The phoenix club thread

[St Pauli]

It might sound ridiculous but if the council could be encouraged to buy the Mad Stad then it's not something to be ruled out. I'd ask the question.

Easier to rent off the council and if the club is well supported, it'll shoot through the leagues.

It might be a lot of fun but it's still something I hope there is no need for.

Even if the council had the funds to buy and probably subsidise the ground, which they probably don’t, I think it could very easily be argued that this was not a valuable use of council tax payers’ money.

[Crusader Royal]

The idea of fans directly running the club is laughable and always ends in disaster, and people suggesting that don't really understand the concept or support/community ownership.

The successful way to do this (for instance AFCW's model, and also the model of a community-owned professional club I'm very involved in right now, is that there are two organisations - the Trust or community-ownership board and the football club board itself.

The legal entity to which members contribute and elect board members (let's call it the Trust, but it needn't legally be a Trust) is the one that holds the shares of the football club, and appoints directors to the legal entity which is the football club.

Those directors get on with the job of running the football club on a day-to-day basis, including appointing managers, setting ticket prices etc, etc. There's then proper segregation of duties and confidentiality and the football club people can get on with their jobs - they have a duty to report back to the Trust board and act within the guidelines given, but this arm's length model is the only realistic one that works - otherwise you get fans trying to intervene in day-to-day stuff, or (as happened at Rushton & Diamonds, for instance) fans posting confidential business and team news onto message boards so they could be first with the news.

tldr: This is only successful if it's "Supporter owned" - not "Supporter run"

I know ‘fan owned’ clubs is a hip buzz word but the vast majority of clubs have been fan run for decades without such complexity. You may be right in terms of the upper echelons but even clubs in the National League set ups operate without the structure you describe and most woukdn’t have enough people around to run two parallel boards !

[Snowflake Royal]

Seems the biggest risk to 106 now stems from the club holding the record no longer existing.

I reckon that the record would still stand even without Reading existing.

If a 100m runner has the world record and then dies, they don’t lose the record.

It’s a bit of a weird record anyway, given that it’s been beaten in lower leagues.

How is it weird? Record points in the championship

It hasn't been bettered in the lower leagues. Its been bettered in non-league. Given its a football league record, non-league is irrelevent.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

I reckon that the record would still stand even without Reading existing.

If a 100m runner has the world record and then dies, they don’t lose the record.

It’s a bit of a weird record anyway, given that it’s been beaten in lower leagues.

How is it weird? Record points in the championship

It hasn't been bettered in the lower leagues. Its been bettered in non-league. Given its a football league record, non-league is irrelevent.

Exactly

[St Pauli]

How is it weird? Record points in the championship

It hasn't been bettered in the lower leagues. Its been bettered in non-league. Given its a football league record, non-league is irrelevent.

Exactly

Ok yeah, if you guys are happy with just ‘the most points ever achieved in the football league’.

Some of us have higher expectations of the club and its record, Ie ‘most points ever achieved in any professional league in England and Wales.’

[SouthDownsRoyal]

It hasn't been bettered in the lower leagues. Its been bettered in non-league. Given its a football league record, non-league is irrelevent.

Exactly

Ok yeah, if you guys are happy with just ‘the most points ever achieved in the football league’.

Some of us have higher expectations of the club and its record, Ie ‘most points ever achieved in any professional league in England and Wales.’

I’d be happy just to have a football club m10

[St Pauli]

Exactly

Ok yeah, if you guys are happy with just ‘the most points ever achieved in the football league’.

Some of us have higher expectations of the club and its record, Ie ‘most points ever achieved in any professional league in England and Wales.’

I’d be happy just to have a football club m10

Yeah +1 tbf

[SCIAG]

It might sound ridiculous but if the council could be encouraged to buy the Mad Stad then it's not something to be ruled out. I'd ask the question.

Easier to rent off the council and if the club is well supported, it'll shoot through the leagues.

It might be a lot of fun but it's still something I hope there is no need for.

The council, like every other local authority at the moment, does not have the necessary money.

If this was 20 years ago then it might be a reasonable suggestion, even ten years ago some councils were borrowing to buy property. But they’re oxf*rd skint.

Don’t know how much the stadium would go for, but if it’s, say, £3m, then maybe a local businessman with a property empire could be convinced to buy it and put it in a trust with his grandchildren as beneficiaries, perhaps with a view to securing his legacy. Assuming there is actually a profit to be made there, which I’m not convinced about.