Ken Bates Said that if he took over Wednesday he would look to move Wednesday and build a new ground, as he said Hillsbrough was looking dated and tired.

So on the recent vote on best grounds, Was he right,

Yes Bates has done well for Leeds, injected some money into the club however what he has put in, he has taken away with the other hand. Put prices up, thats why their attendance is down. Personally im glad we turned him down. Yes we arent doing too well at the minute but hey, once this season is over we can start rebuilding without having to dance to the bearded pied piper's tune.

Even as a Blade, I thought the Owls would have been stupid to accept Bates' money. He would have almost certainly reduced attendances as he has done at Leeds, by putting ticket prices up to recoup the money he would have to spend.

On the surface he may appear to have improved Leeds, but I'm not convinced the success will last. I think credit is probably more due to Blackwell than Bates, and Bates implied when he was wanting to take over the Owls that he wouldn't keep Turner as he doesn't believe an ex-goalkeeper can make a good manager. Wasn't Blackwell a goalkeeper? My personal view on Bates is that he should keep out of football and stick to monopoly.

Ken Bates Said that if he took over Wednesday he would look to move Wednesday and build a new ground, as he said Hillsbrough was looking dated and tired.

So on the recent vote on best grounds, Was he right,

He never said any such thing unless of course this was something he said to you in a private conversation

So you think you have heard every interview Mr Bates has ever done .....Ever do you, so its imposible for you to have missed any interview Who are you his Agent.

My word you are a self imposed all knowing self important mouthpiece for Mr Bates arnt you..........

So you think you have heard every interview Mr Bates has ever done .....Ever do you, so its imposible for you to have missed any interview Who are you his Agent.

My word you are a self imposed all knowing self important mouthpiece for Mr Bates arnt you..........
well can you provide factual reports stating otherwise?

......Fool........Who do you think i am head of bbc archives or something

I think that you are very rapidly establishing a thoroughly unpleasant reputation for yourself on here Waffer.......have you been banned yet?
I wouldn't mind betting you will be before too long.
Here's a handy tip for you.
Don't be gratuitously offensive,don't insult people.
Cheers.

Thanks halibut......but ...thoroughly upleasant.......offensive......you surprise me.......insult people.......i have strong argument.....but thats all....so i thought.........i never insult people.......so i thought ?

Ken Bates actually said something along the lines of, if he took over there was room for development (shops/hotel or apartments) on the car park behind the North Stand.

How much do you think it would cost to build a ground with even a similar capacity to Hillsborough? Easily more than £50-60 Million so Increasing the debt to nearly a hundred Million would hardly be a great business plan when there is already a large and perfectly good stadium there.

But of course if you say he said it then he must have said it.

Averageman, The sale of Hillsborough would bring in about 40 million, by moving out of town the cost of building a new ground could be done for 25 to 30 million, you only have to look at all the other new grounds around for costing, and coventry have built a fantastic new ground with 25% financed by tescos

Where do you get the figure of £40 Million from, if that is how much the land is worth it would be worthwhile selling that and playing at Don Valley or, dare I say it, Bramall Lane in order to have the finances to get back into the premiership and building a new ground/developing Don Valley as finances allowed.

I wouldn't have thought a new ground would cost any less than the sale of Hillsborough would bring in, unless it was smaller than Hillsborough.

Also the entire development of the Ricoh arena cost £113 million, so I'd imagine the football stadium part was more than at least £50million.

First of all waffer, i asked for a link so you could give evidence of your claims, as this has not been done then it makes a mockery of your claims.

secondly..... 40 million for the sale of the ground? how on earth do you come up with the figure?? your training ground is worth approximately 16 million, and is around the same size as swillsborough.

ok lets for instance say, you sell hillsborough, some how build a new ground for £25 million (you would have to back this somehow too as the banks are not lending weds any more money, and bates only had 10 million) stadium, this of course is away from s6, lets say somewhere like stocksbridge? you will lose revenue on fans who are not willing to travel all that distance. you also lose your heritage of what is sheffield wednesday. also this new stadium of £25 million i believe would reduce your capacity down to 30k (like the current "bowls" that are being built) so really what would be the benefit?

you say you have "strong" arguement, your only arguing because you wont listen to what anyone else says

First of all the figure 40 million (to be exact 38 million ) but this was a few years ago, was put by Dave Allan, and that figure was put by the banks when wednesday borrowed the money.


Secondly, that same argument about crowds dropping was also said when wednesday, moved to Hillsborough, i know I read the paper. and god man this is 2006, people fly across the world, but cant travel 10 miles in a car dont be silly. also all the new grounds that have been built figures show an increase for the first season before going back to the norm.

