Sons' sorrow

[Jan Vojáček]

As BBPF and The Moonster have said above it is crucial we get down to the Abbotsford meeting and ask the questions that need answered. Funding and guarantees that what we would end up with would be better than what we currently have. At the moment we have neither.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

I still think it's a bit fishy the cooncil and ourselves release our plans on the same day. I reckon they are absolutely choking to get rid of us from our current spot.

There were some plans shown tonight of what will potentially happen to the current land should we leave and they included the shiny new water front walkway.

[BallochSonsFan]

I reckon you were there just as I was finished asking my questions Moonster. At one point I was convinced Gilbert was going to physically throw me out

When the answer to the question "how are we going to pay for all this" is 'we're not paying for it, the developers are' then you know you're on a donkey ride to hell. A summary of my take on the whole sorry mess:

1. We'll have 2 large stands running the length of the pitch with 1500 fans in each and 2 terraces behind the goals holding 500 fans. The idea is to replace our current single 2000 capacity stand with a 1500 and 500 capacity stand. (Doesn't that increase maintenance costs? Answers on a postcard folks)

2. We're not going to pay for this - the developers are. We're absolutely 100% exposed to no risk. How are the developers going to fund it? No answer. How much are the developers going to charge us for the developed ground? No answer. We're apparently not going to ground share so we'll be moving from the BB to the completed Youngs side despite not actually knowing how the construction of the Youngs site will be funded.

3. So how much will this cost us? No answer. The plans include 6 plots that can be sold to help fund the development of the side but which won't be sold if the club make enough from the BB to pay for phase 1 (2000 capacity and 1 synthetic community pitch). Its up to us to fund further development for an increased capacity and further facilities.

4. The synthetic pitches will each earn us £45k a year. Gilbert knows this because he knows how much Stenny earn from theirs. He doesn't know how much people in Dumbarton will pay to use the pitches but he knows they'll earn £45k each. The developers know that the land won't flood so the pitches, despite being built on the only part of the development deemed by SEPA to be a flood plain, will be a constant money earner. We're also planning on having 52 weddings in the 300-capacity conference venue. Gilbert knows that there's a bevvy of blushing brides just dreaming of the prospect of their 5pm reception dinner being interrupted by 1500 fans leaving the ground because apparently there has already been 4 weddings held whilst football matches are taking place. Although not at the BB. These are other grounds.

5. How much is the current BB site worth? Don't know. How much will the new development cost us? Don't know. So how do we know that we're paying an appropriate rate for the new site? If the BB makes us £5million and the new development costs £2.5million, how much will we actually pay? Whats an acceptable profit to Brabco? £500k? £1million? £2.5million? Or do we get stuck into those development plots because they want a number with a lot of zeros behind it?

6. Why do we need 4000 capacity? It's an aspiration. Have we ever looked like needing a 4000 capacity? No, but what if we get promoted to the premiership? When has that looked likely? Well we can stick with the 2000 capacity then.

- That you won't tell me how much it'll cost.

A shambles of a proposal from start to finish. They propose an uncosted 4000 capacity ground plus 3 community synthetic pitches with no funding in place and no estimated costing available. We don't know how much the BB is worth so we don't know if we can afford the development. If we can't afford it then we can sell a further 6 plots on the Youngs site to earn enough to fund the development of the ground but apparently we can't sell the 6 development plots even if the BB sale does earn enough to pay for the new ground, even though that further influx of money could protect the future of the club for years. Despite not knowing how much the BB is worth or how much the development will cost, they can tell us that the synthetic pitches will bag us around £130k a year and that we'll have a wedding in the ground every weekend. We won't have to ground share because the shiny new stadium will be ready for us but we don't know how the construction costs will be met and it may even involve us borrowing against the value of the BB and paying commercial lending rates for the privilege of having somebody else build and sell us a new ground.

Of course the option is there to remain at the BB despite us needing to increase the power of our floodlighting - a move that will be rejected by the council. Whilst the option is there to stay put, that effectively signs our demotion to League 2. There were other sites - Bowling was deemed to be too difficult and time consuming whilst Dumbuck was too small to allow us to consider additional revenue-generating development despite neither site being costed to see if they offered us better value for money than Youngs (which hasn't been costed)

Apparently they'd had around 80 people during the day and I was the first person to show any real objections. Newsflash guys - most people tend to be at work between 10am and 5pm and anybody who did turn up during the day would have been met by the barrier into the club car park being closed. Hardly making access easy for concerned fans and residents.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can try to rig the consultation session times to keep the mouthy b*****ds who'll ask the difficult questions away from the developers. Unfortunately what you can't do is pluck nonsense answers from thin air.

