Cryne Family Statement

[Olias1]

I'm almost certain in the mid 70's when we were at the bottom of the old fourth division and 3k war a good gate we tried flogging the Pontefract Road car park .

I'm sure it fell through because of this covenant .

Does thar recall it SB mi owd ?

I remember it well Animal.
It was summat like ASDA wo gunna build a supermarket on there. Free parking for match day supporters.
If I remember right they offered us £500k.
Which was a massive amount in them days.

[Hodger1957]

It was fairly common knowledge within the town that there were restrictions on what you could do with the land surrounding Oakwell and what you couldn't .

As you say it wouldn't have taken much to find out from their side of things .

Everyone who buys a house or a piece of land has solicitors who do searches as part of the procedure , its standard practice .

Some saying on bbs that the Senior family who owned the brewery and put in the lands restriction has now passed and is irrelevant today .

I wouldn't be so sure myself , some of these old things still stack up today legally .

It's worth reminding ourselves that this club have experienced some tough financial times , we've nearly gone out of business four times in my time supporting the club and yet nobody flogged the land off which would have eased the financial strain , it would have been the easiest thing to do .

Nobody did and I reckon that's because the restrictions placed on the land makes it unlikely anyone would want it and it's probably not worth a great deal either because of the restrictions .

I could be wrong but it does make you wonder .

I worked at the Land Registry for 30+ years and only a very amateur solicitor wouldn't be aware of these restrictions.
In fact I would say no qualified solicitor would miss their significance.

[animallittle3]

I remember it well Animal.
It was summat like ASDA wo gunna build a supermarket on there. Free parking for match day supporters.
If I remember right they offered us £500k.
Which was a massive amount in them days.

That's right it was a supermarket , I'd forgotten all about it until this present business cropped up .

I mean in those says there was hardly any one parked in that car park on match days , we were only averaging 3 or 4k and in them days not everyone had a car .

Given the clubs financial position back then its little wonder they tried selling it but I didn't come off .

Aye half a million in those days would have been a substantial amount of money .