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Post by lambethgull on Jun 2, 2009 18:20:21 GMT
Surely he was, Dave, but how much longer would he have been able to cling on? And how much damage might he have been able to wreak in the extra days/weeks/months in which he was able to cling on?
The fans played a key role in turning the heat up on him and his backers. He was practically run out of town in the end as I remember it.
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 2, 2009 18:55:57 GMT
Merse, you know I read some of your posts and marvel at what you seem to be able to recall from the past, I have never felt I had a reason to question your honesty, or integrity, but I might be forgiven if I had. When a man who is only a few years older than me and lived as a young boy only a few streets away from where I lived, can come up with the name of the man who put the gas lights out, while I can’t even remember there being any when I was a young boy in Newton, you have to admire his memory. Still as I said I’m more than happy to trust you are 100% correct and that your memory going back to those days is far better than mine is.  You were brought up on the Buckland Estate which was post war and the part you lived in (Oakland Road) was built in the early fifties with electric street lighting. Milber was pre-war with most of it developed in the nineteen thirties and had gas lighting until the late fifties/early sixties and that even extended into Aller Park up to the bottom of Ridgway Road using St Lukes Road as the boundary. The gas lights had small elements that were fired by a manual time clock that had to be hand wound once a week................that was Les's job~ re-winding the time clocks and cleaning or replacing any broken elements. In the sixties the time clocks were replaced by electrically powered time clocks and later the gas elements gave way to electric lighting. As for the rest of your extensive rant...............Rob and I (and Chris Partridge and Jon Lear for that matter) know what WE know and you believe what you think you know. I'm not spending the rest of my life arguing the toss with you over that or the politic real of living in the capital as opposed to down by the seaside.  |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 2, 2009 19:18:37 GMT
Thanks for the information on the gas lights merse, you are never to old to learn are you, who started this Roberts thread anyway. was always going to be trouble. ;D
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jun 2, 2009 20:26:42 GMT
The problem I have is one second you tell me its a fact that Walker and co were not prepared to fund the next installment, but could offer no prove if that was true or not, then you changed it to "Those who had previously bought in to his idea - using a pension fund - no longer bought into him." I can prove it. This is simple to understand. They didn't. And neither did anyone else. |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jun 2, 2009 20:28:31 GMT
Surely he was, Dave, but how much longer would he have been able to cling on? And how much damage might he have been able to wreak in the extra days/weeks/months in which he was able to cling on? The fans played a key role in turning the heat up on him and his backers. He was practically run out of town in the end as I remember it. That's the long and the short of it. Reading above, I believe even Dave has now accepted the fans - self-important, living in the Bay or otherwise - played a part. Hooray. |
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jamie
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Post by jamie on Jun 2, 2009 20:58:37 GMT
so should we change the old adage "never talk about religion or politics" to "never talk about religion, politics or that T**t chr*s so**in Ro**ts"!!!!!!!!!!
For what it is worth I think people posting here are all a bit right and a bit wrong, I wholeheartedly endorse the comments people have said about the role the fans and the trust in particular played in getting rid of the parasite. I felt proud to be part of the group of people verbally asking questions of that man. they bravely put their heads above the parapet and CR tried to shoot them down .
Not many people at the club came out with any integrity but those fans did - and I for one will never forget that.
That said I do remember the ridiculous comments made by some fans towards those who were showing concerns about what was going on and being told they were just small minded locals. Clearly that was not right either.
One thing is for sure that we are not always right (no matter what we think) and we are not always wrong.
The second thing that is for sure is that we should avoid having any discussion about the dark days and look forward to the lighter days.
Remember everyone we are back in the league!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by stuartB on Jun 2, 2009 21:08:46 GMT
so should we change the old adage "never talk about religion or politics" to "never talk about religion, politics or that T**t chr*s so**in Ro**ts"!!!!!!!!!! For what it is worth I think people posting here are all a bit right and a bit wrong, I wholeheartedly endorse the comments people have said about the role the fans and the trust in particular played in getting rid of the parasite. I felt proud to be part of the group of people verbally asking questions of that man. they bravely put their heads above the parapet and CR tried to shoot them down . Not many people at the club came out with any integrity but those fans did - and I for one will never forget that. That said I do remember the ridiculous comments made by some fans towards those who were showing concerns about what was going on and being told they were just small minded locals. Clearly that was not right either. One thing is for sure that we are not always right (no matter what we think) and we are not always wrong. The second thing that is for sure is that we should avoid having any discussion about the dark days and look forward to the lighter days. Remember everyone we are back in the league!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 woo hoo!!!!!!!!!! I hope that is a premonition as we are in L2 |
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jamie
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Post by jamie on Jun 2, 2009 21:11:46 GMT
Oh yes ...... a typo, I must have taken my finger off the shift key,
Let's leave it and hope it comes true (mind you, mid table will do me, I am right up for a dull season!)
