Well i hope you are correct as the club moving out of Wakefield would kill it stone dead. But i have a feeling that bank will now actively pursue a sale rather than accept a lower rent and that will be that. Sad day.

I doubt MC will be going into this without a plan B, which he may be keeping quiet for now to tempt more support from the council for our new stadium?

Paying £120k a year in the Championship will kill it stone dead too mate, so you are stuck between a rock and a hard-place! As for the sale then the site is not worth what you think it is, trust me on that, and also who will they sell it to?

I have no idea what it is worth and neither do i particularly care. Given it has planning permission for housing then i would guess that sector might have an interest.

They have plans B, C and possibly even D and E!

Plan A is to remain at Belle Vue, until Newmarket is built, but paying a fair rent for the current stadium set-up and not the current unfair over-inflated rent.

Plans B, C etc are paying a fair rent at another stadium, to suit the current league status of the club, until Newmarket is built.

All the other options are not viable unless you have a few £m burning a hole in your pocket?

It is that simple really!

Not until you build a stadium at Newmarket you don't.... planning condition 38!

That's my take on it.

Indeed they can but it would take time and money and would not happen overnight! So, the bank are not only now having to shell out £5k a month in rates and 24hr security, they have to pay a nice tidy sum to get the planning condition lifted... it has failed once and they didn't appeal because they would have lost and they know it! The land is not worth what you might think, as we found out, so actually you are better off taking some rent and then selling the site a couple of years down the line because that is the option that costs the BOI the least money!

Have some very happy memories of BV, usually when we've beaten you back in the day (sorry). Also had some great times in the hospitality there. Be very sad to see it go.

This could of course be your chairman playing hardball and trying to get a better deal, although the word on Station Lane is that you'll be playing in WF7 next year, should you actually leave BV.

If you do leave, I hope the club announce it before the last game, I'd certainly like to say goodbye to the old girl.

I appreciate that this might be partly brinksmanship, but of course one potential outcome is that this is our last year at Belle Vue. It was a genuine enquiry about the middle 8's. Although it might not turn out to be the end of Belle Vue as a rugby stadium (and as you have alluded to, the decision behind the serving of six months notice is sound) if it is, two months will be too late for people who might find it difficult to get to Belle Vue on the last fixture but would make an extra effort for the "last game". Or even might want to spend longer there on the last day.

So let's say that one of the scenarios is that we leave Belle Vue in six months time, does anyone know when the last game would be, knowing how the middle 8's work? Would hate to be turning up at the Rams stadium next year, for example, because the six months notice had expired and realising that the game against whoever had been the last one at Belle Vue and I'd just mooched out without a second glance.

I don't think there is a willingness to move out of the area, far from it, the club want to stay at Belle Vue but they also just want to pay a fair market rent. We all know that the current rent is massively over-inflated and is killing the club anyway! So you are running the club, and you wake-up this morning knowing that you have made what you consider to be a fair offer on a new lease and they have not responded, you also know that unless you serve notice today then you are stuck paying that same over-inflated rent next year irrespective, or you are in breach of your lease. Also, lets not forget you could have a massively reduce income next year and at this time, you don't know for certain, but it is very possible!

So what do you do?

Genuine question!

Fair point, get it now! And I don't know the answer exactly but will it not be mid-September to early October?

Although it is a gamble, the decision seems right. The club is saying to the bank "stop ripping us off or we're leaving" and to the council "because we're being ripped off, we're leaving, so you better pull your finger out and sort out Newmarket".

The likely outcomes seem to be:
1. Stay at Belle Vue with a reduced rent, making the club more viable, with Newmarket still a possibility.
2. The council take action in relation to Newmarket, so we stay at Belle Vue in the short term, high rent or not.
3. Same as 2, but playing elsewhere in the interim.
4. The bank accepting notice, the council doing little, and we play elsewhere permanently. Until we fold.
5. Withdraw the notice and pay the same rent as we are, with the council doing nothing about Newmarket. Until we fold.

Given that, in my rather simplistic analysis, outcomes 4 and 5 are likely to be the same, it's a sensible gamble.