Dave Mackay Ate My Hamster

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

The Mike Ashley brigade remind me of a young Stive - going to a night club hoping to pull

Dancing with a few nice-looking girls, who inevitably lose interest and cop off with someone much more handsome/rich/funny than me

At which point, around 2:30am, I look to see who is left - and it's slim pickings I'm afraid. Just that one girl, who every one knows is bad news, but is guaranteed to give you a knee trembler in the Blacksmith's Yard if you let her know you're up for it.

You wouldn't ever want a serious relationship with her, but hey  - it's now 2:45am. They are kicking out. It's getting desperate

10 minutes later, you're down the alleyway. As you achieve your goal - you look down at her....she looks up at you...

you say, tenderly but with a hint of regret...

"has anyone ever told you that you look a bit like that Mike Ashley, love?"

 

 

 

 

 

You are Ian Holloway - and I claim my £5.

42 minutes ago, Mihangel said:

Nah, Mike Ashley, if you're reading this, we don't want you....

Obv he won't be, but I'd rather we go defunct and start again than have that CJTC own us.

Are you an anti-vaxer? ?

1 hour ago, Gaspode said:

We had a damn good case against the 12 points (proven by subsequent EFL rules changes that allowed clubs to lose more money because of COVID) - Q simply abandoned the appeal to speed up the process. They have made a series of poor decisions throughout this whole fiasco - doubt they’ll get much future work in football…..

I hadn't considered that one, but yes, we'd certainly have a Covid defence to that one as well.

Rules that have since been changed, grants we weren't allowed to apply for. Then we've had administrators that have offered us up for a damn good thrashing before putting us up for sale - to facilitate what? 

A bit like being cut adrift on a life raft and days later you spot a rescue ship.  Hooray! But it's a pirate ship. Quantuma have been our pirate ship.

Sorry Quantuma.

Edit: Quantuma came out as Quantum's in my post title.

I know it's all what's, whys and wherefors, but what if they hadn't rolled over bared their bellies to the EFL and left the issue " in abeyance " in the hands of lawyers?

We'd still be a Championship side. Yes we obviously wouldn't have avoided the -12 penalty for administration, but we'd be a much more attractive option.

Any half-decent lawyer could have exposed the EFL's inconsistencies in not having a written policy of amortization, allowing us to interpret that inconsistency in otherwise perfectly legal accountancy practices, then the fact that they  retrospectively changed their rules, announcing that " the straight line method " was retrospectively the only way. I think we'd have had an excellent chance of winning that argument with a robust " lawyered-up " team.

These legal ramblings would have rumbled on for many months, well into next season. Meanwhile we'd be a much better business opportunity for any potential buyer. Even to the point of paying the extra £8m or so to avoid the --15 points by being more generous with our creditors.

A Championship team, with our support-base, coming out of administration free of debt is surely worth £8m more a Division 1 team, starting on minus 15 points, with various suitors fighting over our carcass for ever decreasing amounts.

With wise management and spending we could potentially have had a good shot of getting to the Premier League.

The current way things are shaping up we're a Division 1 club starting on -15 points.

Am I being too idealistic? It could have been so different. It's not as though accepting the extra 9 points deduction got us anywhere...

In the 1799 pages of this thread's existence, this has been possibly the stressiest day of all. 

Kicked of by Radio Derby's " inside man "  exposing " CK as a potential Walter Mitty tyre-kicker.

Cue confusion. CK " doorstopped " by a Sky reporter and looking " shady "

Mike Ashley potentially resurfacing as our potential saviour.

Then, at the 11th hour CK potentially not being so bad after all.

This is the reality of the internet world where everybody is able to self-publish.  Me included.

It's like watching a self-publishing ping-pong match.

Nobody knows anything. People post anything masquerading as news  - and the masses comment on it as fact.

Press releases are sooo yesterday. Let's just treat rumour as fact.

No wonder we're all so stressed. Rumour ISN'T news.

People claiming " to know "

Can I be the first to declare I know zip all?

We're all feeding each other on rumour and supposition.

In the absence of news there is...

