Fans forum

[Richgy]

Cliff Byrne’s Right Peg wrote:

It was about as candid as a fans forum you are likely to see.

Hilton did a complete character assassination on Swann; it felt abit uncomfortable after the first couple of jokes, however it was an easy clap in the room

The deal for the land has fallen through because of an unregistered piece of land in the car park- a piece of land that miraculously avoided detection when the land passed from Wharton to Swann. The strip of land can be used as a ransom strip against the club and hinders insuring the land. In addition the planning permission has expired on the apartments which will also require significant ground works due to being in a flood zone. There is an also a massive discrepancy in land valuations- Hilton had to agree on the original price to purchase the club and save us from going bust. It was that black and white: buy the club without carrying out due diligence or we were out of business.

Hilton has bought the land at Glebe road to build a new ground. The council are on board with this and I know this to be a fact, they proposed the land to him. The funding will come from multiple sources; the levelling up fund being one such source. No confirmation on design or capacity as it’s too early. The biggest obstacle will be land remediation work; Initial surveys have come back ok. However, no-one knows what was dumped there. Hilton is further ahead with progressing with the new ground than I Initially thought. He he hoping for planning in 3 months with completion set in 24 months.

In the short term, he hopes we remain at Glanford park. This is where it gets confusing and to be honest I can’t explain it well; he is sub letting the ground from himself, to the club for a minimum of 12 months but hoping for 24 months. He expects Swann to sue him personally for this. He is willing to pay Swann £20,000 a month to lease the ground but they are no longer in speaking terms. This will get incredibly messy as we all know Swann will fight this tooth and nail.

Hilton has paid off the tax bill in full and covering the wages since his purchase. Approx £200,000 a month in which less than 50% is spent on players- a truly shocking statistic.

The club is making little to no money on secondary spending, Ie food/drink/hospitality etc. we even lost money from the Oldham game due to policing costs. Whatever you think of the new ground, you surely must accept that GP is no longer fit for purpose in its current state.

Hilton also wants to invest £2million into a training facility, within scunthorpe, it will have 4g pitches/restaurant and possibly player accommodation. The site will be revealed soon and he is working with the council to develop this.

They are going out to win the league next year and are going to over spend “without being reckless” before moving to a sustainable model. This bit made me feel uneasy after our last endeavours but can we afford to spend years in the NLN?

Overall, I left the meeting feeling more optimistic than I have in years. However, we have all been here before haven’t we? I’ll continue to question decisions and remain cautious until we see action rather words. In the meantime he has my backing and I’ll encourage others to get behind the club as we really need to pull together now.

I take you for your word on all that as you are more ITK than I would ever be .

I work pretty closely with a planning department in a big business and I have never known for a project like this to be delivered in two years , you are at best looking at 5 years but normslly 7-10 years ; if it’s a couple of little stands amd basic maybe the time frame is viable .

But a proper modern stadium I do not see how that is deliverable .

[Cliff Byrne’s Right Peg]

Agreed Rich. In fairness he was not making promises, and only gave supporters estimates to what he was hoping to work too. It may have been naive to put dates out as people will hold to him that.

I also wonder what the legal ramifications will be for him in terms of the NDA’s, he certainly stuck a grenade in them and pulled the pin tonight.

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Richgy

[bartonscorpion]

I was hoping that my thought would be completely wrong when assuming that things would turn out to be ok for club and supporters, but we all knew really that it is never as simple as that at Scunny, and it’s fans have to continually put up with being kept in the dark with information along with the usual heep of lies and bull shit. We all knew, or should have known that nothing is simple when Swann is involved with things, and he seems to hold a vendeter against the SUFC Fan base, and will do his utmost to plot against them, but at the same time, we were informed some months ago, that the sale of the club was a done deal and that it was just a matter of signing the documentation at the end of May. That was also supported by the formation of the 1899 share issue, which was for supporters to buy a share into being the ownership of the GP Stadium, and after selling a number of these shares it now turns out that the Stadium is not even owned by Mr Hilton of the Football Club, the club supporters do not deserve treatment of this kind, and after being subjected to eight or nine years of either being starved of information or being spun a pack of lies over this period of time, they have been subjected to this shoddy treatment for far too long.
Get it sorted out Swann / Hilton, and give fans the truth for once, they deserve nothing less, and give the 50 odd fans their £1,899 back for selling them some thing that was not even the clubs for sale, and at the same time offer the 1,000 supporters that have bought season tickets for next season, thier money back simply because Swann will not allow Scunthorpe United toi play at his GP ground next season.

