On the council meeting

[La femme de Vic Jobson]

With some bad language, here's our report from Wednesday's MBC meeting.

www.themaidstone.co.uk/index.html

[daveu]

I must be some sad fucker. While admitting it was very long winded, I found the chance to see local democracy in action quite interesting.

[headstone]

I disagree that MBC fucked us over in 1992, when it was the totally unrealistic and over-ambitious development plans for Hollingbourne that gave them no choice but to turn down the planning application.

[61666]

If only all local democracy was reported in this way.

[jdl]

Nov 24, 2017 11:29:50 GMT headstone said:

I disagree that MBC fucked us over in 1992, when it was the totally unrealistic and over-ambitious development plans for Hollingbourne that gave them no choice but to turn down the planning application.

Quite right. Whatever it felt like at the time (and it felt bloody awful), that was a crazy idea of Thompson's. We would have ended up with a typical 1990s, soulless, modernist, concrete stadium, miles out of town, only used once a fortnight, and mostly empty for the average game. And we'd probably still have gone bust with the cost of keeping it going.

Thompson had two grand ideas: one was to create the Conference, establish automatic promotion and get us into the FL, and the other was to sell the Athletic Ground and build a new stadium somewhere else. The first idea was great, but the second idea ultimately cancelled out the first - and killed us off.

As for the assumption that we'll one day outgrow the JWW, I think this is probably unlikely. Just to stay in the EFL, we need to increase the capacity to twice our current average crowd, so it will be a long time before we need to increase it further. Gillingham, with arguably a much greater catchment area than ours and a long history as a League club, only average about 5 or 6,000, I can't see us getting those sorts of gates, and certainly not much bigger ones. And, even if we did, the JWW can probably be expanded to around 7,000 if really needed.

The only way we'll need a stadium bigger than that is to get into the Championship, and that is so far off, and so incredibly expensive, that I don't see it as something realistically worth worrying about at the moment (especially after Tuesday night!).

JDL's two Golden Rules of Football Clubs apply here:

!) Don't sell your ground unless you have a cast-iron, definite certainty that you're going to move into a much better one within one season at the most.

2) Don't base your plans on unrealistic dreams.

Thompson, unfortunately, was guilty of both.

[Deleted]

Nov 24, 2017 12:06:13 GMT jdl said:

Nov 24, 2017 11:29:50 GMT headstone said:

I disagree that MBC fucked us over in 1992, when it was the totally unrealistic and over-ambitious development plans for Hollingbourne that gave them no choice but to turn down the planning application.

Quite right. Whatever it felt like at the time (and it felt bloody awful), that was a crazy idea of Thompson's. We would have ended up with a typical 1990s, soulless, modernist, concrete stadium, miles out of town, only used once a fortnight, and mostly empty for the average game. And we'd probably still have gone bust with the cost of keeping it going.

Thompson had two grand ideas: one was to create the Conference, establish automatic promotion and get us into the FL, and the other was to sell the Athletic Ground and build a new stadium somewhere else. The first idea was great, but the second idea ultimately cancelled out the first - and killed us off.

As for the assumption that we'll one day outgrow the JWW, I think this is probably unlikely. Just to stay in the EFL, we need to increase the capacity to twice our current average crowd, so it will be a long time before we need to increase it further. Gillingham, with arguably a much greater catchment area than ours and a long history as a League club, only average about 5 or 6,000, I can't see us getting those sorts of gates, and certainly not much bigger ones. And, even if we did, the JWW can probably be expanded to around 7,000 if really needed.

The only way we'll need a stadium bigger than that is to get into the Championship, and that is so far off, and so incredibly expensive, that I don't see it as something realistically worth worrying about at the moment (especially after Tuesday night!).

JDL's two Golden Rules of Football Clubs apply here:

!) Don't sell your ground unless you have a cast-iron, definite certainty that you're going to move into a much better one within one season at the most.

2) Don't base your plans on unrealistic dreams.

Thompson, unfortunately, was guilty of both.

I'm not a fan of Jim Thompson's, in fact I think he made some very poor and selfish decisions that led to the demise of our club but I do think the Hollingbourne plan was okay and actually ahead of its time in terms of the additional facilities he wanted to put there (such as a bowling alley and multi-screen cinema) - facilities Maidstone didn't have in 1990. Now it looks very much like the same land is going to be filled with housing - that same land the conservationists said should never be built on. There was much wrong-doing on both sides I think. 

[Benny]

There are two kinds of football stadium development. One, with finance in place that gets built as planned. The other, with all kinds of hotels and shops tacked on that gathers dust in the planning in tray. The latter accounts for 5% of football stadia built.