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Post by stuartB on Jun 2, 2009 21:16:57 GMT
Oh yes ...... a typo, I must have taken my finger off the shift key, Let's leave it and hope it comes true (mind you, mid table will do me, I am right up for a dull season!) mid-table mediocrity is a must after years off play offs or relegation battles. my grey hair can't take any more ;D |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2009 21:51:10 GMT
Bloody hell, this has moved on a bit since I last looked earlier today! Are your figures correct? Where do you and Barton get this figure of £500.000 that you seem to base everything on. I may be wrong but I seem to remember that when the details of the deal were put in the HE, it said that £300.000 was paid for the first 34% of Batesons shares. I then thought it said £10.000 was to be paid each month for three years? And then a final payment that might as been as much as £200.000? This would make the second 51% about the same price as the first 34%; you sums have the 51% at a knock down price from the 34%. Do you know the board paid £191.000 for the 51%? Or is that just a guess, as I would have thought Bateson would have been looking for much more than that and may well have got it. The (near) £500,000 figure I quoted is the total share capital of that time = £491,955. As Jon has said today, the Batesons held 85.66% of those shares (£421,424) and sold 170,506 of them - 34.66% of the overall total (or around 40% of their stake) - to Roberts. When I found details of the Mick Sadler connection at Companies House, I did a simple cut-and-paste (without interpretation as it meant little to me) on to the Mervo site. Unfortunately, as that site's archives for that period appear to have been wiped, I couldn't find my original posting so have had to fork out another £1 to Companies House to see the original offending item. My error was to assume that Roberts had paid £1 for each of the £1 shares (hence my £170,000 figure) when, as Jon points out, the cost per share was nearer £1.75 to produce a figure of £300,000. Anyway, now that I've paid my quid, I might as well treat you. Clause 4?    |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jun 2, 2009 23:32:57 GMT
The Batesons owned 85.66% of the share capital - 421,424 / 491,995. They sold 170,506 shares (34.66%) to Roberts for £300,000. Roberts had to borrow £341,000 from Sadler as there were "fees" of £41,000 - I wonder how much of that went to Walker? The remaining 250,918 shares (51.0%) were sold to the consortium - at a rough guess for approximately £191,918. Since then there has been a further issue of 491,995 at £1 each. of which the consortium bought 484,136 (and received a gift of 50) to take their total shareholding to 735,104 or 74.71% of the total. Are you figures correct? Where do you and Barton get this figure of £500.000 that you seem to base everything on. I may be wrong but I seem to remember that when the details of the deal were put in the HE, it said that £300.000 was paid for the first 34% of Batesons shares. I then thought it said £10.000 was to be paid each month for three years? And then a final payment that might as been as much as £200.000? This would make the second 51% about the same price as the first 34%; you sums have the 51% at a knock down price from the 34%. Do you know the board paid £191.000 for the 51%? Or is that just a guess, as I would have thought Bateson would have been looking for much more than that and may well have got it. Yes Dave. Or should I say I'm sure these are the figures as per Companies House - I'm sure if Mervo was here he would warn that we should never be sure of anything. I am talking about what ACTUALLY HAPPENED rather than what may have been contracted to happen but didn't happen. Torquay United Holdings did end up paying £300,000 for 170,506 shares. Plainmoor Ltd show an investment in TUFC Ltd in its Balance Sheet at cost of £676,054. It bought 484,136 £1 shares at par, so it must have paid 676,054 - 484,136 = £191,918 for the shares bought from Bateson. Mind you, I'm just a simple Devon boy so you might want to get one of your clever London friends to check the maths. I think you are getting mixed up with what would have happened with the Roberts deal if it had gone through. I haven't seen the contract so I don't know! I think there was something reported in the press - which doesn't necessarily make it true anyway - that I am struggling to remember the details of. I think (WARNING - THIS IS NOT A FACT) it was something like £300k up front, £5k a month for three years and £120k at the end - which would make £600k in total. Of course the reason 51% was held until final payment is that it is the majority. If my dubious memory of an unproven press report is correct, that would not mean intending to pay £300k for 34.66% and £300k for 51% - the intention was £600k for 85.66%. Nobody would deliberately pay £300k for a minority holding - not even Chris Roberts is that stupid. Of course, buying the shares for £192k does not mean that the deal has cost the consortium £192k - it means that Bateson got £192k. The ten men in the consortium have stumped up £900k of share capital in Planmoor Ltd between them. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jun 2, 2009 23:51:06 GMT
