Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:43 am  

Hood v Caisley - who you prefer?

Me neither, been there done that, sold the T-shirt to raise funds!!

A lot of people are still blinded by the success we had under Caisley, I lay the current situation blame firmly at his door - the rot started with him and he was, as FA points out, the one who pulled the plug and sailed us into oblivion.

Hood - who knows, a lot of criticism was aimed at him and rightly so - but just what could have been if he, Bennett and his mystery Chinese consortium allowed to plough on? We will never know..

For me if it was a straight choice between the 2, I'd pick Hood - he wasn't the player agent who persuaded Sam to Souths and his siblings to follow......

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:14 pm  

The Bulls saga is to be turned into a movie series.

Robbin Hood

Get Caisley!

OK laHoma

The Wrath of Khan

Cashatbanka (not)

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:33 pm  

Late entry - Whitecut with the missing money.

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:35 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

The Bulls saga is to be turned into a movie series.

Robbin Hood

Get Caisley!

OK laHoma

The Wrath of Khan

Cashatbanka (not)

you missed off

Silence of the Lamb(s)

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:41 pm  

Raiders of the Lost Cash

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:41 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I remember when the club effectively folded following the Caisley-initiated coup, there was much talk of eventually getting to the bottom of how the finances had got into such a sudden mess, that we all of a sudden needed £1/2m just to exist, but - entirely predictably - not a single fact has ever emerged. No inquiry, no investigation, nothing.

So we have no evidence why that meltdown happened, just that it did, and we know who was at the helm. We know that hood & Co. said they had a plan, and whatever it was, there is no doubt that it was holed below the waterline by the Caisley intervention, but that plan may have been rubbish too. Or it may have had a chance. How to know?

It was said on here that the directors had given personal bank guarantees but that at the time of the £1/2m the bank was paid off, and so the PGs were escaped from. This was so far as I know neither confirmed nor denied, though if it was the bank that was threatening the club then the only obvious way to stop a bank from hitting the destruct button is to pay what you owe. Did anyone read up if the bank was a substantial creditor in the liquidation?

What we can say for sure is that Hood & Co. were in charge when the ship suddenly hit some very big rocks, but how that happened it seems we are not destined to know. And we can all the more so only speculate on what might have been had Caisley not stepped in (and had anyone come up with an even remotely plausible theory as to why Caisley did what he did, when he did it? Has he ever said?) - except to know that we would still have been in the seemingly unmanageable old-shareholder mess that perhaps paralyzed the running of the club. But in these circumstances of ignorance only a fool would choose to board a replacement ship with the same captain.

From a fans' perspective - unfortunately we have no say. Whoever gets it, gets it, and that will be that. If indeed anyone does. What seems clear is, if you were interested in running the club before (as Hood & Co. obviously were) and if you didn't want to step down (as (Hood & Co. clearly didn't) then you would now be able to pick up the whole club debt free for a comparative song, with no shareholders, no debts, and no baggage. For which reason it wouldn't surprise me if the old regime were interested, if they didn't fall foul of the fit & proper RFL test..

'We've no evidence why this meltdown happened'? Would the fact that by the end of 2010 we'd won 1 in 17 and were playing to 7000 fans and by the start of 2011 had to sell the season tickets at half price, have anything to do with it?

Just to add a little further context. By the time Hood stated in early 2012 that despite selling the ground lease and needing a half a million quid to ensure the club weren't liquidated, he'd been in charge for almost SIX years.

When was he going to announce these plans and investors, or was he enjoying the drama?

If I hadn't met him and been convinced he had the club at heart I'd be 100% certain Peter Hood destroyed the club on purpose. Precious little else makes sense.

[Pumpetypump]

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:42 pm  

Jay (Wiley) and silent Bob (Blackburn) strike back

[Bullseye]

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:55 pm  

M@islebugs wrote:

'We've no evidence why this meltdown happened'? Would the fact that by the end of 2010 we'd won 1 in 17 and were playing to 7000 fans and by the start of 2011 had to sell the season tickets at half price, have anything to do with it?

Just to add a little further context. By the time Hood stated in early 2012 that despite selling the ground lease and needing a half a million quid to ensure the club weren't liquidated, he'd been in charge for almost SIX years.

