Thetownend.com

I enjoyed the Loathed Strangers chat with Sam Morshead, if I'm being honest that's the first pod cast iv listened to!

Within it they discussed the burnt bridges and distrust from fans and the scenario that no matter what they say a lot now will simply not believe, and its an interesting thought.

If Clem is to stay and pursue his "plan". What will it take to make you change your mind.

Town fans are forever scarred, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. In our case as fans it's shame on me x5 owners.

Is there a bouncebackability check list to redemption?

Ground redevelopment, removal of Zav/hart, ticket pricing, promotion, in depth accounts like Carisle. What would it take?

It's a funny one. I don't think Clem's ownership/relationship with the fans is beyond saving, but I think Clem's demonstrated that he doesn't really understand how to do it.

Advisory Board - if this is going to exist, it needs improving. The minutes need to come out *MUCH* faster, with a few days of the meeting, and an agenda published beforehand so people can send in questions and points relating to it. I'd probably like to see a few other fan representatives as well, although that did get out of hand earlier with every Tom, Dick and Harry Broadbent Lounge having a go - but the Trust is not the only voice of the fans.

Financial Transparency - Carlisle style accounts would be great, frankly the Trust "looking at the accounts" would be fine if there were actually specifics and numbers involved rather than vague statements and cost lines - what has gone up and by how much percentage wise?

Improve stuff - vague, but just... everything about this club feels shit. The shop is empty, the comms is generally very poor. Spend some money off the pitch, they seem to approach everything with a cost-cutting mentality and the problem with cost-cutting is that services get worse (see the wider country for details)

On pitch success - brutally, that'll be what really turns people round. If we win more, a lot of the other worries will quieten down - rightly or not.

Probably some other stuff too. Getting rid of the clingers on would be grand.

One of my main bugbears is probably covered in Nemo's 'Improve stuff' category. We are a big club for this level with a decent fanbase, so why do many things feel like they are being done at a level far below where we are. Nothing seems to be 'professional' and whilst the on-pitch success is the be all and end all, I can't help feeling that the 2 do go hand in hand.

Sort things out behind the scenes, employ a decent member or members of staff who have experience of working in a football club, put together a cohesive, realistic plan of action and allow the people who know what they are doing to put that work into place.

Unfortunately, I can't see that happening under Clem, every decision he makes seems to be short-term and a case of throw enough shit and see what sticks. It might seem harsh but he reminds me a bit of an Australian Mr Bean, who coincidentally also only had 1 suit.

I think he owns two suits. One with patches, one without. Mr Bean that is  :soapy tit wank:

The devil is in the detail. Professional clubs dont have a felt tip fixture board, abandoned Heras fencing from covid times and sharing 1 microphone in your flagship interview.

Slapdash, half arsed, unprofessional shit show.

The biggest thing they can do, as Nemo said, is get the team working and getting results. If we were in the midst of a promotion challenge we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. But this needs investment and it needs a plan. It needs a solid squad, a good manager, and good football people behind the scenes who can identify new players and get them in. Huge question marks over whether Clem can afford to do all this with all the money evaporating to [INSERT CONSPIRACY THEORY].

Whoever thought it was a sound idea to go into this season with about 22 players has cost us another season in this fucking division. Clubs get injuries, its normal. So you build a squad accordingly.

Sure he can come back, if he changes who he hangs out with, explains the finances properly and we can see he's trying to improve them and the team.

None of the above have happened. We are in a spiral and I can't see it changing - so no.

I think as others have said, the relationship between Clem & Co is not beyond saving. It will need a lot of rehab, a lot of learning on the clubs side, to actually appear as if they are the professional outfit they claim they are, to slowly rebuild trust, and crucially, to communicate effectively and honestly in a timely manner.

A good season with strong recruitment like 21/22 under Garner & Chorley wouldn't hurt either.

Personally, I want to like Clem and I want to feel the joy of supporting this club again, but right now the trust has gone and nothing about the current press loop has made me think they're making adequate steps to adress this. We've all been burnt one too many times...

