Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 2:49 pm  

Batley Chairman wrote:

I seem to have upset some Widnes fans which i did not intend to do so i apologise.Steve has done agreat job since he took over at the Club as he has invested in facilities youth and infrastructure not just first team which must put you in good stead for a franchise and i also think Fax now have a great new stand and are worthy but Barrow have not spent on their ground so may fall at that fence even though SL in Cumbria would be a good thing.I am afraid Crusaders in my view have let us down by going in to administration and that should go against them but i think not! When i mentioned Widnes you were the only Club who i knew had announced a profit and i was making the point that it was because Steve had put a loadof money in which is true and that i did not expect many Clubs to make a profit which i still donot as it is so difficult.It was harder for us to make a profit which was on the back of a lot of help from our supporters.I would not mind Steve investing in Batley but he is Widnes through and through so thats unlikely!!I certainly do not begrudge your Club in any way.We in fact are grateful to your supporters for turning out in numbers at Blackpool which indirectly helped us as it was a shared gate.We will be paying HMRC so eventually we will get our players registered and look forward to some great games against all Clubs obviously including Widnes.By the way we certainly did not put beer prices up when you came so i donot know where that came from.Anyway good luck and i have now said what i wanted to.

So, you fall out with the RFL, because they won’t allow you to register players due to owing money to the taxman, and you lash out at Steve O’Connor and pretty much accuse him of cooking the books in order to gain advantage over other Championship clubs submitting licence bids, and think this is reasonable?

Batley Chairman wrote:

Batley Chairman, Kevin Nicholas added “Apart from Widnes who made £1 million profit because the owner put £2 million into the Club I doubt there will be many if any who have declared a profit and the Widnes situation is hardly an achievement. We regrettably do not have a person who can put £2 million into the Club but we do know that we can compete with Clubs in our League both on and off the field.

In other words, SOC has achieved nothing other than cheating by using his own wealth in order to show that Widnes has made a profit on a turnover of £2Million. This is a slur on the integrity of Steve O’Connor and was a completely unwarranted attack on a man and his club that has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation you find yourself in with the taxman and the RFL.

What you have done is an absolute, bloody, disgrace, and it is actually quite pathetic. It is also utter bullsh*t!

Here’s the reality, put forward by an accountant on the Widnes board.

manxviking wrote:

Being a boring accountant - if we made £1m PROFIT, the owner's dosh is irrelevant. The £2m counts as capital, not income!

The RFL should have been doing this years ago, and maybe we wouldn’t have lost so many old clubs, including mine, folding due to owing money to the taxman. This has been a constant embarrassment to the game. It both brings the sport in to general disrepute and makes it difficult to attract top name sponsors. I agree that it should be applied across the board to every club, and the RFL have said they intend to do so.

May I suggest, instead of skulking around message boards, you remove what you have said from the Batley Bulldogs website and make your apologies to Steve O’Connor.

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 5:28 pm  

Leyther_Matt wrote:

I don't know how anyone can stay mad at Batley anyway - they're everyone's favourite away day, it seems!

Pepe wrote:

Batley Chairman wrote:

I seem to have upset some Widnes fans which i did not intend to do so i apologise.Steve has done agreat job since he took over at the Club as he has invested in facilities youth and infrastructure not just first team which must put you in good stead for a franchise and i also think Fax now have a great new stand and are worthy but Barrow have not spent on their ground so may fall at that fence even though SL in Cumbria would be a good thing.I am afraid Crusaders in my view have let us down by going in to administration and that should go against them but i think not! When i mentioned Widnes you were the only Club who i knew had announced a profit and i was making the point that it was because Steve had put a loadof money in which is true and that i did not expect many Clubs to make a profit which i still donot as it is so difficult.It was harder for us to make a profit which was on the back of a lot of help from our supporters.I would not mind Steve investing in Batley but he is Widnes through and through so thats unlikely!!I certainly do not begrudge your Club in any way.We in fact are grateful to your supporters for turning out in numbers at Blackpool which indirectly helped us as it was a shared gate.We will be paying HMRC so eventually we will get our players registered and look forward to some great games against all Clubs obviously including Widnes.By the way we certainly did not put beer prices up when you came so i donot know where that came from.Anyway good luck and i have now said what i wanted to.

So, you fall out with the RFL, because they won’t allow you to register players due to owing money to the taxman, and you lash out at Steve O’Connor and pretty much accuse him of cooking the books in order to gain advantage over other Championship clubs submitting licence bids, and think this is reasonable?

Batley Chairman wrote:

Batley Chairman, Kevin Nicholas added “Apart from Widnes who made £1 million profit because the owner put £2 million into the Club I doubt there will be many if any who have declared a profit and the Widnes situation is hardly an achievement. We regrettably do not have a person who can put £2 million into the Club but we do know that we can compete with Clubs in our League both on and off the field.

In other words, SOC has achieved nothing other than cheating by using his own wealth in order to show that Widnes has made a profit on a turnover of £2Million. This is a slur on the integrity of Steve O’Connor and was a completely unwarranted attack on a man and his club that has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation you find yourself in with the taxman and the RFL.

What you have done is an absolute, bloody, disgrace, and it is actually quite pathetic. It is also utter bullsh*t!

Here’s the reality, put forward by an accountant on the Widnes board.

manxviking wrote:

Being a boring accountant - if we made £1m PROFIT, the owner's dosh is irrelevant. The £2m counts as capital, not income!

