A good day to bury bad news

Quote: vastman "Am I missing something here?

As far as I can tell their are two very separate issues being discussed here.

First is Newmarket or compensation owed if it doesn’t happen. This is the preserve of the Trust, Yorkcourt, WMDC and WTWC RLFC and is well documented.

Second is the much newer issue on here is of the cost of staying at BV and the possibility of moving elsewhere if required. This is a purely business issue for the club and supporters only and has no effect on NM.

Now I’m not kidding myself, they are connected in a fashion - however they are also clearly separate issues and run separately from each other.

As far as I can tell and people will need to read between the lines on this one the club wants a reduced rent to stop at BV - without it they can’t afford to move the club on commercially until or if NM comes on line. This in turn would do Boxes job for him and kill the club before NM is ever built.

I suspect the hope is that the BOI will back down and offer a deal which would ultimately suit us and allow us to stay short term or develop long term. Either way the bottom line is cost and sad and risky leaving BV will be it is the only alternative.

One further point for TRB or IA.

I know the latest amount Yorkcourt are offering to get rid of us and it’s a fair pot of cash other than the strings attached.

Would it not be possible to take that cash and go in with Dewsbury and upgrade their ground which is well placed and ripe for development - or - is this not possible because it’s in Kirklees and the Sports Trust can only operate in WMDC and ditto YC is only obliged to deal with the Trust - if that makes sense?'"

Firstly, spot on summary of the current situation and how, primarily, NM & Belle Vue are unconnected in this current respect.

To address your point about the 'amount' YC are currently offering, and as you correctly state the strings attached to it, as ever, are quite complicated and multi-faceted. However, to put it simply YC have been the masters of the carrot on a stick approach to this deal since we learned that Newcold had been allowed to avoid the S106 obligations and the whole original deal we thought we had, was fundamentally put at risk primarily by WMDC actions.

So, the deal that YC is offering is the carrot and we can see it there, on the piece of string, dangling from the end of the stick! Great! He tells us the carrot is quite large, but not exactly how large? Well, he says, it is probably at least this big and might even be as big as this!!! We can see the carrot, it is there, but we really want to know exactly how big the carrot is and, more importantly, how far away it is before we decide whether to run and grab it. Sorry, he says, I can't tell you that now I am afraid, because even I don't know, but if you sign this deal now I promise I will give you a carrot, there will definitely be a carrot, look you can see it!!! We really, really want to know how big the carrot is and how far away the carrot is before we sign the deal and set off to grab the carrot? It could be close but small, maybe it is small but if we could have it now, then at least we would have had a carrot and maybe we could look for carrots from other people when we get hungry later? But the carrot might be larger because it is far away, but without knowing how far away, we don't known whether we will ever reach it and then if and when we do get there, it could still just be a really small carrot!!! Well, if you want a carrot from me then those are the conditions, you can either take the carrot, and I promise there will be a carrot, or leave the carrot, but if you do take it I can't tell you how big it is or when you can have it!

So, the reality at the moment is that we don't really have a deal, just the offer of a carrot at some point in the future! I already know that you, like us, would just continue to leave the carrot where it is because, at the moment, he has to keep it dangling there and while ever he does, we just might find out how big and how far away it is!

This of course brings us to the people who regulate the size of carrots, WMDC! We know that they have the option to get YC to tell us how big the carrot is and when we can have it, by stopping him from planting any more carrots, but so far they keep saying that as they are not selling the carrot, even though they are responsible for regulating carrots, that it is nothing to do with them!

So, to get away from bloody carrots, we have offered to take a beetroot instead, but we know exactly how big and when we would like our beetroot please? Trouble is, despite the beetroot being cheaper than the original carrot we wanted (and were indeed promised) he really does not want to give us our beetroot, probably because he thinks he can still get away with giving us a smaller carrot!

So, as you can see, there is not really a deal on offer unless you know who big and how far away the carrot is, or whether you can have a beetroot instead!

Sorry, that little fairy-story ended up being longer than I envisaged when I started typing!

So, the final point is that discussing what to do with your carrot, even taking your carrot outside the current carrot regulators area, is not really relevant until you have a carrot!

PS. On a serious note, it is an idea that should never be dismissed and we are willing and open to listen to all potential options... once we have a carrot!