You talk about 20+ thousand fans, but only 6 Thousand turn up to a FREE party..

If you read muy post, which you quoted you would see i typed "sold"

we know it was free you turnip, still doesnt take away the fact that out of 20,000 who were allowed in to your party only 6000 turned up

I blame the Council for their abject failure to lay on free return bus transport from all over the East Riding

I grew up in the South East and we used soccer and football interchangeably. Never heard soccer used as a term of derision either, and that's certainly not the way I use it.

I think a lot of the problem people have with using soccer now is that it's seen as an American word.

Serious question. What exactly [iis[/i Allam's beef with the council, for him to call them liars and cheats with hidden agendas? As far as I can see, their only crime is not to give him the stadium.

Lots of calls for boths sides to grow up and sit round the olive-laden table, but what's the incentive for the council to do this? They've got nothing to gain so why on earth would they make the running, especially in light of the lastest venom spat at them?

So why does Allam hate them so much? Perhaps Lambrettaman can enlighten us.

Assem's like a slightly bonkers rich uncle, he sometimes comes out with some strange things, but you let him off because he buys you better Christmas presents than everyone else.

He's a very successful man, he's made hundreds of millions and as a consequence he's used to being respected and he normally deals with other successful people. What he's not used to, is dealing with some slightly dim bloke from Orchard Park who's never achieved anything and only gets into office because barely anyone in his ward bothers to vote.

The bloke offered to raise over £100m to improve sporting facilities in Hull(creating the best sporting facilities in North East England) and create thousands of jobs, just so long as the council were willing to give him the site to do it on. It had no downside, it look the responsibility of improving the KC(which generates zero income for the council), improving West Park and improving Hull as a whole, most councils woukd have bitten his hand off.

Ours though, as is their tradition, just see it as some rich bloke trying to get something for nothing, rather that the opportunity that it presented. They're cretins, union men who see success as a threat, rather than an opportunity. It's nothing new, years ago Hull City Council turned down a major car plant, as they thought it would cause problems for wage level on the docks. I wouldn't give Geraghty a job as a cleaner, I suspect that dust could outwit him.

Assem's PR is often terrible and much of what's gone on has been handled very badly, but he's still the man who offered to invest a fortune in this city and it was thrown back in his face. Voters get the politicians they deserve and Hull has an appalling record when it comes to selecting it's politicians, there's only Alan Johson who knows what day it is. Hull is suffering badly at the moment, with our current politicians in charge, I see no chance of that situation improving.

Ask the people of RUSCADOR about that.



It's called democracy, you can't buy what you want.



You will, of course, have links to the detail of that and how the finance was leveraaged?



No downside, apart from him wanting it for nothing, and most Councils, like Hull, would give him short shrift, keep swallowing.

The only cretin here is you, and I thought you said you weren't coming back?

He made a big splash about a "Sporting Village Gif"t in the HDM, it's true.
But it wasn't a gift, it was a property deal, contingent on being given the stadium for nothing for borrowing purposes as a precursor to any fuller discussions, and with plans (costing £3,000, no less) not even being shared.
And it wasn't sporting, let alone "the best sporting facilities in North East England". It had an ice rink. Until it was pointed out there was one already in the city. By the second iteration it transpired it was about supermarkets and boutiques for the "wives" to shop in whilst the husbands attended the games.
I'd be interested on your views of town planning retail capacity in the city and whether the city centre is over subscribed. My opinion is that it is not, that there are enough vacant units and under-utilisation across the many existing shopping centres to preclude granting of further consent to an "edge of centre" development.
The main problem is that there have been no concrete talks, plans or discussions for the council to consider in detail, just some conflicting allusions to massive philanthropy and a dummy-spit. I can totally understand why the council have been cautious. The development goes bust in a retail market sector that's declining due to online growth and the mortgaged stadium is repossessed.

Shhh, scooterboy is recovering from having his gag reflex removed!

scooter man is a total muppet, talks made up things as facts

troll on scooter man

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Standee

Must be all that time spent in Egypt.

So, as I thought, it's just because he's a petulant man who's been told "no".

What right has he to potentially libellously call the council cheats and liars with a hidden agenda in the national press? How have they cheated him and what lies have they told him? And what is their hidden agenda?

Referring to people as slightly dim cretins merely because they are working class does nothing for your argument and says lots about yourself. You only have to compare the undignified rants of Allam to the reserved tones of Mr Brady to know who to trust. As Wilf pointed out the other day:


But I guess we should be grateful that your own hysterical rants aren't repeated on here. Taken (unedited, let's see what the swear-filter makes of it) from the City Independent massageboard:



Interesting. 'Loving' began with an f, 'friend' with a c in your original version.

Hmm. Incredibly charming, maybe.

Total and absolute tosh.

Post-WW2 both Ford and GM looked at building a plant on the North Bank (not within the City of Hull boundaries), with a view to the European export market. The main stumbling block was availability of land, all of the suitable sites were owned by Blackburn, Armstrong, Reckitts, Smith & Nephew, Hollis Brothers, Fenners and British Petroleum. It was the employers who were fearfull of another company arriving and potentially driving local wages up. Why would any council object to its citizens receiving enhanced remuneration, when much of that extra money could be spent on council-provided services.

As it was, both Ford & GM realised it was cheaper to buy out existing continental manufacturers or simply build plants over there anyway.

I don't know who your dealer is but he's obviously flogging you something you're not capapble of handling.

I've never had anything removed.

I accept that any Ruscador employee will feel hard done by, over half the staff were made redundant, but such is life. I recently paid £400k in redundancy payments, I'd rather have not made anyone redundant, but sometimes you have no option.

