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Queens Park & Connah's Quay



Bantam Cymraeg
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Jun 14, 2008, 9:28 PM

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Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
It's reported on the Cymru Alliance website that Gap Queens Park have resigned from the league at the AGM. The Cymru Alliance will thus again operate with 17 clubs next season, folowing Bodedern's resignation last autumn. Prestatyn promoted to the Welsh Prem, replaced by Llangefni, Mold Alex promoted from the WNLWA, where Queens Park will probably play next season (if they haven't folded). There has been a bit of uncertainty surrounding QP recently, as Gap had withdrawn their backing with the intention of transferring it to Connah's Quay Nomads (with a name change to Gap Connah's Quay). This hasn't been finalised yet, but it looks like it will happen. Shame for QP, but they never really generated much support, and were playing above their station helped by the financial input from Gap. Not a sugar daddy as such, but another club left in the lurch following the loss of a benefactor.


hipkissexpress
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Jun 16, 2008, 3:07 PM

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Re: [Bantam Cymraeg] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
Looks like Queen's Park have 'gone' altogether...this is taken from their website today... GAP QUEENS PARK TO MERGE WITH BORRAS PARK ALBION

Gap Queens Park Football Club is to merge with Borras Park Albion (BPA) after discussions between owner Gap Personnel and a number of local football clubs over the past few weeks.

Gap Personnel’s intention to return the club to the local community has led to a deal with community-based local club BPA, which runs one of the best youth set ups in the Wrexham area, boasting 13 youth teams. BPA has three senior men’s teams in the Welsh National League, one tier below the Cymru Alliance.

Queens Park nearly folded in 2007 but survived following Gap Personnel’s purchase of the club last summer. Re-named as Gap Queens Park, it went on to have a successful season, finishing sixth in the Cymru Alliance and reaching two cup finals.

Gap Personnel had originally tried to find a suitable partner for the club in the immediate local community to keep its position in the Cymru Alliance league.

Commented Gap Queen’s Park’s General Manager Stewart Roberts: “Our search for a suitable CA-league partner locally failed for a number of reasons. The spiraling cost of the Queensway Stadium, owned by the local council, has been a key factor as there is a proposed 25% rental increase this year.

“Problems finding funding to operate a Cymru Alliance club with a playing budget at a competitive level and the lack of clubs with grounds that meet the league’s ground grading criteria also meant that several interested parties in the area weren’t able to go ahead with a merger.

“Gap Queens Park will therefore merge with Borras Park Albion and Gap has agreed to the club being run by the current officers of BPA. We had specified that part of the club’s name, either Queens or Park, be kept in the name of any merger and this is already in place with BPA’s current name.”

Gap will provide BPA with the club assets it currently owns (dugouts worth £2,000) and will provide BPA with a cash donation for the development of the ground at Dean Road Borras. The intention is for BPA to use the funds jointly on barriers surrounding the pitch and the placement of the dugouts to enhance the facility they play at. The remainder of the funds will be used on the football club’s youth section.

There are already a number of links between the two football clubs. The original Queens Park team was founded by a group of players that left Borras to start it. Current QP player and ex-chairman Dave Evans played for Borras as a youth and on dual forms in recent years. Ian Pierce, a Gap Queens Park player last year, is the son of current Borras chairman Tom Pierce.

This year’s youth set up at Borras will have over 250 youngsters playing football every week, a large number of these coming from the Queens Park area.

Concluded Stewart Roberts: “Gap is proud to have saved Queens Park from folding some 14 months ago and it has been our goal to ensure the survival of the club in some shape or form in the longer term. Returning the club to the community has been a step forward to safeguard its future, and we are happy that both Queens Park and BPA will continue to thrive through the merger.”

16 June 2008



Andy D
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Jun 16, 2008, 3:47 PM

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Re: [hipkissexpress] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
In Reply To
Looks like Queen's Park have 'gone' altogether...this is taken from their website today... GAP QUEENS PARK TO MERGE WITH BORRAS PARK ALBION

“Gap Queens Park will therefore merge with Borras Park Albion and Gap has agreed to the club being run by the current officers of BPA. We had specified that part of the club’s name, either Queens or Park, be kept in the name of any merger and this is already in place with BPA’s current name.”

