Always a Wasp

Wholly AI?

Shit we are in trouble.

The poem was entirely written by AI based on the prompt that I gave.

Yeah, it's pretty scary some of the things that you can do with it!

Quote

IF there is a coach, a Training Base and guaranteed pay you will sign up in the current climate (of large player numbers being released)

The most important word in that sentence is "IF"

With what we know so far (acknowledging there may be a lot we don't know) not sure how New Wasps could be guaranteeing pay....

Exactly Paul, this is what WE know. We aren't being given much info at the moment and for me that's OK for the time being. There could be a very big delta between what we know/think is going on and what is actually happening. For balance, that could be in either direction (we could be less advanced in progress than we as fans think but we could also be far more advanced in progress too).

You only have to look at Atlas to see what happens when you say things in the media that turn out to be untrue or you allow things to be leaked onto social media. I think Wasps are trying to avoid that.

That's brilliant that!

Wasps amateur club owned their ground at Repton Avenue in Sudbury, near Harrow, having bought it in the 1920s. However it was totally unsuitable for the professional era due to size, facilities (apart from an excellent club house) and access.

There were initial plans to turn the pitch 90? and build new stands when the game went professional.  Then Chris Wright offered to buy Wasps so we could play at Loftus Road and the merged QPR and Wasps entity became Loftus Road plc and floated on the Stock Market.

Wasps split into professional (Wasps RFC) and amateur (Wasps FC) organisations since the club had several sides and wished to keep that going. The amateurs still played at Sudbury and the professionals trained there. Wasps won the league in the first season of professional rugby. The Premiership was set up the next season.

Unfortunately, QPR manager Gerry Francis' uncontrolled profligate spending meant the  organisation leaked money and the share value fell to zero. As a result Sudbury ground, but not the clubhouse, was sold to pay off QPR's debts and is now a housing estate. The team had to train on the public park the other side of the clubhouse since Francis wouldn't accommodate them at QPR's training ground.

Then Fulham FC were having work done at Craven Cottage and a financial inducement was offered to Wasps to move and we relocated to High Wycombe and won lots of trophies (4 league and 2 European champions) during that period.

In the meantime, Chris Wright split from QPR but ended up owing their training ground at Twyford Avenue, Acton. Wasps FC moved there permanently and the professionals were based and trained there.

Chris Wright had to sell the club eventually and Steve Hayes bought it and Wycombe Wanderers with a plan to develop a former airfield into a sports and retail park with a new stadium close to the M40 but his applications were thrown out by the local council and he walked away.

At this point Wasps secured a bonus point loss on the last day of the season to avoid relegation and were pursued by HMRC for tax. Wasps FC came up with the money at the last minute (almost literally) and a former player lead a consortium which ended with Derek Richardson buying the club.

Derek realised owning the ground was key to revenue and ended up buying the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, which also had conference and exhibition halls, hotel and casino. Unfortunately he did not have enough wealth to do this and keep funding the club so he initiated an ambitious, but ill-fated, scheme to sell bonds to fund the stadium purchase. At the same time, Sisu the Coventry City owners, were attempting to scupper the purchase through endless legal actions. Then we had the pandemic and downturn of the economy

The culmination of all of this was the club had no money and huge debts and went into administration.

Great summary, thank you!

Thanks all for your responses so far!

So our story of moving around isn't much different to other clubs around London?

It appears to me that Wasps moves since Loftus Road have been down to influence from third parties or other circumstances outside of the club's control.

I assume that Wasps moves appear more high profile compared to other London clubs because Wasps moved up to the Midlands (particularly to a ground that has lots of baggage attached to it), unlike the other clubs who stayed in or around London? I also find it a bit unfair the way Wasps are viewed due to their nomadic nature seeing as, in my view, the moves weren't necessarily the choice of the club per se. But I guess that it's an easy target when other clubs have had fairly long term ties to their local area (Tigers/Northampton/Gloucester/Bath).

I'm sure you're all aware, I was one of the fans that Wasps picked up during the Coventry era. I've fallen in love with the club and look to learn as much about it as possible about our history to gain a greater appreciation of Wasps.

First question, was it the professional era coming in that resulted in the split of Wasps into the professional and amateur branches? Was it a case of some within Wasps being resistant to professionalism (not saying that's wrong btw) and staying put - creating Wasps FC - for others to go on to create the professional Wasps?

Second question, what is it that makes Wasps a historically nomadic club? Clubs in the London area seemed to have no issue finding homes for themselves (appreciate London Irish and Sa****ns have moved fairly recently but were quite fixed up until then) but it seemed like we moved around quite a lot (Sudbury - Loftus Road - Adams Park - CBSA - TBC). I see on Wikipedia that the same owners of QPR bought Wasps when they first split, so that may be the reason why we ended up at Loftus Road?

Third question, what were the causes of Wasps initial threats of administration during the AP days that resulted in the now ill-fated move to Coventry?

Fourth question (more of a looking to the future question, but knowledge of Wasps history helps), do time served Wasps fans believe that the future of Wasps is in the Midlands (wherever that may be) rather than Wasps roots in and around London? I obviously have no qualms about Wasps being in the Midlands, being closer to where I live in Staffs, but distance wouldn't put me off attending games if Wasps did move closer to London.

Fifth question, is there anything else that's interesting to know that I haven't asked about already?

As mentioned above, if Wasps are still in a position where they have more than one option on the table then Atlas may just have talked themselves out of a potentially lucrative tenant.

100% especially saying this at an event where you know people will try and take the opportunity to leak news.