... the internet.

I know CK has been a little haphazard and inconsistent in his tweets and various communications in this whole process. His "funds" are slightly mysterious, but he clearly has plenty. He's a (questionably how much, we don't know ) wealthy man who's entering into the takeover as a vanity project.

I think Mike Ashley seriously underestimated him as a tyre-kicker and thought he wouldn't be able to get the deal over the line, and he could do what he's done a hundred times, and saunter in at the eleventh hour with the only offer in town.

MA got it wrong. Despite CK's amateurish PR, he clearly has the readies to get this far, hence the reported attempt by Ashley to share the deal late on.

I'm not enthused by either of them, but that's where Mel has left us. The last 2 players at the poker table are the flash boy and the bluffer. Maybe they're both bluffing.

It's looking like CK will - eventually - get it over the line, and if he does we'll all be grateful.

I only hope that we can just get back to supporting our great club again whilst living within our means. 

Sadly, nothing is certain given how far we've fallen.

Hopeful, but still rather wary.

Just as a business proposition, if hypothetically you bought a football stadium for £20m and charged £1m a year in rent that's a decent rental income. 

Despite current higher inflation, the banks are still only paying around 1% interest, so a 5% return is a decent income stream on that amount of investment.

Add to the mix, utilising the ground for music gigs or other events, that return could increase even more.

As a property investment it's a good stand alone venture. If, as reported, the investors are local, facilitating the survival of our club, alongside a community-minded good PR venture, whilst taking a decent return makes a lot of sense.

Add into the mix, if we recover to being promoted to the Championship, or God forbid the Premier League, those rental fees will increase.

In summary, a sound property investment for any business, with only upside.

9 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Erm, not really

Clueless

Even more clueless. CK's offer is worth more than that

Only hope? ?

Mate, if I got it wrong, nobody would be more delighted than me to eat humble pie, if we have a functioning club to support next season.

Let's face it, it was going to the wire, and it's not certain, but much more likely after tonight, that we'll get there.

If I had the odd £30m I wouldn't be comfortable ploughing it into bailing out Mel's s*** show.

On a separate note, whilst we're all full of bonhomie, let's just take a moment to salute Jake Daniels, a brave 17 year old young man, with a brilliant future in the game, who chose today to publically come out.

It shouldn't even be a thing in 2022… but Sir, I salute you.

2 minutes ago, Kernow said:

Whatever happens in the future, we have spent many months staring into the abyss with very few parties willing to save us. So called ‘fans’ have chucked us aside and let us rot, where without intervention we would have died.

So whatever does happen, whether the next chapter of Derby County is successful or not, I will never forget the act of saving this Club that I love with all my heart. Hundreds of thousands of people love this Club as much as me, if not more, unfortunately none of us had the money to save us. A couple of sharks have circled trying to get their hands on a carcass, but we’ve only really had one realistic prospect of having a custodian with pride and admiration for what he is buying. And with the exchanging of contracts I hope for all our sakes that the storm clouds of the last however many months it is, are finally parting. We have finally (and hopefully) got our Club back.

Summed up beautifully. ???

Despite some of my earlier caution-infused posts I'd be the happiest man ever to eat humble pie. I care not a not if I got it wrong, I'm big enough and man enough to say so. If we can field a functioning,  competitive team in D1 next season, with St. Wayne at the helm I'll take all opprobrium poured on me in a hat-shaped mould and eat it.

Pleease see this deal over the line...???

2 minutes ago, B4ev6is said:

Come on buddy to me he has given mel what he wants hope next few hours the sale could final be confirmed.

B4, I want to believe mate, for me, for us, and especially for you. But this is Derby. There's holes in this big cheese rescue, that I just want to see plugged before I run around the house screaming in celebration. ?

" Conditional on the sale of the stadium?"

Don't want to p**s on anyone's chips but it's not a fait a compli.

But I'll take this for now. The most positivity I've felt since... I don't know when.

Whoop whoop for now, but this is Derby.

I refer the honourable gentlemen to my first paragraph...

No f****** way? Is he saying what I think he's saying?