Which reminds me of the old one which did the rounds when Northwich Vics & Witton Albion were considering a merger. We could take the first half of Northwich Victoria Football Club's name and the second half of Witton Albion Football Club to form a new club called Northwich Victoria Football Club.



Rules of Groundhopping:

Rule 1 - There are no rules
Rule 2 - See rule 1.....



Seagull
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Jun 16, 2008, 5:39 PM

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Re: [Andy D] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
Is it just me being cynical or do Gap seem desperate, at any cost, to get their name in lights a la TNS in the WPL?

Thing is, Queens Park have in reality now disappeared as a club and with the gates Connah's Quay attract I can sadly see this being a very short trip too.

I hope, for the few dedicated fans of the Nomads, that I am way wide of the mark, but if they don't make it to the new "elite" of 10 clubs for the following season, I can see their new benefactors dropping them like a stone.

The brutal truth is that you cannot run a WPL club on gates of 150 without a LOT of financial backing and inevitably, the backers will lose interest unless they see a return on their investment.

If I were a Nomads fan, I would be very, very worried.


Nutsy
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Jun 16, 2008, 10:49 PM

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Re: [Seagull] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
You're spot on in what you're saying Seagull. It stinks of media type 'spin' does today's offerings coming from Gap. I'm on the committee at Holyhead Hotspur and know just what sort of effort it takes to finance a club at this level from seeking out sponsors to merchandising and selling weekly totes. It is so easy by the looks of things to take over a club with no concern shown by the FAW and then drop them when a better (slightly) proposition comes along. As you say, how long before they realise the Unibond, as an example, may be a step up and they drop Connahs Quay? The Cymru Alliance and WPL aren't doing the Welsh system any good by letting this all go supposedly unnoticed, just look at how many clubs are dropping divisions in England at the minute due to financial problems, my old club Halifax Town included.



www.clubwebsite.co.uk/ashtontown


Seagull
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Jun 17, 2008, 8:34 AM

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Re: [Nutsy] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
Nutsy - spot on fella - more spin than Alistair Campbell and Shane Warne on a merry go round.

I thought I was being unduly cynical but probably not.

The trouble is, so many clubs are so desperate for "success" that they put themselves deep in debt in doing so and then look for anything, ANYTHING, to get them out of it.

As you rightly point out, the almost unprecidented number of higher profile non league clubs in difficulty this Summer should be a warning to all, yet we seem equally to have just as many trying to reinvent themselves through backers and benefactors looking for cheap exposure for their companies or brands (or in some cases, just a king sized ego trip), whilst paying no regard whatsoever for the long term status of a club and most importantly, imho, it's position and function within it's community.

I mean, Leigh Genesis, for pity's sake. I give it two years tops before that falls flat on it's arse. Don't these people do any research? Leigh is a RUGBY LEAGUE TOWN, always has been. always will be. It'll never have a sustainable football club at Conference or beyond smply because the interest isn't there, so will always need masses of outside investment to prop it up.

And for what purpose?

The area aleady has many well established sides, playing at levels that ARE sustainable, that do bring benefits to the community by giving youngsters the chance to better themselves.

I'd love the people behind this to prove me wrong, if only for the benefit of the RMI fans who've suffered for years (though not as much as those in Horwich, but that's another story...), but I can only see it ending in tears when the backers realise that money out is way greater than money in (in simple terms) and pull the proverbial plug.


acmold
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Jun 17, 2008, 9:15 AM

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Re: [Seagull] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or
I've seen a number of quotes in the last week from officials / managers at various clubs who have come into a bit of money be it through reforming, getting a new ground, etc. They all seem to say, we hope to climb the Pyramid and get back to where we were before.

And in the process run up debts of thousands of pounds by paying players far more than the club is getting in through the gate and in sponsorship, five or ten years down the line they will be back to square one, no money, baliffs at the door and looking to do the process all over again.


Seagull
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Jun 24, 2008, 2:25 PM

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Re: [Seagull] Queens Park & Connah's Quay or Reply Privately
Latest on Connah's Quay:

http://www.welsh-premier.com/news.php?ID=6824

Looks like it's all done and dusted, I hope it's a sucess for all concerned, especially the Nomads fans.