It's all about the money...

Liberty Way is becoming a sore point for the clubs it hosts.

The ground share agreement between the football club and the rugby club has once again come to a head, as these uncomfortable bed fellows once again lock horns over exactly who gets what and for what price.

It’s an ugly situation to see; when the towns to premiere sporting clubs go head to head it does nothing for anyone, and I’m sure that both sides would love for the problem to be solved as soon, and as amicably as possible, yet sadly it would seem that this might be a case of wishful thinking.
The problem stems from the original agreement, that the rugby club would pay £1000 a year to rent the pitch at Liberty Way. In the original agreement, the football club would get priority over fixtures, however as we know, there was a lot of bending that went on to accomodate for the rugby club by the football club. Hardly getting priority was it? It certainly seemed a more than fair deal for the rugby club, especially when you consider the cost of the pitch alone when it was installed.

Now however, the agreement has become null and void due to the liquidation of Stadiasafe, something the rugby club’s own minutes from a meeting dated August 2007 back up. The problem now seems that the rugby club have drank from the posh china, and don’t want to go back to drinking from a chipped and tea stained mug.

To be fair there is a small part of me that sympathises with them. After all, had it been us who had been gazumped, then I’d be spitting feathers now. However, it smacks of the amateurish nature of the way things were done in the build up to moving to Liberty Way, and both sides need to take some blame there.

The rugby club, had they any commone sense, should have ensured that should the football club go under, anyone who bought the club had to buy into the arrangement. Their failure to ensure this will ultimately cost them. But then again, they did get a phenomenally good deal and one that I find hard to believe the football club felt could be profitable.

Perhaps there was a fear that the deal had to be pushed through as soon as possible, and they accepted anything the rugby club offered. That to me was wishful thinking. What should have been put in place was an agreement that ensured that the football club got a fair deal out of the arrangement.

It’s clear that in the past we didn’t, and no matter how much the rugby club might insist that Ian Neale is being unfair now, it was clearly them who were getting a superb deal in the past. £1000 a year to rent the facilities we provided for them? That doesn’t even come close to covering the cost of maintaining the pitch, let alone going anyway to cover the cost of the installation of the pitch. If they want to use it after all, surely they should pay a decent fee.

It’s been revealed that the cost of maintaining the stadium and pitch is roughly £50,000 a year. No one expects the rugby club to pay half of that, they are after all our tenants and don’t command the gates we do. It would be wrong to make them do so.

The figure of £15,000 may seem steep to some, especially when considered against the previous fee, but it’s still less than a third of the overall cost of maintaing the facility they use. To pay a mere 2% as they maintain they should do is criminal and does nothing the financial betterment of OUR club.

It’s an awful thing that it does come down to drawing the line and seperating it into an us and them situation, but the events of the last twelve months have taught me that we need to be a bit more ruthless to survive. I want a successful football club. I would love to see a successful rugby club alongside that, but my prime concern has to be football.

So what is going to happen next? Well the deal has been placed to the rugby club, and they have rejected it. It is now to be seen what the next step is, although Ian Neale doesn’t seem to be one who can be easily budged, and it would seem that the rugby club are going to have to either pay up or push out.

That would be a sad situation, and I would take no pleasure in being the cuckoo’s in the nest, I would hate to think of the rugby club being locked out of their home, usurped if you like. I do think however, we need to protect our interests, to ensure that we never find ourselves going to the wall again. Some situation needs to be found however, because as I said at the start of this article, it’s a very ugly situation to be in.