Ah, Colliers Wood is further south than I thought, I was assuming it was the next bus stop north. Yes quite easy at that point.

REPD @12:12 that’s it. They keep claiming we stole the ground off them (they went bust and lost the ground before we came along) and keep claiming that we’re hypocrites for not just handing it to them. Apparently we could have afforded to do that and have our own ground. The last bit explains how they went bust and lost the ground in the first place.

How many football club owners / investors actually make a profit directly from their investment? I'd guess the answer is very few, maybe even none. So the motivation for investing in a football club might be one or more of 1. You need a football club to help you make money out of something else like a property deal 2. You want to build or maintain your contact book 3. You think it will help with your personal image / marketing / branding if you are seen to be helping steward a community asset 4. Just as a hobby / some fun 5. You are mad.

OI there definitely is a bridge for foot crossing to Colliers Wood ground. Also you can walk across the flyover which has a footpath on it. Done both a few times when my son played at those grounds.

Saveloy yeah they got free use of the ground as well. When you see the lies some of their fans spread they’re either ignorant or cunts or ignorant cunts.

Right - hence my assumption that the sort of people involved in financing non-league are enjoying the big-fish-in-small-pond effect.

So basically an ego trip

REPD - It was a local team from where he grew up. So presumably some local community kudos as well. (I think he just liked showing his peers that he had got out of the town and made something of himself.)

Saveloy - does he have connections up there, or did he just randomly select a place up north?

REPD - but then we couldn't have built the stadium, so we wouldn't have moved out of KM, so we'd still have been squatting on their patch in their view etc etc

REPD, on the why sponsor question: I have a mate who does pretty well for himself in banking and has no kids (so well off, but not f- off rich) and he spunked loads of money being a minor sponsor for one of the Northern non-league teams and heading up there from London every few weeks for a few years. As far as I can tell all it got him was a good seat at the Christmas curry and a louder voice on the message boards.

Hash - they wouldn't, basically. And if they had remained at KM, they would ironically have to be bailed out by someone like Chelsea or Palace women by now.

Rob, even if we had done that how would they have maintained it etc From that statement the money we have given them plus grants would cover a new ground for them anyway so we have basically given them a ground for free.

Difficult to feel sympathy for Ks. I mean it wasn't exactly a secret that we would move away from KM. It was literally a publicly stated aim of ours since we moved to KM in 2002. Things started getting serious probably around 2012 so they had plenty of time to make contingencies and plan for what to do. I am sure we would have even helped them if they had asked but it seems they just sat around. Still I hope they are able to find a solution in the borough of Kingston. There are two sites according to that statement so hopefully it works out and ultimately I'd actually like them to do well. So hopefully they get this ground sorted and can start climbing the leagues again.

Nicander - I think Ks fans just wanted us to give them KM for nothing.

What I don't get with the K's is why haven't had a similar arrangement as Welling had with Erith & Belvedere? The latter building their own stand and clubhouse at a true ground share agreement. Was quite novel to visit the ground twice and go to different bars in non-league. But nonetheless a pretty sensible idea.

The reality is that however much money we had donated to Ks (and I think that it's clear that we gave them more than we legally "had" to), an element of their supporters would have complained about us and spread misinformation that we had "killed them" - that said, I do think that it was important that we "did the right thing" and that our conscience was clear in how we had dealt with the situation. I think that that Ks statement is good, in that in no sense does it try to blame us for their problems.

I don't have masses of sympathy for Ks if I'm honest. Too much delusion from fans of theirs I've spoken to. Too much throwing blame around and too little questioning what they have done to safeguard their club with years and years of time to plan and organise.

Saveloy - to be fair, I can "get" being a non-league fan (even though I wouldn't want to be one) and the whole help-out-the-community thing. But I think the guy behind Anderson Travel is still involved with Ks and for people like him, he must wonder sometimes how much of a moneypit it is in return for being the proverbial big fish. I can only think the "significant" sums to keep a club like Kingstonian afloat aren't actually that big in comparison to, say, ours. But big enough at the low levels...

Think there best bet was to do a deal with Cor Casuals similar to the one Welling & one of the Erith teams did a while back. Use the £1m to build a nice stand op the CC one and get a proper legal contract written up with CCFC. Sadly, i hear they rather blotted their copybook with Casuals when tjey groundshared there, but with a new Board and an ever increasingly desperate situation, maybe things can change

REPD - I think it's just that people like to be big fish, even if they know it's a small pond. But then I say that as someone who doesn't "get" being a non-league fan at all.

Kingston is a wealthy Borough with rich people and plenty of businesses, surely the community and fib dems would want a good community asset in their Borough.

While I can fully understand somebody buying into a pro football club for the non-financial side of things like networking, what's in it for those who put funding in for someone like Kingstonian?

It was generous but none of the Ks fans would agree that it was as we are the devil incarnate

Thanks for the link CW - what a mess. Although, I respect him for saying "extremely generous donation from AFC Wimbledon".