Unless you're behind the development at Youngs Farm.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

I reckon you were there just as I was finished asking my questions Moonster. At one point I was convinced Gilbert was going to physically throw me out

When the answer to the question "how are we going to pay for all this" is 'we're not paying for it, the developers are' then you know you're on a donkey ride to hell. A summary of my take on the whole sorry mess:

1. We'll have 2 large stands running the length of the pitch with 1500 fans in each and 2 terraces behind the goals holding 500 fans. The idea is to replace our current single 2000 capacity stand with a 1500 and 500 capacity stand. (Doesn't that increase maintenance costs? Answers on a postcard folks)

2. We're not going to pay for this - the developers are. We're absolutely 100% exposed to no risk. How are the developers going to fund it? No answer. How much are the developers going to charge us for the developed ground? No answer. We're apparently not going to ground share so we'll be moving from the BB to the completed Youngs side despite not actually knowing how the construction of the Youngs site will be funded.

3. So how much will this cost us? No answer. The plans include 6 plots that can be sold to help fund the development of the side but which won't be sold if the club make enough from the BB to pay for phase 1 (2000 capacity and 1 synthetic community pitch). Its up to us to fund further development for an increased capacity and further facilities.

4. The synthetic pitches will each earn us £45k a year. Gilbert knows this because he knows how much Stenny earn from theirs. He doesn't know how much people in Dumbarton will pay to use the pitches but he knows they'll earn £45k each. The developers know that the land won't flood so the pitches, despite being built on the only part of the development deemed by SEPA to be a flood plain, will be a constant money earner. We're also planning on having 52 weddings in the 300-capacity conference venue. Gilbert knows that there's a bevvy of blushing brides just dreaming of the prospect of their 5pm reception dinner being interrupted by 1500 fans leaving the ground because apparently there has already been 4 weddings held whilst football matches are taking place. Although not at the BB. These are other grounds.

5. How much is the current BB site worth? Don't know. How much will the new development cost us? Don't know. So how do we know that we're paying an appropriate rate for the new site? If the BB makes us £5million and the new development costs £2.5million, how much will we actually pay? Whats an acceptable profit to Brabco? £500k? £1million? £2.5million? Or do we get stuck into those development plots because they want a number with a lot of zeros behind it?

6. Why do we need 4000 capacity? It's an aspiration. Have we ever looked like needing a 4000 capacity? No, but what if we get promoted to the premiership? When has that looked likely? Well we can stick with the 2000 capacity then.

- That you won't tell me how much it'll cost.

A shambles of a proposal from start to finish. They propose an uncosted 4000 capacity ground plus 3 community synthetic pitches with no funding in place and no estimated costing available. We don't know how much the BB is worth so we don't know if we can afford the development. If we can't afford it then we can sell a further 6 plots on the Youngs site to earn enough to fund the development of the ground but apparently we can't sell the 6 development plots even if the BB sale does earn enough to pay for the new ground, even though that further influx of money could protect the future of the club for years. Despite not knowing how much the BB is worth or how much the development will cost, they can tell us that the synthetic pitches will bag us around £130k a year and that we'll have a wedding in the ground every weekend. We won't have to ground share because the shiny new stadium will be ready for us but we don't know how the construction costs will be met and it may even involve us borrowing against the value of the BB and paying commercial lending rates for the privilege of having somebody else build and sell us a new ground.

Of course the option is there to remain at the BB despite us needing to increase the power of our floodlighting - a move that will be rejected by the council. Whilst the option is there to stay put, that effectively signs our demotion to League 2. There were other sites - Bowling was deemed to be too difficult and time consuming whilst Dumbuck was too small to allow us to consider additional revenue-generating development despite neither site being costed to see if they offered us better value for money than Youngs (which hasn't been costed)

Apparently they'd had around 80 people during the day and I was the first person to show any real objections. Newsflash guys - most people tend to be at work between 10am and 5pm and anybody who did turn up during the day would have been met by the barrier into the club car park being closed. Hardly making access easy for concerned fans and residents.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can try to rig the consultation session times to keep the mouthy b*****ds who'll ask the difficult questions away from the developers. Unfortunately what you can't do is pluck nonsense answers from thin air.