When was he going to announce these plans and investors, or was he enjoying the drama?

If I hadn't met him and been convinced he had the club at heart I'd be 100% certain Peter Hood destroyed the club on purpose. Precious little else makes sense.

I think Hood and Co were just out of their depth and struggling to come to terms with the costs of Odsal and Harris and the consequences of sticking with McNamara. The season ticket deal was sold to fans as a great idea to bring crowds in but the plan to get them to spend big on other things to make up the difference certainly didn't add up.

Caisley's intervention certainly scuppered Hood's plans for the future but his track record up to that point doesn't suggest it would've been successful - even if Potter had turned the playing side around, it was too late.

Pumpetypump wrote:

Jay (Wiley) and silent Bob (Blackburn) strike back

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:25 pm  

M@islebugs wrote:

'We've no evidence why this meltdown happened'?

No.

M@islebugs wrote:

Would the fact that by the end of 2010 we'd won 1 in 17 and were playing to 7000 fans and by the start of 2011 had to sell the season tickets at half price, have anything to do with it?

No. None of those factors could remotely cause the sort of instantaneous financial meltdown where you have to call for cash donations of half a mill in a matter of days or go to the wall. And 7000 fans is not an unworkable figure to run a SL club. Or if it is then many are unworkable. And we didn't "have" to sell tickets at half price, or any price, but any such sales should be part of a busienss startegy which you would think would be continually montored and reviewed in any modern business so again, would absolutely not precipitate anything rapid.

M@islebugs wrote:

Just to add a little further context. By the time Hood stated in early 2012 that despite selling the ground lease and needing a half a million quid to ensure the club weren't liquidated, he'd been in charge for almost SIX years.

That sentence doesn't actually make sense, but your general point (six years in charge) is stressing my point for me (thanks) not as you seem to think arguing against it. If he'd been running things for 6 years then I ask again, what on earth suddenly precipitated the huge financial crisis? Very clearly he'd struggle to argue the running over those years had been competent, but my issue is what had actually happened to cause a sudden collapse. That nobody had seen coming?

M@islebugs wrote:

When was he going to announce these plans and investors, or was he enjoying the drama?

please don't mistake me for someone arguing hood was some sort of perfect businessman. But again, the answer is - we don't know the answer. We don't even have anybody to ask. Since it all went tits, there has been no inquiries, no interrogations, no reports, nothing.

M@islebugs wrote:

If I hadn't met him and been convinced he had the club at heart I'd be 100% certain Peter Hood destroyed the club on purpose. Precious little else makes sense.

Yes, but as he obviously didn't do that, then it follows that my point is valid, and seems in essence to be the same as your point. It makes as much sense as what Caisley did.

Re: The 5 runners and riders : Tue Mar 11, 2014 2:13 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

No.
No. None of those factors could remotely cause the sort of instantaneous financial meltdown where you have to call for cash donations of half a mill in a matter of days or go to the wall. And 7000 fans is not an unworkable figure to run a SL club. Or if it is then many are unworkable. And we didn't "have" to sell tickets at half price, or any price, but any such sales should be part of a busienss startegy which you would think would be continually montored and reviewed in any modern business so again, would absolutely not precipitate anything rapid.
That sentence doesn't actually make sense, but your general point (six years in charge) is stressing my point for me (thanks) not as you seem to think arguing against it. If he'd been running things for 6 years then I ask again, what on earth suddenly precipitated the huge financial crisis? Very clearly he'd struggle to argue the running over those years had been competent, but my issue is what had actually happened to cause a sudden collapse. That nobody had seen coming?
please don't mistake me for someone arguing hood was some sort of perfect businessman. But again, the answer is - we don't know the answer. We don't even have anybody to ask. Since it all went tits, there has been no inquiries, no interrogations, no reports, nothing.
Yes, but as he obviously didn't do that, then it follows that my point is valid, and seems in essence to be the same as your point. It makes as much sense as what Caisley did.

But we know it wasn't an instantaneous financial meltdown. We know he borrowed £700k in September 2011 and didn't make one single repayment.

You're right on one point. The club didn't 'have' to sell season tickets at half price, or indeed any price. Given the inevitability of what was to follow it hardly mattered that they sold any at all.

I'm not defending CC.