One of our old suitors, Steve Parkin, is about to sell Clipper Logistics for £1.3 Billion which he’ll add to his current estimated wealth of £500 Million. Alongside his other assets he’s set to be worth around £2 Billion by the end of the year or early 2023.
I wonder if anyones picked up the phone or typed him an email, just on the off chance

He was only interested when he thought he could get Guisley to Newmarket and only if we were in SL, and if he gets that amount and he wants to never see any of that money again I reckon Leeds Utd would be on his radar. Still you make a good point. He can only say no so nothing to lose.

Not true,
He promised to pay every penny of the Richardson/Pearman debt which was substantially over £3 Million
He also pledged to invest in the stadium and build a training facility that would rival a Premier League club
All he asked of the RFL was for a promise that they wouldn’t watch him spend his money and then remove Wakefields Super League licence. That’s not unreasonable given that if they relegated Wakefield he would have spent all that money for a Championship Club and taken him for a mug
Rugby League is not awash with people who have his level of wealth and for the RFL to refuse to offer any assurances and see him walk away from Wakefield and the sport was simply unbelievable.

Yes he wanted to move the Guisley 1st team into the stadium but I don’t think there was anything wrong with that at all.

I almost dare not imagine what the last 14 or 15 years could have looked like had Nigel Wood just said, off the record Steve we won’t relegate Wakefield.

You've pretty much confirmed my post, but with a lot more meat on the bone. So it's pretty much the same situation. We can't guarantee SL survival, would he be willing to 'invest' come 2023 and were are a championship club? Its certainly a question the chairman and CEO need to be asking.

The difference is in the nuance, you pretty much dismissed his interest as being all about Guisley with a bit of cynicism suggesting he wanted his hands on Newmarket. It was far far more serious than that and he really did want to buy Wakefield Trinity so much so that his lawyers spent around 2 months performing due diligence at the club at a cost of around £150k

Earlier today, somebody commented on one of the posts, I think the one about John Kear, that MC is walking away next year to live in Portugal. Take it with a pinch of salt, but doesn't he have property out there

Good for him, much better quality of life and a lot less stress.

Were we just customers a couple of years ago when most of us handed over hard earned money to the club? I would hopew MC values us more than that.

If you gave the club money, you are a customer who made a donation.
So you may be appreciated, and may be loyal, which means they should look after you, but still customers.

Which brings up another point. Can the club identify loyal customers as opposed to just passing customers.
Right now I think they'll only be able to do that through season tickets and memberships.

We are only customers not one of your best descriptions of a supporter who I believe are far more than that. If a business performed like we have over the last few seasons they would lose their customer base and go bust. A Wakefield supporter on the other hand pays their money despite get very little in return. We don’t at Wakefield ask much just a team that puts in the effort for the time they are on the field. We unlike sponsors do not get much for our money but without us the club is finished. We are starved of information from the current club unless they want us to step up and pay for some new merchandise. I wonder if we will be bringing out a new magic weekend shirt this year. I cannot remember any tweets apologising to the supporters who have invested money to go and watch the team underperform again.
I notice that Leeds are offering reduced admission for Friday giving members the opportunity to buy two additional tickets for £2.21 each, I guess it’s called marketing.

Scarlet Pimpernell Leeds can do it because of sugar daddys they are millions in det because of new stand most clubs would have gone bust .Same as Wigan ,Huddersfield .very unfair playing field

Yes but I believe we are still to start paying for the purchase of the ground, I may be wrong.

Sorry PT but to call us JUST customers is ridiculous. I am just a customer of Aldi or Asda. I am not emotionally involved with those companies but I am with Trinity.
If the product was as shabby from Aldi or Asda as it is with Trinity I would stop using them.
As it is 55 years and counting. That's not JUST a customer.

