Wanderers in £2.5m funding hole but "players will be paid" insists co-owner Ken Anderson

I don't know  the history between sluffy and the supporters trust and at times I am probably at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of my views, however there are many views on the trust and all are valid, I don't doubt that there are those involved in the steering group that are there for self interest and likewise there will be some who are genuinely in it for the good of the club.

Those who want to point out the failings of the trust should rightly do so, perhaps if someone within the club had taken a similar stance we wouldn't be in such a mess, external criticism of any organisation should be listened to and taken on board, however it's rare for organisations especially immature ones to seek out such criticism, perhaps a reason why the steering group have stayed clear of Nuts?

In relation to the behaviour of the steering group, I understand some of the actions taken during the takeover saga, things started to go wrong with the preferred bidder declaration, clearly there was no need at this stage for the ST to get involved, some of the actions since then seem completely unnecessary and I am concerned that the steering group have lost focus on what a ST should be about.

To say that the Steering Group over stepped there mandate is, in my opinion wrong, there never was a mandate, but as the steering group put in place they had the same remit as a full ST until the elections are complete, I believe those with good intentions in the steering group have been led astray by both circumstance of the takeover and those with an agenda.

Given that the circumstances are now different and the looming elections that will hopefully see a shake up of the ST board I am hopeful that things will take a change for the better, as I still believe the club will be stronger with a properly run supporters trust.

Great post Fab. 

This is for you Pete and others.

So Birch invited the ST to make a request for preferential bidder status. Any of you stop to ask why he would do that or why the ST in its infancy would want to be a preferential bidder? It's easy when you do have an agenda to use this to distract people and breed distrust. The truth of the situation was at that time Administration was looking a real possibility for BWFC and which vulture in particular was circling? Disley and his cronies. Birch met him at that game when that infamous photo of Disley and Deano was taken. If the ST was preferential bidder then the Administrator would deal with the ST before the crooks. Birch knew they weren't ready but it was a fall back position in case a buyer couldn't be found and we went into Administration. The ST couldn't get the trust in place and functioning especially as the elections were always set for the close season, but thankfully (or so we thought) SS had their bid accepted and we avoided Administration so we didn't need the trust to step in.

It was never about egos. It was all about safeguarding the assets of the club from the asset strippers, but sadly ED has sold to a couple that have already mortgaged most of ours.

There are loads of you posting that the Trust are massaging egos and are amateurs. To set the record straight these are some of the most intelligent sections of our supporters with years experience in running Trusts and legal operations and all of the set up process for the ST has been followed very carefully and down to a tee. It's not gone quickly and that fact has bred yet more distrust, but these are volunteers so they do as much as they can do. Take up wasn't as quick as they'd hoped, but they have 2000 paid up members following the lead of legends like John McGinley.

There is a lot of distrust amongst fans which is a point I've raised with our illustrious leader on here, and much of the distrust is down to a lack of understanding of the process that has to be followed in setting up a trust and how a steering group actually works.

It doesn't help that we have a megalomaniac in charge of an internet forum who is bitter that one of his rivals has taken the post that would've massively furthered his own interests. I don't know this other person in question and if Sluffy can back up his claims with evidence then he should do. But much of the negative vitriol posted by some on here is only regurgitated claims from Sluffy and not off the back of any other credible independent sources.

The LOV is not a mouthpiece for the trust, but they do get inside information and they can reach as much of our fan base as the BN does which makes it a powerful media tool. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

I just know that give the ST time to get set up and working as they will be very important in our future, not as an owner, that was never the point, but as our representatives in the corridors of the Macron.

And BWFC1958 I love you too!

Ps Sluffy you can have a go at the length of my post now! ;-)

Keegan wrote:I don't have the opportunity as often as I would like, to pop in and see how the gang is doing

Are you in prison?

JAH wrote:This is for you Pete and others.

So Birch invited the ST to make a request for preferential bidder status. Any of you stop to ask why he would do that or why the ST in its infancy would want to be a preferential bidder?