Unless you're behind the development at Youngs Farm.

I know who you are now!

Very well played tonight by the way, we shoulda charged a fiver entry just to listen to you debate, you had them on the ropes and it looked like they wanted to tap out

[optimistic]

I know who you are now!

Very well played tonight by the way, we shoulda charged a fiver entry just to listen to you debate, you had them on the ropes and it looked like they wanted to tap out

red jacket?

[BallochSonsFan]

Aye

[Jan Vojáček]

I know who you are now!

Very well played tonight by the way, we shoulda charged a fiver entry just to listen to you debate, you had them on the ropes and it looked like they wanted to tap out

Know who you are too now Balloch! You really were excellent, hopefully you (and the rest of us) will get some answers at the meeting on the 26th. Although I'm confident we could sit you down and you could question them for the whole session!

(I was in the orange hoodie and black jeans, stood behind you! )

[sons'r'us]

Well done Balloch sons fan for a great update. I'm going down tomorrow and am as concerned as most of us seem to be about this.

[Sweet Pete]

Cracking post, BSF. All my fears are realer now than ever.

[Clarko_son]

I reckon you were there just as I was finished asking my questions Moonster. At one point I was convinced Gilbert was going to physically throw me out

When the answer to the question "how are we going to pay for all this" is 'we're not paying for it, the developers are' then you know you're on a donkey ride to hell. A summary of my take on the whole sorry mess:

1. We'll have 2 large stands running the length of the pitch with 1500 fans in each and 2 terraces behind the goals holding 500 fans. The idea is to replace our current single 2000 capacity stand with a 1500 and 500 capacity stand. (Doesn't that increase maintenance costs? Answers on a postcard folks)

2. We're not going to pay for this - the developers are. We're absolutely 100% exposed to no risk. How are the developers going to fund it? No answer. How much are the developers going to charge us for the developed ground? No answer. We're apparently not going to ground share so we'll be moving from the BB to the completed Youngs side despite not actually knowing how the construction of the Youngs site will be funded.

3. So how much will this cost us? No answer. The plans include 6 plots that can be sold to help fund the development of the side but which won't be sold if the club make enough from the BB to pay for phase 1 (2000 capacity and 1 synthetic community pitch). Its up to us to fund further development for an increased capacity and further facilities.

4. The synthetic pitches will each earn us £45k a year. Gilbert knows this because he knows how much Stenny earn from theirs. He doesn't know how much people in Dumbarton will pay to use the pitches but he knows they'll earn £45k each. The developers know that the land won't flood so the pitches, despite being built on the only part of the development deemed by SEPA to be a flood plain, will be a constant money earner. We're also planning on having 52 weddings in the 300-capacity conference venue. Gilbert knows that there's a bevvy of blushing brides just dreaming of the prospect of their 5pm reception dinner being interrupted by 1500 fans leaving the ground because apparently there has already been 4 weddings held whilst football matches are taking place. Although not at the BB. These are other grounds.

5. How much is the current BB site worth? Don't know. How much will the new development cost us? Don't know. So how do we know that we're paying an appropriate rate for the new site? If the BB makes us £5million and the new development costs £2.5million, how much will we actually pay? Whats an acceptable profit to Brabco? £500k? £1million? £2.5million? Or do we get stuck into those development plots because they want a number with a lot of zeros behind it?

6. Why do we need 4000 capacity? It's an aspiration. Have we ever looked like needing a 4000 capacity? No, but what if we get promoted to the premiership? When has that looked likely? Well we can stick with the 2000 capacity then.

I'll admit I probably fall into a sort of "lapsed" fan in that I haven't been to any games in well over a year now, but I'd like to still be able to count myself as a fan and would want any stadium move to be in the best interest of the club in the long term. Now I've never had the same connection to the Strathclyde Homes/Dumbarton Football Stadium sponsored by D L Cameron/Bet Butler Stadium as I did with Boghead, despite having seen many more games there. But this proposal and especially the points raised above make me hope the team don't go through with this. Moving is not out of the question, but not under this proposal.

