Takeover or not ?

Patients is a doctors waiting room!

 

Possibly, bu offering £20 million for the club is near-impossible to refuse.
And if they are absolutely loaded, they'll try to buy the fans over by investing in new players etc. then move us to an out of town stadium.

I would be majorly pi$$ed off if the Vic was dumped. I'd no longer buy a season ticket that's for sure.

 

I don't want owners to throw cash around and **** the club up.

We need steady owners who will give us stability, not promise us the earth, move us to a new, dreadful stadium in exchange for £25m of debt so they can make a quick few million quid off the land at the Vic.

Build a new stand, pay off debts, put a few things in the new stand that will make us some cash on the side and give Malky a bit of money on the wage bill/transfer pot.

I don't know if I would go to a new stadium. I can understand moving if you outgrow the old one and there is no room to expand, but selling it off for quick profit would be a disgrace. With a new stand pushing the capacity to 22,000+ we would be sorted for ever. We won't ever need a bigger stadium unless we got into bloody Europe! We are a provincial club who hardly ever filled out even in the Premiership.

 

Well if it is this SEGRO group, it's fairly obvious they will want Watford as a base and therefore it's in their interests to relocate the club so that they can use the land the Vic is based on as whatever they need it for.

If this happened straight off, the majority of fans would not be happy. Who really wants a dull, lifeless bowl as a stadium which would only be half-filled, or less, every game (we get roughly 14k now, the stupid bowl would probably be built to hold 25-30k). So they'll throw money at us to make us happy and we'll be the new Leeds in the end, without the European domination.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but why else would a property group with no affiliation whatsoever to the club buy us? WE aren't a valuable investment to them, but the land we're based on is.

 

As long as the long term future for the club is there I wouldnt have a problem with a new ground. 25,000 seat stadium would be about right.

 

Rebuilding the East stand wouldn't be too far off that. I don't care about the number of seats but the whole place would be lifeless.

 

This is all very well but why would anyone invest in the club so it can keep losing money every year. The only way to have the club as an option going forward is to move somewhere we can make money all year round.

I appreciate that with our current following a 25k seater stadium would not be filled however, there are plenty of clubs whose attendances have gone up after moving grounds.

I think with sensible investment the club can be sustainable and probably make some money but that money must be spent on the infrastructure. There is a lack of space around the ground where we are so we will have to move.

How would we have felt if Elton's plans to move the ground had gone through? Would he be looked on less favourably now?

 

So long as it's not a flatpack Ikea bowl jobby like Coventry, Leicester, Reading, Derby, Southampton, Coventry, Cardiff, Wigan etc then I don't mind, I'd rather we stayed at Vicarage Road and I'd rather at the very least we kept a town location, but if moving out to Bricket Wood or somewhere means we'll get a ground that has facilities to make it self sufficient or whatever, that's something..

 

The difference was back then we were not pulling 13k a week, we were in Europe and had the financial backing and footballing talent to remain there!

If anything attendances would go down if we moved. Its not like there are legions of Watford fans unable to get to the town centre every week is it? There aren't 10,000 people in Hertfordshire thinking "Darn it, if only Watford would move three miles I would be getting a season ticket for all of my family"

I can see the identikit press release now:

"Watford is a club with great potential. We have a 5 year plan to be in Europe by 2016, and the new stadium is at the heart of these plans. By making Watford Football Club a 24/7 business we can be a self-sustaining Premiership club within three years, blah blah blah blah'....

The reality of that would actually be that we move, continue pulling 13k, have £25m of debt and go into administration, as has happened with the vast majority of clubs who have attempted to do so at clubs that quite obviously cannot sustain it. Its the quick-fix for being able to cash-in on valuable inner-city land.

 

What's wrong with a new purpose built stadium the Vic is hardly a grand old lady who has seen better days, she's basically a clapped out old bag!!!

A brand new stadium with modern facilities would suit me fine and I would say a 25k capacity would be about right.

We have to look to the future and I see no reason why our support could not grow over the next 10 years or so, providing we have some success on the pitch to around the 18 to 20k mark, plus away support!!!!

Have some faith guys stop wallowing in the past and look forward to a bigger brighter future for the club we all love!!!

UUUUUUUUooooooooooorrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnsssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!

 

Although I know that all speak of what the future owners may or may not want to do with the land that the ground currently sits on is almost 100% conjecture, I've been talking about the different possibilities with family and friends over the last few days and we are all in pretty strong agreement. Watford FC should remain at the Vic.

I for one would be extremely saddened by any moves towards relocating the club. The reasons for this have been mentioned umpteen times above, so I won't carry on with that, but I'd like to know what people presume will happen to the redevelopment that has only just been completed and/or is half-finished? I'm talking about the flats that fita around the rous/vic rd end...? They've only just been finished and a lot of money has been put into them, along with the south west corner. Do people think these will ust be demolished? They are peoples' homes in some cases and it doesn't seem that clear whether investors could just knock them down without any problem. Any thoughts?

