Thanks first to brigadista, for a thought-provoking first foray onto these boards. However, one thing ought to be cleared up: the notion that Ron "got the club for next to nothing". I don't think that's right at all.
People seem to forget that our current woes trace back entirely to the mid-1990s - and specifically to the Whelan-Chipmunk stewardship of the club (at a time when Vic was fighting a losing battle with cancer - hence with no one properly running the club from a financial point of view). We signed players on ruinously high wages (e.g. Boere on - supposedly - £3,500/wk basic... and that was in the mid 90s!), whilst gates were dwindling below 5,000 as we commenced our seemingly inexorable slide down the table.
When SEL (half Delancey, half Martin Dawn) bought out Vic's 76% shareholding, they not only paid a healthy sum (about £4m?), but they bought a club with at least £4m of debt - and rising. John Main did nothing to halt that decline - players wages alone were, infamously, 123% of turnover during his stint (and that's before we account for the £150k paid to Peter Storrie - what for, exactly, I've never understood).
By the time of our first appearance at the door of the Winders Court in 2000, we were a club that was already substantially broke. Where Ron Martin can be criticised is that he has done nothing to improve that situation. Instead, he has taken on some very substantial liabilities (e.g. the finance to buy out Delancey's half-share of the club), he has spent a lot of money on some expensive architects and planning consultants... and all seemingly predicated on a business plan where he would always be able to obtain a ready stream of working capital from external sources.
This we all know, and we've talked about numerous times. So, what's the point in repeating it? Well:
1. We shouldn't trick ourselves into thinking that, somehow, Ron is the problem and that the panacea is to remove him. Ron clearly is a problem. But our club was screwed long before him, and is likely to be for some time afterwards if/when he goes.
2. Ron - through a sophisticated (tangled?) web of sub- and offshore-companies - has already spent and invested a lot of money in this club. Brigadista - what makes you think that somehow he'd simply walk away? Administration, or a CVA, wouldn't change a thing. He'd still be the largest single creditor. He'd still call the shots, and we'd still have to deal with him.
3. Liquidation wouldn't be a great solution either. We would have to rename the club (he'd probably own the intellectual property in the club badge and the club name) - we'd have to become AFC Southend, and re-start at the bottom of the footballing pyramid. It would be 10-15 years before we were even close to the league - and I imagine we'd have lost a lot of our fanbase along the way. FC United is linked to Manchester United, one of the largest football clubs in the world; and AFC Wimbledon is linked to a former Premier League club in a place that was always a hotbed of football fan-dom. Southend is neither of those things. What makes you think the club would survive at all, let alone in anything like its current form?
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Don't get me wrong - I believe Ron has acted in a shabby, shameful manner in the last year. He has peddled half-truths and misinformation; he has strangled the club of cashflow; he has failed to pay the players; he has treated the fans with disdain; he alone set the club on course for relegation through his actions; and he continues to act like some sort of risible pocket Napoleon. He is a total bloody embarrassment, of that there can be no doubt.
But the way I see it, the choice we face now is to stick with him - since he is determined to make his supermarket deal - or to face oblivion. If the club can survive for long enough to see us in a new stadium - one in which, perhaps, we might have a chance of growing the fanbase - then there may yet be a future for this club.
Maybe we are, ultimately, doomed - even if we move. Maybe relegation and penury beckons. But there remains a chance that things will turn out OK - we'll stay in the league, and we'll prosper. A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.
If we all boycott the home games, however, then we have no chance - it's liquidation, and 15+ years of obscurity while we scrape together the money to buy a plot of land, build a stadium and work our way back up the footballing pyramid from the bottom. You'll forgive me if I don't think that that looks like a terribly appealing prospect.
If we support the club (and its unappealing current chairman) we have a chance. If we boycott it, we don't. That's how I see it; and that's why I'll be at Roots Hall on 7th August, cheering on the boys (and saving an especially loud cheer for Anthony Grant).
Matt
