Organising a fans buy out?

[mickd1961]

A fans consortium, I believe, took over Rushden and Diamonds some years back and it went very badly. An acquaintance of mine had a box there and was close to those at the top of the club, he alleged that they had no idea what they were doing and it was their incompetence in the running of a football club that led directly to that clubs demise. That superb ground has now been demolished while Rushden and Diamonds, or what is left of it, play on what is almost a park pitch. It just vividly demonstrates that any fans consortium requires people that really know what they are doing in the field of football club management. I would however, support any well organised protest campaign and a buy out group provided that it could demonstrate the necessary credentials.

I agree Kets.

I would only get involved if a bonifde person was involved and preferably someone with Albion in their heart.

Maybe a Richard Sneekes who still lives locally could get involved or Bob Taylor.

[DaveP67 is back!]

I’m in Mick, just let me know what I can do to help.

[SwedishBaggie]

If you need foreign support, let me know.

[Barrera]

100% in. Unfortunately drastic action is needed … otherwise this farce with Lai could run and run …. Until all that’s left of the club is the bare bones.

Clearly some demonstrated actions are ongoing at the matches - the white paper sheets, the light waving, the “stand up is you want Lai out” song.

I still like your suggestion Mick …”Lai la Lai. Lai la Lai Lai Lai La Lai….. F*** Off Lai” to the tune of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. Would pay money to hear that sung at a home match …

[animallittle3]

Just my opinion but you guys are way too big for this kind of buyout .

Unfortunately the fan owned local businessman thing is long gone .

Even a club of my clubs size isn't locally owned anymore and hasn't been for five years now , a consortium of foreigners from India and the US .

[kettering_baggie]

Just my opinion but you guys are way too big for this kind of buyout .

Unfortunately the fan owned local businessman thing is long gone .

Even a club of my clubs size isn't locally owned anymore and hasn't been for five years now , a consortium of foreigners from India and the US .

I’m afraid that you are probably correct, structuring that size of buyout equitably with such a large number of people, let alone the management of the organisation and loans, would be a nightmare. Great if it were to be possible but some large scale protests aimed at convincing the awful chinaman to cut his losses and clear off are likely to be more effective. Even that, though, seems to me to be unlikely; Albion fans don’t have a history of mass protest and anyway, I doubt that Lai, thousands of miles away, would give a damn.

Effective protest would need to be something like thousands of fans blockading the East Stand, or prevent he TV companies from getting their equipment into the stadium, for example.

[regis80]

I’d do whatever I can to help towards this, even if it’s just to start a new movement. Not claiming to know what we should be doing but we do need some movement and momentum to make this happen.

These forums are great but in reality how many posters do we have in total? Say 100 tops, it’s probably most likely not enough. You then have the other forums and it’s the same story.

We need some universal platform we can all circle around to really force the messages out before we do anything. It’s probably the first thing we should be trying?

Facebook is going to be our best shout. The official facebook page has 830k followers - getting 5% of them, or grabbing their attention is going to be key. Probably same for Twitter and actually there are 1.1m followers there minus the odd dingle and seal.

It’s going to be about how we can reach the fan base to make this happen. This is just the online aspect in terms of driving messages, then we probably have to think about offline for those that are not tech savvy.

Be interested to hear everyones thoughts.

[mickd1961]

I’ve now got Adrian Chiles’s number but I’m not contacting him until I’ve spoken with the financial buy out guru I know and other relevant people with far more know how than me.

Happy to help put the pieces together but not to be a visible figure in this.

I’m not having dog s h I t pushed through my door if things don’t go to peoples liking.

Please feel free to offer all the help and know how you possibly can?

[Dubbag]

No rush yet Mick.
But good job getting the number...

[mickd1961]

I’ll speak to the guy who has been advising me on the buy out of my own company next week when I get home.

I’m small fry, he’s used to dealing with far bigger fish than me.

Sadly, I had another contact called Ian Wagstaff who did Moshiri’s buy out of Everton a few years ago but Ian died a couple of years ago after falling off his mountain bike, he’d have been brilliant for this!

My other contact is a Roland businessman mate who sold his business for mega money and who has helped keep another club afloat in recent years as he supports them.

There’s also a guy who used to post on here called HSBaggie who I occasionally chat to by text, he’d actually agreed a deal to buy Albion from Hale in the late 90’s but he got shafted at the last moment and Thompson took over.

By the way, the buy price was £5m at that point in the late 90’s! 😳

I spoke to him about our situation last year and he’s tempted to get involved but feels like age is against him now but he does know the right sort of people.

This’ll probably all go nowhere, I accept that and agree with what Regis and others are saying, it’s likely to be too big, too costly and too complex to achieve anything.

All I can do is try to offer some pieces of the jigsaw and hope others have more important bits.