Yes, my understanding is that Birch asked the ST to put together a bid and as a back up plan that made perfect sense, however it was the ST that requested preferred bidder status, to me this indicates more than a back up plan, especially given there where three bids on table? not just disley.

At the first ST meeting the Portsmouth guys talked a lot about contingency planning including plans that they put in place in case the club completely folded, a scenario which was / is possible with our club.

To date I have seen nothing put forward by the ST other than 'we want to buy the club', even at this stage when we have new, unproven owners, the most recent questionnaire was heavily weighted to this end.

I am a member and support the trust, however I think it's time they got out of the mind set that the trust is there to buy the club, which is the impression I get at the moment.

The reason why Supporters Trusts seem to suddenly get more media coverage when a football club is in server financial trouble was that a few years back the Football League changed its rules to say that the Administrator of any club in administration had to speak to the fans ST of that club first.  Indeed I even think they had a clear window of three weeks before anyone else could be spoken to.

The reason behind that decision was to stop 'undesirables' getting ownership of clubs and 'killing them off' for their own financial gain such as Wrexham and Stockport.

Therefore if anything the ST had MORE TO GAIN if the club entered administration than to seek Preferred Bidder status because in administration the sale price of the club is set by the Administrator and at preferred bidder status set by the then owner Eddie Davies.  Administration therefore would be a substantially cheaper option to buy.

So if the ST have first dibs at the club if it went into administration and it cost a fraction of what it would do to buy off Davies direct why did they seek Preferred Bidder Status?

If you change that question around a little bit you could ask why Holdsworth went through all of Davies's alleged change of goal posts during his negations with him and so desperately want to buy a club whose fixed business model was currently losing £1 million per month and would be doing so for the next year and a half - it does seem like madness to do so on the face of it, doesn't it?

The only explanation that anyone can come up with was that by our own 'Rammy' who pointed out that the clubs 'debt' amount itself was the attraction in the sale, in that in accounting terms such debt can be offset against tax payments required elsewhere.

So in other words a loss making business is bought, it is funded from the tax that would have been paid by the taxman from the new owners other profitable businesses and it is eventually turned around to once again become breakeven or profitable, then probably sold on.

As the financing of the clubs turn around is in effect 'free' money (the money that the new owner would have paid in tax from his other profitable run businesses) then he stands to basically buy the club and turn it around for no cost to himself and make a tidy packet when he sells it on.

So why did Birch who was working for the then owner Davies ask the ST to seek Preferred Bidder Status?

It COULDN'T be due to the fear of Disley or anyone else buying the club out of Administration because as I've explained above the ST would have had a clear run at buying the club before anyone else under Football League rules.

Therefore the only possible reason was to 'create' a rival bidder to Holdswoth (and the people behind him) - it couldn't be for anything else really could it?

Maybe Birch did spin them the yarn about Disley a bit and help them get 'pledges' of £8 million as a war chest (I still can't believe £8 million could be raised in just 3 weeks from scratch to buy a business with an unchangeable business plan losing £1 million per month for the next six months and a further £6 million for the following twelve months!) but surely if the Steering Group knew its competitive advantage of having in effect first refusal if the club was to enter into Administration why go and get themselves involved in Birch's scheme?

The net result was that Davies was in a much stronger bargaining position than just having one serious buyer.


Yes I know all the above (apart from the ST position as 'preferred bidder' if you like from buying a club out of Administration) is conjecture on my part but what else would fit the facts?  Why was Holdsworth so keen to buy a basket case business losing so much money a month and could do nothing to stop the losses for at least a further 18 months.  Also why would the ST seek Preferred Bidder Status to buy the club off Davies direct and at or around Davies asking price when they could have first pick of getting the club for peanuts out of Administration knowing that they would have been first in the queue for it?

It was abundantly clear from the set up meeting of the ST with the Portsmouth ST Chair that the 'desire' from the founders to become the club's owners was there from the very start (it still is) and I think Birch clinically exploited this and played the numpties for the best interests of his employer Davies and against the interests of the destined owners Holdsworth/Anderson, and this is now why the ST is not viewed kindly by them and have to 'build up mutual trust' - as evidenced by them currently bitching to the Football League about them and retweeting on their official twitter site unfounded allegations of the club owners trustworthiness.