Need a Trust member on the board on a day to day basis

Ships sailed with me, I don't trust him. But if he got rid of zav hart and platinum security it would be a start. Next would be something resembling an actual competitive budget.

But that won't happen anyway.

I'd expand this, Clem may be able to win me over if he agrees to sell a portion of the club to the fans, through which actual, real, representation is delivered with voting rights.  Guess what - he also gets money put in.  I can't see why the Trust have not made this their sole goal - it's an open goal at that.  You have a useless owner making public statements about the fans groups being important, about wanting to be open and transparent, about how hard it is to finance a football club.  Tie his fucking knackers to the lamppost and make it public this is what you want, then being negotiations on terms.

What if the Trust could scare up 50% of what Clem values the club at and be totally halves on club and CG

He also needs a CEO that understands football, and maybe a club secretary that understands the rules.

His excuse over the shares that the legal's told him it was all fine - if there was someone that understood FL rules then they would have explained to Clem  - they probably knew the legal standpoint not from a FL point

Which is exactly what they should do - public pressure to get the number, maybe for 50% or even 33%, or whatever the different %'s are to get different rights.

I call absolute bollocks on the point they were that stupid.  The real answer is in the way Clem words his response - he focuses on the fact their default position was to tell nobody.  He relies on the advice for the EFL, but always clubs the fans in at the same time.  There is clearly no rule, anywhere, that you DON'T tell fans, you make a decision to keep it quiet.  Therefore they were in a default position of tell nobody when determining if they had to tell the EFL or not.

Yup! It's a simple google. We've all found the EFL handbook, and if a lawyer has told him that in return for money, there's a liability claim to be made

In the current guise no, show me some changes and progression and major clean up and it might go to yes.  Will any of this happen?  IMO no.

IMO this should be the primary focus of the new-look Trust.  Fan ownership (even in part) would fix a lot of problems, make the club truly accountable, and stop shady ownership deals being done in the future - for which as fans we currently have zero control over, and have been fucked over time and time again.

Not for me. Clem has been caught lying too many times now.

Yes there coud be a way back. Make clear and transparent efforts to rectify mistakes of the past few years, get good football people overseeing operations and demonstrate with the utmost clarity how and why the club is haemorrhaging money to supposed legitimate ends so that it can at least be understood by the fans.

Will any of this happen? Sadly doesn't look likely.

Sorry Clem, its a no from the Somerset judges.

Caught out lying too many times.

Its a no from me Geoff

I suspect STFC is too deeply and unlawfully in the s**t for transparency to be possible.  My strong suspicion is that STFC is in deep doodoo because of the likely unlawful shenanigans of Power and friends.

I can't dislike Clem for lacking the wealth to untangle this but I did admire his tenacity in doing the first part of the job in the Courts.

I can't dislike Clem either for not being very good at lying and lacking the nous to steer the listing ship that STFC already was before he ousted Power.

I have no confidence that he is not working with other undesirables (to STFC's interests) because of his own weaknesses.

A part of me still hopes he is cannier than that and extricates STFC from the s**t and that my cynicism is misplaced. The test is how an owner leaves STFC and my fear is that this will be even worse than the state in which he took us over.  Conference?  Fines?  Administration or Insolvency?  Or simply with an even worse successor who brings all this about?

I like to get behind the team and to enjoy a matchday meanwhile.  I shall always do that.  Fuck Supermarine or more local teams to me just a league below like fcuking Dorking or Woking.  Like a victim of abuse, I'm always hoping STFC will change its ways.  it's the path I've chosen and I'm sticking to it.

One of Clem's biggest problems during his tenure has been listening to people that represent the minority of our fanbase or have their own agenda. For example the representative of the sponsors on the advisory board, how is he engaging with other sponsors and serving them? because several people I know who have sponsorships with the club have told me they have never heard from or of him.

I agree pretty much with all of that TBH.

Follow up question should have been.....why not just tell them anyway? Where was the benefit in not telling them?

Other than in his first season when it was all backs to the wall, the club has been on a downward spiral not showing signs of improvement on or off the pitch.

