my athletics Centre

Grangemouth Stadium

Grangemouth has an international-standard sports stadium and sports centre. This Stadium was built in 1966 (the year I was born) for the citizens of Grangemouth, it was partly funded by BP. (British petroleum) which was then a nationalised industry, the vast majority of the people in Scotland and England were Socialists or at least trade unionists, this was nearly 60 years ago! so many things have changed since then, when I was born and the stadium was opened Grangemouth was considered one of the most prosperous towns in Europe, even though there was no North Sea oil then! The oil for the refinery and petrochemical industry in those days, relied upon imported oil from America and the middle east shipped into the large industrial docks of Grangemouth, forth ports were then one of the busiest in Europe, there was not only the refinery and the massive ICI complex, there was also lots of local iron foundries and coal mines, these industries all required a large amount of people to work in them, the town was transformed with social housing, community halls social clubs prosperous shopping centres, there was jobs galore and -also these companies had to pay their taxes, the workers that grew up around the town were predominantly Scottish working class - there was relatively few wealthy British shareholder capitalists, the various industries that fed into Grangemouth, along with the shipping the trains and lorries for goods and services, turned the town into a proper bustling industrial town, we that were born there at that time, were taught in school to be proud of Scotland’s part in the British industrial revolution, most people considered themselves Scottish working class then not British how they do nowadays – Things were to change; in 1975 North Sea oil started to flow into Grangemouth, the British shareholder capitalists wanted this north sea oil, for their international businesses to profit from shares on the stock market, crude oil from the North Sea even became the benchmark for the price of oil per barrel internationally and still is! it’s called the Brent Index, as the price of the oil fluctuates internationally, it’s difficult to be exact on how much oil revenue arrives at Grangemouth from the north sea daily, but roughly since 1975 it’s been around 25 million dollars every day! that comes into an oil terminal ( not the refinery) which was called kinneil after the local dukes estate, lt`s now called forties pipeline system, Unfortunately for the people of Scotland (that were not wealthy shareholder capitalists) the British government privatised all the previously nationalised industries which is how it is to this present day, the benefits of the oil boom were/are very beneficial for the London Stock Exchange, yet has very little benefit to the people of Scotland and England, I get very angry when I hear the British government lie on television or in the newspapers, about what they call - home-grown energy when speaking of North Sea oil and gas It shocks me that anybody believes this! anybody these days has access to the Internet and you can see quite clearly that the energy price in the UK (the so called United Kingdom) to me it appears that, Scotland and England are no longer kingdoms but colonies in the British Empire, we are the second most expensive place in the world to buy your kilowatts per hour energy (anyone can fact check that) for electricity, also we fluctuate between the 10th and the 14th most expensive place in the world out of 160 countries for our petrol and diesel, it is literally an abuse of power - the opposite of energy security for the peasantry of Scotland and England, these British Elites are international shareholder capitalists amassing vast profits from north sea oil,

when the oil gas and petrochemical industry assets transitioned away from being tax paying nationalised assets for the people, in the eighties the people hardly noticed as they still had - community halls, sports centres, social housing that belonged to the local councils (the people) Grangemouth stadium is the perfect example (second only to polmont ski slope) as an example to show what; the British are doing to public assets these days the stadium is Scotland’s premier athletics centre, its under threat of closure by Falkirk council as they cannot afford to pay the bills, the heating and the power bills are massive, (remember there is massive amounts of energy being wasted right across the road in the oil and gas industry) the owner of the plastics manufacturing plant only yards away spends millions of pounds of his tax free money, in athletic events around the world promoting his lots of his money, Grangemouth’s Scottish athletics stadium is less than fifty meters away from INEOS petrochemical complex, a statement on the company home page reads - INEOS is proud to be Performance Partner to the NN Running Team. Home to over 50 athletes from eight countries with Olympic and World Champions, including Eliud Kipchoge, Joshua Cheptegei, Letesenbet Gidey and Geoffrey Kamworo Scotland is not one of those eight countries that benefit from sir Jim Ratcliff’s tax dodging greenwashing! This British gentleman is not interested in Scotland or its athletes, not that I personally think Scottish athletics should take oil money or sponsorship from the country’s largest polluter, but I reckon I’m in the minority there! Most of my community would snaffle the millions out of his offshore trust, then change it to British athletics champion world pollution centre, ethnic cleansing of indigenous Scots complete! I reckon sir Jim would pay handsomely for that, then again, it’s probably easier for him just to continue ignoring his inferior neighbours, let it be bulldozed then write it out of history

As the world moves away from shareholder capitalism and into stakeholder capitalism, I was recently called a stakeholder in a community meeting with the oil industry, I informed the people conducting the public consultation that - the community are not stakeholders in the north sea oil industry, the massive hikes in our heat and power bills along with the amount of debt the local councils in, clearly shows that there is not much benefit to having billions of dollars of oil and gas pouring through your community, I had a quick look to see if there could be a comparison between Grangemouth and Basra. Both communities could have done well from natural resources, but they only created pollution and oligarchs, that is thanks to global media manipulation hiding the stock markets international asset thefts, ( the stock market also owns the media) My nostalgia (it’s a form of grief)for the stadium of my youth, makes me hope it can be saved, that will totally depend on the next election if we choose to stay under British rule, then Scottish athletics will die and nobody will even notice, the commonwealth games are finished So; now no Scottish or English person will ever win an international athletics event, it will be like the Olympics only the elite British will win athletic events You won’t get any of this written in the media, I know because I am monitoring it! The media will blame sports centres and community hall closures on - local governments, or unrealistic socialist values! possibly the Scottish government, or the green party, perhaps some of the right-wing media will blame the necessary net zero targets, set by governments worldwide at Paris, they will not tell you it’s the fault of the mega wealthy not paying their taxes, the media will also not give - practical sustainable solution’s that should become cross party policies for the health safety and environment of all the citizens in Scotland England Ireland and Wales, how times change BP when it was a nationalised company helped massively funding grangemouth stadium, this now global shareholding company gave 50million to the british museum in london! to think they were once called scotoil and operated out of grangemouth! what would 50million do for grangemouth stadium?