But you are right about the stadium being built for 25 million would be reduced not only in size, but perhaps quality as well, although the stadiums that were built for that price in japan ith that, but all new Grounds are a prefabricated build, so can be added to later.

Also this was just a view Ken Bates mentioned at the time, many clubs will have looked at that......some did.

Ps if you think that an interview i heard over a year ago, which is one of thousands i have heard, that i would remember the program, the station, the interviewer, the day, the time.........the page......i will do that... if you give me the names and addresses of every one, that ever worked on the building of the titanic

rock on waffer ! i actually think ur right !

Thinking about it you are probably rigght Waffer about the land that Hillsborough is on, as it is in a prime location for a supermarket (next to the dual carriageway) and would therefore could be sold for probably upwards of the Forty Million you suggest.

Tradition is all well and good but if a club goes out of business then what does the tradition count for then!

Averageman, you say the new coventry Ground cost 113 million.......Well i am not surprised, what a fantastic conplex, i worked there for a year, and the massive amount of the work was on the roads in infrastructure, it was all major works, there is a tesco hypermarket under the stadium.......and funny enough i think Coventry have a similar debt to us, around 20 million.

Waffer, surely if Wednesday were to move out of town, then roughly a similar cost would be involved to this (cov), so the debt would be greatly increased and Ken Bates would have got Wednesday into a similar amount of debt that Chelsea were in before Abrmovich bought him out.

Was Bates not in chairman of the Wembley project at one point, look at how successful that has been. Delivered on time and on budget!

Yes he was, but remember this Mr Bates made his multi millions from property investments.

And when Mr Bates took over Chelsea for a pound they were 12 million in debt a fortune 30 years ago. They did not own the ground, and they had notice to Quit. Chelsea was in real trouble....Now they own a fantastic Ground, 2 hotels 3 resturants, a night club and a casino.......not debt, but investment in to the future.

Arsenals new ground is costing 400 million.......Debt or investment

He never said any such thing unless of course this was something he said to you in a private conversationKen "did say" Hillsbrough was looking dated and tired.... i cant remember him saying anything about moving from hillsborought though...??:suspect: Other people did/were.... the same time waddle etc were on about weds/utd becoming one team...:gag: (never) He was on about the ground when he met up with supporters at the (club/pub) cant remember the name of the place.... he may have done well with leeds but im still happy wednesday said no! Hard work and good football is the way to get to the top flight..... dare i say it..... but look at the blades..... they are not big spenders are they but they have got a good team and good backroom staff etc.... theres more to football than just flashin the money!!

Arsenals new ground is costing 400 million.......Debt or investment??? can you think of what a new ground costing 400 million would do to wednesday?? look at Rotherham now??..... does the ground matter?? I may be a little thick but to me 3 points are all that matters at the moment.

He got rid of Chelsea's debts by using a technicality as the players were registered to Chelsea athletics club or something like that so he sold them all to himself at Chelsea football club and declared the athletics club bankrupt or something along those lines.

If you remember, the season before Roman Abramovich bought the club they had no money to buy any players and it was well known that they were going to have to sell all the decent players, just as Leeds had to, when by some immense piece of luck they were bought by a man with more money than sense when he was on his way to buy Tottenham.

This is getting very complicated, we don't need a new stadium what we need is success and that will only come when we get rid of the debt. I would be gutted if we left Hillsborough, I don't think that the Kop or South Stand look dated, all stadiums need a bit of TLC every so often but demolition is going a bit strong.

Ken Bates sorted Chelsea out donkeys years ago when it was easier to do so and he was a lot younger, lets see how he does with Leeds in modern times. Why this facination with Bates? he is an ignorant old sod and for one I didn't trust or understand his motives

We are where we are and have to make the best of it, staying in this division is the main priority this year, next year might be a different story.

I think the problem with Hillsborough is the weight bearing columns on the kop and in particular on the lane end where there are 4, this makes very bad viewing. I think this is unacceptable today at the top end of the game. they were put in to save 1 million pound, but I think a poor decision.

But apart from that i like Hillsborough.

I think the problem with Hillsborough is the weight bearing columns on the kop and in particular on the lane end where there are 4, this makes very bad viewing. I think this is unacceptable today at the top end of the game. they were put in to save 1 million pound, but I think a poor decision.

But apart from that i like Hillsborough.

Don't knock the columns waffer, if we play any worse there will be a waiting list for restricted views.

Piggie United are now looking to do a simular thing to what Bates did at Chelsea.............are they wrong as well