The RFL should have been doing this years ago, and maybe we wouldn’t have lost so many old clubs, including mine, folding due to owing money to the taxman. This has been a constant embarrassment to the game. It both brings the sport in to general disrepute and makes it difficult to attract top name sponsors. I agree that it should be applied across the board to every club, and the RFL have said they intend to do so.

May I suggest, instead of skulking around message boards, you remove what you have said from the Batley Bulldogs website and make your apologies to Steve O’Connor.

You were saying Matt

Don't know what to make of the Chairmans post.

On the one hand he may be offering a clearer picture of his words, on the other he may be worrying about how many Widnii come through his clubs turnstiles next season and dependant on where you come from, if you have another hand, it might not have even been him who posted .

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 5:41 pm  

Redchemic wrote:

You were saying Matt

Don't know what to make of the Chairmans post.

On the one hand he may be offering a clearer picture of his words, on the other he may be worrying about how many Widnii come through his clubs turnstiles next season and dependant on where you come from, if you have another hand, it might not have even been him who posted .

It’s simple.

He hasn’t actually retracted a single word he said about SOC, he’s merely apologised to Widnes fans if it caused offence – this is not the same thing. So I would assume he’s merely on “damage limitation” exercise, in order to convince the Widnes fans that they should turn up to Mount Pleasant and help him pay his taxes.

Until he removes what he said from the Batley Bulldogs website, and openly apologizes to SOC, this post is nothing more that a load of worthless flannel.

Don’t fall for it!

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:29 pm  

Work the ribs Pepe



If hadn't guessed I'm still at the no comment stage... I think the fact a lot of us had a lot of respect for Batley made it more of a shock comment. However as you say no retraction and Batley profit is through 'hard work of fans' Widnes is through owner pumping money in??? Huge respect for Batley turning in a profit but just (as it seems) Because the RFL have used Widnes as an example to others doesn't mean it's Widnes' issue!

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:29 pm  

Pepe wrote:

It’s simple.

He hasn’t actually retracted a single word he said about SOC, he’s merely apologised to Widnes fans if it caused offence – this is not the same thing. So I would assume he’s merely on “damage limitation” exercise, in order to convince the Widnes fans that they should turn up to Mount Pleasant and help him pay his taxes.

Until he removes what he said from the Batley Bulldogs website, and openly apologizes to SOC, this post is nothing more that a load of worthless flannel.

Don’t fall for it!

You make a very good point.

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:37 pm  

At Championship Awards Night Widnes won Club of Year and SOS in his acceptance speech in a jokey manner said that you had made a million pounds profit after he had put 2million in.He may have exaggerated the position as a joke i know not but i certainly would not have thought i have offended him in any way and my post was complimentary as to how he had invested his money.I am sure the next time i see him he will tell me if i have offended him and if i have i will be man enough to apologise to him face to face.If you think i have not been genuine or only apologised for ulterior motives so be it and only you can decide whether or not to come to Batley but if you do you will be welcome and i promise we will not put our beer prices up!! This is your website and i have now made the point i wanted to make so iwill not post again on here so good luck for season apart from when you play us

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:42 pm  

Just realised put SOS by error instead of SOC but sure you knew who i meant.

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:05 pm  

I think the beer prices thing was just a coincidence that we liked to joke about on the whole. Will always say Batley is my favourite away day for various reasons, have an old uni mate up there too. Just hoping we get another summer encounter this year rather than a blistery cold night (though I'd take both)

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:58 pm  

Batley Chairman wrote:

At Championship Awards Night Widnes won Club of Year and SOS in his acceptance speech in a jokey manner said that you had made a million pounds profit after he had put 2million in.He may have exaggerated the position as a joke

He will be talking about the investment he has put into the club since taking over. He invested £1.2Million in his first year here, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure he was joking about has now grown to £2Million. This was investment in infrastructure, debt payment from the old board, the academies, &c.

He would not have been referring to simply adding £2Million to the balance sheet in 2009, in order to show a profit in 2010. This, as I have shown, isn’t a plausible way of doing it, as it will be added to the balance sheet as either a creditor (to be repaid later) or regarded as additional capital. It will not show up as turnover or profit.

So, you have used something SOC said as a joke, and you turned it into something which makes him look like he’s cheating by fabricating the clubs accounts. Now we have to face other fans pointing their grubby, little, fingers of accusation, in our direction. (See the original poster for details)

What you have written, even if it was in innocence, could be easily misconstrued and used against our club. This is why I asked you to remove, or amend, the article on your website.

I once had a lot of respect for Batley. It is, as people on here have already stated, one of the best away trips in the game. There would have been no other club that I would have been happy to be beaten by in the NRC final – but for Batley I was. We often get fans of Super League clubs coming on here taking the mickey out of us for where we are and their little jibe is “enjoy going to Batley”. This is how stupid they are. We always tell them that we certainly will on this board. But, over the last few months, with anti-Widnes and incredibly biased match results on the Batley website, and now this, your clubs’ reputation has been somewhat sullied, in my eyes.

Re: Batley Chairman tells it like it is! : Wed Nov 24, 2010 3:03 pm  

Did I read somewhere that he created a 'charitable trust' with £1.8 million in, which was called on by the club? You spent 800,000, with the 1 million remaining as 'income' on the books and thus profit? Might be gonads I know