Scarborough

Anything yellow and blue
Mooro
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Scarborough

Post by Mooro »

What are we getting ourselves into:

Last day of the season Forest Green pull off a win over Stevenage to claw their way out of the bottom two places, leaving Tamworth and Scarborough for the drop...

Then the owner of canvey Island wanders off and they submit their resignation repreiving Tamworth.
Then Altrincham lose the best part of half their seasons points tally for playing who had a kickabout on a beach in Iceland, thus reprieving Scarborough,,,
Except they are still in administration so have now been relegated and will start next season a division and ten points down...
and now Crawley, having already lost three points for going over the wage cap and now in administration themselves, so will also start ten points down but in the same division...

I think.....

At this rate it seems to me that all we need to do is stay afloat financially and not break any rules and we'll probably be a shoo-in for the playoffs at least..
Mally
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Post by Mally »

It is more than a bit worrying with a chairman who has no experience of running a football club is secretive about the club's ownership and prepared to be economical with the truth about his past and appears to have screwed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way. What chance of him sticking to every bit of smallprint inthe Conference rule book?

Mick Brown will have to be 100% on top of everything, particularly when it comes to player registrations and payment. You can bet that just about every other club in the conference will be looking for a chance to shaft us for an deviation from the rules.
DLT
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Post by DLT »

Now if a sad old git like Old Yella posted such comments about our esteemed chairman on TIU he would be abused left right and centre.
Kernow Yellow
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Re:

Post by Kernow Yellow »

&quotMally&quot wrote:It is more than a bit worrying with a chairman who has no experience of running a football club is secretive about the club's ownership and prepared to be economical with the truth about his past and appears to have screwed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way. What chance of him sticking to every bit of smallprint inthe Conference rule book?

Mick Brown will have to be 100% on top of everything, particularly when it comes to player registrations and payment. You can bet that just about every other club in the conference will be looking for a chance to shaft us for an deviation from the rules.
Please explain Mally.

Previously I found comments aimed at you by Neil W (et al) slightly over the top, but the above seems extremely aggressive. I share your concerns about the true nature of the club ownership, but every press release to have come out of the club since the takeover seems much more positive than anything the previous regime could muster in seven years, so why are you so down on Merry? Please enlighten us...
Resurrection Ox
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Re:

Post by Resurrection Ox »

&quotMally&quot wrote:It is more than a bit worrying with a chairman who has no experience of running a football club is secretive about the club's ownership and prepared to be economical with the truth about his past and appears to have screwed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way. What chance of him sticking to every bit of smallprint inthe Conference rule book?

Mick Brown will have to be 100% on top of everything, particularly when it comes to player registrations and payment. You can bet that just about every other club in the conference will be looking for a chance to shaft us for an deviation from the rules.
Where's Merry been 'economical with the truth' then?

btw Kassam had seven years 'experience' of running a football club. He was a quick learner wasn't he?
GodalmingYellow
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Re:

Post by GodalmingYellow »

&quotMally&quot wrote:It is more than a bit worrying with a chairman who has no experience of running a football club is secretive about the club's ownership and prepared to be economical with the truth about his past and appears to have screwed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way. What chance of him sticking to every bit of smallprint inthe Conference rule book?

Mick Brown will have to be 100% on top of everything, particularly when it comes to player registrations and payment. You can bet that just about every other club in the conference will be looking for a chance to shaft us for an deviation from the rules.
&quotEconomical with the truth&quot?
&quotScrewed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way&quot?

I can almost hear the lawyers sharpening their pencils.
Mally
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Re:

Post by Mally »

&quotGodalmingYellow&quot wrote:
&quotMally&quot wrote:It is more than a bit worrying with a chairman who has no experience of running a football club is secretive about the club's ownership and prepared to be economical with the truth about his past and appears to have screwed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way. What chance of him sticking to every bit of smallprint inthe Conference rule book?

Mick Brown will have to be 100% on top of everything, particularly when it comes to player registrations and payment. You can bet that just about every other club in the conference will be looking for a chance to shaft us for an deviation from the rules.
&quotEconomical with the truth&quot?
&quotScrewed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way&quot?

I can almost hear the lawyers sharpening their pencils.
Economical with the truth - he is very happy for the local and national media to talk about how he made millions through his Microdentex business in the US. This company has 2 employees, 1 product and turned over $150,000 last year. It almost certainly made a loss. It is currently on D&ampB's highest warning level for late payment risk. Thats not exactly being open and honest is it? Nor is his continued refusal to say who else owns WPL and therefore OUFC.

