I personally think that both clubs are in the same position as each other, they have just placed a different spin on it. We kept hearing that one club was in a better position than the other. Depends how you spin it, but both clubs are still in jeopardy. Us, because of yesterday's outcome and Cas still having a funding issue, if they didn't then surely they would be pushing on like Salford are.

You can have full planning permission but unfortunately that does build the stadium, the money to pay for it, that's what gets it built.

As far as who is directly to blame for our current problem, the buck stops with the people running our club. When we were promoted to Super League promises were made to update Belle Vue, this never happened (except for the Butlins building). This outcome is not a problem that has appeared in the last year or so. The club were aware of the need for better facilities. Whether the franchise system had come in or not, improvements / modernisation would still have been required.

Plan B, better tick all the boxes or Wakefield Trinity will no longer exist in it's current form.

Will Plan B be enough to save Wakey in SL if their is actually one to build on? You can't give a gurantee for how long it will be for 1 year - forseeable future. Is there enough time (roughly 4 months) to put a bid in place based on Oakwell if that does go through? For Cas at least the stadium is effectively in their own hands and they have a stadium to play in post 2011. The worrying thing for Wakey seem's to be is their is a huge ? for where they will play in 2012 never mind afterwards and atm it's all reliant on other people?

I think you ought to let York court get on with the public enquiry now and the club and fans should concentrate on finding a backer, because all this talk of Barnsley is useless without the stability of a new chairman backer.
We all know Ted needs to step aside and lets face it any franchise application that you submit will be viewed as hollow with out the seal of a new backer. I say this because the RFL may take the view that they can not judge your ability to stay in business or stick to a business plan that is prepared by the club as it stands now.
The club have no real assets in fact they have sold their assets to continue trading, without these and the input from your chairman it would already seem a difficult job to stay afloat, this coupled with a move to Barnsley and the cost this would incur and probable drop in income leave your business plan looking very shaky.

I know some people say you may gain some support in Barnsley, but you have to remember that it will be viewed as a short stop gap arrangement which is not the foundation for building a new support base. You would be in affect only be ""using Barnsley as a stepping stone to building something better in Wakefield, I cant see the parochial locals having that. Then theirs the fact that you can not even build extra support in your own city, so how you think you will do it in another Every aspect or your club will take a hit in Barnsley so you will not be able to afford to put on the deals or give away tickets to entice people in. You will find it difficult to break into schools and the community due to the short term nature of your investment into the town.

So to think your in a better position than Cas is fantasy, I would be very surprised if you could afford to move to Barnsley without a new backer. Your business plan will just not stack up.

You need a new backer with a new business plan and a bloody good one at that or your chances are slim.

Also take every thing the club say with caution, they are unlikely to give out the real facts of your situation, as their last hope is that people keep buying into the dream, in fact they need people to buy into the Wildcats like never before. Remember Dianne making a statement about how you did not really owe the take money and that it was a mistake, only for Sir Rodney to pay it off. I will add I do not blame them from sparing supporters the truth as they are trying to keep what support they have so that you keep spending your money while they find some miracle cure (newmarket) to the clubs ills.

Are you being intentionally thick or is this genuinely your level of intelligence!

When I said Castleford are fractionally better off than Wakefield it was in terms of their position regarding the stadium and nothing to do with the monetary value of any assets owned by the club. Try using a little context when reading and writing it will help your understanding of the issues being discussed.

Well if we are into slagging off, lets have a go eh,

I asked a simple question, obviously to a simple person

Nothing to do with Cas or anything else....

My question is What Do WTW Actually Own ?

Simple question for a simpleton eh

OK, the point that it has absolutely no relevance to the issue is obviously beyond your understanding but nevertheless. . .

At this moment in time Wakefield Trinity still own Belle Vue, they have received a significant down payment from a developer who wishes to buy the stadium when Wakefield vacate it but until the transaction is complete ownership of the ground remains with the club.

It is also my understanding that the club owns a number of houses in and around the Wakefield district although I don't know the specifics of this.

As for any other assets there may be some there may not!

Widnes, like Halifax/Doncaster/Oldham etc, went to the brink not because of franchising, but owners overspending to try get into Super League - they did that with P&R and without it. Franchising is a smokescreen for sports clubs not being able to live within their means.

Here you go again, beyiond my understanding...... what a =#BF0040EDIT TRB you really are

If the polecat stadium is still owned by the club, why do you have to move out after this year?

