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Who in their right mind would want to own a football club?

6:50pm Friday 14th October 2011 in Look Who's Talking By Colin Baker

IAM sure that if Steve Hayes were to walk across a pit of burning coals to raise money for the orphanages of Zanzibar and feed baby kittens, the usual suspects would impugn his motives. I have never understood why people can’t disagree with something without heaping opprobrium on those proposing it. The community stadium may not have been the top of everyone’s list of things that Wycombe needs, but there was a shameful personal campaign conducted against Mr Hayes and the then leader and deputy leader of the council, with various online character assassinations that were as ludicrous as they were offensive.

And, anyway, when did running a profitable business become a crime or undesirable? Good heavens, wouldn’t it be a feather in our cap to have teams of both disciplines doing well in our town? And someone was prepared to risk his own money here to achieve that. So what if after taking a huge risk, he eventually didn’t lose his shirt, but gained a tuxedo?

It does raise the question, ‘Who in their right mind would expose themselves to the angst and vilification that goes with owning a football club?’ Mike Ashley who owns Newcastle has had a torrid time and recently tried to sell the club to get away from the degree of nastiness levelled at him, which whether you like him or not, was entirely disproportionate. Interestingly, he was unable to sell the club and now the Toon are doing well, whatever that proves.

The campaign against our community stadium was forceful and not always thoughtful, in my opinion. ‘Buzz Off Wasps’ was a pithy sound-bite, but a very odd one from a town that needs all the investment and enrichment it can get in these difficult financial times.

It seems likely that their wish will be granted, though I suspect that many who supported the ‘Wasps Out’ movement had no interest either way in where Wasps played, they just didn’t want a sports stadium near them.

Now apparently Steve Hayes is ‘throwing his toys out of the pram!’ No, he’s doing what he said was inevitable. If he hadn’t, he’d doubtless have been accused of making empty threats.

Disagree by all means, but try to be fair and assume your opponent is also acting in good faith.

It will be a great shame if Wasps end up leaving Wycombe.

Let us hope Wanderers survive.

Comments(27)

billsheppard says...
7:56pm Fri 14 Oct 11

People were perfectly entitled to question Steve Hayes's motives. I don't agree the magnificent campaign against the stadium a personal vendetta against him - he put himself up as the figurehead of the scheme and he was the one who would personally profit the most from it all, so it is inevitable that any campaign to protect the numerous interests that would be compromised by his scheme would take him up on his half-baked scheme.
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However, your point here is couldn't be more wrong:
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"And someone was prepared to risk his own money here to achieve that"
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It is well documented that Wycombe Wanderers FC are well over £6m in debt to Steve Hayes, and these debts were run up to himself whilst he was running the finances of the club. This mountain of debt was used to put the club shareholders over a barrel to transfer all their shares over to him in return for writing off just £3m of the debt.
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Hayes would only have risked his own money if he had gifted the club money or facilities like a certain Frank Adams did, without any strings or dodgy property deals and green belt grabs attached.

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000check says...
10:13pm Fri 14 Oct 11

It looks like you are remarkably biased in this argument, so here's the other side.

From a fans point of view, no significant investment on the pitch has happened for either wasps or wycombe, which has seen wasps go backwards and wycombe struggling to hack it at league 1, like they always used to.

The stadium would also be of a disadvantage for many local wycombe supporters, who would have had to drive instead of walk to the new stadium.

Also, would the stadium have been necessary, seeing as the highest gate of last season for wycombe still wasn't full capacity?

From a taxpayer's point of view, we don't want money to be spent on a stadium that doesn't have enough proof is necessary for either the clubs or the local economy, when there are spending cuts elsewhere.

Lastly, from resident's point of view, many of us don't want the visual, noise or traffic pollution that will come from building a new road and complex.

There are many reasons why the stadium was a bad idea, and Hayes' "bully boy" tactics didn't help his cause, at times it seemed like he was holding both clubs at ransom just to get what he wanted.

Lastly, I quote:
"And, anyway, when did running a profitable business become a crime or undesirable?"

The club hasn't been run at profit ever since hayes arrived, conversely he has run up such a large debt that he now uses as a blackmail whenever he wants his way.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
10:25pm Fri 14 Oct 11

'I AM sure that if Steve Hayes were to walk across a pit of burning coals to raise money for the orphanages of Zanzibar and feed baby kittens, the usual suspects would impugn his motives.'
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He hasn't actually offered to do that Colin - he has demanded huge sums of our money (that includes YOUR council tax as well as mine) to finance what was really a project to build on Green Belt land under the guise of a 'Community Stadium with Sports Village' - in last week's BFP he claimed it was a 'Sports Village' first with a ‘Community Stadium’ – it’s no wonder you were such an undistinguished Doctor Who and actor generally when you are so stupid - in the words of a media comedy based on a newspaper with talented actors (obviously not the ‘Bucls Free Press’ and you then) – DROP THE DEAD DONKEY)’.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
10:43pm Fri 14 Oct 11

