Howlin' Wilf

But Denny's homes are to build on half the land. They're getting it cheap.....

Well I have to say that several of those posting appear to have taken exactly that approach. You've also quoted me a tad out of context too though. I can only repeat that despite my fears for the future of the club in either location, I have no idea if this is a good move or not. Until I know more about it I cannot hope to know. That is why I'm going along on Wednesday with an open mind and with some questions prepared. And that's why I took the trouble to share some background facts with my fellow supporters here today.

I was told yesterday that Gilbert Lawrie and Alan Jardine will be there.

I can only repeat what I have said previously. Yes it should be scrutinised. Yes we need more information. Yes we should question the viability. What we shouldn't do is stick our head in the sand and shout 'go away nasty Brabco!'

Gilbert Lawrie was instrumental in negotiating the deal for Brabco to buy Rankine's shares. Brabco's majority shareholder is of a family with connections to DFC going back to the 1940s. I would be astonished if profit was their sole motive and 'nothing else'.

To be fair, getting the Sonstrust director on board, pre-dated Brabco.

I think it was a combination of the two for the reasons I outlined. However you obviously know better.

Yes indeed. PR is not DFC's forte.

I'm not privy to Brabco's deal with Rankine but wouldn't be surprised if the remaining amount of what they allegedly owe him is contingent on the plan going ahead. I'm not asking you to 'trust them' I'm just asking you to take some facts into consideration. Ignore or refute them as you wish, even if it's just because they conflict with your conclusions but I can assure you that what I've written above is 100% true; and written by someone who has no official connection with the club these days other than as a fan who travels onra bus.

Drawn back into the discussion here reluctantly and once again I must stress that I don't yet know enough about the proposed move to form a definitive opinion. But....... I really must question that the Brabco thing has all along been an end to a means. In 2002 when I was chair of the Community Stadium Company, in my very first meeting with Gilbert Lawrie (then a newly reappointed board member), he declared that he thought we had moved to the wrong location and that long term our future lay elsewhere. His reasoning was that the location would become increasingly unsuitable as housing began to encircle the stadium. He had not been on the board during the time of the building of the stadium and said that had he been asked he would have strongly recommended another location. Around 2006 when Neil Rankine, having taken us to the depths of the third division was getting increasingly desperate to sell, I was asked by a prominent businessman whom I know and who has been closely involved in Scottish Football for years to set up a meeting with Rankine, which I did. It was clear that Rankine was not going to value his shareholding on the basis of a part time football club but instead on the value of the land. My acquaintance was not prepared to meet Rankine's price and that was that.Indeed he expressed the opinion to me that no sane person would meet Rankine's price. The club remained for sale in the columns of the Times for a long time. There was no interest. In the meantime Rankine was being inundated with offers for the land. It was clear that if the club were to survive, someone would have to meet Rankine's price for the club as a going concern or he would one day simply take an offer. The only possible way Rankine's valuation could be met was with the eventual sale of the land being part of the plan. However, as I already said, Gilbert had declared years earlier that he thought we were in the wrong location. Rankine was content for the club to scrape around the bottom leagues as he knew the investment required to improve was not going to increase his wedge. The worse we were, the less likely it was that a buyer interested in a football club would come along and as land values increased, the more likely it was that he would sell to a developer. Brabco apparently met Rankine's price and ownership of the majority of the club's shares went to them. Now ask yourself if Brabco have behaved like asset strippers? Since they took over the turnaround in the club's fortunes on the field has been dramatic. So yes ultimately Brabco want a return on their investment but it isn't just as simple as that as I have tried to outline here. The alternative looked increasingly like Rankine selling to a developer and you can be sure there would have been no alternative at Dalmoak in the offing. A groundshare with the Vale would have probably been our only hope. So I would ask that people judge the plans on their merits as they unfold and not as some big bad developer trying to screw us. I really don't think that's the case. However the plans do need to stand up to scrutiny and they may become clearer on Wednesday. I doubt any finer financial details will emerge before the planning application is considered in March though.

I'd have to check but from memory at least three years ago.