Exactly. You are a loyal customer. But in business terms that's all.
Your influence is only whether you buy the product or not. You can influence others to buy or not as a loyal customer which makes you more important but you can't alter the product. Change the staff. Or tell the owner what to do.
As loyal customers we all have strong opinions which might influence the owner, if he fears we may no longer buy the product.
That's no different to Asda selling own brand Shreddies. If you go into the store and start shouting about it, you'll just get thrown out and nothing will change. Same as if you write to the CEO about it. If loads of people feel the same way and don't buy it....they'll change the recipe.

But the opposite applies too....which I think is more your point.
If the owner loses the faith of his loyal customers, his business will die.

I'm pretty much in agreement with every word of this... in my experience the club has never been better run as a functioning business... tight financial control, with the exception of the mortgage, which is being serviced... and there are no outstanding bills, and our supply chain can rely on the club to meet its contractual requirements without resorting to threatened or actual legal action... how are you guys doing with your household budgets these days???

perhaps there could have been greater progress in the area of attracting investment, but the current business climate in the UK currently is not great, and I think the mounting debts of some of our rugby league rivals will soon come home to roost. I don't support this club because I think we will, or even can, win every week, I know that, on paper we are easily in the bottom three clubs based on playing talent. I support them because they are part of my DNA, my family, my tribe... my mob!

there may be sustainable success in the future, there may not... players, fans even custodian owners come and go... but the way I see it the current custodian owners have added more stability, surety and governance than I have seen in over 50 years... and that means that the club will probably be around for my grandchildren and great grandchildren (and their generational family in and around Wakefield).

Sustainable change only happens incrementally even with huge investment..

I first came across "if you always do what you've always done" quote in the mid 80 as a part of the TQM revolution in industry... it encourages change and innovation, but must be treated as only a part of the long term solution, for if you don't underpin change and improvement with due diligence, system and governance, you are doomed to boom and bust.

we don't have access to massive investment in the short term, so the only alternative is to make incremental changes to the business in the short term whilst seeking opportunities to create investment... but investment must attract a dividend... otherwise its just a donation... and these days there are far more deserving charities seeking angels.

And no amount of whinging and bleating with change the economics of this minor professional sport.

Away from the playing side, if you're after that stadium that earns 365 days of the year that some have mentioned, there'll need to be initial outlay there. It won't run or market itself..

It won't, but you'd like to think with two accountants running the club, that it would operate at a profit, and it would probably be money that they weren't making before.

It`s a good job you`ve come on to tell us this Clearwing, hopefully our BOD will be reading this as I`m sure they would be just expecting to build a stand, close there eyes and for cash to fall from the sky, landing on there lap.

Wasn't aimed at your directors, Wildcat29. Seemed to be a discussion about whether financial input was all it should be. Point I was trying to make was that there are considerations beyond the first team squad. Same as for lots of clubs with new/redeveloped grounds.

It certainly is Timmy, better pace, and healthier.

Knowing that the sun will shine most days of the year, does wonders for physical and mental wellbeing.

It was only ailing health of our parents that brought us back in 2015.

We will return ourselves one day, and a couple of benefit of what I do now is that I am pretty much my own boss and home based, so I could do it anywhere in the world with little interruptions

Think we started paying for it .Our own ground More than Wigan,Hull,Huddersfield ,two name 3 clubs .have not got.Yet we are looked on as the lepers of S L .You could not make it up

Yes some of the so called rl supporters on the total rl forum have real bitterness towards us they really want us out of SL.

If he’s off to Portugal he might as well go now.

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I second that, wonder if Clipper Logistics do removals abroad.

May get a good deal

So, if MC goes now who's going to run the club?
Whatever the reason is for what's happening on the pitch, the blame doesn't lie with the directors running the club.
They have been badly let down as we all have.
They appointed WP as coach following good performances initially and to the approval of most on here.
They sign players on the recommendations of the coach, so they are hardly to blame for the playing personnel.
Sorry, but the buck stops with WP for me. He's got too much faith in some players who are simply not doing it for him. He needs to have a long hard think and fast, because, unlike many other survival years we've had in SL, this year we ARE the worst team and I seriously think this year we've been well and truly found out.