I would congratulate ‘billsheppard’ and ‘000check’ for deftly and intelligently recapitulating (for the UMPTEENTH time) the obvious sensible and reasonable arguments against the half-reasoned load of intuitions and dross recapitulated (for the UMPTEENTH time) by Colin Baker. ‘OOOcheck’ possesses additional authority as he is a football supporter – I am well-disposed to local sportsmen and sports enthusiasts but am not one of them - ‘OOOcheck’ can hardly be accused of being a ‘cynic’ (Steve Cohen’s dismissive term for people who espouse commonsense in the dealings over the future of our two local teams) or a ‘usual suspect in Colin Baker’s words. Thank you for saying all the things I and a lot of other people think.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
10:55pm Fri 14 Oct 11

Colin the title of your column this week is 'Who in their right mind would want to own a football club?' Steve Hayes has become a rich man through the use of shrewd judgement and decisions while still middle-aged – surely he took the decision to become a football club owner in a state of the most cold-blooded rationality, probably aided by business consultants, his plan has gone wrong because so many people realised the scheme for 58 houses, with the possibility of sports facilities to follow - pathetically misnamed at the time as the ‘Community Stadium and Sports Village’ (abruptly transmogrified in Mr Hayes last statement into the ‘‘Sports Village and Community Stadium) was a scheme to use large quantities of ratepayers’ money to further the business interests of Mr Hayes rather than the interests of the sporting organistions he has become the owner of. As I said befor for God’s sake DROP TE DEAD DONKEY.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
11:02pm Fri 14 Oct 11

Do you PAY council tax Colin?

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Greg Brighton says...
12:40am Sat 15 Oct 11

I don't think I have ever read so much rubbish.

Mr Hayes deserves all the vilification he gets for attempting to hoodwink the residents of High Wycombe into a ridiculous stadium project, one that was poorly researched, poorly consulted upon, proposed despite the vociferous protestations of local residents. Most importantly this was rejected by many of supporters of Wycombe Wanderers who would have seen Adams Park sold off to finance the commercial ambitions of Mr Hayes and to further the ambitions of a rugby who had only been in the town for less than ten years. All this without any assurances as to the financial benefit to the football club themselves.

The damage Mr Hayes has inflicted on Wycombe Wanderers, now saddled huge mounting debts and dragging the club into the mud with his stupid stadium scheme is taking it's toll as a result.

I wish to question the motive of this man. Was it to improve the prospects of Wycombe Wanderers or was it a land grab to line his own greedy pockets from the housing and commercial units?

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ChilternsBlue says...
1:55am Sat 15 Oct 11

A number of those people opposed to Mr Hayes have also been the subject of character assassination and for a lot longer than the stadium has been public knowledge. Take your head out of the sand and you might hear the stories...

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Lawrence Linehan says...
10:01pm Sat 15 Oct 11

'I have never understood why people can’t disagree with something without heaping opprobrium on those proposing it.'

It's probably because their proposals are so obviously irrational and presented in such a condescending way and they won't let the subject drop Colin.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
11:38pm Sat 15 Oct 11

When I copy this from Word and paste it on to your page this will be the tenth (of ten) comments in succession, rubbishing your blog – why don’t you and the other loonies who refuse to accept the impossibility of continuing the current local sports set-up by means of the Hayes plan DROP THE DEAD DONKEY?

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Lawrence Linehan says...
11:41pm Sat 15 Oct 11

Apologies to all loonies who read that last post – when I said ‘loonies’ I meant ‘usual suspects’. (Don’t take any notice of that phrase Steve Cohen or Alan Feldberg.)

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Lawrence Linehan says...
11:43pm Sat 15 Oct 11

(Or the word ‘loonies’ in the post before that – that was in NO WAY a reference to you guys.)

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ImpeturbableLawrence says...
9:21pm Sun 16 Oct 11

The campaign against our community stadium was forceful and not always thoughtful, in my opinion.
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OUR community stadium?
.....

‘Buzz Off Wasps’ was a pithy sound-bite'
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I didn't think it was pithy and this is not surprising - it seems to have been a phrase put into the mouths of stadium opponents by the same team that brought you 'Mann on Friday' and umpteen other weak plays on words. (Including 'Look who's talking'.)

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ImpeturbableLawrence says...
9:32pm Sun 16 Oct 11

PS - the next time you, Alan Feldberg and Steve Cohen are lamenting the depressing prevalence of cynicism among the usual suspects why don't you tell them both to DROP THE DEAD DONKEY?

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WABBIT8 says...
11:18pm Sun 16 Oct 11

Lawrence, shut up!
Colin is just giving his opinion on something. If you don't agree wth him fair enough, but there is no need to abuse his role as Dr Who or his exellent acting, just because you don't agree with him. Stick to the subject or go away! You're obviously too immature to take part in a sensible discussion.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
9:10pm Mon 17 Oct 11

