The Facts (from the Land Registry at least)

What have bmbc done wrong here? Is your view also **** off Jean Cryne?

 

I don't know what to make of this thread re-surfacing. I suppose it proves that my £6 was well spent on one level as it continues to provide hours of endless fun as we try to unravel what it all means. To my mind it makes some kind of sense if in a depressing way. The hiving off of the mineral rights could have come after the solicitors for the buyers had done all their searches given the timing. The new owners, oblivious want to dig on their land. Find someone else has the mineral rights. This means putting a spade in the ground is trespassing on the mineral owners' rights. Dig the footings for a new west stand=get sued for trespass. There doesn't have to be anything worthwhile under Oakwell. The only thing the mineral rights owner may be trying to "extract" is a nuisance value settlement from the new owners. Chances are this has been set too high. If I were our owners, I'd realise I'd have to buy out the mineral rights. Some chancer wants £5 million for example, our owner sees it at £200k for example, hence court case. If I'm right hope it gets sorted, I have actually come round to the idea our owners are better than I first thought and actually want success at our football club and have treated various knockbacks with a good degree of fortitude. Btw they can't comment publicly whilst a court case is ongoing so nobody can judge them badly for staying silent on the issue. My take is mere speculation, based on the land reg, my own experience, and a mindset of seeing scammers/chancers everywhere. Evil thinker=evil doer

 

Isn’t this the same kind of situation as domain name ransom? Because the courts eventually decided that was pure scam and treated it as such IIRC.

 

You'd have thought so.

 

The Academy site could be developed and a training ground established anywhere in the BMB or even outside it.

 

I hope other critics of our owners might start to see things a bit differently now in the same way that you have.

 

They've done **** all since owning the stadium and let it run into the ground, its now hampering our progression. Are they just custodians to "protect" it?

 

It’s worth remembering I think that we wouldn’t have a club at all if it wasn’t for the Cryne family

 

The Cryne family have my eternal gratitude for what they did for the club. I have no problem in Barnsley Council retaining part ownership of the ground to protect the club from unscrupulous owners. With that decision on their part though goes a responsibility to ensure the ground continues to function in the interests of the club.
Somewhere in the middle of all this the ground is clearly being neglected and, as far as I'm aware, there's been no meaningful comment from BMBC.
For two, or three, parties who profess to have the best interests of the club at heart, whether it be to enhance their investment or protect the club the y are making a complete dog's breakfast of the job.
If the responsibility turns out to be at the Council I'd suggest that the fanbase is big enough to threaten significant damage to those local councillors at the next election should they not get their finger out.

 

I agree with much of that, I simply think it is short sighted to lump all of Oakwell’s shortcomings onto the Crynes. Not only did they rescue us from the aftermath of the Doyle era, they kept the club financially viable for along time afterwards until Patrick hit upon the basis for the current formula by which the club is run.

 

We are on about what's happened since. As the poster above as put expertly.

 

Pumping tens of thousands of pounds every month into the club for around 15 years hardly amounts to ‘nothing’ as you implied

 

I'm still a little confused. Are you criticising just the council or is the message also **** off Jean Cryne?

 

Very quick to jump on people when they appear to criticise the team performance, players or club in general. It seems it's alright to slag off the Cryne family tho

 

Cryne often said, they cut back on stadium expenditure under his tenure, as it swallowed money and he wanted to try and break even each year to make the club more sellable.

Nothing wrong with this approach, and it clearly worked.

The current owners face the same problem as Cryne did, but with also catching up with the previous 10 years of underfunding, as well as the current/future stuff.

That’s part of the reason for the dialogue that’s underway now.

Looking at other clubs under their management, I don’t believe they have invested in stadium development elsewhere either - certainly Nice had already built their new ground before the takeover.

They clearly want to focus on ‘on the pitch’ results at first, to drive demand and revenue. Which makes sense - BFC will always make more money out of developing a defender and selling on, than the increased revenue of any stadium development.

 

I'm criticising the council for what they have done over the years with their 50% share.

 

Nope, just BMBC.

 

Think it's seen as desirable for academy/training pitches to be all together.

 

Going back to the original post and the latest updates.

If 5 insurance companies have been approached, and they did decline, it must be something fairly sizeable. Usually mining and mineral rights are standard to deal with and can be insured easily enough.

Even then, options still remain-

1) Land Registry Tribunal - who can remove them (takes a bit of time and money to resolve).

2) Approach the holder to negotiate/pay off if still alive.

3) Proceed anyway based on your own risk factor.

4) And obviously Insure against.

I suspect long term they do want to buy it still, but have seen the state and costs of repairs involved currently and don’t want to commit, and would rather have the landlord pay for part of it. It’s not unusual though - many tenants often go this route. Will buy eventually if the landlord makes improvements etc. Usually happens to more unique buildings (aka Oakwell) where other suitable tenants would be hard to find.

 

It seems like Conway has drawn up proposals for the owners of the ground to make the improvements they desire as tenants - which would no doubt involve them spending the required money to bring the west stand up to scratch and improve the commercials in and around the ground - which would be income for the consortium, I assume they would propose to pay pay more or less in rent depending on if the ground owners agree to make the changes. Given they won’t buy the ground because of the risks they see attached to the covenant it seems unlikely the current owners are going to invest even if they had the money - is it politically and commercially tenable for the council to spend millions of pounds on a football ground?
I think this is going to go badly wrong very quickly and we’re going to end up at Rotherham or Huddersfield. Very worrying times imho.