Thetownend.com

Or at least one that seems to recognise the importance of a club to the community?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34787252

 We might be shit atm, but tbf to Power, it doesn't look like he'll drive us into massive debt or admin etc.   

This is important, because although we may have to get used to playing at a lower level, more suited to our spending, make no mistake, if we got into financial trouble SBC run by the Tories would rather close us down and flog the CG than help in any way....in much the same way as they're looking to flog off all the leisure assets and open spaces like Lydiard and Coate.

What if, as some like Red Ken think, we're bound for the Conference, then how will we pay the rent, I hear you say?

It's good question

Build a lickle stand and play at Twelve Oaks.

While I can sympathise with Northampton fans, isn't it about time that football clubs were allowed to destroy themselves (shamefully mostly due to the actions of unscrupulous or incompetent owners who seem to retain influence for far too long) rather than have the safety net of going into administration? It seems to me totally unfair to any well run 'non-league' club that the potential of a place in the football league made available by a failed club could not be filled by an additional promotion place.

I've always believed that Wimbledon should have been allowed to die a natural death, for their place in the league to have been filled by an additional promoted club from below, and not the 'dead' Wimbledon 'Frankensteined' into the existing league place. The Wimbledon fans have proved that a new club can come into existence and compete to enter into league over a period of time.

With the threat of truly being removed from the league for financial mismanagement / fraud / theft, the likelihood of owners / chairmen building up massive debt, using a club's assets to milk funds for themselves, and creating greater levels of unsustainability might be reduced, creating a more equitable sporting competition.

PS, the design of Northampton's proposed new stand should never have been permitted - seats with restricted views due to the size of the corporate boxes - FFS!

Oh for God's sake don't encourage them. What if we go down and get promoted again? What if we stay in league 1? What if Lee Power gets hit by a bus? Maybe the team will move into my back garden.. the crowds may drop, but the tea would be better and at least we'd be get back to watching some sodding football instead of this perpetual catastrophising.

Isn't the ground rent tiered for what league in the Football League we are in? Don't think SBC ever included being in the conference. Maybe Power would use that as a clause not to pay it

soapy tit wank Nasty Tories

Did you mean to type this into Google?

No

We would have died years ago, then.

Twice!

Nbc own the ground, they are only applying to put the club into administration because they would never get another tenant in.

I find it really sad that a town the size of Northampton can struggle to support a football club.  It's a substantial place - bigger than Swindon.  But I agree with Leftside, in a way.  You're going have to start letting football clubs fail at some point.  The 'safety net' of administration is probably encouraging the unscrupulous.  As a Swindon fan, this makes me something of a hypocrite given our own recent history, I know.

I am inclined to agree, I was reading about Chester the other day, which in turn made me read up a little about Darlington (sorry 1883 Darlington as the FA wont let phoenix clubs have the same name...) and looking at both examples it seems to have provided the only solution to sort out historical mess.

I think we got a little lucky as the Black era cleared the historical mess, I dread to think where we would have ended up without him (although his departure did cause further upset, at least it wasn't purely financial).

Northampton has always been more of a Rugby town, the Saints are more prominent then the football club.

The council is seeking the repayment of a £10.25m loan, which was given to the club to redevelop Sixfields Stadium, including a new East Stand, which has not been completed.

Borrowing £10.25m to build a stand and then not building it is something that our most dodgy owners would have been very proud of... equally can you imagine SBC giving us even a £10.25 loan for ground works!

Wonder how much SBC has written off due to our spells administration/CVAs.

Hundreds of thousands last time round IIRC. I'd imagine it creeps into the million bracket overall

The last admin it was....£411,998.39

Ow - How many years rent was that, I assume also rates etc.

I suppose the one slight difference with Northampton is that they owe money paid out by the Council whilst the money we owed was lost revenue to the Council - I assume they don't pay anything towards the ground maintenance etc?

Doesn't make it right thought

About the same amount as the Tories spunked off to Rikki Hunt on the wi-fi scam....at least with this, as you say lost revenue as the CG was a gift to SBC and they pay nothing for its upkeep....whereas with the other thing it was Council tax payers money.  Still didn't stop them getting re-elected mind.

 :pint: :pint:

Big advert in the Estates Gazette last week for the sale of Lydiard Park (on the instruction of SBC).