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Sharp_Shooter24

[Deereyme66]

When you say ‘a project like this’ Rich; what is that? ‘A proper modern stadium’ he hasn’t promised. Unless I’m mistaken? Couple of basic stands accommodating 3k? Sounds a it more realistic. A lot of ifs buts and maybes isn’t there. Suppose we’ll see what he’s proposing fairly soon. Well I’d hope so!

[Deereyme66]

Share a number of your thoughts in your post BS but this bit is a stretch;

‘he seems to hold a vendeter against the SUFC Fan base, and will do his utmost to plot against them,’

How about ‘he just wants the funds from the sale that was agreed’?

[Anonymous]

Shambles.
Complete and utter shambles.

[WonderGoals]

Shut up Apathetic. Give the man chance to make a difference. Least Hilton’s got the council on board and has a close working relationship with them after Swann pissed them all off.

That alone improves the chances of it all being built.

All the shit on here trying to make out Hilton was an international criminal mastermind and we were under a transfer embargo.

I’ll reserve judgement on Hilton and ignore the lunatics for the time being.

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[Deereyme66]

Is Hilton expecting an Eastenders ‘get outta my pub!!’ type battle? Can’t see it playing out like that. Whether II is right to claim it’ll take a week, remains to be seen. As my Bury mate used to say every week for a year or more: ‘watch this space!’

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[Deereyme66]

Has he really got the council on board WG? Can you substantiate that? Seems to have said that but who knows? No need to tell AA to shut up either.

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[Deereyme66]

‘All the shit on here trying to make out Hilton was an international criminal mastermind’

That didn’t happen. Not on here.

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[bartonscorpion]

Deereyme66 wrote:

Share a number of your thoughts in your post BS but this bit is a stretch;

‘he seems to hold a vendeter against the SUFC Fan base, and will do his utmost to plot against them,’

How about ‘he just wants the funds from the sale that was agreed’?

Possibly deerey, but as I say mate, at Scunthorpe we never ever get clear information, it is always a cryptic answer given to everything and it is never a straight answer is it!!!

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[Deereyme66]

Agreed!

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[Jasper Parrot]

I’m nervous. We’re all nervous. We should be nervous. Our club is hanging by a thread. Swann was a bad club owner. We’re hurt. We’re human. There’s a temptation to assume all owners are the same. Might not be true though.

What do we know?

Swann was a disaster for the club.
We had an unpaid tax bill under Swann.
The club was on the point of going bust before Hilton.
Swann was not honest with us.
Swann had many schemes planned which didn’t actually happen.
Swann fell out with the Council.
Swann had other issues (see gambling debts court case) going on.

What is most likely to be true?

In my opinion Swann has a history of moving goalposts.
Previous bids to buy the club were supposedly all agreed then fell through. What put off other consortiums? I think we all suspect Swann was at fault, but we can’t prove it.
In my opinion there are genuine problems with the GP land purchase.
If Hilton goes, the club probably dies. Phoenix club won’t be easy.

What has Hilton done?

He bought the club, knowing it could go bust if he didn’t. He saved the club. Temporarily at least.
He’s brought in a lot of players in a desperate attempt to keep us up.
He hired the wrong manager for the National League. Could be the right guy for National League North. Who knows?
We’ve made a lot of signings early and they seem higher level than National League North.
The training ground wobble was bad.
The 1899 club. Good idea, launched too early.

Hilton has been mixed so far. I think the positives have outweighed the negatives.