Things smack of being done on the cheap, from budgets to (some) staff employed in more senior positions, to the 'matchday guests' that have served at HM pleasure, to the dodgy share transfer, that was going to be bought back, then the we need to use the money elsewhere, to the we are in the process of doing it to the there is no hurry to get the shares back.

I'm sure the loan for the debenture was not interest free, may have been given shares as security but it then depends on the price they want to return the shares back.

I like this.

I know he's probably under a NDA (do these expire?) but I'd love to hear from Rob Angus about what is ACTUALLY happening behind the scenes at the club. This is probably an absolutely unviable suggestion but going back to RobT's suggestion about Trust ownership, surely Rob having worked at the club before would be a perfect leader for that movement? If Clem has nothing to hide then what reason would he give for not entertaining such a thing?

I'm sure RA could offer unofficial and OTR 'consultancy services' to a new improved/rebuilt Trust  :hmmm:

Also, I can't help but when I see RA or write RA, I think of one of my former jobs. @Batch might know what I'm on aboot  :D

Was it as High Priest of Ptolemaic Egypt?

Ah God of Crafts, maybe?

Not this time. But what I'm doing today, quite possibly and uncannily close - especially with the attire  :clap:

Your avatar needs updating bambi.

Indeed. I thought things were slowly on the up. Time for things to look a bit tired, crest years to all drop again, the deflated golden football to emerge and the robin to fall off its perch.

It's all very sad when I have to manipulate the crest like that. I take no joy from it  :cry:

Too far down the road with Clem now, he's a proven liar time and time again. Needs to sell up, and properly, not to another one of his mates who'll just continue to fuck us into the oblivion of non league. We go down, we're not coming back up again any time soon, it's too important to let these pricks gamble with our club.

The LSpod was great. Both spoke well. My takeaway was that Morfuni does not understand that his pursuit of a “sustainable” club does not appeal, if sustainability equates to getting to a point that he does not have to put money in. That’s not how football works. You have to speculate, hope to accumulate, and have big enough pockets to survive if that doesn’t happen. Morfuni does not have the funds to do that, so needs to actively pursue an exit. Otherwise, we’ll all have to grow excited at finished 12th in League 2, which I’m just not sure I can do.

Power said at the outset that Clem didn’t have enough money to run the club.

Not that Power used any of his - how’d  he get away with it for so long.

Its a hard no from me.

One of my line managers early in my career gave me some advice that has stayed with me a long time: 'always under-promise and over-deliver'.   Morfuni's problem is he's done the opposite.  He talked a very good game early on, but has failed to live up to his own hype.

If, magically, the ground redevelopment started to progress.  And if we started to see investment in the squad - proper investment, that is, not the sale of our best players to fund cheaper replacements.  And if there was, finally, transparency about the club's financials - then I think there would be a path back.  But I doubt any of these things will happen.

The final point is the one that irks me the most.  Transparency & openness were words that Morfuni himself used repeatedly and we, as fans, warmed to the message.  It was well received.  And here we are, 2½ years later, with none of that.  He's either unwilling or unable to explain why one of the larger clubs in League 2 cannot fund a competitive squad.  Unwilling or unable to produce a simple P&L summary showing the club's outgoings.  This is really simple stuff.  I'll find it difficult to trust him until he starts dealing competently with these basics.

It's a no here

I've no idea if he's a good or bad person, or just incompetent

I think he's an incompetent, but can only hope he morphs into a competent.

It doesn't excite me or you, but as it appears that others have found ways to use the club to 'move money through' it is now a profitable business for them and we will have to get used to it.

I imagine every football fan of every football club in the world would like this. But have you ever known a period in Swindon Town's history where it has not been the (necessary) case that we sell our best players and buy cheaper replacements?

And yet allegedly still lose 1M+ a season.

I think the quality of replacements has dramatically declined. I don't recall such a punty mcpuntfface approach.

It’s interesting that we don’t believe that the club can be run sustainably, but (some) want the club to be fan owned.  I’m not sure where we think the funds will come from if we were fan owned, or is there an assumption that everyone would be happy to stump up extra cash each season

I was too concise.  It's flogging our better players to smaller clubs in our own division that grates just now.  We'll always be a selling club.  It's who we're selling to that marks a new low in terms of ambition.

Not disputing this, but in the bottom division most signings are going to be hit and miss. The point is that we have, out of necessity and like almost every other club, always been and always will be a selling club. Even when we were on the up and up, heading towards the Premier League, we had to sell players to survive. We sold Kerslake a few months before we won promotion.

Overspending can be fun and can lead to short-term success - as we saw during the Ardiles and Hoddle era and, more recently, with Di Canio. But when the funding dries up it tends to be catastrophic.

Yes, I agree. It makes us look pretty tinpot.

You’d be surprised at what can be achieved with an actively involved fanbase. During Covid Bath City raised 50k just to host the end of season playoffs, when the grounds were shut and there were no gate receipts.

The Swindon fanbase has become quite fragmented and passive over the years, so rallying them around a common cause won’t be easy. But you have to aim high!

Wasn't we supposedly only losing something like 250k to 300k a year under Andrew Black when Di Canio was overspending?

Seeing as we don't spend money on anything right now....I'd say that is horse shit that we lose anything lik £1m.

I’ve no doubt we could raise £50k (and probably more) for a one off. Not sure how we would do if we needed to fund a large loss every year

People need to believe in where their money is actually going.

The club not being sustainable right now on those gates is pure gaslighting bullshit. We're spending the square root of fuck all.

Cut the hangers on and we might even have a little left over for some staff to answer the phones.

I'd really like some detail on how the club is losing £1m per season. The current playing budget seems low and not much seems to be spent on infrastructure.

Yesterday I met up with a chap who I worked with years ago. James was an account manager with Sony.. full of hot air and hype. Fortunately Sony had a strong ethical management structure to overcome this b... s..t.
Yesterday's meeting showed he was still the same person full of crap.
Could easily be CM s brother by a different mother !!!

Exeter, who are smaller, have shown it is possible to build a club with fan ownership and retain profits.  Their revenue is about the same as ours right now, so we might expect to exceed them.

Clem already showed what some positivity can do to engage fans and get people to the ground - imagine that if the club was actually owned by the fans?

Also, if the fans owned the club and the financials were fully transparent, then I imagine you could increase revenue through either more expensive season tickets (people willing to add a little extra), donations etc.  Goodwill can go a long way, Clem banked on it for two years.

As a fan owned club, you'd also be able to apply for charity type status and get some benefits that way, plus volunteering is far less of a worry when you are all shared owners in the first place.  Ultimately, the aim should be to get to a position where competent people are employed of course, certainly in key areas, but there are many ways a fan owned STFC could operate more efficiently and bring in more revenue than the current regime.  Rob Angus was willing to give up a decent corporate job to get involved, imagine the people and skills available if we were all proper shareholders and had a controlling interest.

Yeah Clem drummed up a lot of good will. Gates were 10k just on home fans some games against very non attractive sides.

I was holding back to see how things played out and didn't get a season ticket but was going semi regularly. I'd definitely get a season ticket immediately if we were fan owned. No questions asked.

There's been a clamour for this simple financial info for some time.  This is macro level info that should be simple to provide.  An exec summary showing in round numbers how we're losing ££ while also continuing to attract decent crowds and benefitting from lower ground rental charges.  It's infuriating.  And all from an owner who promised transparency.

His deflection on this point was annoying as well.  He moved quickly from talking about the costs breakdown to suggesting it would tell people our playing budget.  Plenty of clubs, even those with limited accounts, are able to provide a total salaries number, which covers all staff, as a way around this.  Then you can breakdown all the other cost items.

Sorry not Read back!

Just watched Clems interview and want to raise a point he mentioned about pre turnstile checks.

"Fans seeking in using child tickets". this has really got my goat  >:(
Ill call these people out now "YOU ARE NOT SWINDON FANS & CAN FUCK OFF".  :smugfu:

These people are probably the same hypocritical cunts that moan that Clem puts no money in!
Ahhhh yeah, the club will never get any money while we have dishonest wankers like this!

