But why should the supporters of the two clubs have to face a) their clubs packing in and b) losing the stadium, through the mismanagement of whoever owns the clubs at the time?

As I said earlier in the thread, Council's are no good at making money. They are also not very efficient with the money that they spend. So the project £161k per annum may well be turned immediately into profit if run more as a commercial enterprise. But...

The clubs needs to focus on on-field matters, not running a stadium. Especially from a FCHT point of view, we dont have a club shop to manage, nevermind taking on the full stadium. But both clubs should obviously have a big say, whilst there being a degree of indepdence from the clubs to ensure future ownership is never an issue.

We've got some uncertainty over our ground too at the moment. Let's hope both clubs get something sorted. We both suffer from having skint local authorities. Maybe we should share a new stadium on the border? The Shelf Superdome

Wait for it.......Lol!

Well if we don't change owt, nowt will change. The supporters of both clubs could/should have a representation on the organisation running the shared ground. Just trying to think of something different to go forward with The Shay. This is, after all, a ground on a site that most sports club in England would kill for.

I don’t want to be doomunger but I can only see this going one way unless a person with tons of money from us or the football side buy the Shay.
The council want rid to save money and want to make money from the sale. They will sell it to the highest bidder. Simple as that. They won’t give a sh*t whether the towns professional sports teams area accommodated. They just want a lot of cash to spend on crap. As said on another post £161k a year for a council is nothing especially what they put their money into. Two years down the line and I can see Halifax not having a professional rugby league or football club in the town. Thanks council. I’d just like them to put my wheelie bin back outside my house when it’s been emptied instead of halfway down the road. Lazy tw*#ts.

I've never been happy with the Council owning the Shay, they're a bunch of clowns. Had to deal with them through my job, being passed around between incompetent departments, each not knowing what the other ones do ..... "Oh he/she is off sick (what, again? Another runny nose is it?)" ..... blah blah blah. They should just stick to collecting the annoying council tax (should be added on to income tax anyway) and emptying the bins (which they're bad at).

Rant over. Will be a blessing to privatise the Shay, hopefully the soccer/rugby clubs can do a deal

At least this process is starting off open and transparent which non of the parties have previously been particularly inclined to be. With the new panthers board there is certainly more chance of agreements being reached between parties . Previous parties have been dug in their own trenches which enabled nothing . So maybe some sense may emerge. I remain cautiously optomistic .

Im not sure if the bolded part is true or not, by all accounts a group including members of the Fax board had been in discussions with the council regarding the purchase of the Shay for a number of months. I get the impression that this latest "leak" by the council suggesting they could be looking to offload the ground is just them feeling out what other interest there may be if they were to put it on the open market. A bit of hard ball going on.

It is my understanding that the current board have wanted the shay since they took over for obvious reasons, whilst owning the stadium outright may only score minimal points with img the knock on effect with revenue streams ie bar and food sales plus other ideas in the pipeline will be a positive in terms of improving our score in the finance department. I have had direct communication with a current non executive director and the plan is to takeover the running of the shay , the council wants / wanted the football club to do it as a joint venture but they’ve been very quiet , that of course could change. Not sure on the legalities of ‘ disposing ‘ of the shay but they certainly aren’t asking for its full value if anything, maybe this is where the lease option comes in . Like I’ve tried to say on the footy forum but to no avail the rugby club have made some very interesting appointments of late , Damien Clayton, Amy hardcastle etc, the revamp and new ownership of the shop and merchandise new sponsorship all seems positive to me , there are rumours flying around left right and centre about what would be added to the shay but they are just that so probably best mute them as it’d be egg on face time .

1000 posts on the Town forum to 20 on here for such a vital topic..Think the rugby/football Town debate is settled for now...even allowing for Listenups contributions..