Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Fri Sep 11, 2020 8:23 pm  

They built two shopping centres!

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Fri Sep 11, 2020 8:56 pm  

Well, something has to give soon. How long can the football club survive being run by the Administrator, assuming no buyer comes forward? Not long. Liquidation and winding up to follow? Phoenix club to arise from the ashes?

Where then would that leave us? You’ve got to think that the longer this drags on, the more advantageous the whole situation becomes for IL. If you can call it advantageous. The only option left may be for us to buy the stadium and have the Latics as tenants. Then the hard work would have to be done for us to make the whole operation viable. On our side of things, on average say 14k fans in a 25k stadium and with the football side of thinks, a paltry 4-6k rattling around in it. Not an enviable task, even for someone as astute as IL.

Or we could move. We may well have to.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:31 pm  

Darwen Warrior wrote:

Well, something has to give soon. How long can the football club survive being run by the Administrator, assuming no buyer comes forward? Not long. Liquidation and winding up to follow? Phoenix club to arise from the ashes?

Where then would that leave us? You’ve got to think that the longer this drags on, the more advantageous the whole situation becomes for IL. If you can call it advantageous. The only option left may be for us to buy the stadium and have the Latics as tenants. Then the hard work would have to be done for us to make the whole operation viable. On our side of things, on average say 14k fans in a 25k stadium and with the football side of thinks, a paltry 4-6k rattling around in it. Not an enviable task, even for someone as astute as IL.

Or we could move. We may well have to.

It's been a while since we've had 14k average. We've plenty to do if we do get control of the stadium.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 12:09 am  

Darwen Warrior wrote:

Where then would that leave us? You’ve got to think that the longer this drags on, the more advantageous the whole situation becomes for IL. If you can call it advantageous. The only option left may be for us to buy the stadium and have the Latics as tenants. Then the hard work would have to be done for us to make the whole operation viable. On our side of things, on average say 14k fans in a 25k stadium and with the football side of thinks, a paltry 4-6k rattling around in it. Not an enviable task, even for someone as astute as IL.

Or we could move. We may well have to.

This is the bit where your argument comes unstuck.

I agree with the gist of your post, but just responding to the question where would we go by arguing that 'it's down to IL to find somewhere' is pretty lame.

It's been pointed out that the last thing Wigan Council will want is an empty, decaying stadium in the middle of town, so why would they facilitate that by agreeing to see another one built? It's just not going to happen unless we leave Wigan, and even then it's very, very unlikely. All of this was discussed over and over back in the days when Whelan was our landlord and behaving like a Victorian mill-owner, but no solution was found then either.

There's no doubt that it's a problem. The Wigan Athletic experiment has ended. Even if they survive this trauma, they'll come back as a minnow club without a pot to p*ss in. But at present, no one else is available to share the stadium with. I agree that it's undesirable, but we won't have any choice. And we've surely more chance of making that arrangement work than we have abandoning the DW and wandering out of the borough.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 5:05 am  

Why are the economics of the DW Stadium so uniquely bad? It's larger yes than some of the other stadia in the league but not that much and modern stadia have relatively low maintenance costs anyway. So even accounting for that how come the Wicked and Halliwell Jones and Headingley (sort of) are viable with just one primary user but the DW isn't with two?

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 6:44 am  

Egg Chasing wrote:

PROPER SCUMMAGING

Rugby without Scrums is not Rugby!

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:05 am  

Egg Chasing wrote:

It doesn't technically belong to the football club either.

There is no way the council will allow another stadium to be built in the town while that's there. It's partly the reason why we couldn't find anywhere to build one in 1997.

The Councils in Doncaster, Huddersfield, Hull, Salford, St Helens, Warrington and now York have all manage to find sites in their local authority areas as a result of not making the mistake of allowing a individual on a ego trip to have all his own way

But what else can you expect from Wigan Council who among other things are still living in the days of the horse and cart where the building and widening of roads compared to other nearby local councils is concerned!

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:08 am  

Cruncher wrote:

This is the bit where your argument comes unstuck.

I agree with the gist of your post, but just responding to the question where would we go by arguing that 'it's down to IL to find somewhere' is pretty lame.

I’m not from Wigan, don’t live in the town and, whilst my son and his family live in Standish, I don’t know the town that well with regard to suitable sites for a stadium build.

In all honesty, I think we’ll end up continuing at the DW and there’s a fair to middling chance that we will end up owning it. I’m just throwing ideas around for alternatives and at the same time putting my thoughts down in writing as to how complex/problematic the situation has become.

On the football side of things, the longer it drags on without any viable bids for them, it then leaves the door open for some half baked chancers to come along with an offer that is accepted. See Bolton, Bury, Charlton, Blackburn and several other football clubs and where similar situations have taken them.

It’s at that point where we may well be forced to step in and act even if we don’t actually want to.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:57 am  

Darwen Warrior wrote:

I’m not from Wigan, don’t live in the town and, whilst my son and his family live in Standish, I don’t know the town that well with regard to suitable sites for a stadium build.

In all honesty, I think we’ll end up continuing at the DW and there’s a fair to middling chance that we will end up owning it. I’m just throwing ideas around for alternatives and at the same time putting my thoughts down in writing as to how complex/problematic the situation has become.

On the football side of things, the longer it drags on without any viable bids for them, it then leaves the door open for some half baked chancers to come along with an offer that is accepted. See Bolton, Bury, Charlton, Blackburn and several other football clubs and where similar situations have taken them.

It’s at that point where we may well be forced to step in and act even if we don’t actually want to.

If you're suggesting that IL should buy the football club as well to try and end this damaging saga, that thought crossed my mind too. Supposedly, he was trying to put a consortium together to do just that, but for whatever reason it didn't see daylight.

I can only assume that, even at £1, Latics are not a snip. The reality of running a modern day football club is a huge and costly undertaking, and that's not just because every pro footballer in Britain, no matter how lowly, seems to price himself at the equivalent of 50 brain surgeons' wages put together, but because of backup staff, travel arrangements, general organisation etc. The administrators have stripped Latics to the bone. The whole thing would have to be rebuilt from the bottom up, and then there'd be the problem of Latics' poor support. Their hardcore fans classify their club as 'special.'. But it's not really. It would take years and years for Latics-type crowds to repay even basic investment.

Sorry if I sound like I'm lecturing, but this is my take on why IL hasn't and hopefully won't make a serious bid for ownership of Latics.

It's all a rancid mess. But it's not a mess of our making, and it's still possible we could end up stabilising things by acquiring ownership of the stadium. What would happen after that is anyone's guess, but at least we'd have somewhere to play.

Re: Latics in administration - Lenagan leading bid : Sat Sep 12, 2020 10:03 am  

Cruncher wrote:

Sorry if I sound like I'm lecturing, but this is my take on why IL hasn't and hopefully won't make a serious bid for ownership of Latics.

No problem. It’s my take on things as well. I have first hand experience of just how quickly things can fall apart as I am a lifelong Blackburn Rovers supporter, having seen my first game at Ewood in 1966. I had season tickets at both the Warriors and the Rovers before rugby league gradually took preference.

As you say, it’s a rancid state of affairs and however it eventually pans out, I can’t see many folk being too happy, including IL.