Peter Gilman

Severn Trent property LTD are all you need to know.

They were a company within the Severn Trent bunch of charlatans who’s remit was to get rid of pieces of shit land that existed from the portfolio of the general STW ASAP. The Bescot site was particularly useless, being as it was a few acres of contaminated land on the site of a former sewage works. Enter Peter Gilman, a man who’s company had an existing relationship with aiding STW property with its dipsosal of useless land plots - see Thorpe Park as an example. What Gilman needed was a local little shithouse - ie Bonser - to facilitate the abhoration of the move to Bescot from Fellows Park, pretty pennies made all round and then years later the plan crystalised to the benefit of the key facilitator, Mister Jeffrey Bonser.

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Well I for one refuse to believe that the board members at Walsall football club are as bad as people make out, they may or may not be the best people for the job but to say they are all in it to fill their own pockets is laughable. If they were going to embezzle money they would find a football club that actually had some money to embezzle.Does anyone on UTS really think that the clubs directors don’t have the well being ofWalsall football club at heart.

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I think it’s questionable but you make some good points. I think Pomlett definitely has the best interests of the club at heart and it must be disheartening for him to see what is going on and the comments now directed towards him. He’s definitely not in it to make money!! I think he’s making a lot of mistakes and it’s a big learning curve. Will he learn fast enough? I’m not sure.

The two executive directors are just that - they work in day to day jobs and they take a salary, just like the rest of us. If they are not doing their jobs properly, responsibility for that lies with one man - their boss. It’s up to him to decide whether he is happy with their work or whether he needs to instigate procedures to facilitate improvement or, indeed, disciplinary procedures. It’s up to him to set out the requirements of the role and the outcomes against which they will be measured. I find the personal comments aimed at them rather offensive.

As for some of the others on the Board, we know one has loaned money and he clearly hasn’t been a director to make money! Some of the others? Their presence is questionable!! Their relevance to the modern day football club is debatable!!

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The lease of the land was transferred to Bonser’s pension fund.The fund purchased the freehold at a later date.Thiis is the reason why the club is paying rent.The fact is that the lease should have been transferred to the club by Denglen.

It could have been transferred to the club, if the majority shareholder at the time, had the best interests of the club at heart.
Forget his name now. Can anybody help name who it was?

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It stinks that the club , our club , that we all love was so possibly screwed by a greedy businessman / men , who possibly knew exactly what he / they were doing when he / they manufactured the clubs new stadium , and was also helped by people that are still at board level .

We will never get out of this shit situation now unless all board members put their hands in their pockets and give the funds required to bring in quality players rather than just bringing in substandard dross to make the numbers up.

Time to show you want a successful FOOTBALL CLUB , not just a cushy golden goose , if not sell up and let someone who DOES want a football club take over .

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Well said Red , by I feel our cry’s are not heard,It’s the same old and will be for years until some kind of positive action by the fans are taken , What ever that may be .

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Jeez, haven’t the authorities heard of due diligence?

Wouldn’t it be amazing to get away from Bescot and Bonser and have a new stadium? Even if we had to pay back a loan at least the money in to the club through the gate receipts would go towards paying off the debt and not being chucked down a black hole. AFC Wimbledon did it. They moved back to Plough Lane. They raised cash through events, got a loan and also got investment from the local council and the Football League I believe. Bescot has never seemed like home. It would be great to leave Bonser with his advertising boards and an empty stadium. Our stadium would be forever tied to the club and gate money could be spent on players. Too simple I know.

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To be fair, I know nothing of his past, but it wouldn’t be unusual for a property development man to have multiple dissolved companies behind him, would it? A brief look at the names suggests that many are related to specific developments and therefore may have had a limited time-span. Although, of course, this throws up a question about whether guarantees and warranties relating to such developments were against these companies, but that’s really no concern of ours, I suppose.

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Also, how may of those companies were dissolved before filing their year end accounts?

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True. But, in the end, it’s probably none of our business and, for sure, it isn’t the issue that is making our club 19th in the league right now so perhaps we should be concentrating elsewhere?

Having checked my dossier…

Denglen (one of the original directors was Peter Gilman (based in Leeds), by the way) was incorporated at Companies House in February 1988, just days before Maurice Miller’s consortium bought the club and Fellow’s Park from Terry Ramsden. Miller (based in Leeds) knew Bonser (also in the consortium) because by then JW Bonser Engineering was a subsidiary of Whittington Engineering (based in Leeds), just in passing.

Denglen (originally Lanesmead Investments Ltd) was set up specifically develop two Walsall properties, accoridng to what little accounting records remain. It’s sister company, Davenmanor. was set up to run the club, and with this simple little action, the club and the land were originally separated - ostensibly to protect the club from the development if it went sour (imagine!).

Denglen’s only set of accounts (issued in year one) reveal the club owed Denglen GBP397,949. One has to assume this was the debt hangover from the Ramsden era. It probably means the company paid nothing for it’s position as developer, merely guaranteeing the club’s debts - an easy thing to do with a substantial freehold for sale.

Bescot was developed by a Leeds-based construction business, GMI. GMI was (I believe) founded in 1983 by one Peter Gilman. The ground was to be a carbon copy of Scunthorpe’s old ground, Glanford Park. That cost just GBP2,500,000, and was completed in 18 weeks, according to records from the time.

Anyway. The freehold. Looks like, although this is really, really, murky, Denglen bought it, or expected to buy it, from Severn Trent, but when they went under, without filing anything like a coherent set of accounts (Gilman had resigned as director at this stage, by the way, being replaced by Charlie Mander (sir), Severn Trent, original and maybe still owner, exercised a clause in whatever contract was in place (nobody knows save those involved) to serve a termination notice on the retail development (which was intended to be owned by the club, or sold to provide capital).

It would appear that Denglen owned the land because a certain KR Whalley (not from Leeds) said in 1991 (after Denglen went under) that the land had received expressions of interest from several different parties to the official receiver, and Severn Trent were definitely not in receivership.

So, in summary, WFC got sold to Miller, whose consortium had set up two companies - one for the club, one for the development. The development company, Denglen, bought Bescot, but had a contract that was subject to various things that they did not fulfil and Severn Trent bought the land back, or reacquired it under contract for whatever reason. (Note 1 below)

The land was eventually sold to the JW Bonser pension fund in 1995, for the princely sum of GBP200,000. Apparently because all other avenues had been exhausted, according to official records (club website). Like other transactions of the 1988-1995 period, secrecy prevailed.

This is a personal summary from my own research and draws certain conclusions that may or may not be accepted as accurate by the parties involved at the time. This and other research is why I will never support having Peter Gilman on the board. I firmly believe he should be dismissed and replaced.

The rest of the story (there’s plenty more) will have to wait for another day.

Note 1 - it has just occurred to me that they may not have been paid for it… I do not have a list of Denglen creditors to hand.

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Stinks doesn’t it

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When Miller and Gillman got involved, what was Bonser’s role/relationship with WFC?
Was he involved in the club at all then?

I think Miller bought in Bonser as he knew him and he was local.
At no point was Jeff a fan, I don’t believe he was coming to games prior to this or even known to the previous board.
It really rankles with me this No 1 fan stuff

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His mother and father in law are vile fans

Thought he was a blue nose , I maybe wrong…

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I used to have a chat with Colin before the game because he sat by my old mate’s Stan and Paul

:eyes: