Terry_Hurlock
Well-known member
Croydon isn't kent 
Purchased land in Kent - new training facility
- Thread starter Shawmi
- Start date
Stompie
Well-known member
River?
Stompie
Well-known member
Most of the players live In Bromley, and the majority of them In and around the Beckenham/Shortlands area. That A2(?) can be an absolute bastard If there Is a hold up and then there's trying to get through Chislehurst which Is often rediculous, especially by the war memorial.
West Kingsdown has plenty of pikies so at least It will have something In common with our home ground.
Stompie
Well-known member
Neither Is Bromley.Croydon isn't kent
Unrelated but I just thought I should remind everyone.
A20 from Lewisham for West Kingsdown, steers clear of the A2 Dartford crossing bottleneck, just saying
whiskylion
Well-known member
River Ravensbourne.
Stompie
Well-known member
Fuck me Whisky I've pissed with more gusto than that.
I never knew It counted as a river as the majority of It, from what I've seen at least (and I live close enough not to need £3 a month sponsorship) looks more like a stream. I could be getting confused with another water source that Is quite near, but does a fair chunk of It run underground?
Life with the Lions
Well-known member
Is the club not putting the cart before the horse by doing this?
Why are the club spending potentially a few million quid to buy land and build on it new training facilities which would be "amongst the best in the country“ if we’re still a Championship club in a couple of years time?
Couldn’t that money be better spent on buying new players that might get us into the Prem, and once there we could then expect to have a training facility befitting our status as a Prem club?
I guess if nothing else, all of our sick note players will be pleased to have better surroundings and facilities whilst they’re recuperating from their injuries!
Why are the club spending potentially a few million quid to buy land and build on it new training facilities which would be "amongst the best in the country“ if we’re still a Championship club in a couple of years time?
Couldn’t that money be better spent on buying new players that might get us into the Prem, and once there we could then expect to have a training facility befitting our status as a Prem club?
I guess if nothing else, all of our sick note players will be pleased to have better surroundings and facilities whilst they’re recuperating from their injuries!
Polegate Lion
Well-known member
By the time it reaches Lewisham/Deptford it’s known to the locals as the Quaggy.
Talking of Ravensbourne, my two boys went to the school of that name in Hayes Lane. It turns out one of the caretakers was nonce. He’s just been done this week for historic sexual exploitation of children between the ages of eleven and fifteen. One of my boys told about the article on Kent Live, he said he remembered him as a creepy fucker.
No. If you want to succeed then surely having a plan and the infrastructure in place first is the way to go.
So keep gambling and hoping that one day we get lucky. Land isn't cheap, surely it's better to buy it now than somewhere down the line where it will be more expensive and quite possibly snapped up by someone else. Where is this money coming from to get ' better players ' that might get us to the premier? We're hamstrung by FFP rules so we can't just go out and gamble money on players.
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You have to speculate to accumulate.
Life with the Lions
Well-known member
When has any board member/chairman had a ‘plan’ for Millwall? As for having an ‘infrastructure’ don’t make me laugh: we don’t have a scouting system and our manager has refused to play any of our U23 forwards, instead relying on, and paying out for, on loan forwards like Parrott and Zahore, who have been a complete waste of time and money!
What is the club gambling on? Certainly not on the right sort of player that will get us into the Prem! Our club has never spent the money needed to buy the sort of players to get us promotion, and probably never will! Why? Because for years and years, ever since we were relegated from the old first division, our previous board members/chairmen have been too tight to spend the cash when and where it’s been needed, and they’ve been too short sighted to see that unless you ‘speculate to accumulate’ by buying the right players, then promotion to the Prem will never happen! And guess what? Every season we’ve had in the Championship, since the start of the 1990/1991 season, we’ve never looked like getting back there!
It’s probably not going to happen this season (God willing), but we all know from past experience how easy it is to have a good season one year, and get relegated the next! So in a couple of seasons, we could end up in league 1, with a fantastic training ground and fuck all else to show for the monetary outlay!
I don’t understand your point about being hamstrung by FFP rules? They didn’t stop us from (supposedly) putting in a £2M bid for Kiefer Moore, so why would there be a problem if we were interested in bidding for another £2M player? Or buying an additional player, but priced at £3M! Are we not allowed to spend £5M on two players in one season? Look at the amount of money Ipswich has spent this season, and they’re in league 1! FFP hasn’t stopped them!
I just worry the club is spending money that it can ill afford to waste, particularly after Covid has reduced our revenue for so long. Our home attendances have dwindled somewhat this season (hopefully that will change now we’re only a few points off the play offs), so we’ve been losing money there, and I just think the club should focus on dealing with the here and now, instead of spending millions on land for a better training facility in the future - a facility that won’t attract better players to our club on its own, and which could end up being a white elephant if, God forbid, we do get relegated to league 1.
It’s very rare for lightning to strike in the same place twice, but success will only come for us when we have a John Docherty type of manager, who can get a team of players working together, with desire in their hearts and fires in their bellies! Someone that doesn’t have to spend millions to build a new team from scratch, but who can motivate them to play consistently well week after week!
Unfortunately, IMO, that man isn’t Gary Rowett!
BigPaul
Well-known member
I went to that school. I was in the third year when it changed from Bromley Grammar school to Ravensbourne.
I spent many a happy afternoon doing cross country and negotiating said river by Bromley’s football ground.
When we moved from the Den is one, the regen is another, i presume we just got lucky getting promoted in 88 and any othe rtime we went up!
It looks like is going to change with the new place.
Because we're a smallish club with small crowds for this level and why we can't spend the money you seem to think falls out of the sky. We can't compete with clubs paying 30k a week to championship players, simple. You're talking about getting in players that will get us promotion, where are these players coming from, how much will thjey cost and where's the dough coming from? If you think owning a football club ain't a massive gamble then i think you're deluded.
We did and that's about our limit, it ain't going to get you promoted.
If we have it and we're not breaking ffp rules then yes. It's not just the fee's but wages as well, they all come under ffp rules on what you can spend according to your turnover from football related income.
And you want them to splah out on strikers that will fire us into the promised land, how much will that set the club back? Transfer fee and wages?
Time will tell.
Times have changed since then. We could Mourinho in, spend millions and stilll be no better off, it's all if's and buts, one big gamble with a load of luck thrown in.
whiskylion
Well-known member
Millwall spent, for its day, a huge amount if money buying players just prior to World War II. The aim was simple: promotion to Div 1 and on regular gates of 40,000 join the Arsenels and Evertons of this world.
Millwall also spent massive money by Div 2 standards buying Weller and Possee.
And John Docherty also had a formidable spending budget for his day to put together his promotion winning team.
It is wrong to say Millwall have never spent money to get promoted to the top flight.
However, since those days if Docherty the football landscape has changed. And we are very much old world.
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Shawmi
Well-known member
We are just an established championship side, I will take that for a few years as long and we don’t drop down to league 1. Just some entertaining football would be nice, actually go for it especially at home. JB money is great and as a chairman couldn’t ask for more, but it’s never really going to get us in the playoffs as we are up against teams that have money from their time in the premier. It’s will need new investment maybe it will come from Huski as there has been talk but don’t know how true that is.
I think we will just have more of the same for the foreseeable future.
I think we will just have more of the same for the foreseeable future.
Life with the Lions
Well-known member
Peckham, you make some compelling points, but you know I’m gonna counter them, so here goes!
You said, “When we moved from the Den is one, the regen is another, i presume we just got lucky getting promoted in 88 and any othe rtime we went up!”
We had to move from the old Den. Apart from the fact that it was falling apart, we as a club (and other clubs in the same situation as us) had to comply with the directive that all stadiums had to be made into all seater stadiums, so I would say we moved out of necessity, rather than we decided to build an all new seater stadium because we had this marvellous ‘plan’ to do X, Y and Z with it!
No one seems to know much about the regen project! Sure, we’ve seen architect drawings on what things will look like, but has any work begun on it yet? Do we know if there’s a completion end date? Are we on schedule or are we behind? No one from the club is saying much! Is it going to be a case of “believe it when you see it!”
You said, “Because we're a smallish club with small crowds for this level and why we can't spend the money you seem to think falls out of the sky. We can't compete with clubs paying 30k a week to championship players, simple. You're talking about getting in players that will get us promotion, where are these players coming from, how much will thjey cost and where's the dough coming from? If you think owning a football club ain't a massive gamble then i think you're deluded.
We did and that's about our limit, it ain't going to get you promoted.”
I never understand some Millwall supporters (and this isn’t a dig to anyone, just an observation), who seem to want to accept that we are a smallish club, and always will be. We are small, if you compare us to the big guns in the Prem, like Man U, Man City and the like, but personally (and you’ll probably disagree with this as well), I don’t think we’re any smaller or bigger than teams like Burnley, who have been in the Prem for a few seasons now! We are an established Championship club, and have been for a few years now, but that shouldn’t mean the club can sit on its laurels and just hope that we never get relegated to league 1 again! IMO our club should be striving to emulate the Burnley’s of this world, and make a conscious effort to get to the Prem, as they did!
Why do we have to pay players £30k a week, just because some other Championship sides do? Are all Championship sides paying that sort of money to any number of their players? Some probably are, but they are more likely to be teams that were relegated from the Prem, and those players may very well be on £30k a week because it’s the figure their club agreed with the player, and the contract stipulates that the player will still receive that amount, whether the club gets relegated or not! I very much doubt that players playing for your Coventry’s or your Stoke’s of our division are being paid £30k a week, yet both teams have done well this season, and both sit currently in the play off places!
