It's right that Wasps start again from the bottom

AS I look at the Wasps saga, I can’t help thinking that this was something that was always on the cards, given the way that Wasps reacted to the advent of the professional game.

- JEFF PROBYN

It’s also how a number of successful businessmen reacted by taking over clubs with no real idea of how they would be transformed into successful businesses. Wasps have had a number of owners over the years and yet not one has managed to turn a profit from the club, even in the years when the club were at the top of the club game.

Playing at Sudbury with a maximum crowd of just over 3,000 was never going to work in a professional game, so it was obvious that a move was on the cards, particularly when Loftus Road Holdings took over. However, the crowd size never improved enough to make it a financially viable venue for the club and they then moved to share Wycombe Wanderers FC grounds at Adams Park.

This almost constant movement of the club from Sudbury to Loftus Road football ground, to Adams Park, High Wycombe, then finally to Coventry would have made it difficult for the fans of the club to continue their support, even though the first move to Loftus Road wasn’t that far.

As a London-based club for over 100 years, the move to the Midlands would have been a gamble but the chance for the new owners to buy what was then the Ricoh Stadium (which is now the Coventry Building Society Arena) must have been too good to miss, even if it needed a £35 million bond deal to do it.