Screwed up the stadium rent. - When Merry originaly met with OxVox he told them he had negotiated a deal with Kassam where the rent would drop if we were relegated. In the latest meeting it now transpires that the rent will not go down next season. If this wasn't bad enough he admitted that if we go up through the leagues Kassam has a condition in there that means the rent will go up. Now he may have been lying to OxVox on one of those occasions but I'm prepared to be charitable an say he screwed up.

I'm not talking about whether his intentions are honourable when it comes to the club, my coments are in the context of whether he is likely to slip up in his dealings with complex conference rules and regulations.
GodalmingYellow
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Re:

Post by GodalmingYellow »

&quotMally&quot wrote:
&quotGodalmingYellow&quot wrote:
&quotMally&quot wrote:It is more than a bit worrying with a chairman who has no experience of running a football club is secretive about the club's ownership and prepared to be economical with the truth about his past and appears to have screwed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way. What chance of him sticking to every bit of smallprint inthe Conference rule book?

Mick Brown will have to be 100% on top of everything, particularly when it comes to player registrations and payment. You can bet that just about every other club in the conference will be looking for a chance to shaft us for an deviation from the rules.
&quotEconomical with the truth&quot?
&quotScrewed up the stadium rental deal with Kassam in a big way&quot?

I can almost hear the lawyers sharpening their pencils.
Economical with the truth - he is very happy for the local and national media to talk about how he made millions through his Microdentex business in the US. This company has 2 employees, 1 product and turned over $150,000 last year. It almost certainly made a loss. It is currently on D&ampB's highest warning level for late payment risk. Thats not exactly being open and honest is it? Nor is his continued refusal to say who else owns WPL and therefore OUFC.

Screwed up the stadium rent. - When Merry originaly met with OxVox he told them he had negotiated a deal with Kassam where the rent would drop if we were relegated. In the latest meeting it now transpires that the rent will not go down next season. If this wasn't bad enough he admitted that if we go up through the leagues Kassam has a condition in there that means the rent will go up. Now he may have been lying to OxVox on one of those occasions but I'm prepared to be charitable an say he screwed up.

I'm not talking about whether his intentions are honourable when it comes to the club, my coments are in the context of whether he is likely to slip up in his dealings with complex conference rules and regulations.
Now you are saying Merry has led us to believe he has made millions through Microdentex whilst alledging that he has not. I've not seen any comment by Merry saying he has made millions anywhere? Can you enlighten us on that? And perhaps you can show us the previous results of Merry's business dealings as well, to support the point that he has been economical with the truth. And is it a requirement that not laying out all business history means being economical with the truth?

I'm not saying you are right or wrong, but those are fairly strong allegations, which I wouldn't want to have to defend and I'm surprised you want to repeat them and even try to substantiate them on a well known public forum.

Whilst I agree that refusing to confirm Ian Lenagan's name as financer, which is all but publicly available, is less than satisfactory, I would struggle to defend that as being economical with the truth as well if I were you.

Perhaps an OxVox committee member could confirm or deny that Merry said an agreement was in place to reduce rent for relegation, and if that applied only to Football League and not to the Conference. To be honest I doubt there was any change in the original lease, which is a contract between 2 separate legal entities, albeit controlled by the major shareholders. There may have been clarification, but I doubt there was any change in the terms. If the contract existed between OUFc and Firoka, and Kassam insisted on sticking to it, there is nothign Merry or anyone could have done about it, so it would be difficult to then regard it as screwed up by Merry.
Mally
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Post by Mally »

The press continue to refer to Microdentex as the major source of Merry's wealth. This does not appear to be backed up by easily available facts. He has had plenty of time to correct this apparent error.

Merry knows who the other investor is/are. he hasn't told anybody who this is even when asked directly. Not telling the whole story when asked sound like being economical with the truth to me.

BTW Being economical with the truth isn't the same as lying. In my book it means witholding information you know to be true in order to influence others perceptions of the true situation.

The change of direction on the stadium rent is available for all to read on the OxVox web site.
ty cobb
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Post by ty cobb »

'NM and KT confirmed that the club had a secure long-term lease, for 20
years with an option to extend, at an affordable rent which would be
subject only to adjustment for inflation. There was provision for the
rent to rise or fall depending on the league in which the club played.'

From the OxVox site.