As there hasn't been an AGM in some time no one knows. I'd be surprised though if there haven't been some directors' loans over that time.

Nothing to do with the local retail sector. It's down to Homebase's fall in profits and a subsequent decision to close a quarter of their stores. The deal with B & M is for most of those stores.

Fair enough Moonster. I just realised that this isn't a good use of my time.

Lads, all I ever wanted to do was provide a wee bit of perspective here and say that the proposed project was perhaps worthy of consideration, albeit on a sceptical basis. I'm neither a proponent of nor a cheerleader for the proposed move - indeed I have many questions I would like answered. I have limited knowledge of the issues involved but tried to point out a few salient facts within that limited knowledge. However I didn't realise that there is such a body of expertise here on everything from flood patterns at Dalmoak to market research in the retail, wedding, hospitality, sporting and fitness fields (sic) in Dumbarton. Nor did I know what depth of knowledge of the local housing and commercial property market existed on this forum. I didn't realise that the fact that the two prime movers in this proposal, with a track record between them of something like a century of supporting the club counted for hee haw. Who knew that Dumbarton/Vale would be possibly the only centre of population of its size in Scotland where no sporting, commercial, retail or hospitality development can be successful on a 120 acre green field site despite being on the main west coast tourist route north, on a site with historical value, bordering a National Park and 20 minutes from the airport? Thanks everyone for pointing it out. I might have been foolish enough to consider the possibilities further if you hadn't intervened. I'm out of this topic.

Page 68 of The Sons of the Rock by Jim McAllister "When (Ian) Fearn resigned, the board advertised for a replacement, leaving John Hosie in charge until the appointment of ex Scotland international Willie Toner a month later"

Moonster, as I said it was clearly a ball park figure. The reason it wasn't on an information board is probably because they cannot be definite about costs two years hence. How much was Ryan Gauld worth two years ago for example? To include £3m for him in any business plan would have seemed fanciful. How much will an acre of land in Dumbarton be worth in two years time? more predictable than the value of a footballer perhaps but still volatile. The kind of guff on the information boards is entirely typical of such presentations. They will never have financial information on them. This was a planning consultation in any case - not a business plan presentation. As I said they need planning permission before the next stage of a business plan. 'No one from Brabco was there' Eh,,,I understood that Gilbert Lawrie represents both Brabco and the club. If he was there he was available for questions. I don't know what the questions from Balloch Sonsfan were or how relevant. From my own point of view I took a bit of trouble to actually read the information boards before asking questions. This was done in a spirit of courtesy from both sides. I have more information now but not the full picture. I did ask about Brabco and was told that Calum Hosie owns a majority shareholding in it. As someone who remembers his uncle as the man who virtually ran DFC for decades, including a short spell as team manager, this gives me a bit of comfort. Be vigilant and ask questions. Just make sure they are the right ones at the right time.

There will be all sorts of data already available via Experian and the like on the viability. The £4m figure came from Gilbert Lawrie when I asked him, as a fan, at the exhibition how much phase 1 would cost and how this sum would be raised. Straight answer to a straight question. I heard the same question from others and the same answer was given. I'm interested if others asked questions if they felt weren't answered satisfactorily. If that's the case there may not yet be answers. To answer a question when the answer isn't available? Now that would be bullshit. 200 attended and I understand that around 50 responses were received. Considering we have 600 season ticket holders that's pretty poor. A bit disappointing too that so many who have declared themselves as 'No' voters didn't even take the trouble to attend or ask a question. I'm not getting at you here because I think you did attend. However it's a bit rich for people to complain about lack of info when there was an opportunity to speak directly to DFC, Brabco and their advisers. I hope the Sonstrust event, to which I am going next week, is well attended. I also urge people to respond on the Sonstrust site to the plans instead of fulminating on here.

Moonster......take a deep breath. There wouldn't be anything built without tenants signed up. That is how these things work. To sign people up you have to have planning permission. To get planning permission you have to go through a public consultation process. The idea of build it and they will come most definitely doesn't apply. I have major concerns but lets keep the concerns to legitimate ones. I believe the ball park figure for phase 1 is £4 million. Until the current site can achieve that value at least, the whole thing is a non starter.