Am I dreaming? Too stressed? Delusional?

You hear about so many businesses that are bought for a nominal £1, including football clubs, I think that's pretty much where we are. Anyone who's willing to spend £30m to pay off Mel's debts is just doing it as a vanity project.

We're worthless with the amount of debt we're shouldering. And without a stadium, less than that.

The only equity is in acquiring the stadium on the cheap.

On a prospective turnover of approx £6m-£10m next year, most of that will be swallowed up in wages and additional costs. There'll be no profit in that turnover for any prospective investor.

I'm amazed anyone would consider paying anything near £30m for our club, especially without a stadium. The only upside is getting the ground at a discount - circa £20m , then borrowing against it's true value, prob £45m max in the current climate. I think that was CK's strategy for raising future funds. A future guarantee of buying at £20m but leveraging debt against the higher figure to generate funds.

I think Mel has made us unsellable at the current £30m to buy the club + £20m odd million to buy the stadium.

Our only hope to avoid oblivion is for MA to pay peanuts for the what's left, and getting the only real asset - the stadium for around £20m or less.

That's what he does. That's the reality of our parlous financial position sadly.

8 minutes ago, Grumpy Git said:

Who's SDSR?

Wash your mouth out.... ?

1 hour ago, SuperDerbySuperRams said:

Have been told tonight that the administrators are 95% confident Mike Ashley will takeover at Derby. I know this has gone on forever so that statement doesn’t mean much.
 

Apologies if this is already known, I haven’t been following the saga too closely recently. 

Just when I was wavering, the legend that is SDSR emerges from the forum wilderness to deliver the good news.

Good enough for me.

Thanks SDSR.

Whilst the EFL are determined to stymie any takeover efforts by our ( reported ) 3 financial suitors by muddying the waters,not approving any takeover until we've resolved the vexatious claims from Middlesbrough and Wycombe, potentially ending in us being 'timed out' and going into insolvency...

What position do you think HMRC - clearly more powerful than our Mickey Mouse football overlords, that is the EFL - will take about being potentially paid duck all if the EFL, Gibson et al persist in this course of action, instead of getting possibly £10-15m from any potential new owners of the reportedly £28m we owe to them?

Surely the former "claimants" can't take precedence over the public coffers, denying the treasury?

Can HMRC usurp these petty squabbles to gain what is owed them and realistically achievable above petty sporting politics?

Will it be a Ram, riding a motorbike, sailing over barbed wire?

Loving the deep-thought out analyses and responses.

My initial 10% assessment might be slightly on the generous side.

Make no mistake, it is truly a Herculean task, but I hadn't in any way envisaged our recent three wins.

It's turned our task from the "You're having a laugh" ridiculously impossible, to the " You know what, we've got a sniff of a chance "

It's the hope that kills you. If you had weighed up Leicester's chances of winning the Premier League a couple of seasons ago, you'd have laughed 

I'd consider our challenge as being 1/3rd of doing a Leicester as the situation stands.

You've got to dream. It's not impossible, but it is ridiculously improbable.

It will be interesting in the coming weeks and months how, if this thread continues, sentiments change.

That's why this ridiculous game affects our lives so much 

Can anyone else hear Steve McQueen's motorbike revving up?  I'd like to think so, but in reality I think he's just looking at that seized-up motorbike, wondering if many hours of oiling, failed attempts to get it going, will even result in it even getting going again, let alone join the race.
I'd  like to think Steve is tinkering with his ancient machinery at our training ground, with a view to riding it into Pride Park Park, with 10 games to go, revving his way around the perimeter of the pitch, every last few games.
Then I woke up - and we survived relegation this year. What a dream that was!

34 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

We will stay up. 110%

I don't know what the odds are, but if you're that confident, put the mortgage and the pension fund on it.

You'll either end up retiring in the Bahamas next year - or in a bedsit on Hartington St. ?

22 minutes ago, StrawHillRam said:

6.66%

That's very precise. though I couldn't argue with that analysis. ?

I'm loving the exactitude of certain member's assessments. This is the deep-thought analyses I enjoy. ?