My reading of this is that if we go up the rent goes up, if we down the rent goes down. Sounds like this is not the case and Mally is correct to me.

Very worrying indeed to hear about how rich (or not) Merry is.

I await OxVox's minutes from the 25th May with much interest, would also like to know what hard evidence they saw to believe the Woodstock Partners were the correct way forward bar a lot of talk about training pitches scouting and the like.

If they are paying for these facilities then great, if we're borrowing money to enable us to run as a more 'professional' outfit then we better hope we start moving upwards rapidly.
GodalmingYellow
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Re:

Post by GodalmingYellow »

&quotMally&quot wrote:The press continue to refer to Microdentex as the major source of Merry's wealth. This does not appear to be backed up by easily available facts. He has had plenty of time to correct this apparent error.

Merry knows who the other investor is/are. he hasn't told anybody who this is even when asked directly. Not telling the whole story when asked sound like being economical with the truth to me.

BTW Being economical with the truth isn't the same as lying. In my book it means witholding information you know to be true in order to influence others perceptions of the true situation.

The change of direction on the stadium rent is available for all to read on the OxVox web site.
As far as I'm aware, some elements of the press have a bit of a record in publishing information which they have not fully substantiated.

Also, as I understand it, there is no requirement for Nick Merry to even discuss his business dealings in the media, let alone get the media to correct factual mistakes in their reporting, if there are any.

And now you are saying that the media presentation of Merry's wealth is an apparent error not backed up by easily available facts. doesn't that suggest to you that saying Merry has been economical with the truth, is pretty hard to substantiate yourself.

As I said before, I wouldn't want to accuse a public figure, or indeed anyone, on a public forum of being economical with the truth, unless I could prove it, which patently you haven't so far.
Mally
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Post by Mally »

Sorry I thought the minutes had been posted by OxVox on their site. They emaled them to members. The relevent section stated:

&quotThe Club is no nearer to buying the stadium and conference centre but
discussions were ongoing. Relegation to the Conference did not mean a
fall in the asking price nor a decrease in rent.&quot

This is important because half a million rent is a lot for the conference. Perhaps not this season if ticket sales hold up but definitely next season if we don't go up and ticket sales fall away.
ty cobb
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Post by ty cobb »

Can no-one from OxVox say what the hold up is?

If it is Kassam as seems to be the case why has there been so little action on this point.

To me it would show Kassam up to be the man many people claim for him to be if after telling a couple of thousand Oxford fans and the media that he won't sell the club without the stadium he has done just that.

It will be a very hard position to defend.
GodalmingYellow
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Re:

Post by GodalmingYellow »

&quotMally&quot wrote:Sorry I thought the minutes had been posted by OxVox on their site. They emaled them to members. The relevent section stated:

&quotThe Club is no nearer to buying the stadium and conference centre but
discussions were ongoing. Relegation to the Conference did not mean a
fall in the asking price nor a decrease in rent.&quot

This is important because half a million rent is a lot for the conference. Perhaps not this season if ticket sales hold up but definitely next season if we don't go up and ticket sales fall away.
Yes OxVox did say that. But it is not OxVox being accused of being economical with the truth and misleading fans. Perhaps an OxVox committee member could confirm whether Merry said there would be a fall in rent on relegation to the conference, which is the more salient point.
GodalmingYellow
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Re:

Post by GodalmingYellow »

&quotty cobb&quot wrote:'NM and KT confirmed that the club had a secure long-term lease, for 20
years with an option to extend, at an affordable rent which would be
subject only to adjustment for inflation. There was provision for the
rent to rise or fall depending on the league in which the club played.'

From the OxVox site.

My reading of this is that if we go up the rent goes up, if we down the rent goes down. Sounds like this is not the case and Mally is correct to me.

Very worrying indeed to hear about how rich (or not) Merry is.

I await OxVox's minutes from the 25th May with much interest, would also like to know what hard evidence they saw to believe the Woodstock Partners were the correct way forward bar a lot of talk about training pitches scouting and the like.

If they are paying for these facilities then great, if we're borrowing money to enable us to run as a more 'professional' outfit then we better hope we start moving upwards rapidly.
Actually it doesn't say that Ty.

For all you know, the rent change may only apply in the Football League, or only between specific divisions of the Football League, or maybe only between the Football League and the Premiership. The minute does not confirm which of these positions, and needs to be clarified.

Also, that is a statement form OxVox, not a statement from Merry. Mark was accusing Merry of being economical with the truth.
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