Perhaps so my friend and in all truth I sincerely hope I'm being paranoid and seeing things that don't exist. However from where I sit and with the information I have it looks more and more like the "ST" has its own agenda and the good of BWFC is peripheral to it.bwfc1874 wrote:A bit like Sluffy, you could be right. But you're basing that entire theory and chain of events on one small bit of information. You both seem to fill in some pretty large blanks and decide that's the most likely scenario. The ST would have had next to no coverage from these two stories had it not been for Sluffy and yours theory, ironically you've both created more attention for the ST than Iles throw away line ever would have.
As I said earlier this all started yesterday morning with an article on LoV that was almost immediately quoted on JA606 where I saw it. I thought quite hard before posting it here, in fact I PM'd both sluffy and karly to get their opinions on whether or not to give it that exposure. Both of them felt it was pertinent, may contain some truth and should be made available to Nuts readers to judge for themselves.
I posted the article with the proviso that I felt there may be some truth to it, that I actually felt there was although the source may make others suspect it. However, when no correlation came from either Sky Sports News or the BBC (not even Beeb North West) I began to have some doubts.
As late as three o'clock yesterday afternoon I still felt there might be something to this, that Manning wouldn't post such a potentially damaging if not libellous story unless he believed it to be true. I felt he may have been misled by a club source, perhaps a disgruntled soon to be former employee. But then, shortly after 3.30 in came Mr Iles and the BN quoting "unnamed sources" and adding "The Supporters Trust has written an official letter etc." That clinched it for me. The sole purpose of the initial LoV post was to get the BN, Iles in particular talking about a lack of funds and a rift between him and Anderson while making the "ST" look thoughtful and important.
I believe (and would like to be wrong) that Manning and his friends on the Steering Group are operating on the assumption that they can drive Anderson in particular out, that they would then be in a position to buy the club for a small sum (particularly if we go into admin) and thus gain the prestige they seek and have done all along. Don't forget this is a group of people who wanted "preferred bidder" status when they didn't even have a bank account. They also and consistently lied about who they were (remember the brilliant photo screw up?) and what their connections to Phil and Eddie were. They finally admitted they'd been asked to seek preferred bidder status by Trevor Birch, presumably (in their own words) at the behest of Eddie Davies. Since then their track record has shown them in my opinion to be amateurish attention seekers with no real grasp of what running a multi million pound company like a football club actually entails.
I am all for a Supporter's Trust, an independent body that has the fan's interests and the club's at heart and is a voice for the fans. Sadly I think the current steering group does none of that and if they become (as I expect) the elected committee they'll do even less. People say with some justification that I bang on about things but these guys are a genuine threat to Bolton Wanderers in my opinion and every single thing they do should be scrutinised and questioned as closely as humanly possible.
I really, really hope I'm miles off base here but right now I think I'm right based on the information I have and the things I'm seeing.