Howlin' Wilf

Not so far this season we haven't Bobby! Are you coming through for Tuesday's match?

Just looking at St Mirren's record on the day after the 21st anniversary of our 8-0 pumping by Dundee United. We finished that season with 11 points which I believe is some sort of record. However, at this point in the season we had 9 of those points! St Mirren have 4. Very pleased with today's result.

I have no doubt that much shite was spoken by Mr Wilson last week. However, to be fair, the answer from the WDC 'spokesman' is predictable and not necessarily true. Always proceed with caution when a quote is from a 'source' or a 'spokesman'.

I wish the St Mirren effort every success. Having been on the organising end of collecting subscriptions for various things, I know they will need to be diligent indeed.

The peppercorn rent option was incidentally, the option favoured by Gilbert Lawrie as he saw it as safeguarding the club. Gilbert handled many large property sales and leases in his time and knew more about DFC than most. I understand however that the option was not pursued and was dropped in favour of club ownership. I have a feeling that Ian Wilson's resurrection of the option was as big a surprise to his fellow Brabco directors as it was to everyone.

Eh....no. I was simply exploring a line and backing it up with some facts. Maybe you're not familiar with the expression 'Devil's advocate'?

On the proposed stadium move, there are many questions which answer themselves and others which simply follow on to other questions. Leaving aside for a moment that there is a substantial trust deficit for Brabco and justifiably so, it's maybe worth considering a few points. If Brabco were to honour their offer of the club having the stadium in perpetuity for a peppercorn or no rent bound by a legally binding lease, then Brabco would be the owners of the stadium for apparently no reason. That's what been suggested here. However and again presuming their offer is genuine, might they insist on retaining ownership of the land so that no future owner might realise the asset? I.e. sell the ground. Let's for a moment the club do own the proposed new stadium. This would mean that instead of Brabco owning the stadium and land it would be owned by........drum roll........Brabco. In that case with no lease to bind the agreement, the club's security then once again becomes dependant on the whim of the owner, whoever he or they may be. Now in the time that I have supported Dumbarton, there have been four owners. The first was Robert Robertson, chairman of Hutchison Engineering. At one stage he tried to buy Clyde's majority shareholding and merge the two clubs. He also threatened to sell Boghead and move the club to Cumbernauld. Sir Hugh Fraser was next. SIr Hugh made the club a £40k loan which became repayable to his estate when he died. His daughter's solicitors were not patient and we're ready to take the club to court for the money. Not actually having the money the club actually faced a winding up order. Fortunately they avoided this by selling Steve McCahill to Celtic rather than having to sell the ground. I'm Next owner was Neil Rankine who appeared after paying only £40k for the majority shareholding. He proxied his shares to Jim Innes when he (Rankine) went bankrupt, only to reappear and take control again but only after Innes was on the point of accepting an offer from Boghead from a house builder. Only intervention by Gilbert Lawrie prevented that. Rankine bought the land at the Rock for £200k and built the stadium at the Rock with the proceeds of the sale of Boghead and £300k of money raised via sportscotland, Allied Distillers and Diageo. GIlbert, back at that time as a director, was convinced that Rankine was going to sell the club to the highest bidder - and there was considerable interest because of the potential land value. It was Gilbert who brokered the Brabco deal. Rankine supposedly got £800,000. A tidy profit less than twenty years after paying £40,000 for the shareholding. We can speculate that this might have been the thing to secure the club's future or indeed to deliver it to yet another owner who has designs on the potential value of the land occupied by the stadium - or something else.... And so in summary, on the various occasions where the future of DFC looked to have been in jeopardy during the last 45 years or so, on each occasion it was precisely because they owned a heritable asset. Comparisons with Airdrie, Stirling, Clyde etc are with clubs who I understand are paying market value rental which isn't what has been proposed. Ok, I'm playing devil's advocate and everyone is rightly suspicious of a deal which leaves the club apparently with no assets but you can't take the breeks aff a heilanman.

And here's what a decent strip looks like too!

The Arbroath no 10 appears to be simultaneously sniffing under his arm and er, playing with himself.

You also have to wonder who would or could be attracted to Sons at the moment. You can forget somebody who is doing well in the lower leagues as it surely wouldn't be an attractive proposition for advancement. It really would have to be someone out of work with a point to prove. If only I could think of someone....[emoji848]

I didn't make the game yesterday so I can't comment on what seems to have been quite a desperate performance. As for the manager's position, whilst those calling for him to go are quite justified and entitled to their opinion, a look at St Mirren's situation since appointing Jack Ross might introduce a note of caution. As for Aitken's demeanour/decorum, it is a very difficult thing to be seen to be failing and be on public display. He'll probably be disappointed with his grin gesture and some of his comments being relayed here. In the 80s we were bottom of the second tier, sacked Mark Clougherty and brought in Bertie Auld who had a pretty decent track record in management. We still got relegated. Then again, the switch from Adamson to Murray had a significant contribution to us staying up that season.