As for your rantings of megalomaniac (which I assume you are referring to me) 'massively' furthered my own interests and something about some other person who you want me to provide some evidence about I haven't the foggiest notion of what you are on about.

Nuts is not a one man band behind the scenes and if I was as bad as several have pointed out over the years they would have left me on my own years ago.  In fact the credit of the exemplary running of the site is down to their incredible (unpaid!) work they put in on a daily basis and not much at all to do with me what-so-ever.  If I am a megalomaniac then I am incredibly crap at being one.

As for the NUTS itself, we run it for fun - we don't make any money from it (unlike the LoV for instance!), in fact it costs us money to run it although the cost is relatively small.  I'm not sure then what furthering my own interests might be then apart from making NUTS better for the enjoyment of us all (even you!).

As for this other person you want me to provide evidence on - you've completely lost me, I have no idea what you are talking about?

Finally I am usually the last person to pick up the spelling mistakes of others - making so many myself - but I do know how to spell the name of the club legend and I would have thought you would too after all these years.

Sluffy wrote:I think Birch clinically exploited this and played the numpties for the best interests of his employer Davies and against the interests of the destined owners Holdsworth/Anderson, 

You are one serious axe grinder.

King Bill wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I think Birch clinically exploited this and played the numpties for the best interests of his employer Davies and against the interests of the destined owners Holdsworth/Anderson, 

You are one serious axe grinder.

Can you give a creditable alternative scenario for their actions then?

If so we would all like to hear it.

Birch was looking for a contingency plan as Holdsworth's consortium didn't look like they'd manage to get the funds together. He'd fallen back on ST's elsewhere.

Birch was not the Administrator he was the then current owners agent charged with getting the best price for the sale of the club for Davies benefit.

It was in the STs best interest to purchase the club from Administration for reasons explained above.

In previous dealings with STs Birch was in the role of the Administrator acting in the best interest of the creditors not as a paid agent of the club owner.

He had no reason whatsoever to ask the ST to seek Preferred Bidder status, unless of course it was beneficial to his client Edwin Davies.

Birch was charged with finding a buyer for the club, seems that's what he was trying to do to me. The Holdsworth deal seemed dead in the water at that point if you remember. 

Fact of the matter is there are plausible alternatives to your version of events.

It really is totally bonkers that the ST is getting so much....well publicly on here. Sluffy you seem intent on driving these conspiracy theories of yours, but if we are to run with the conspiracy theories then it could be turned back on you that your involved with the evil ST yourself. What do they say, "there's no such thing as bad publicity, there's just publicly"! Maybe you constant negative publicly of the ST is an evil plan to shamelessly plug the ST. Ridiculous right? Like all the other conspiracy theories.

Ocam's razor, 'all things being equal, the simplest solution is more often the correct one'.

You believe all these twisted conspiracy theories or you see the ST for what it is, a bunch of volunteers that want to see the best for our club.

It is strange that KA and his non existent funds gets less discussion than the ST. I think we should be very worried who KA gets his investment from, if at all.

Fuck me!

I can't believe what some people are coming out with on here with regards to Sluffy.

karlypants wrote:Fuck me!

I can't believe what some people are coming out with on here with regards to Sluffy.

Cunts mate

y2johnny wrote:

karlypants wrote:Fuck me!

I can't believe what some people are coming out with on here with regards to Sluffy.

Cunts mate

Or just tired of sluffys bullshit

Hahaha.  Yeah.  Course

y2johnny wrote:Hahaha.  Yeah.  Course

Ok

Boggersbelief wrote:

y2johnny wrote:Hahaha.  Yeah.  Course

Ok

Lol

y2johnny wrote:

karlypants wrote:Fuck me!

I can't believe what some people are coming out with on here with regards to Sluffy.

Cunts mate

Only fair to name names in instances like this. I've been fair in my comments.