As for Cas being fractionally ahead, well you are suffering from delusions of grandeur pal
The Outline Planning Permission is no longer in force; it is suspended due to it being called in. Yorkcourt or anyone else cannot even turn a grass sod on the area in question, Unlike the Outline Planning Permission given to Cas, work has been done the area in question, where work has been done on the plateau. Full Planning permission application will be going by the end on next week at the latest (I was told that personally by a councillor last night) So on the ground issue Cas are quite a bit in front of the polecats in that instance.

As for your plan B, A lot of you seem to be in the opinion that you are moving to Oakwell, Have the club actually talked to the Barnsley Council about this move, or even the tenants Barnsley FC, because if you talk to their fans, the majority don’t even know about this? If you do play out of Oakwell, have you got any ideas of what it will cost in rent? How many of your fans will travel to Barnsley given that your numbers have fallen significantly at BV ?

Oh forgot, you do own a blow up polecat

Answer is simple, nowt!
Question to you, what do we need to own?
It seems to me 1/2 of SL clubs own nowt!
We are missing at this moment one thing, permission. This is gettable, but it does seem unlikely that we will get it in time. Everything else is in place.
Cas however don't as yet have full PP, however they are confident it will come this week, we shall see. Then there's the money, part of which is reliant on the saleable value of W Road. Big question mark, I think/ hope they have other income to replace that lost by land depreciation. Again time will tell, bit I don't see it much either way still, although we have deffo took a step back.
Is it beyond the realms of fantasy that SoS could give the go ahead for NM sooner than we expect given assurances from YK and WTW or is it deffo gonna be about a year?

Speedy how many Barnsley fans have you spoken too other than the few that have posted on their forum? If the club told everyone about everything there wouldn't be enough time and the fact that this has been mentioned on the board a few times just shows peoples selective memories.

That is Fantasy. The decision has been made to go for a PI nothing will reverse that (Possilbly unless the application is withwrawn).

The "average" timescale is 56 weeks and it could take up to 74 weeks

Its like trying to hammer a nail in a knot trying to explain anything to you





They don't have to, it was hoped that everything would run smoothly with NM allowing the club to either move into the new stadium or use another ground short term until it was ready hth





No more than you squire, according to some of you that £2 million Quid you got of the council last week will go to the millions already in the bank from the massive amount you have just recieved from BB homes for the sale of WR,

I forgot you can't sell it for the amount you need to build the new stadium. In all probability the money you got from Wakey council will just about pay for the pp and the fines incured by some of your wonderful fans for the homephobic chanting and the bottle throwing incidents tbf though they were only plastic







Its one thing having pp its another thing having the money to build it, so until all the money is in then only in someones empty head are you in front





For your imformation BMBC are only part owners of Oakwell, Mr Patrick Cryne the owner of Barnsley FC owns the other half, so therefore you would think that WTW would be talking to both interested parties and not the fans as it is not a co-operative hth



For somebody as imformed as you seem to be you ask a lot of questions, do you know for definate that we are going to Oakwell or is that an assumption of yours based on what you have heard, so anybody with an ounce of common sense would not ask how many will be traveling there until its comfirmed we are

keep up rodney you plonker

Seems Speedys attempt at creating some anti Wakey/RL feeling amongst Barnsley FC fans has back fired. barnsleyfc.org.uk/bbs/forums/for ... .asp?fid=1 Feeling on the BFC forum seems to be positive to the prospect!

Seems Speedys attempt at creating some anti Wakey/RL feeling amongst Barnsley FC fans has back fired. barnsleyfc.org.uk/bbs/forums/for ... .asp?fid=1 Feeling on the BFC forum seems to be positive to the prospect!

Speedy should worry about his own teams hurdles they have to overcome instead of gloating on here. We know things arent great, but some people are going to take positives and look on the bright side of things. People are going to look for hope where they can find it. Anyway isnt it Speedy who gets upset when supporters of other clubs go on ths cas site?

Some points that i think have been missed are as follows:

1. This talk of plan B could be very reasonable and would put you in a position to meet the criteria - however what is currently stopping Cas from adopting a similar approach. It was rumoured that Cas were looking at the possibility of moving short term to the Keepmoat Stadium. This would surly put cas on a par with Wakefield. Then we would be ahead of Wakefield by virtue of having cast iron plans for GH.