What don’t we know?

Whose fault it is (Swann, Hilton, or both) about the land sale problems.
Lots of details because this could end up in court.
We want details. We’re probably not going to get them. We have to deal with that.

What should we believe?

We’ve all spent years saying Swann should go. Swann was a disaster for this club.
I don’t think Swann now makes a credible ‘witness’ to support a case that Hilton is bad.

For now we should assume that Hilton is telling the truth until it’s actually proven otherwise.

What should we do?

Give him 1 full season from now. Let him do his thing, and then judge the results. No progress on and off the pitch by then, I’ll be as negative as some posters are now.

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[That Crazy New Yorker]

MK Iron wrote:

Hilton gave a fairly comprehensive response to the rest of the recent hysterical character assassination also.

Very interesting, which accusations did he address? What were the explanations?

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TheJuryeffsOut, Interested Bystander

[sufc_not_on_tour]

After sitting through that for over two hours last night.
My first thought, where have I heard all this before?
I’ll tell you where, same place but a different speaker.
Swann, virtually the same promises and we all know how that played out.
Secondly, Hilton spent a vast amount of time slagging Swann off at every opportunity he could muster, after stating at the beginning of his “speech” that he didn’t want the forum being broadcast as Swann would have documentary evidence of him slandering him.
Sorry Hilton but your lack of class shone through.
He was “hoping” that we can get the next 6 months at GP but “hoping” his lawyers could extend that to the end of next season.
Pity he didn’t inform the 1200 that have paid out in cash for season tickets.

As for this “we’ll be in a new stadium in 2 years, where have we heard that before?
2 years?
You all need to give your gullible heads a wobble if you believe that.
I watched LT very closely, he sat there quietly for most of the evening, I suspect that he isn’t taken in by a less affluent version of Swann.
You are all entitled to form your own opinions and I respect that, me, I’m not impressed with Hilton and unfortunately IMO it’ll not end well for our club.

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[Anonymous]

It ain’t looking great.

[Interested Bystander]

It’s about time your local press started earning their money. Right at the top of my list of people to contact this morning would be Peter Swann, then the owner (former) of the two strips of land which Hilton claims to have completed on and finally, Rod Langham at Stoneygate 2007 Ltd.

There is one positive from Hilton doing the fans’ forum last night, more people are starting to question him and what he says.

[Richgy]

Deereyme66 wrote:

When you say ‘a project like this’ Rich; what is that? ‘A proper modern stadium’ he hasn’t promised. Unless I’m mistaken? Couple of basic stands accommodating 3k? Sounds a it more realistic. A lot of ifs buts and maybes isn’t there. Suppose we’ll see what he’s proposing fairly soon. Well I’d hope so!

I meant like a York , Boston or even Burton relatively modern stadiums which you would have thought Scunthorpe Utd need at a similiar level of capacity which take a long time to deliver .

Like you say 2 or 3k would probably be doable but surely it would just be a short term fix .

I have seen quite a few of your fans slagging GP off on twitter , is it even that bad ?
In comparison to Blundell Park and many other old school lower league stadiums i thought it was good but just needed a bit of love and a lick of paint .

[Pat O’Cake]

Anonymous wrote:

Shambles.
Complete and utter shambles.

What would have done differently?

[Bishops Finger]

bailiffs were paid off last week by hiltons right hand man doing the accounts , not sure who they were collecting for but doesn’t bode well. macron will be coming too no doubt.

[Bartoniron66]

Not been to Boston yet but York’s is a great stadium for the size of the club, it will be many years before we need to worry about the stadium size and even then it will be away fans when it happens.

You can factor in increasing the stand size when planning and designing a new ground so you can add to existing if and when it is required, never really been a GP fan but can moving back into a town centre be a step forward.

