Was identifying and securing funding, ever part of Martin Perry's brief as PROJECT MANAGER?
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Dick Knight/Tony Bloom
- Thread starter Withdean Wanderer
- Start date
Arthur
Well-known member
Hmmm despite the fact that throughout the whole debacle Perry continued to claim that we shouldn't worry about the funding as it'll all be sorted once we get planning permission.
The whole time he was frantically asking anyone with a couple of bob to get involved (and trying desperately to keep it a secret).....apart from Bloom!
Christ on a bike, I'm not repeating myself again!
Speak to any Blackpool fan they f***ing hate him! Basically McAlpines agreed to build a new ground for Blackpool, all seater, out of town, cinema multiplex type thing. Perry was the front man for McAlpines and promised the club the world. The then chairman of Blackpool Oyston (I think) got sent down so McAlpines decided to walk away from the project and Martin Perry was never seen again by the Blackpool fans.
I don't like contributing to threads like these with any sort of opinion, because it's far too easy to be labelled as either pro or anti Knight, but I have to say I think Arthur is getting unreasonably slaughtered on here. Gareth is allowed to trot out the ridiculous "greatest chairman ever" bollocks without anyone taking issue with this blanket statement. Yet Arthur comes out with the supposition that maybe Knight stayed as chairman for a couple of years too long which has meant a delay to Falmer, and it invokes 6 pages of vitriol.
So in answer to your question, for several years, Arthur (more than most) repeatedly questioned where the funding was coming from.
Several people on here kept responding with "it's all in place", while there were also murmours of agreements with banks. We were spun all sorts of twaddle about there being a business plan in place to ensure the stadium would DEFINITELY get built, even as the credit crunch came along.
Finally it turns out that an absolutely minted uber-fan is paying for the place, and will only receive his money if the club has it. So personally, I can easily see where Arthur is coming from.
As for Martin Perry. He's been at the club for TEN years and without a sugar daddy, we still wouldn't have a stadium. Excuse me for not thinking that he represents fantastic value for money.
I don't know, but I bet the people asking for proof about his success or failure at Blackpool won't even be able to tell you what his brief has been at the Albion either.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,848
er, you seem to be ignoring the possibilities that it was always planned that Bloom would step in to make up any shortfall, or indeed fund it all in the first place. With this in mind, how can you possibly say Perry's claims were anything other than correct? unless you have something to the contrary other than opinion?
the fact is shortly after planning was given we started the building and when the time came for the major funding, it was available. (any delay in start of building was most likly down to engineers and plant being unavailable immediatly)
Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!
Primary data is fact
Most certainly, if the only measure of success is on the pitch; however, the fall-out from the financial shambles during his tenure remains with the Albion in Tongdean Lane (imo).
Well, I don't know either, which is why I've asked. Seems a bit harsh to slate Perry on the funding issue, without any idea whether that was even part of his job.
I work (indirectly) on stadia / sports facilities projects all the time. I communicate regularly with the Project Managers on those jobs, and never ONCE have I understood their remit to be anything remotely connected to the funding of the project.
[Not saying this is or is not the case with Perry - I honestly don't know.]
I think most of us would agree that DK stayed at the helm a bit too long but that's not all that Arthur's saying. He said that all a chairman needed was money and all objections to the stadium would disappear. I, and others, pointed out that there are clubs more minted than the Albion under TB who are having problems getting stadiums built. Lord B also pointed out that prior to DK taking over we had some extremely rich directors and they did nothing about getting a stadium (the reverse in fact), Arthur has completely ignored both those points and insists that money is all it takes - which is quite clearly not the case.
And as beorhthelm points out, who's to say that the plan all along was to have TB fund a good part of the stadium but for commercial or other reasons, this couldn't have been revealed.
I totally agree with you on that point.
Ostensibly work started, but the earth breaking ceremony, and the lone JCB moving mud from one corner of the site to another were, in my opinion, just for show. No real work commenced until Bloom put his money in.
As for Knight and Perry. They gave a self-imposed dead line to reveal the funding and this quietly slipped by. Questions were asked and vague, cryptic and misleading replies were offered. Some of the responses to questions regarding the steel order were just plain bizarre, deviated significantly from what they had already told us and smacked of delaying tactics.
I am grateful to Knight for getting us planning permission. I really am. They played a huge part in getting us the permisison. But Tony Bloom is the man I will thank for getting the stadium built. They are two distinct chapters in our history, and I value these chapters equally.
Arthur
Well-known member
Regardless of whether it was his job or not it was he who continually told the fans not to worry as everything was hunky dory!