Although I always felt the Hollingbourne stadium would never have been built, even in the unlikely event of planning being granted. The game was already up by then. It's as if the application was put in to deflect blame from the man responsible for the club's demise.

[La femme de Vic Jobson]

They were both to blame. Hence the line about how they "helped to kill us".
Quite like the idea of Fran Wilson going on a wet bus to Tranmere, I think she'd learn something.

[jdl]

Nov 24, 2017 13:04:21 GMT Benny said:

There are two kinds of football stadium development. One, with finance in place that gets built as planned. The other, with all kinds of hotels and shops tacked on that gathers dust in the planning in tray. The latter accounts for 5% of football stadia built.

Although I always felt the Hollingbourne stadium would never have been built, even in the unlikely event of planning being granted. The game was already up by then. It's as if the application was put in to deflect blame from the man responsible for the club's demise.

I've always felt there's something wrong with the hotel/cinema model. After all, if you want a hotel, bowling alley, cinema, just build them - why tack a football ground on?

If we start from the assumption that football will never pay for itself and needs propping up by other, entirely unrelated, sources of income, then it's almost like starting off by admitting how pointless the whole thing is. And it won't be long before some developer/speculator starts to wonder why there's this ruddy great empty, unused field in the middle of all that valuable real estate - and calculates just how much that land could earn if he built on it...

If you're going to build a football stadium. build a FOOTBALL stadium, not a shopping village. Oliver and Terry have got it right - accept that the club can't afford the costs of building a stadium, so that will have to be a (very) long-term 'investment', and then get the club to cover its operating costs by utilising the stadium itself - as much as possible for football related activities.

And, of course, before 3G, this wasn't really possible (although Boreham Wood would argue with that!). Far from being a problem, 3G could actually be the saviour of the lower league clubs, and a turning point in the history of football. Which makes the EFL's attitude towards it even more bizarre. It's a bit like someone trying to get the airline industry to use jets in the 50s and them turning it down because it isn't 'traditional'...

[jdl]

Nov 24, 2017 13:05:21 GMT La femme de Vic Jobson said:

They were both to blame. Hence the line about how they "helped to kill us".
Quite like the idea of Fran Wilson going on a wet bus to Tranmere, I think she'd learn something.

If she's ever been out in Maidstone on a Friday night, I think she already knows that.

[Deleted]

Nov 24, 2017 11:29:50 GMT headstone said:

I disagree that MBC fucked us over in 1992, when it was the totally unrealistic and over-ambitious development plans for Hollingbourne that gave them no choice but to turn down the planning application.

Of course the fact that Uncle Jims' plans contained a multi-plex cinema, bowling alley, bars and restaurants didn't clash with what the Borough Council already had planned for the centre of town?
Just a coincidence that the Lockmeadow site was developed with these exact facilities just two short years after the club failed to get planning permission at Woodcut Farm?

Yes Thompson's plans were (overly) ambitious but let's not pretend that the Council didn't have an alteria motive for refusing planning permission on a piece of land that they themselves identified as being the ONLY place in the Borough suitable for the club's plans.

[Deleted]

Nov 24, 2017 14:24:14 GMT jdl said:

Nov 24, 2017 13:04:21 GMT Benny said:

There are two kinds of football stadium development. One, with finance in place that gets built as planned. The other, with all kinds of hotels and shops tacked on that gathers dust in the planning in tray. The latter accounts for 5% of football stadia built.

Although I always felt the Hollingbourne stadium would never have been built, even in the unlikely event of planning being granted. The game was already up by then. It's as if the application was put in to deflect blame from the man responsible for the club's demise.

I've always felt there's something wrong with the hotel/cinema model. After all, if you want a hotel, bowling alley, cinema, just build them - why tack a football ground on?

You've probably never had the misfortune to visit Oxford United's ground - on a complex that also includes a hotel... a bowling alley... and a multiplex cinema.

[steveh21]

Whatever you say about Jim he made the Stones a force on non-league and got us into the League. Yes he messed up re selling the ground but remember the council did virtually nothing to help us come home for many many many years.

[philosopherstone]

Nov 24, 2017 18:50:17 GMT steveh21 said:

Whatever you say about Jim he made the Stones a force on non-league and got us into the League. Yes he messed up re selling the ground but remember the council did virtually nothing to help us come home for many many many years.

I've nothing good to say about him. The ruinous effect his legacy left immensely outweighed any good. I'm surprised any Stones fan would have anything good to say about him.......or any Darts fan for that matter.

[steveh21]

So you never liked him before he sold london road?. Or when he enabled Bill Williams to build that fantastic side that won the APL? do you give him no credit for being the driving force that achieved automatic promotion with the FL?

Yes he messed up in the end but he was not all bad... he just chased the dream.