To no one’s surprise, Bristol Rovers have been given leave to appeal against a High Court judgment which ruled in favour of supermarket giant Sainsbury’s. Rovers are, or were, hoping to build a new stadium at the UWE complex in South Gloucestershire, which would have been part-funded by the sale to Sainsbury’s of the club’s Memorial Stadium in Horfield. Sainsbury’s don’t want to build a supermarket there anymore and the High Court recently decided they didn’t have to.
When I refer to Rovers intentions of building a new stadium in the past tense, I do so on the basis of what those far closer to the club than I am are saying. For instance, the journalist and author Nick Rippington, who writes an excellent blog on the Bristol Post website says today, “it is now abundantly clear that this has become a crusade to reduce (the board’s) losses.” He is not the first person to say this. Today’s Bristol Post adds this: “Even if the club wins the appeal, it will only be awarded damages instead of the multinational being forced to buy the Memorial Stadium. And if damages were awarded, they would unlikely to be as much as the £30million previously agreed for buying the ground.” If I was to make such statements, you would rightly suspect I was merely speculating, making assumptions, even guessing, but coming from professional journalists who have extensive sources, I believe them to be accurate.
I know some people are saying, “Why can’t the club tell us the truth? If the stadium is dead in the water, then why not just be upfront with it?” Well, maybe there are legal reasons why they can’t tell us, maybe they simply don’t know or perhaps – and this is a long shot – Rovers chairman Nick Higgs really does expect the new stadium to be built. I don’t know the answer to this but by Christmas, we surely will know.
In a very interesting section of Nick Rippington’s blog, he makes the point that it is time for Mr Higgs to resign, “and leave someone else in charge of dealing with what is happening on the field.” No one on the existing board gives me any confidence that they would do a better job, or to do things a different way. Some, like Barry Bradshaw, are yesterday’s men, others never even made it to today, like the laughably named fans’ directors Ken Masters and Brian Seymour Smith. And anyway, it was just a year ago when two current board members arranged for Mr Higgs to meet two former directors to look at doing just what Nick Rippington suggests: to allow Mr Higgs to get on with building the stadium whilst leaving the football club to be run by others. In the end, Mr Higgs decided against going down that road, for reasons best known to himself. Has anything changed that would convince him to stand aside? Perhaps the journalists could let us know?
I honestly believed that the UWE stadium was a runner. I felt that with Mr Higgs’ expertise in construction that finally Rovers might get the stadium their fans deserve. I don’t feel it’s going to happen now and that’s a great sadness to everyone concerned, even me. It looks as if it was yet another false dawn and, if what the journalists are saying is correct, any cash windfall that comes along now will simply be used to pay back to the directors the money they have loaned the club over many years. And the reason they have loaned the club so much money? Because they have not run it properly. Even I can see that.
Good luck with the High Court, but don’t hold your breath, Gasheads. The UWE stadium may already be a pipedream, but we just haven’t been told yet. My advice is to leave off the field matters to the owners and to concentrate solely on supporting the team and its fine young manager. There’s no point in getting involved in something you can’t change, so why bother?
