from the MacDonald saga.

I wouldn't expect us to be in trouble at this stage with so long til season ticket renewal. But I suspect cashflow forecasts looking to the end of the period are a little tight, and likely why they are looking at how to increase revenues cheaply while trimming on other operational costs. It's dicey running such a significant operational loss at a time when the transfer market has taken such a hit at Championship level.

 

Having witnessed the Bradford fire I have no problem at all with any inspections that take place or remedial work scheduled that would help prevent it.

That doesn't mean I don't have sympathy with those moved from the stand and I don't believe the club have communicated the message well, but I do believe safety is paramount.

There are a number of issues I have with our owners but putting crowd safety first isn't one of them. I do think they really need to work on their PR though.

 

Because when you are the CEO of a company who's business model includes thousands of members of the public attending your premises it may be worth asking?

 

I kindly refer you to my last post in this thread.

Good day, sir.

 

There are different levels of risk though. Having just the directors and media there, will have less risk attached to it than an additional 1000 fans.

 

I agree the communication is appalling, lots of things are appalling tbh, and I understand your scepticism, and share it when it comes to almost everything emanating from the club. (Having said that, I think there are some very good people working at the club including the media team and this is not a criticism of them.)

The above paragraph appears like I'm leading up to a 'but'. I'm not really. I understand everyone's frustration and concerns. I also want everyone to be safe. If there are walls falling down, holes in floors and voids in which debris could accumulate and potentially ignite, which is what happened at Bradford, I don't want any of you WestStanders in there. That doesn't take away anyone's grievances or the legitimacy of them, but maybe changes the question from "why did you close the west stand? " to "why are you so incompetent at absolutely everything?"

 

But still the upper tier and the lower tier are separate structures

 

I don't know if you've seen the footage of the Bradford fire, I wouldn't recommend watching it to be honest, but the stand was very similar to our west stand. Concrete terracing below a wooden seating area. The fire didn't discriminate between those in the upper and lower tiers when it engulfed them and took their lives.

 

I could be wrong but wasn't the wooden roof of the bradford stand over BOTH tiers as opposed to a none wooden roof being behind our open air lower tier?

 

My memory is it was as close to our west stand as any other I've seen. I speak as someone who has both sat in it and seen never released footage. Yorkshire TV cameras were there that day and I had the unenviable task of trawling through the archive footage selecting what was fit for broadcast in terms of picture quality and public distress.

 

It was horrendous, remember watching it and feeling so wretched that there was nothing anyone could do. However, a review was taken of the West Stand, in the light of the events at Bradford. Main thing is thankfully no smoking allowed in the stands any longer, although that did continue on till the 90s.