Re: SMITH SIGNS FOR WIGAN!!!
Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:32 pm
Well I prefer to believe my ears when the chairman speaks here:Cruncher wrote:That is NOT what I've been told. And no, I'm not going to give away my sources. Neither am I prepared to accept as proof comments attributed to IL which may well amount to nothing more than a bit of positive PR once the dust had settled.DaveO wrote:It was Dave Whelan who purchased Edge Hall road for Wigan while he was chairman. IL did not.Cruncher wrote: Are they responsible for the massive contracts Maurice agreed, which are still preventing us from rebuilding the team? Are they responsible for the very disappointing first team form we've seen from so-called promising youngsters like Goulding and Coyle? No. But I'll tell you what they are responsible for: securing a 50-year deal for us at the JJB, acquiring Edge Hall Road so that it's now officially our asset, and in the last few days, signing one of the potentially most exciting halfbacks in the world - at minimal cost.
It was also Dave Whelan who offered the 25 year extension on the lease to IL as well as (according to IL) some very generous terms for the lease itself.
Edge Hall road, the 50 year lease and the generous terms of the lease fell into IL's lap on a plate and were down to the generosity of Dave Whelan in what amounted to his final acts of support for the club. Lets give the credit to right people when it is due.
Dave
My understanding is that there was quite a wrangle over both the ownership of Edge Hall Road and the JJB lease. I'm not saying there was a row, but comments like "it fell into his lap" are well wide of the mark. Well wide.
http://www.wiganwarriors.com/imagelibra ... ial(1).mp3
In which he says it was a "...very easy negotiation to get it (the lease) extended".
Why is it you think this would be a PR exercise? Because it doesn't fit in with your view? I am pretty sure you have rubbished statements from IL before as being PR exercises when they have contradicted what you have posted (for example over the Higham saga). If so IL is clearly not to be trusted as he is just says what we want to hear! I don't believe that to be the case and take what he says at face value.
In other interviews IL also said the terms of the lease were very generous. I am not making it up and it was he who said it and that it was DW who suggested the extension to 50 years.
He also got, as part of buying the club the freehold to Edge hall road. DW didn't need to sell it and clearly didn't make impossible demands money wise for IL to buy it - or we would not have it now.
What is more in that same interview above DW goes on about trying to work out how to gift the ground to Wigan in some way, either between council and both soccer and rugby clubs or between the two.
And to paraphrase IL once more from that interview, DW is the architect of the future of Wigan due to what he has done over the last 7 or 8 years. By which IL means the lease situation and the Orrell ground.But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter a great deal. Edge Hall Road was clearly not our possession while Whelan owned us. In fact, we scarcely had an asset to call our own. At the same time, the fact that he so clearly favoured the football meant that we were constantly subjected to rumours that we could be chucked out of the JJB at his whim, regardless of whether or not we had a lease. All of that is now gone. Resist congratulating the new management on any of this if you must, but at least admit that we're now in a better position on both those fronts than we were before.
Oh and all those rumours about being chucked out were plainly stupid.
I have no axe to grind with IL if that is what you thought prompted my original reply but what I don't like to see is history being re-written. It is obviously true DW has given the club a generous lease which was easy to negotiate and was prepared to give IL a great platform to take the club forward.
Dave
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