If we bought a player from, say, league 2, is that player likely to be already on £15k - £20k a week, so that once he signs with us, he can demand an increase to £30k a week, simply because he’s now playing for a Championship club? I very much doubt it! Some of our own players are only on £8k - £10k a week, so I cannot see a league 2 player earning that, or more, playing two divisions below us!
We’ve bought good players from the lower leagues before, and they’ve played very well fo us! The question that needs answering is, is Drawett even looking there? Is Drawett looking abroad for players? Lots of clubs have done well buying in foreign players! Are all of these on £30k a week? A few perhaps, but I suspect the majority aren’t.
Every club has to factor in the cost of buying a player, and what that player wants as a weekly wage. We obviously could afford to buy and pay Kiefer Moore a better salary than what Wigan could, or he wouldn’t have bothered to even entertain the idea of possibly signing for us! Was Cardiff prepared to pay more than the weekly wage we offered? Possibly. I do think though, that a lot of what swayed him to pick Cardiff was the fact that he wanted to play in Wales again, so when they made a bid for him, it was really a no brainier who he would choose.
You say £2M is about our limit but it won’t get us promoted. You say that from a realist point of view. I see it from an optimist point of view that its not impossible to unearth an Ivan Toney type player from the lower leagues who could, at the very least, get us into the play offs, if not actually get one of the two outright promotion spots. Surely it’s better to remain optimistic that this might happen, otherwise what is the point of supporting your team if you don’t think that they have a chance to better themselves?
It’s like saying, “Well, why bother going to see Millwall play again - all they do is draw and lose.” We go because we want to see a win. We don’t go because we want to see a draw or a loss. So why shouldn’t we want better for our club? Why isn’t Berylson wanting more for the club he owns, and which to date he’s paid more than £40M out of his own pocket, just to keep the club afloat for the past 14 years, and in that time enjoying the odd trip to Wembley once in a while?
Of course buying a club and owning it is a massive gamble, and I’m sure many buyers who do so, do it knowing some/all of the risks involved. Some buyers see their purchase solely as an potential investment, something to sell in the future if the club is doing better than it was at the point of buying it, others do it because they have a connection to the club, and now have the money to help said club out. For me, Berylson falls between these two stools with Millwall. If he wants success, and a chance to recoup some/all of the money he’s spent, why is he holding back by not investing a bit more money to try and get that success? Is he just hoping that this regen project goes ahead, and he can make some money back when it’s completed? Will he invest more in the team once the regen project is completed, hoping it will tie in with us reaching the Prem? Unfortunately, only JB knows what’s going on in his head, and he as sure as hell isn’t telling the supporters of his plans!
Part 2 to follow…..
Life with the Lions
Well-known member
Part 2…..
You said, “If we have it and we're not breaking ffp rules then yes. It's not just the fee's but wages as well, they all come under ffp rules on what you can spend according to your turnover from football related income.”
I get and understand that, as I’m sure JB and the financial directors do as well. They must have been happy with the figures they added up, to try and get Moore without upsetting FFP or endangering the club’s finances. So, if £2M (with a ceiling of X amount for a weekly wage), was available then, why is it not available now, so Drawett can go out and try and land another forward/s (either from home or abroad)? As a trier, you cannot fault Afobe’s attitude, but he’s not going to get you 20+ goals a season. He is still a gamble for Drawett, on whatever we’re paying him, so why not use that £2M and buy someone who can get us 20+ goals a season?
You said, “And you want them to splah out on strikers that will fire us into the promised land, how much will that set the club back? Transfer fee and wages?
Like I said above, if JB and the financial directors know they’re limits (which looks like it won’t be more than £2M + weekly wages spent), and it doesn’t upset FFP or endangers the club’s finances, why should we not try and get the player/s we need? Many on here think we are two players away from becoming a very good Championship side! Who’s to say we can’t find one, maybe two forwards with that £2M (+ his/their weekly wages), from the lower leagues or abroad, that will fire us to at least a guaranteed play off spot?
You said, “Time will tell” in regards to whether a new training facility will or won’t attract better players to the club. If I were a lower league/foreign player looking to join Millwall FC, I would think, yeah, a state of the art training facility is good to have, but what I’d really want to know from the chairman and manager, is what are their plans for the club’s future? Where do they see themselves in a year, or five years from now? Do they want to get to the Prem and, if the club achieve that, will there be money available to strengthen the team once we’re there? These are the sort of questions a lower league/foreign player with ambition will ask. I doubt their decision to sign for the club would only hinge on the fact that our new training facility is the best in our division!
