Ten Bobsworth wrote:Isn't that Smiffy bloke an old associate of Sluffy's.
I used to be the mod on the Burnden Aces forum and basically ran the place as the owner Chris Mann was basically to busy with his uni work and had the shock of his dad dying.
Smith used to be on the clubs official forum which was not modded and lawless.
Apparently someone pointed out to Gartside the abuse and other non PC stuff that was going on, on there and he shut it down immediately.
I saw this as an opportunity to grow the Burden Aces Forum and contacted a few of the people who used to be on the now closed forum to tell them they could join us on BA if they wished (Cajun being one of them - Big Sharps, the lad who recently died being another).
A number of them did join the forum but didn't like that it was modded, which was fair enough if they were not used to that - but some were not prepared to tone things down play nicely.
The upshot was that Smith set up his own forum and rather naughtily tried to poach all of Burnden Aces members to jump ship to his forum.
When Chris Mann found out he banned Smith for doing so - however Smith believed I was the one who banned him and he used his forum to call me all the names under the Sun and encouraged others to join in, including 'Breezeblock' (Howard being his real first name).
Well name calling never bothered me at all but to cut a long story short Chris Mann decided to 'sack' me out of the blue and I simply decided that I would stay were I was not welcome, which prompted a few people to contact me to start my own forum instead.
I brought together Natasha and Reebok Trotter and the three of us formed the embryonic Nuts forum.
Smith obviously followed what we were doing and decided to seek revenge for me banning him from Burnden Aces (I hadn't fwiw!) so decided to buy a very similar domain name to ours and link them to gay male porn sites.
I could believe how someone carried over internet grudges into real life - and actually spent his own money trying to fuck me - but I've grown use to it now as he wasn't the last whose tried to do it with me, I even had someone trying to hack me but thankfully they failed.
A year or so later Smith even tried to buy our actual domain name when it became due for renewal - so he clearly carries a grudge!
Smith's forum collapsed of course and Nuts prospered, or at least it did before all the hatred from a few over Brexit, Anderson and the Tory Government was all they could talk about.
Anyway Smith hated Gartside more then me and went on to start the ST to get back at him - and failed - although he did do the initial work.
He then went on to form a coup of the BWSA with Breezeblock and former councillor Chris Pead and they succeeded for a while until the BWSA voted them out at the following AGM.
By this time Gartside had died and Eddie was trying to sell the club and Smith resurrected the ST again but this time with popular support from Bolton fans fearful for the future of the club.
Smith/the ST really thought at one time they would own the club with Trevor Birch favouring supporter ownership but Eddie was having none of it.
They championed Holdsworth and the ST, Holdsworth and Iles led the hatred towards Anderson - however no matter what people believe of Anderson, he never actually did anything much wrong in the legal running of the club - for instance he didn't pocket £164m as Wanderlust once famously claimed!
Anyway back to Smith, he clearly used the ST as a vehicle for himself and his ambition of having some power over BWFC.
The ST has not been run in accordance with its own charter - they've skipped compulsory AGM's for instance - and it has never been democratic - they've yet even to this day held an election where people have actually voted!
How the Devil Neil Hart believes the ST is representative of the fans is a joke, ww have more members the the ST does.
Anyway it is what it is.
I wouldn't trust Smith as far as I could throw him and if people had any sense they would check out his Companies House dealings (and those of Bridge, where one Liquidator kept the company going for a number of years until Bridge repaid in full what he had taken out of it! It is in the public domain for all to see...).
Anyway Smith and Bridge have got what they want, they see themselves as self important to BWFC and if BWFC, via Hart, believes they are the voice of the fans - then that's up to him.