I suspect there's very few on this board who have ever run a substantial business, so I'm not surprised that so many are so suspicious of what's gone before, but I doubt it will keep Assem up nights.

Avoiding the questions on retail planning capacity, the conflicting content of the unshared proposals (sporting citadel vs Greggs/Carphone Warehouse), the implications of using a community asset as security on retail development in a declining and risky market, and Allam's inherently unreasonable negotiating position, suggest you are a something of an apologist. Running a big business doesn't qualify you to override perfectly sound covenants and basic planning policy. Attempting to discredit the valid argumentation and questioning raised on here by sneering about participants' entrepreneurial acumen makes it look like you don't know the answers.

He's have invested feck all. He'd have raised finance against a former public asset and made an absolute killing. Anyone who can't see though him is as thick as one of the councillors you refer to

do you believe the utter tripe you post?

completely agree, what an insulting load of rubbish that scooter boy spews out.cant make my mind up as to whether he is naïve about allams motives or just stupid (and I really didn't want to descend to his level by saying that) of course he cant be any of those things because he is a "successful businessman"!!!!?

He is, but it doesn't change the fact that the development would massively benefit Hull, while costing the council nothing other than handing over something that is no asset at all at moment, as it generates no income.



I referred to them as dim cretins, because they're dim cretins, somebodys background has absolutely no bearing on their intelligence.

You seem so confident that "This development would massively benefit Hull". Which one, the one with the duplicate ice rink or the one with the supermarket and Greggs? Which version are you talking about?

If the former, let's be honest, who'd be on the hook for running a leisure centre, ice rinks, squash courts? If the Council, you'd be asking them to taken on a shedload of incremental running costs for no return in a financially constrained environment. If you were running them as private entities, they'd be no more "benefit to the people" than opening another David Lloyd centre and getting people to shell out £60 a month.

If the latter, we come back to retail planning capacity, a point you seem to be struggling with. Will this help the traders of Anlaby Road, St Stephens, Whitefriargate or Princes Quay? Or just further impoverish a city centre retail market challenged enough by vacant properties whilst out of centre or edge of centre developments suck the life out of them? The market for physical retail is declining with the growth in online. Why would it be such a good thing to mortgage the stadium against loans to build all this stuff when there's a risk the market shrinks further in 5 years and the bank calls in the security and ends up owning a community asset? All for an extra 5k seats for City's brief PL tenure, which won't be fully utilised anyway. Lunacy.

The plan was for a £114m sport village, not for an out of town shopping centre.

But your post is a perfect example of the mentality that leads to Hull missing out on such developments.

The prime reason given for not wanting to progress this idea, was that the moving of Hull Fair was not up for discussion. So we have an eyesore for fifty weeks of the year, just so that we can site a fair there for a week a year, a travelling fair that could be sited anywhere.

It [uwas[/u. That was then, an emotive argument to get people on-side. Sport's a good thing, right? But sporting facilities make little money. In 2011, local businessman Allam has revealed detailed plans to build a complex, which would include a hotel, tennis, squash and gymnastics facilities, an Olympic-size swimming pool and a multi-story car park. "People of all ages will be able to come and play here. I want to see our younger generation only go home to eat and sleep, rather than hanging around on street corners." Noble. If unsupported by presentation of any detail to the folks he wanted to donate him a £46m asset.


Last weekend, however, the current version was revealed here "I had in mind £30 million to spend on the infrastructure of the club, to increase the stadium by 10,000 and to have commercial activities around the stadium – [ucafeterias, shops, supermarkets - to have all this to create income for the club[/u so that in the future it can be self-financing and not relying on me."

Philanthropic Sporting village gift, or Hull City-funding, city centre-killing retail park? Could it be any clearer? You still seem unwilling to discuss planning policy on city centre regeneration. I recently met the head of planning for the North West. I know where the appetite is, and I understand why. You seem blinded to the downsides, in fact you state categorically that there are none. Because it's convenient for you to slate anyone challenging lifting sensible convenants and articulating the broader context of financial and ownership risk, retail market decline and planning policy as a Luddite.

Hull City Council determine what does, or doesn't, get planning permission, but if you refuse to discuss moving the fair, then you're guaranteed to get nothing. Luddites is a perfect term for those in charge of Hull City Council, dinosaurs is another.

Unlike you, for whom the term "mouthpiece" comes to mind. How is your best buddy Assam.

So, to be quite clear - the vitriol Allam has towards the council relates to nothing more than their unwillingness to hand over the freehold to the stadium without so much as an offer on the table nor sight of a business plan? Surely it would only be the actions of "cretins" (to use your elegant metaphor) to hand over the keys to Allam under those premises?


Surely, no it can't be, [isurely[/i Allam couldn't have had a hidden agenda all along!? It beggars belief that he may have attempted to mislead (some may say lied and cheated) the citizens of Hull as to his true intentions?

But no, I do him a disservice. I distinctly remember him referring to shops and a supermarket some time ago, so the women would have something to do whilst the men played/watched sport, he said. Perhaps the nuance of this may be lost on Lambrettaman, who has a habit of heralding his returns to this forum with a cheery "Evening gents".


Are you being deliberately blind to Mrs B's questions or are you just incredibly obtuse? What are your thoughts on the viability of either a "sporting village" or a Hull-City-income-generating retail park on that site? What would be the long-term consequences of borrowing against the stadium to either of those ends and what would be the effects on the existing trade in the city?

As you have so far avoided this challenge now on no less than four occasions in the last 24 hours, my guess is that you are, indeed, obtuse and are unable to provide answers. Let's see if this is the fifth time you fail to address the points.