2. There is likely to be a shortfall in the funds required for the whole GH at this point in time. However stadiums can be built and therefore be paid for in stages. The minimum criteria was a 10,000 capacity which is all under cover with seats. The proposed GH stadium is 13,000 meaning that three stands could be built with out the forth being complete until funds are available. This is roughly 3/4 of the cost which is circa £9m. £5m from the ground (the contract signed was for £6.9m and was undervalued in the eyes of many at the time - land has fallen roughly 40-30% meaning £5m is not to bad estimate) £2m from the council £1m already put in from Waystone re initial development of the plateau and then £1m from naming rights. This does not sound to far fetched to me.

The NM proposal was to be financed by the sale of the units i believe i.e. the developer would incur the cost of the stadium from profits generated from the remainder of the development. Question is where would the £20m come from.

Yorkcourt certainly don’t have those funds knocking around spare. Answer - from deposits prehaps for the warehousing? Question back is - will those deposits actually cover £20m. If not then from the sale of units? Would you pay £xm upfront for a warehouse that is yet to be built and which you know full well know is actually going to fund a stadium to begin with. I would not given there is adequate warehousing already empty in the area.

This means Yorkcourt would have to fund it from bank loans - i think you would agree not the easiest thing to do currently.

Given the above one may argue that funding issues would exist over the current plans.

I do not intend to gloat or anything like that but as you will see from the above these are serious comments

I'm sorry but I can't agree that the Championship is an exciting and vibrant competition.
It is dying on it's .
The salary cap has been reduced to the extent that all clubs can now afford to raise squads that reach the cap limit meaning that the competition is far more open.
But crowds are seriously on the wane. Even the Halifax figure you pointed out was only reached with them handing out thousands of free tickets and counting them within their attendance figures regardless of whether the recipient turned up or not.

Most games feature a small band of away supporters meaning that there is a real difficulty in generating any real atmosphere.
If you do have one of the bigger games in the league you face appearing on SKY on Thursday night which will seriously affect your crowd numbers and you receive next to nothing for the privilege.

If you are one of the clubs that sticks within the salary cap there is a real difficulty in building a squad with a number of teams having to resort to measures like taking dual registered players to make up the numbers.

Clubs receive pittance from the RFL and I'm afraid that I agree that once you are out of SL then you might struggle to return, especially considering the noises coming out of Cumbria and Toulouse.

On a personal note. I am disappointed for you, and hopefully you will have a plan B to carry on operating if the worst happens.

Part of the licensing Criteria is to show that you have a operational capacity of 10,000 + a minimum of a 10 year lease with the stadia if rented.

....and how do you know that castleford cant find funding at this moment in time.
Are you privy to the tigers finances. Or are you just hoping and praying they cant.

Mark my words ALL funding is in place.

Exactly the Same way Fax and Widnes have. I hope you survive, However i am some of you know what it feels like with the shoe on the other foot !!!

Good post and in some respects your figures look ok, but the land value makes no difference because I suspect you will not and never own the land at GH... you will have a long term lease deal on the land... exactly like the community trust on the Newmarket stadium BTW.

Also, your view on Yorkcourt (same goes for Waystone BTW), developments of this size and how they are funded lacks knowledge (I am not having a go for not knowing BTW... unless you work in this field, most people don't understand the business model) of how they are funded and ultimate make money and profit. These guys are it for the reasonably long term and are looking to make a return for their investors over maybe 25+ years and the whole site itself would take at least 5 years to fill and more likely 10 years. They don't borrow money but gain investment for the development from banks, insurance and most importantly pension funds. So while it might cost them (well, actually their investment partners) money to build the stadium in the short term the long term value of the land, which they will retain ownership of, and the wider development will start to deliver profit as it is developed. With interest rates very low, if you are a pension fund and looking for a low risk investment to tie money up for 25 years plus with an almost guaranteed better return than giving it to a bank, then this type of investment is a great deal!

Get over yourself, Lots of Championship clubs do the same thing ! You are a very bitter fan, lucky for WTW not all the fans are like you !!

Perhaps you could tell us them how much you got for Wheldon Road

Actually we do not, but i am sure we are about to find out

Unfortunatly i am not privy to each and every penny on how it's broken down.

I have been informed (reliably) the funding is there.
PP going in either end of this week or next week. Definatly before xmas.

Is that an Oxford English definately or a Richard Wright one?