[lesgeo]

It’s probably a restatement of the obvious but there is a natural and profound distrust of football club chairmen amongst Iron supporters. I wonder why?
Over the years I could have named eight or nine proper wrong uns across the EFL – and a number more who were arguably dodgy.
Percentage wise, we are not really talking about a large figure. Under 5% of the total, I’d guess.
Trust our luck!
On the principle of once bitten twice shy, you can wholly understand the suspicions but once things do start going right – let’s please be fulsome in our praises. We do not want a chairman who starts to feel peed off when he’s truly doing his level best for us.
Once we reach the point when a decent chairman starts to feel persecuted we can soon be back on the slippery slope when we perhaps didn’t need to be.
The first step is not to criticise based on guesswork.

[premier iron]

Obviously Hilton took the stage last night but were there any comments from Dean on any issue

[Siderite]

Equally, after the last experience, it’s imperative that we don’t blindly trust the new owner. Swann dangled us carrots and it never materialised, so it’s not illogical to wait until promises are met before we give due credit. If an owner cannot take questions about how their plans will be achieved and some fans not lining up to ignore such and place trust in him, then I question whether they would be a good owner. Businesses, sports clubs and all institutions fail because people are willing to go along with whatever the owner wants without questioning, either because of fear, embarrassment or blind trust.

What’s more, questioning doesn’t mean negativity. It’s too early for a full assessment of Hilton, but as fans we should expect queries over Hilton’s plans to be answered, not ignored because it’s easier to place trust and hope for the best. Also, bad ownership doesn’t necessarily mean malicious intent when sheer incompetence may be a factor.

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Deereyme66

[lesgeo]

Fair points.
As a matter of scale, SUFC is a much bigger project than Ilkeston.
There is no doubt that Hilton did a noteworthy job there. So many of their fans speak about him in bated breath.

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Siderite

[Siderite]

Yeah. I am hoping some of that Ilkeston feel good factor can arrive here. Hopefully soon, as we’ve had enough misery to last a lifetime.

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Just Iron, bartonscorpion, Iron-awe, lesgeo

[Cliff Byrne’s Right Peg]

premier iron wrote:

Obviously Hilton took the stage last night but were there any comments from Dean on any issue

I actually thought he came across well. He wants to change the culture behind the scenes and improve the relationship between players-fans. He was enthused by the prospect of an open day which could be on the cards.

He took responsibility for the defeats last year and stated that the players coming in now are his signings. The ones signed in January were essentially not good enough and the ones no-one else wanted.

That all sounds great, but if we get spanked by Rushal Olympic opening game he will fighting for his job.

The only part which was slightly uncomfortable was when he said one of our players has rejected a new deal and no clubs have come in for them “but why would they” this insinuated it was Wilson.

[Siderite]

SST has noted on twitter that Wilson didn’t appear to have the right attitude on the pitch, in his opinion. Maybe Dean shares it.

[RoamingBull]

And whose fault is it that we are paying bailiffs off and that the 5 year macron contract will need paying off.

Where does one start, can’t imagine what shit show it must be.

[TheJuryeffsOut]

In summary then after trawling through this and twitter :

Hilton – “It is Swann”.
Dean – “It was the players”.
Turnbull – “zzzzzzzz”.

Despite the easiest, actually legal, and least costly option being to just complete on the agreed purchase of GP from Swann, Hilton is going to back out mainly due to the presence of a ransom strip presumably owned by Swann.
Swann has no doubt created such a ransom strip to make sure any purchaser of GP can’t develop it as anything other than a football stadium without remunerating him.
This has annoyed Hilton so much that he is prepared to back out of the GP deal to the point of accepting he will be sued and will attempt to blag keeping the club at GP for as long as possible.
Luckily there is a site in Scunthorpe, which might be ok for a new ground and the council are ok with it. Somehow this will be financed and built within 2 years
(google LNER Stadium York for a reality check). Amidst all this a real good tilt at getting automatic promotion from NLN is being launched.
Something else was also said to allay any rumours about anything else, but nobody can quite elaborate on exactly what that was, some are ok with it, some aren’t.
Have I got the wrong end of the stick ? Because if not, ffs.

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Heath, Siderite

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