You said, “Times have changed since then. We could Mourinho in, spend millions and stilll be no better off, it's all if's and buts, one big gamble with a load of luck thrown in.”
I would agree with you regarding Mourinho and spending millions, but we know he would never come here, and we would never have that kind of money to splash around, so it’s a moot point really. Having said that, as a club we shouldn’t be deterred in trying to find a young, lower league/foreign manager, who has bright, new ideas that could mentally change our players way of playing, as well as changing our current state of dull, defensive football into one that is fluent, attacking, and exciting to watch!
We’re sitting very pretty at the moment, only 3 points off the 6th place play off spot! If we can hang around there, or better still, hang around inside the play off spots till January, think what one or two forward signings in January will do for the supporters, but more importantly for the team, if they can see what the club are striving for? It might convince Jed to stay if he sees the right intent is there!
I know you (and others), will probably disagree with all that I’ve said above, but it’s what I strongly believe, and no one will persuade me otherwise to think differently that I want my club to once again enjoy the type of success which we last had, back in the day, where for 2 seasons we rubbed shoulders with the old First Division elite.
Yes, we went into that 1st season with surprise on our side, but that isn’t to say that the players didn’t give their all in every game, because they did, and they did it superbly! I would like to think that, given another chance in the Prem, with the right finance, the right manager and the right players giving it everything they’ve got, we could again surprise a few teams, just as we did back in 1988/1989!
You said, “If we have it and we're not breaking ffp rules then yes. It's not just the fee's but wages as well, they all come under ffp rules on what you can spend according to your turnover from football related income.”
I get and understand that, as I’m sure JB and the financial directors do as well. They must have been happy with the figures they added up, to try and get Moore without upsetting FFP or endangering the club’s finances. So, if £2M (with a ceiling of X amount for a weekly wage), was available then, why is it not available now, so Drawett can go out and try and land another forward/s (either from home or abroad)? As a trier, you cannot fault Afobe’s attitude, but he’s not going to get you 20+ goals a season. He is still a gamble for Drawett, on whatever we’re paying him, so why not use that £2M and buy someone who can get us 20+ goals a season?
You said, “And you want them to splah out on strikers that will fire us into the promised land, how much will that set the club back? Transfer fee and wages?
Like I said above, if JB and the financial directors know they’re limits (which looks like it won’t be more than £2M + weekly wages spent), and it doesn’t upset FFP or endangers the club’s finances, why should we not try and get the player/s we need? Many on here think we are two players away from becoming a very good Championship side! Who’s to say we can’t find one, maybe two forwards with that £2M (+ his/their weekly wages), from the lower leagues or abroad, that will fire us to at least a guaranteed play off spot?
You said, “Time will tell” in regards to whether a new training facility will or won’t attract better players to the club. If I were a lower league/foreign player looking to join Millwall FC, I would think, yeah, a state of the art training facility is good to have, but what I’d really want to know from the chairman and manager, is what are their plans for the club’s future? Where do they see themselves in a year, or five years from now? Do they want to get to the Prem and, if the club achieve that, will there be money available to strengthen the team once we’re there? These are the sort of questions a lower league/foreign player with ambition will ask. I doubt their decision to sign for the club would only hinge on the fact that our new training facility is the best in our division!
You said, “Times have changed since then. We could Mourinho in, spend millions and stilll be no better off, it's all if's and buts, one big gamble with a load of luck thrown in.”
I would agree with you regarding Mourinho and spending millions, but we know he would never come here, and we would never have that kind of money to splash around, so it’s a moot point really. Having said that, as a club we shouldn’t be deterred in trying to find a young, lower league/foreign manager, who has bright, new ideas that could mentally change our players way of playing, as well as changing our current state of dull, defensive football into one that is fluent, attacking, and exciting to watch!
We’re sitting very pretty at the moment, only 3 points off the 6th place play off spot! If we can hang around there, or better still, hang around inside the play off spots till January, think what one or two forward signings in January will do for the supporters, but more importantly for the team, if they can see what the club are striving for? It might convince Jed to stay if he sees the right intent is there!
I know you (and others), will probably disagree with all that I’ve said above, but it’s what I strongly believe, and no one will persuade me otherwise to think differently that I want my club to once again enjoy the type of success which we last had, back in the day, where for 2 seasons we rubbed shoulders with the old First Division elite.
Yes, we went into that 1st season with surprise on our side, but that isn’t to say that the players didn’t give their all in every game, because they did, and they did it superbly! I would like to think that, given another chance in the Prem, with the right finance, the right manager and the right players giving it everything they’ve got, we could again surprise a few teams, just as we did back in 1988/1989!
BigPaul
Well-known member
Will you be publishing the executive summary?