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Sons' sorrow


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There's only one reason we are planning to relocate to a slightly bigger more out the way stadium and it's to give the Brabco directors a return on the money they invested when Neil Rankine sold up. Yes they've tried to dress it up with other facilities including 5 aside football pitches but if anyone thinks for a minute it's to take the club forward then i fear you are mistaken. It's only a coincidence we are doing well just now when this was announced, the club have been waiting on the real estate value to increase again as the sale of the ground is where all the money will come from. Apparantly we'll get Youngs farm for nothing so if our current site was worth around £6m and we could build our stadium and pitches for around £4m there's a nice wee earner for our Brabco friends. If the other facilities were built i think they would be from private investment and not the club I'd love to be wrong about this but very much doubt it.

how do u assume we'll get the land for nothing? How stupid would the land owners be?
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We have a stadium at the end of a cul de sac. The householders in Castle Road already complain about the parking on match days. There are more houses due to be built on the Turnberry site opposite which will effectively make the club a bad neighbour. It was essential I'd suggest to get rid of Neil Rankine and the only game in town to do that was Brabco. They sure didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Since they've come in and Gilbert Lawrie has been Chief Exec though, we have gone from the bottom of the third division to fifth in the Championship last season. We are unrecognisable from the club Rankine left. Coincidence? I think not. If a new ground for the club and a profit for Brabco is the end game then that's a win-win. I remember the same disquiet when we moved from Boghead.

I think Wilf has got this spot-on. Football is a business and any business needs to make a profit - if we end up with a new stadium, with twice the capacity, new community facilities and stay financially in credit, that will put us in a far better position than most other clubs in Scotland.

If the directors make some profit out of it and they are the ones taking the financial risks in running the club, then I don't see any problems - as Wilf rightly says, it is win-win.

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Do people genuinely think a hotel, gym, restaurant, conferencing facilities etc will run at a profit, on the Renton Road, in the arse end of Dumbarton? Do people seriously think that?

Just build a stadium with basic training facilities and be done with it. The other pish will absolutely cripple us.

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about 2 years ago concrete drainage was being put in, yet reasons for this were, its the railway, it's the pylons, I said it then, and in a previous post that I'd bet it was the start of our new stadium

No the work done on the site about 2 years ago was on the railway culvert that carries the stream under the Balloch line..

Carry on...

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I didn't say it was surprising. In fact, myself and others have been harping on about this for ages. So, what was the point of your post?

You said 'Take your blinkers off folk this is pure profiteering' as if you were somehow ahead of the game and could see something that others less astute might have missed. I was merely pointing out that everyone knows it is profiteering as that was the whole reason for Brabco buying the club in the first place. I don't think there are any fans who would think otherwise.

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You said 'Take your blinkers off folk this is pure profiteering' as if you were somehow ahead of the game and could see something that others less astute might have missed. I was merely pointing out that everyone knows it is profiteering as that was the whole reason for Brabco buying the club in the first place. I don't think there are any fans who would think otherwise.

My blinkers comment referred directly to the two examples I had cited, IE, the club's stance and the comments of other DFC fans on this very thread about it being all fine. That was abundantly clear.

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Seeing as we're adding on loads of pointless shit we don't need, let's see what else we can come up with then we can hold a vote to see what the fans want most and put this back to our owners in November.

I'll start, I'd like to see a huge ball pool built, preferably with a chute leading from the roof of the stand into said pool.

GO!

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If we're bringing funfair stuff into it, then I propose we create the Dumbarton FC football stadium, leisure complex, mixed retail / office development and pleasure beach. We can turn Bellsmyre into a seaside, no-one other than Snudge will care about the loss of it.

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If we're bringing funfair stuff into it, then I propose we create the Dumbarton FC football stadium, leisure complex, mixed retail / office development and pleasure beach. We can turn Bellsmyre into a seaside, no-one other than Snudge will care about the loss of it.

We could have a casino too where you could play Renton Roulette, it's like Russian Roulette but less shooty and more stabby.

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We could have a casino too where you could play Renton Roulette, it's like Russian Roulette but less shooty and more stabby.

I was offered a job in Renton once, at the interview they told me "you will often get an 'alarm call', particularly at weekends, where all staff are required to react to protect each other". I decided against it for some reason.

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I just can't accept this. The football ground was built. Then the houses were built. People move into the houses and then complain there's a football club there? If people are really that bothered they shouldn't have bought a house next to a football ground.

We've all loved the success on the pitch but you cannot let that cloud your judgement of our basically unknown property developing owners. Honestly, if we were looking at another club that this was happening to we would be far more wary. Sounds great, we get a new ground and they get their profit. When they f**k off and leave us with a gym, hotel, restaurant, or any other bollocks we don't need we will absolutely struggle to cope with those running costs. If they need to make profit on their investment that is understandable, if they sold this land and built a very similar ground without all the pie in the sky bollocks, I reckon I'd be more inclined to go for it. It's the promise of all weather pitches for training, gyms, hotels, restaurants that makes me extremely wary of what we'll end up with here. How many owners have promised the fans something amazing only for the club to end up shafted and the owners with a massive wad in their pockets?

That said, I have faith that the Trust have been on top of them here and I hope we do get a good deal out of this bonkers plan.

Oh Jeez!

Right. Points one by one. The local plan published on an occasional basis by WDC zones the whole of that area of the east end of the town as for housing. The building of the stadium in its current location was in contravention of the local plan but some sort of persuasion must have worked.

Unfortunately in the real world the 'we were here first' argument will not hold water when the issues are noise, illegal parking, litter or whatever.

I would be absolutely astonished if the club were to have anything to do with the running of any ancillary services on the site. these will be offered to operators in return for rent or purchase of the land.

As for the unknown property developers, they were brought in by Gilbert Lawrie, who has not only run a PLC property company but has been a Dumbarton fan since he was a wee boy. They were brought in because he knew that the future of the club was uncertain under Rankine.

I'm a member of the Trust and one of their biggest advocates. Indeed it was Alan Findlay and myself who represented the Trust in negotiations to get a representative on the board. I'm sure that they will indeed keep an eye on things but I hope that if the plan is a good one that they'll support it.

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