I pay the full whack adult price, I look forward to paying for an OAP ticket when I get there. :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:
Rant over!  :soapbox:

It's literally less than 25 people. In an average of around 9k attending supporters. So whilst yes it's immoral, I think we know that in life we'll always experience people who will 'game' a system.

Thankfully, in most cases within society, most people are honourable and honest with how they go about their life {and business}.

This isn't the reason the club is skint. <0.3 percent of people getting in on a different ticket aren't a problem that will topple the club or put it in to Non League. In fact, some might argue, whilst immoral...they are still at the very least buying a ticket and thus still funding the club.

It's fucking moot though because it's a negligible as fuck ''loss''. I would bet that Hart, Xav, Keily, Hall etc are taking more out the club than the club is ''losing'' from those pesky ticket abusers. Shall we twist the knife on our freeloading ST holders whilst we're at it?

The club didn't go into any detail on those 20 either - so we have no context.  You'd presume they were refused entry as a minimum, yet very little beyond that AB meeting note has appeared.  The couple that got annoyed for being charged for parking in Sainsburys when using the Megabus/national Express went to the Adver, I am sure one of these 20 would have been dumb enough to moan in public.

What's the betting a few of them were just families mixing up who had which ticket.

Not suggesting nobody would try it on, of course people will.  But it's a minor problem to have ended up focusing on - the sort of thing you raise to deflect from other items.

On a similar note, they specifically mentioned Sponsor when going on about poor deals, which was in the middle of a ticket discussion.  Think they don't like the Nationwide deal.

20 people
27 quid
23 games

£12,420 a year

Obviously not everyone was checked. could could be higher.

Obviously the actual price paid for the ticket has to come off that.

obviously people shouldn't do it. that's fine.

But it doesn't appear to be the smoking gun the club have portrayed.

So sure, stamp it out but. Every little helps. But it's not going to make a measurable difference

Its a deflection tactic, of course people should pay the correct price and (polite!) spot checks/functioning turnstiles and operatives should be able to pick out some of those trying it but its not a major issue.

Its akin to the right wing press blaming every single issue in this country on immigration.

Sadly, a large gullible section of the fanbase will gobble it up and go to war with an under21 using an under18s ticket but turn a blind eye to the convicts sipping champagne in hospitality.

Potd ticket price increased on previous year.
£2 x 3,000 x 23 = £138,000

Just listened to the LSPOD podcast with Sam Morshead.

One of them made a good point about Clem being oblivious or ignorant to our current plight. Nothing summed that up like when SM asked Clem about season ticket sales and he just talked about cost of living like that is the reason people wont be renewing, not how he is rebuilding trust or a strong finish to the season.

Drop in the ocean compared to the real problems at the club.

I'm sure Nationwide won't mind pulling their sponsorship money then.

Probably doesn't want to legitimise the unrest. Like DV said plenty just don't know about it and others think its just a handful of people.

Tomorrow’s postponement has given him some restpite.

Fair game keeps getting talked about about doing some sort of overview - will they be given full access to the accounts to do this overview or will they be going off the short version that lodged with HMRC.

Isn't this the same access as the Trust chap was given and he didn't say anything other than he has seen the books and everything is fine, despite it being odd the club kept deflecting giving access him and he didn't give any real comments about what he saw (now assume he is standing down with the rest of them)

https://www.fairgameuk.org/fair-game-clubs

Interesting we are the only club who dont have a video on this section. Makes me wonder how involved they will be.



https://www.fairgameuk.org/press-releases/swindon

Not much follow up from this initial press release. Smells of slapdash Morfuni partially ticking a box like the farcical AB.


Nearly man Clemente, we nearly signed 3 players etc etc.

Fair game likely serves two purposes - just by saying you joined you can claim everything is hunky dory.  Second, it serves as being part of a pressure group to try and get more money from the TV deals.

Quite a few clubs have the word 'video' but no link.