 

Im sure they cant just go and knock them down, they've only just been finished BUT if there was a move where would our new stadium be, havent seen where its rumoured to be?

 

You were making sense until that bit! No owner doing what you describe would have the fans happiness at heart. A token gesture maybe but not throwing money at us.

 

That is not our problem see ins as they don't belong to us...the south west corner will just be converted into flats and they will have a ready made crazy golf course with the rest of the sstadium

 

I actually think a property company would have no qualms in demolishing The Vic, new flats etc and all!!!

They probably have much grander plans for the site IMO!!!

Why The ****!!! do you think the Lord has kept us afloat for so long, if he did not have a master plan to make more money?

 

Sorry I think I got a little annoyed lol.

However, I do think that they would not so much throw money at us, but give us far more than we're used to in the transfer window to spend. Anybody would like them after that.

 

GT's only power is to say that he doesn't like it. It's the people who have the money who decides what happens.

I believe I was the first to cast doubt on whether these exciting new investors would be good for ther fans. I'm not just a football genius ....

 

A brand new stadium somewhere close to the intersection of the M1/M25 with easy parking and a hassle free experience makes absolute sense. Of course I understand the sentimentality attached to the site (I've been going for over 30 years) but did I grieve for the loss of the Shrodells stand or the greyhound track or the wooden benches in the Main Stand ... nope. All great memories but let's create new ones in a new modern stadium.

 

It was Cleveland

 

No it wasn't either! Baltimore was a new contract or whatever the hell they call it!

 

Well, not really

The Baltimore Ravens are essentially the old Cleveland Browns, owed by Art Modell. That entire team and staff went to Baltimore and Cleveland was 'deactivated' for a 3 year period as part of the deal

The current Cleveland Browns are a new franchise, created under the most recent NFL expansion and owned by Randy Lerner, with entirely new staff

A better recent example of a franchise relocation is that of the Baltimore Colts going to Indianapolis, or the LA Rams going to St.Louis

 

and why wouldnt it be ?

Theres a reason those stadiums you mentioned are all sim ilar , and its to do with the cost of building the bloody things !

 

Well that's the problem, it would be one of those. :dismay:

I hate those stadiums, especially when they're big and the supports absolute *****, ala Coventry.

 

Our supports **** in our own stadium , it would be worse than any of those you mention in a new souless identikit stadium

 

We could buy 10,000 Sierra Leoneans, I wonder what the going rate is, we can ask Bangura

 

Dont forget the effect of such a move on the day as a whole for most fans.

No local pubs or town centre for pre and post match fun...

Think Coventry... nice ground but FARK ALL going on around it.

 

I suppose if there is a retail park surrounding the ground then there could be bars/restaurants that fan scould go to pre match..?

 

As long as they don't make it much more than 20 or 23 k I wouldn't have a problem

I would rather see us fill 3 smaller stands than the 1 and a 1/2 that we are at the moment

There is land available within the town center area. The amount of industrial space that is available could mean that we get rebuilt within the town, nothing says we have to go outside

all speculation at the moment anyway

 

Not sure what you mean there , we are 5 min walk from Town Centre.

 

I think only a small % of supporters have food/drink in the town before the game, most just come and go. I think the lack of easy access and cash turnstiles deters people from going. A new stadium within a retail park with parking, food, bars etc would not be a bad thing. I agree it needs to be of a sensible size so we fill most of it is important.

 

He's saying there are areas of land within the town centre that are available and could be used for a new stadium, so we wouldn't neccessarily need to move to the outskirts in the event of relocation.

 

That's an interesting point actually.

I wouldn't be so against moving to within the town centre. Inevitably we would lose all character and it would be an awful atmosphere, but it would be the best option if a move is deemed necessary.

 

indeed

Building on brown belt sites is a lot lot easier than on green belt sites. You also get larger grants and it also saves costs, sewerage, amenities, for example.

it is likely to be something that the council would also prefer. Although only a small % of people use the town for beers and food before and after the game, even places like sweet shops, car parks etc gain additional revenue which they would want to keep.

 

I'm not sure about the atmosphere. i think this gets lost if the stadium is too big.

At the moment we draw crowds of 13 to 14,000 and we know that even in our hay day we max'd out at 20,000. on a few odd occasions we would pull in 25k but that would be once every season at best.

If we built a stadium of 20k and had 5k in each stand it would mean that we could at least fill 80% of 3 sides with home fans. More fans in a condensed area makes it a better atmosphere.

Less rows, a lower roof and a realistic size

 

A bit like Doncaster's then?