You claim Roberts was only there to own and run the club, strange that we was going to be giving the club to the fans once he had got his Hotel come shopping centre, come stadium, why would he want to do that if the "land" angle was merely his way to raise the capital. Chris Roberts only came up with the idea of "giving the club to the fans" after he had been cut off from his sources of finance in an act of utter desperation. He rang up one of the guys he had been slagging off and branding a traitor just days previously - do you really think this was a serious business plan or the death throes of a cornered animal? It's dangerous to pin any logic on anything Roberts did, but the fact he tried to turn to the Supporters' Trust might just show that even he could recognise that the fans were a significant force? I don't deny that land became central to the whole charade, but my take (and I did stress that was all it was!) is that Roberts is less of a conman and more of a delusional fantasist - I am only an amateur psychologist though! I think he really fancied his chances of being the first player-manager-owner-chairman-chief-executive-president of Torquay United to win the European Champions League. My take (and that is all it is) is that land deals were a means to an end for him as a fantasist, whereas they would have been the be-all and the end-all to others involved. I am not as impressed as Merse by Bryn Walker's executive box at Birmingham City. I'm sure he used it as a business tool just as he tried to use OUR club. |
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Post by Jon on Jun 3, 2009 0:00:15 GMT
Surely he was, Dave, but how much longer would he have been able to cling on? And how much damage might he have been able to wreak in the extra days/weeks/months in which he was able to cling on? The fans played a key role in turning the heat up on him and his backers. He was practically run out of town in the end as I remember it. Spot on. At the time of the vote of confidence, TU Holdings was still actively chasing up investment to keep the deal on course. They gave up shortly afterwards. The deal did not officially die until the payment deadline passed, but "the cheque book was locked away". The bleeding was slowed enough for there still to be a club worth saving come the end of the season. Roberts would have gone eventually - it was all about making sure he didn't kill off the club before he went. |
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 3, 2009 2:46:15 GMT
I am not as impressed as Merse by Bryn Walker's executive box at Birmingham City. I'm sure he used it as a business tool just as he tried to use OUR club. I didn't say I was "impressed" Jon....................executive boxes don't impress me, havng been entertained in one at Tottenham of which the lease holder told me how much it cost him and his company; I couldn't contain myself and spluttered "how much, for a feckin' lower level, corner flag view?" As is well known, I prefer to obtain the optimum viewing position possible when in any stadium, and one in THAT location wouldn't (or for that matter, any of the ones at Plainmoor) interest me one iota. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2009 11:54:42 GMT
Chris Roberts only came up with the idea of "giving the club to the fans" after he had been cut off from his sources of finance in an act of utter desperation. He rang up one of the guys he had been slagging off and branding a traitor just days previously - do you really think this was a serious business plan or the death throes of a cornered animal? At the time of the vote of confidence, TU Holdings was still actively chasing up investment to keep the deal on course. They gave up shortly afterwards. The description "cornered animal" is most apt. By the time of the "I'll hand it over to the fans" comment the man was on his way out rendering his statements as meaningless. Wasn't it also the case that - without any legitimate investment on the scene - funds were becoming more and more expensive to secure? There must have been a point at which the money suppliers knew that, however high they yanked the repayment charges, Robbo was a dead duck. I'm assuming the cost of borrowing is what would have ultimately snookered TUFC far more than the salary/life style expenses that Roberts was paying himself. The other thought which has just come to mind was the flawed nature of Roberts' other income generation plan: the hiring of cheap, but very talented young players from Poland and the Czech Republic who could then be hawked on to bigger clubs. That was probably just as big a non-starter as the RobertsBowl. |
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