Might be lucky to get a quarter of the crowd Bonnyrigg attracted.

There you go, floodlit pitches and football stadiums. Table 7. http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2007/03/29102736/11

Indeed. However they are not at all common. Nor are they likely ever to be honoured!

Crikey. Just met a Sons fan who thinks that I'm in favour of the plan, simply because I've laid out possible scenarios here. I'm not in favour of it at all because I doubt that Brabco have the wherewithal to carry the plan through. I'd also be wary of a man like Ian Wilson, who by dint of his involvement in the Eclipse tax avoidance scheme seems to be a man who likes a get rich quick scheme. No, my reason for laying out scenarios is simply to play 'What would happen if?'

Guys there are many points being made here which have been discussed at length before. I'm not going to respond to them because there really is no point in sawing sawdust. Two main points though. The club owning the stadium means in fact that the owner of the club owns the stadium. The reason the golden share affects the borrowing is that the lender doesn't have complete security and control over the heritable asset.

The only advantage in owning a stadium is that you can borrow against the value. I think though that the golden share may have acted as an encumbrance in this respect. So if the club owned the stadium and could borrow against it, the bank could call in the loan at any time. What security does that give the club?

Maybe you missed the point Moonster. Apart from the imperfect golden share, what protection has owning our stadium had for DFC? As for tenant farmers, if they have a lease they are secure. Unfortunately if the lease runs out that is a problem. That is why I'm suggesting a 99 year lease which is generally the longest lease granted.

The golden share prevents the sale of the company's heritable assets which gives a measure of protection from an unscrupulous owner. What it wouldn't prevent would be for an owner to voluntary liquidate the club. In that case the football stadium would be redundant.

When I was appointed chairman of the company which holds the 'golden share', all the legal work had been done. The first thing I noticed was that all the focus was on protection of the sale of the stadium. There was nothing in place to protect the sale of the club. If and it still is a big if, the Dalmoak plan goes ahead, a 99 year lease at a peppercorn rent with a safeguard in place of some kind to protect the club would be the best model.

For the sake of clarity, even if 'the club' owns the stadium, Brabco are the de facto owners. If that were not so, then we wouldn't be facing the situation that we do with the current stadium. There would actually be more security of tenure were there to be a 99 year lease at a peppercorn rent. As long as there is heritable property as an asset of the club then there is a risk the majority shareholder can sell it.

If you check my posts after the last consultation, the plan always was that it would be a peppercorn rent. It was Gilbert himself who told me. The club subsequently denied that this was the case but I'm very clear what was said. The revelation on Thursday was that Wilson announced that Brabco intended to remain in charge of the club post project. I felt that bit was just made up in the heat of the moment.

It was me who asked the question about the exit strategy. I get the feeling that the answer came in the heat of the moment.

There is a lot to think about on the back of last night. The claims that the club could clear 300k from 'non football income' is a bold one indeed. Gross profits are fairly high in the hospitality industry, however it is very labour intensive. As a rough calculation, I'd reckon the turnover required to generate a net profit of 300k would be in the region of 1.5 million or even more. From what I gather, that figure (1.5m) is akin to around twelve times what the gross figure is for hospitality currently at CID. By Ian Wilson's own admission, it's approaching double DFC's entire turnover at present, which he pitched at 900k. Office space is notoriously difficult to let in the Dumbarton area and doesn't achieve particularly high rental. I'm not sure what the rental projections would be on 3g/4g pitches. If there is a plus, then it is with the proposed training facilities. However, the main concern has to be the viability of the plans and ability of Brabco to deliver them. If it were as presented in the artists' impressions and what was said last night, then hunky dory. However as a veteran of many planning presentations and artists' impressions in Dumbarton over the years, I've yet to see one come to full fruition. When Gilbert Lawrie was involved I had faith that he would act in the club's best interests. He was obviously compromised by Brabco paying his wages but his track record at DFC as a director and indeed saviour was a good one. Whatever doubts were cast on his plans presented in 2014, I thought that they were worthy of consideration, given Gilbert's expertise in both football administration and property development, the latter in which, he had fairly stellar qualifications and experience There is no such presence in Brabco's midst now. Ian Wilson puts me in mind of a Neil Rankine who has been to finishing school. The same insane messages but with a wee bit more finesse. There is a crumb of comfort mind you. There was a sizeable element of Sons support that didn't think Rankine would deliver the stadium at the Rock............