Tagg's Trust AGM speech - 3 option

[WXF]

Article in tonght's Evening Standard about the cost of building Wimbledon's new ground overrunning and how it may threaten fan control and ownership of the club: https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/fans-fear-for-future-of-afc-wimbledon-as-club-face-11m-shortfall-to-build-new-stadium-a4296711.html. A cautionary story about our cousins at a fellow fan owned club.

 

[StudentGrecian]

Unless Tagg spoke to you directly and expressed those views to you I feel your comments are a bit harsh. I think Tagg was just contemplating the future and the possible options, of which he gave three.
Some people are probably pushing him to build a new stadium, whilst many will be saying don't. He's opening debate on the topic, which is fair enough and already stimulated a lot of discussion on here
Tagg might have made some mistakes (nothing grievous) but I think he is City through and through and has done a good job, guiding the club to a much better place than when he was part of the takeover.
PS. I don't know Tagg personally and have no vested interest in defending him,).

I agree, Tagg is city through and through and I have never been one to say a bad word against him. However, he is doing much more than opening the discussion here, he is clearly expressing what he thinks we should do, which as Chairman carries a bit of weight.

"If it is decided it’s to be number one, it will be a great relief to me as I have a mountain of other things I would like to do with my life before it’s over, but I’ll wait a bit longer for you… the Trust" . He makes it sound like he isn't going to be arsed to do anything if we don't 1. Seek external investment or 2. Follow this Greater Exeter plan.
I don't support either of these options, and I'm sure others don't either, but that doesn't mean I don't want the club to develop. Just seems like he is telling us there are three options and that is it, he isn't going to try and seek others options that would be viewed more favorably to trust members such as myself.

 

[IndoMike]

I agree, Tagg is city through and through and I have never been one to say a bad word against him. However, he is doing much more than opening the discussion here, he is clearly expressing what he thinks we should do, which as Chairman carries a bit of weight.

"If it is decided it’s to be number one, it will be a great relief to me as I have a mountain of other things I would like to do with my life before it’s over, but I’ll wait a bit longer for you… the Trust" . He makes it sound like he isn't going to be arsed to do anything if we don't 1. Seek external investment or 2. Follow this Greater Exeter plan.
I don't support either of these options, and I'm sure others don't either, but that doesn't mean I don't want the club to develop. Just seems like he is telling us there are three options and that is it, he isn't going to try and seek others options that would be viewed more favorably to trust members such as myself.

Overall I agree with what you say, but if I understand you correctly you are suggesting that there are additional options not yet mentioned. I am.genuinely curious to know what those additional options could be, since I feel the three already mentioned seem to cover everything.
I want us to stay at SJP because a football club needs a soul : it shouldn't be about prawn sandwich facilities and a multitude of other non-football activities.
Imo the risk of paying for a new stadium outweighs any benefits. Bounemouth has done really well and established itself as a PL club, but still has a stadium with a limited capacity. They didn't need to build a bigger stadium.
However, Taggy is rightly probably worried about the future of the club since we are relying on player sales, which might be cyclical rather than seasonal
So for me what we have to do is clear : focus on ways to increase our income whilst remaining at SJP (and don't waste time, energy and consultants' fees on what might be a white elephant). That is probably not easy, but with the combined brains of City supporters from all walks of life I like to think we can do that.
If we can establish ourselves in Div 1 and average crowds of 6k that will be a test of the viability of a new stadium. If we moved within 3 years but were still.in Div 2 I'd doubt that we'd get higher crowds than we do now.

 

[StudentGrecian]

Overall I agree with what you say, but if I understand you correctly you are suggesting that there are additional options not yet mentioned. I am.genuinely curious to know what those additional options could be, since I feel the three already mentioned seem to cover everything.
I want us to stay at SJP because a football club needs a soul : it shouldn't be about prawn sandwich facilities and a multitude of other non-football activities.
Imo the risk of paying for a new stadium outweighs any benefits. Bounemouth has done really well and established itself as a PL club, but still has a stadium with a limited capacity. They didn't need to build a bigger stadium.
However, Taggy is rightly probably worried about the future of the club since we are relying on player sales, which might be cyclical rather than seasonal
So for me what we have to do is clear : focus on ways to increase our income whilst remaining at SJP (and don't waste time, energy and consultants' fees on what might be a white elephant). That is probably not easy, but with the combined brains of City supporters from all walks of life I like to think we can do that.
If we can establish ourselves in Div 1 and average crowds of 6k that will be a test of the viability of a new stadium. If we moved within 3 years but were still.in Div 2 I'd doubt that we'd get higher crowds than we do now.

Well I think you've summed it up nicely, I'd be looking at options that can increase revenue whilst staying at SJP. Tagg doesn't offer that option, just states option one as continuing as we are.
I'm all for development and improvement, but as you say, I feel the risks of all the options Tagg is suggesting are too great. He makes it sound like we have no option but to seek investment or relocate, but offers nothing to suggest more can be done at SJP. Maybe nothing more can be done? I don't know.

Maybe if Tagg had suggested these were potential options in a few years, in the event we became an established League One club, I might be more open to the ideas. His wording in my opinion is quite insulting of the Trust, like we are holding the club back from these big ideas he has. Similarly Tisdale started talking about leaving the Trust behind to improve us as a club when we served him his notice. Maybe they are correct, they have a better knowledge of the inside workings of the club than me, but I feel like the risk is too great, especially in a climate where an established football league club has gone bust (I know the situations are completely different, but it has instilled a need to be cautious in me).