Yes for every Kilmarnock stadium hotel, there are probably ten ventures like the David Duff hotel one at Hibs many years ago . This story http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/chairman-reveals-how-he-won-control-of-hibs-1.600865 soon became this one http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/hibs-former-chief-jailed-for-two-years-for-fraud-1.747680 On the face of it, swapping an 11 acre site with no realistic plan for development for a 120 acre one on which the council would support and encourage development is a 'no brainer'. The current site will never be developed beyond what it is for the reasons I have outlined ad nauseum.That's my opinion, I may be wrong but if anyone can give me an example of where investment has come from entirely within a Scottish part-time club to provide training facilities or significant additional income streams I'd be interested. . Similarly if anyone can tell me how you get round a local plan which designates the area occupied by the stadium as one for housing that'd be good too. 'But no one has ever tested the planning issues'. That may be true and if it is it'll be for two main reasons: 1) Because of the local plan and other frankly pretty obvious planning issues and 2) No sane businessman would invest in the current site for footballing/commercial purposes when it is clear that someone at some stage is going to realise that site for housing. That was (even more) true when Rankine had it and it remains the case with Brabco. If the club (the club, not the majority shareholder) is to be a commercial landlord with income streams from large companies on long leases, that's really just grand scale buy to let. A far, far better bet income wise than trying to bring through young players and sell them on. Despite the exception that is Hamilton Accies, that train left some time ago. HOWEVER I am greatly concerned that the club has not had an AGM for so long. Companies with nothing to hide do not generally behave in this way. And of course the devil may well be in the detail of all this. It does look, prima facie, appealing from a business point of view but there are many pertinant questions which remain unanswered. The answer to most of those questions will be 'money'

Aye sorry I went back to my original post and I hadn't worded it well. What I was trying to say was imagine that DFC could enhance its income stream by leasing out parts of the new site? If a gym.hotel and other businesses were charged rent then we could be looking at maybe £250k per anum or more income. I have no idea if these businesses could be attracted but presumably that would be ascertained before any move?

Surprised I must say. We had our silver wedding there and I thought everything was top notch.

Some valid points there although I'm not sure all the pieces fit......

No-one, least of all me is recommending a hook, line and sinker approach to this proposed development. There are serious questions to be asked that not even the proposed developers could answer at this stage, due to land prices, the economy etc. So you are quite right to apply rigour and so we should. 'Dumbarton FC has no pressing need to relocate anywhere' is a true statement on its own. However what about Dumbarton FC has a pressing need to increase its income and relocation may, I repeat may be a way of doing that? The reason people choose the BBS for weddings is mainly the capacity. There is no other wedding/function venue in Dumbarton which holds more than 200. James at the Abbotsford has lost out because of lack of capacity but also because his function rooms are on the first floor, although I have attended two weddings there in recent years - both small affairs and not the typical Dumbarton large family scenario. The Dumbuck hasn't just been deserted by the wedding trade........ How was your meal at Lodge on the Loch? not a patch on Robert Sloan I'm willing to bet and from what I hear about double the cost and charges added (£60 for a room for the bride and groom to change) at every turn. Anyway enough of all this. Here's hoping we can get something out of our trip to Livingston.

Well the main planning veto for the current site is that no-one will ever invest in it other than for housing. Historic Scotland exercised a few vetos during the building of the stadium, the main one being that they wouldn't accept a stand facing the Rock. That is why the stand was built where it is. Now you have several hundred households in the vicinity, each of which could object to any planning application submitted. The Council would be highly likely to veto any application because of the residential nature of the area and the parking ratio. See my comments about a temporary stand some time ago. There is as much chance as shit from a rocking horse that a hotel company would site a Premier Inn/Travelodge type place so far from a main road and the local plan rules out any retail development. I can't say this is evidence in the documentary sense, neither, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, can someone prove that there isn't a teapot in orbit of the sun between earth and Mars.