Dear Wabbit

Perhaps I AM being a bit personal and I apologise to Colin Baker, but he IS posting his opinions (on a wide range of subjects) in a public forum and he must expect to take flak if he does that. In the past he has exuberantly described himself as ‘the self-appointed scourge of political correctness’ – whatever he means by political correctness – ‘scourges’ are not usually sensitive to criticism and although he usually does not attack individuals, Baker has not hesitated to lecture groups of people on their behaviour (on one occasion - although I believe he went to a private school - he criticised working class mums for ‘mistakenly’ trying to get their children through the 11+ (‘a middle class aspiration’)) and he has often complained about the behaviour of unnamed individuals and people at large. What he says is not insightful or enlightening in my view and the subject of the Hayes Stadium has been absolutely flogged to death yet nonetheless Baker is coming back to it and portraying Steve Hayes - who can only be an extremely hard-headed and practical businessman - as a long-suffering and unappreciated martyr. (By the way the reasonable-sounding question in his post above, ‘And, anyway, when did running a profitable business become a crime or undesirable?’ is almost the same as, ‘And when did the notion of a risk-taking entrepreneur making a profit become a justifiable subject for abuse?’ in Baker’s 28 July article lamenting the demise of the Hayes Stadium, ‘Will we regret giving up Booker prize?’
I just think Colin Baker should find something interesting and insightful to say and DROP THE DEAD DONKEY.

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Trip says...
1:03pm Tue 18 Oct 11

Who is Colin Baker? He seems to know absolutely nothing about the subject he has chosen to write about.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
1:49pm Tue 18 Oct 11

As this subject is still running I would like to ask is Steve Hayes owner of Adams Park? Presumably he is if he owns WWFC and in any case if WWFC owe him £6m, as 'billsheppard' says then he can take their ground to pay the debt – what would have happened to Adams Park if the scheme for 58 ‘enabler homes’ followed by a stadium and possibly a ‘sports village’ had gone through – I imagine Adams Park would have been developed the way Loakes Park was. (The BFP enthusiastically supported the Loakes Park sale I seem to remember.)

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Lawrence Linehan says...
1:50pm Tue 18 Oct 11

As this subject is still running I would like to ask is Steve Hayes owner of Adams Park? Presumably he is if he owns WWFC and in any case if WWFC owe him £6m then he can take their ground to pay the debt – what would have happened to Adams Park if the scheme for 58 ‘enabler homes’ followed by a stadium and possibly a ‘sports village’ had gone through – I imagine Adams Park would have been developed the way Loakes Park was. (I seem to remember the BFP was enthusiastically supportive of the Loakes Park sale as well.)

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Lawrence Linehan says...
1:50pm Tue 18 Oct 11

As this subject is still running I would like to ask is Steve Hayes owner of Adams Park? Presumably he is if he owns WWFC and in any case if WWFC owe him £6m then he can take their ground to pay the debt – what would have happened to Adams Park if the scheme for 58 ‘enabler homes’ followed by a stadium and possibly a ‘sports village’ had gone through – I imagine Adams Park would have been developed the way Loakes Park was. (I seem to remember the BFP was enthusiastically supportive of the Loakes Park sale as well.)

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Wendoverman says...
5:10pm Wed 19 Oct 11

Colin, I don't live in Wycombe, but I come to watch the Blues as my local team. I have no problem with Wasps ground sharing and I would have had no problem if Steve Hayes planned to build and pay for a new stadium to house these two teams. But he didn't. He wanted to sell Adams Park, the Blues only asset, so they could rent space in a large council owned stadium. I am not a Wycombe poll tax payer, but as a football fan, I was still very unhappy at the idea of the council agreeing to fund this dubious plan. If he had said all the money from the sale of AP would have gone into the stadium, I might have considered it as an act of good will. He didn't. When reasonable opposition to his plan was vilified...though often all people wanted was to see the figures...it left a bad taste in my mouth. I fully expected a cowed and spineless, possibly corrupt, council to give in under his pressure, despite the campaign against...so I was heartened by the eventual collapse of this venture as a result of good, honest, voter power. I have no doubt the council were quite willing to entertain this white elephant and that it had nothing to do with jobs, sport or development of the area. The responsibility for the failure lies squarely at the feet of Steve Hayes and his attempts to push through a flawed, desperate plan fuelled by, and supported within the council, pure greed and self-interest. Owning a football club is indeed difficult and thankless. You need a love for the club and deep pockets. Those with short-term self-interest at heart need not apply.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
12:29pm Tue 25 Oct 11

I may be misunderstanding things but if Mr. Hayes has made little or no investment in Adams Park since he became the owner of the club and ground then I would think if there are small crowds at Adams Park the next move by Mr. Hayes would be to sell Adams Park and retire on the sale proceeds. If he owns the club and the ground then Adams Park would sell for much more than his losses and he could plausibly claim he was doing so under compulsion as he was unable to construct the stadium at Booker. It would be the end of the club in its present form but it would make a lot of money if Adams Park were sold for development.

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Lawrence Linehan says...
12:29pm Tue 25 Oct 11

I may be misunderstanding things but if Mr. Hayes has made little or no investment in Adams Park since he became the owner of the club and ground then I would think if there are small crowds at Adams Park the next move by Mr. Hayes would be to sell Adams Park and retire on the sale proceeds. If he owns the club and the ground then Adams Park would sell for much more than his losses and he could plausibly claim he was doing so under compulsion as he was unable to construct the stadium at Booker. It would be the end of the club in its present form but it would make a lot of money if Adams Park were sold for development.

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