Obviously risks will need to be taken to improve the club as a whole, but when the risks could leave us with big repayments (New Stadium) or losing control of our club as we know it (Outside investment),I couldn't support it.

 

[IndoMike]

Well I think you've summed it up nicely, I'd be looking at options that can increase revenue whilst staying at SJP. Tagg doesn't offer that option, just states option one as continuing as we are.
I'm all for development and improvement, but as you say, I feel the risks of all the options Tagg is suggesting are too great. He makes it sound like we have no option but to seek investment or relocate, but offers nothing to suggest more can be done at SJP. Maybe nothing more can be done? I don't know.

Maybe if Tagg had suggested these were potential options in a few years, in the event we became an established League One club, I might be more open to the ideas. His wording in my opinion is quite insulting of the Trust, like we are holding the club back from these big ideas he has. Similarly Tisdale started talking about leaving the Trust behind to improve us as a club when we served him his notice. Maybe they are correct, they have a better knowledge of the inside workings of the club than me, but I feel like the risk is too great, especially in a climate where an established football league club has gone bust (I know the situations are completely different, but it has instilled a need to be cautious in me).

Obviously risks will need to be taken to improve the club as a whole, but when the risks could leave us with big repayments (New Stadium) or losing control of our club as we know it (Outside investment),I couldn't support it.

I think we are at one on this.
But I wouldn"t say Tagg was insultung the Trust (at least that was not my interpretation), but I think it was a dig in the Trust's ribs to say we need to do a lot more to raise funds if we stay at the Park.

 

[PeteUSA]

Even if Tagg is "City through and through", I was never a fan of his during the Perryman/Tisdale era. I just didnt care much for the weekly morning coffee meetings with Tisdale at The Milkmaid. I dont think its any secret that Tagg took the loss of Tisdale and Perryman extremely badly, and boy did it show! We did well to ultimately offload the pair of them, but it wasnt through any cooperation by Tagg. What I would really have liked, but I was probably hoping for too much, was for Tagg to have gone as well. He was far to caught up in the T&P idiology, so a clean sweep of all three giving us a clean sweep with no leftovers would have been preferable. Tagg was obviously very close to them, and when he comes out with the three prong statement he has, two prongs of which will never happen, he worries me. I know all that he did for the youth setup in the early days (apparently) but we cant be beholding to him forever for something that many people probably dont even know. I'm still not a JT fan, like he cares.

 

[IndoMike]

Even if Tagg is "City through and through", I was never a fan of his during the Perryman/Tisdale era. I just didnt care much for the weekly morning coffee meetings with Tisdale at The Milkmaid. I dont think its any secret that Tagg took the loss of Tisdale and Perryman extremely badly, and boy did it show! We did well to ultimately offload the pair of them, but it wasnt through any cooperation by Tagg. What I would really have liked, but I was probably hoping for too much, was for Tagg to have gone as well. He was far to caught up in the T&P idiology, so a clean sweep of all three giving us a clean sweep with no leftovers would have been preferable. Tagg was obviously very close to them, and when he comes out with the three prong statement he has, two prongs of which will never happen, he worries me. I know all that he did for the youth setup in the early days (apparently) but we cant be beholding to him forever for something that many people probably dont even know. I'm still not a JT fan, like he cares.

You're entitled to your opinion Pete,and I agree he gave T & P too much rope. They probably pulled the "we were pros and we know best" line and he went along with it, i.e they pulled rank As I said in my post, he made mistakes, but overall I think he's done pretty well. We could have gotten a lot worse.

 

[ramone]

Even if Tagg is "City through and through", I was never a fan of his during the Perryman/Tisdale era. I just didnt care much for the weekly morning coffee meetings with Tisdale at The Milkmaid. I dont think its any secret that Tagg took the loss of Tisdale and Perryman extremely badly, and boy did it show! We did well to ultimately offload the pair of them, but it wasnt through any cooperation by Tagg. What I would really have liked, but I was probably hoping for too much, was for Tagg to have gone as well. He was far to caught up in the T&P idiology, so a clean sweep of all three giving us a clean sweep with no leftovers would have been preferable. Tagg was obviously very close to them, and when he comes out with the three prong statement he has, two prongs of which will never happen, he worries me. I know all that he did for the youth setup in the early days (apparently) but we cant be beholding to him forever for something that many people probably dont even know. I'm still not a JT fan, like he cares.

Just cant give it up can you ? I would love to see you put as much pride , passion and energy into ECFC as Julian does every single day.
He is an ambassador for our club , a well respected local business man and someone I and others are very glad he didn't bugger off when PT and SP did.
And don't go putting him down with the "apparently" bit of the youth team because someone like you doesn't know the real facts.

 

[i8cornwall]

This is the letter sent to members of AFC Wimbledon, Don Trust yesterday. Fans have two weeks to decide on going alone and putting the club finacially at risk or giving up control. This could be us if we decide to leave SJP and the pitfalls of it.

 

[IndoMike]

This is the letter sent to members of AFC Wimbledon, Don Trust yesterday. Fans have two weeks to decide on going alone and putting the club finacially at risk or giving up control. This could be us if we decide to leave SJP and the pitfalls of it. View attachment 1407

Don't like the sound of that AT ALL
And the usual "we have the best interests of the club at heart" from potential investors. Maybe they do, but businessmen always have an angle.