It was also Perry who sent an email to a chum of mine telling him to keep what he knew to himself as it would only make the fans ask questions that he clearly didn't want to answer.....at a guess I'd say that question was probably how the f*** are we going to pay for the stadium?
Clearly he's wrong to assume that a few backhanders from a cash-rich chairman would make all the problems go away, BUT it astonishes me that so many fans are so happy to assume:
a) that the stadium permissioning couldn't have been handled more effectively that it was. It took a DECADE for Christ's sake. I know there were obstacles and I know other clubs have had issues, but not for TEN years+!
b) that the stadium funding was never a legitimate concern for our fans. You what? We were given all sorts of assurances that never came to fruition. What got on my nerves more than anything else was this assurance that the banks had promised to loan us £90m. Certain people on here were shouting down anyone who even raised it as an issue.
Hmmm. I can't think of a single reason why TB's funding had to be kept quiet. If anything, I'd have expected it to be revealed to try and generate competition amongst potential commercial borrowers competing for the business.
- Aug 8, 2005
- 26,971
Spot on. Without deriding Dick Knight, getting the planning was the minimum job a chairman should achieve, the real issue was always going to be funding. Without Bloom there would be no stadium, no stadium at all. Without Knight we would have had no club, but beyond that he did an average job for a few years. He was the boy with his finger in the dyke, Bloom is the one who has built a new dyke! Awaits obvious lesbian joke....
Dick Knights Mumm
Take me Home Falmer Road
But Arthur - there must be more to it than that. The chairman gets put in the slammer and a supplier walks away from the table - and an employee gets the blame. I have heard these rumblings about Perry for over a decade - but Shirley, there must be more to it that that.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,848
thats true enough, but it not unusual for projects to start like this. if plant isnt available then its not somthing that can be sourced elsewhere. often see large building projects "stall" either after ground is cleared or the ground work is complete. look at the situation from the other side, maybe Bloom delayed announcing his money until the project was ready to progress?
the way i see it, they wanted to get outside funding but when it wasnt available they fell back to a known plan B. you dont find £93 million down the back of the sofa and if its in assets it might take months to release. nor do you take the commitment to pay that sort of money lightly or suddenly. Its my opinion that Bloom was always going to be a major funder and the delaying of announcments on funding only came about as it become clear he'd have to fund it all, with the subsequent suffleing of funds that would require.
and what pray did this chum know? surely he can elaborate his knowledge now? and to labour a point, it turned out everything was hunky dory, in fact better than we had thought as there is no banks to pay interest to.
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Perhaps that is what HE was told, by those who WERE responsible for securing the funds?
Given the opposition from Lewes DC, De Vicci and Co, and their use of delaying tactics, hoping that the Albion would go under due to operational losses at Withdean, how much quicker should it have taken?
I did some calculations years ago on the funding (which originally was in the region of £40-50m, and stuck them up on NSC. It showed that the stadium was not financially viable via bank lending unless crowds were in the 18-20,000 mark, not a single reply was posted, as people must have thought it was accounting bollocks.
No contractor would have signed to construct the stadium unless there was evidence that there were funds in place, their lawyers would have told them to avoid at all costs.
I agree that TB's position in the background does seem strange, but perhaps he wanted to see how the land lay and then make his move. It was clear that he was funding the annual losses made at Withdean from his own pocket if you look at some of the statements made by the board. DK is not a mega rich man, although IMO that's not a key issue to being a chairman.
As for your second point, no commercial lender could compete against a bloke who is giving an interest free loan to the club.
okay. Maybe I am wrong and that in the whole of the UK only one JCB digger was available at that moment in time.
And if this is the case and JCBs are rarer than rocking horse shit then maybe I'm in the wrong business and plant hire is where I need to be.
Liverpool, which is 7th richest football club in the world, got planning permission for Stanley Park in 2002. The scheduled opening of 2014 has been postponed again.
If club as rich as Liverpool struggles to get a ground built within 12 years. I don't think that ten years is a long time for a team as cash-strapped as Brighton to get a ground particularly as it was being built in an AONB, something that no British football club has had to deal with.
Clearly, if DK had over to TB a year earlier, things could have been speeded up a bit but the nature of the construction would always have entailed a massive delay.
Are we talking at cross purposes?
Liverpool have not got a new ground because of funding issues, yet as you said, they received planning permission in 2002. Conversely, it took us ten years to get planning permission and Falmer wouldn't have been built, but for our rich sugar daddy.
In other words, if not for Tony Bloom's cash pile, we'd be in a worse position than Liverpool.
Really, but they're in debt and have been for a number of years.