Point 4, sums up all I've ever known about Dumbarton as a club from an ownership point of view. The fact that noone can even seem to work out how much the club could charge for a hypothetical pitch makes me have significant worries that they can make any sort of sense of the entire project. As for weddings and functions, I have no idea how many weddings the club actually have a year currently. I'm actually planning one myself and if it wasn't for the fact I'd been to one at the stadium before I probably wouldn't even know the club held them. There's no information on the site unless you purposefully go and google it, there's no advertising of it. But it's cool, we'll get a new ground and it'll be like Vegas with couples getting hitched left, right and centre. There's probably plans for a casino on one of the development sites actually.. (Saturday 3pm Dumbarton v Falkirk, 7pm Barry Manilow)

Staged development probably is the best way to go about it, but only if there's a set plan, timetable and financial structure in place. Which clearly based on this plan isn't there. So instead it's a case of "trust us, we know what we're doing. And you'll totally get all the stands within a year or two."

The idea is sort of there, the drawings look pretty good, a 3G pitch is a sensible idea. But it's just either a total lack of actual data to do with finances OR they're known but there's a complete lack of transparency. Either way that's not a good thing.

One of these days I'll be back, probably some cold, shitty, midweek night.

Bring back the N-word

CSE

[The Moonster]

Well, that's a far better summation than me BSF and like the others I thoroughly enjoyed your performance tonight . If they even had a rough costing up tonight I'd be happier but it's "build it and they will come" nonsense so far.

[sonsanorak]

I dont think it unreasonable for there to be some uncertainty about finances just now. Prospective buyers of the bbs site will have to consider what they can build there and then sell before pitting a price on it.

Obviously brabco feel the time is right now to make this move, perhaps based on what they know of the housing market.

At this time my expectation is that we'll move into the new stadium at phase one and that brabco will make a skin off the profits. What happens after that is anyones guess.

Was the original deal with boghead/shs that it was the home builder who built the ground?

[O'Kelly Isley III]

From the outside it now looks like Brabco's complicity with the council will result in DFC moving home come what may. WDC now has the bit very firmly between it's teeth in terms of developing the whole area (long overdue by the way) but that leaves DFC at the mercy of some very hopeful projections indeed.

As an indicator, if planning is to be refused for improved floodlighting (on what grounds exactly ?) then the club is shafted in it's present location. Brabco and their agents have sold WDC a pipe-dream and now they will be forced to make it happen. I'm not at all confident.

[George Parr]

The floodlighting issue is odd and it would be useful if the club could provide a bit more illumination on the problem. How often in the average week do we have them switched on anyway - couple of hours at most? What's the council's issue here?

Being unable to travel down to view the proposals it's difficult to make any comment but I am surprised that any question re costing of the project appears to have been stonewalled. In their place I would have expected that to be at the very top of supporters' concerns and would have had some sort of prepared answer.

Have to agree with OK3 though, it would appear we're going to be moving whether we like it or not.

[Jan Vojáček]

The floodlighting issue is odd and it would be useful if the club could provide a bit more illumination on the problem. How often in the average week do we have them switched on anyway - couple of hours at most? What's the council's issue here?

Being unable to travel down to view the proposals it's difficult to make any comment but I am surprised that any question re costing of the project appears to have been stonewalled. In their place I would have expected that to be at the very top of supporters' concerns and would have had some sort of prepared answer.

Have to agree with OK3 though, it would appear we're going to be moving whether we like it or not.

It might mean that we stay at the Rock thus scuppering their re-development plans for the area

[The Moonster]

I dont think it unreasonable for there to be some uncertainty about finances just now. Prospective buyers of the bbs site will have to consider what they can build there and then sell before pitting a price on it.

I fully understand that and accept that it's impossible to know how much it will all definitely cost but if they've seriously looked at implementing the WHOLE project, then they must have worked out a budget figure that we need to meet. The plans included an artists impression of what the current site would look like after the homes are built so they know roughly how many houses can be built. If they'd said on these info boards that it would cost roughly £3M to build the new ground but we are projecting selling the current site for £5M, at least people would have an idea of what we're looking at. Right now we have "we'll build phase 1, then see what money we've got" and if building phase 1 is all that ever happens then we end up with a stadium smaller than our current ground, in a worse location, and with a pile of empty office/gym space.

[Howlin' Wilf]

I took my camera down. Apparently these will appear on the OS next week.

[Howlin' Wilf]

[Howlin' Wilf]

[Howlin' Wilf]