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York to Fold?


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How can anyone just close down a club after offering a recent new contract to the coach and signing players on loan? Obviously the ground issue now and in the future has made him just walk away without giving anyone the opportunity to take it over! What happens to the Foundation? A lot of people spent an awful lot of unpaid time getting the Knights off the ground, myself included. Feel let down entirely if it is all true.

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Spotland's ground staff once turned the stadium round the same day: football kick off at 3.00, league Kick-off 7.pm. So it's possible. 24 hour turn round is pretty standard in shared stadia. Seems the issue is that there are two contracts - one twixt the knights and the council and one twixt council and the football club. All parties need to waive the contract terms for four games/two months. I know that the Knights had a bit of a bumpy ride getting in on the new stadium deal (I only know what I read, so unable to comment further) - but if this situation has been brought about because the council wants both clubs sharing a new stadium, then it's in the interests of all parties in this particular situation to do what's best for the three way relationship.

We used to do the change over at Chiswick back in the eighties on Sunday morning while still suffering from Saturday night and that included clearing up all the c*** left behind by the polytechnic's soccer team that they were supposed to deal with and we were volunteers, not professional groundstaff. There's something else going on here, as has already been suggested.

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Put whoever Padge is in charge - seems to know it all.

 

Will do for me Lionel...

 

Anyone who knows the history, does the figures, checks the facts, applies good reason and logic to situations and comes to a fair conclusion is OK. No need to join the keyboard warriors mate.

 

I well recall 2002 when the club folded part way through the season, it was sad and the board IIRC just said that in the end there was no real interest in the club. Possibly it goes back to the signing of the TV contract after which all championship clubs took a big hit.

 

I well recall years before when York had a tidy amateur game and decent support at Wiggington Road/Clarence street so even selling that up could be a reason for the start of the original demise, it was for Swinton, Oldham and Hunslet 

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Hi 

 

as well as being involved with the buffaloes, i work with Supporters Direct, www.supporters-direct.coop.  whom aims include to help fans own and run their clubs, along democratic lines following the co-operative model. in rugby league we have the Bramley Buffaloes, Mancunians, Hemel, Rochdale and Hunslet in fans ownership and many examples in football.

 

if there is anyone from York City Knights Supporters Groups out there interested in this as an idea, please contact me on martyn@bramleybuffs.com and i will put you in touch with the right people.

 

Thanks 

 

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Hi

as well as being involved with the buffaloes, i work with Supporters Direct, www.supporters-direct.coop. whom aims include to help fans own and run their clubs, along democratic lines following the co-operative model. in rugby league we have the Bramley Buffaloes, Mancunians, Hemel, Rochdale and Hunslet in fans ownership and many examples in football.

if there is anyone from York City Knights Supporters Groups out there interested in this as an idea, please contact me on martyn@bramleybuffs.com and i will put you in touch with the right people.

Thanks

Marto is the man. Lots of experience.

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Not good news, once again a clubs owners let everyone involved with it down. Of course it is all the RFLs fault (believe me I am no supporter of the Woods and his current sidekicks ), truth is it isn't. Owners have a responsibility to either run the club on a footing that is stable and allows steps forward or to get out and allow someone who can get on with it.

 

The RFL cannot help a club owner who does not want to be helped, club owners who think they are in control of something large and important are deluded.

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This is disturbing to me.The fans must be gutted and rightly so. I've heard the chairman is a bit of a lemon and I do recall a petition to try and oust him.Rugby league is poorer tonight.I hope upon hope that the Knights can rise again, there must be someone out there who may be able to do something. If the Knights can't be resurrected they will be sorely missed. I've spoken to a number of Knights fans in the past,the club was their passion and they loved their rugger.

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As ever it all comes down to this: can the club acquire a ground/HQ where it is control of all revenues and has access to all training,S & C,medical and other facilities when it requires? Any organisation wanting success has to be in charge of its own destiny.

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You are right. The decline can be directly traced to the loss of the famous old grounds with no alternative plan in place. God help us do you remember Ryedale York!?

 

The current owner will of course get some well deserved stick, but there are hardly new owners queuing up and so it's inevitable that York's future once again will be in the hands of the fans, with some great people coming on here to offer their help and advice to keep the flag flying again after all these years, and the club does go back to 1868.

 

1986 was when York, after a failed first division campaign ended up £200K in debt so they sold the training ground, then the safety of sports grounds thing came in and they had to find £100K, so they sold the whole ground for £700K and hoped to move in with the football club where they had had an attendance of 11,000 for a RL cup game against Leeds.

 

Nothing could be agreed then and that was 27 years ago. 

 

So they went to the awful Ryedale stadium just outside of York where they averaged 1600 fans.

 

The new structure confined the club to the "league of death" third tier where crowds were slashed to 650, followed by 610, 790 and 960 crowds rising as York escaped the third tier. 773 followed and then York hit disaster in 2001 when playing fortunes collapsed, the club came bottom of the whole league and crowds hit and all time low with 315 for a game against Whitehaven.

 

2002 York lost 10 games in a row, and only 280 turned up for the Chorley game. At that time it was reported York's directors Stabler and Greenfield folded the club due to lack of interest, albeit they themselves had apparently bid £4M for York City nand lost out on the deal. Maybe they had the idea York could have had a future if only they could get the groundshare back in the city,

 

Once again, 14 years on the 27 year old idea of sharing with the soccer club can be the saviour of the club is probably correct, but sadly they just can't get that deal, and so the future probably is the Bramley path.

 

Bramley too looked for a share with Farsley Celtic, Oldham of course look to Boundary park, Swinton looked to Bury, Hunslet to Elland Road,Rochdale to Spotland and of course Wigan, Huddersield, Hull and halifax have futures due to sharing with soccer.

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Apparently there are new owners queuing up. It's just that Guildford has been stubborn in releasing the club - like he's been stubborn with the Football Club & Council

I've read soundbites that several clubs offered their grounds to York for use to see out the season. They even used Heworth ARLFC in recent times when they had similar options. It looks like none of those options have been explored by Guildford - It looks like he's used this fixture problem to close down the club - was this his goal all along?

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So if the club is reformed where would it be based?[/quote

To develop any of the current amateur clubs grounds would be difficult. Heworth has access problems as does Earswick. Acorn used to have a lot of land and, I believe, they might own their own ground, so possibilities there. I know they've raised a lot of brass in the past - someone advise on this?

Realistically, they need to find their own space but land in York is at a premium.

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Very sorry to hear this, but at least now Guildord is out of the frame. Didn't York City owner Jason McGill suggest he would be interested, and that for much less tha. He puts into the football team, could make York a SL team? He would seem to have a good relationship with the council, and with joint ownership of the football and rugby teams, could remove a lot of fixture tension? Over to you Jason?

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