Andrew Black breaks his silence

[jayohaitchenn]

Learn your history. Italian Jews are among the founding members of nationism/fascism in Italy.

[newmarket red]

So has anyone found out who the money man behind the new consortium is yet?

[Bob's Orange]

Richard Money and Pat Cash.

[newmarket red]

Richard Money and Pat Cash.

Thats explains that then cheers bob.

[Ardiles]

So has anyone found out who the money man behind the new consortium is yet?

There doesn't necessarily need to be one.  What we will need, however, are board members with the background, skills and contacts to make a success of the club.  As of now, I have no idea whether they have these things.  They seem to be ordinary joes like you & me.  Time will tell.

Jed has been very open in certain respects so far (blow by blow account of what he's drinking and in which pub, etc.) but next to nothing on the new owners' business plan or the direction the club is going to take under their ownership.  The important questions...ground plans, transfer strategy etc.  They will get until about the middle of next week to start answering the important questions, I would imagine, before the locals start getting restless.

[Arriba]

Poor old Andy pandy didn't really want to play footsy wootsy at STFC but got swepped along with it. Ok then. My heart bleeds. It's everyone elses fault

[WestYorksRed]

Ok here's my attempt at adding 2+2 and coming up with 25% football, 80% bollocks. First let's rewind - last night AB made some comments about Wray being a PDC obsessive and AB also said his style is to stay out of the limelight. Add to this a manager whose character lends itself to extremities in behaviour and an executive management happy to egg him on, you've got the makings of a situation that spiralled out of control. It was only the xfer embargo that brought the club's financial direction of travel sharply into AB et al's focus. It is incongruous to think the warning signs weren't there in the preceding months, what about monthly board meetings, financial info etc (maybe not, after all it's a football club)? Again, indicates total lack of control. AB et al realise the situation was totally unsustainable and was going to cost him way more cash - he may be loaded but he's not Abramovitch - and decides enough is enough.

Hard-nosed businessmen that they are, first thing they do is get rid of Wray and, on the basis he's dealt with the Taliban therefore may stand half a chance, put in Sir WP to get control of PDC. SWP whether directly or through others does rather well at this and, as you can imagine, PDC doesn't take too kindly to this. Ultimately new owners found but (hope I'm wrong) they can't access funding to the same extent, i.e. can't afford "the circus" and condition to taking over is that PDC leaves. Loads of stage management behind the scenes, e.g. Matt Ritchie off and rest of the squad get xfer listed, PDC sees the big top's about to get pulled down and exits.

None of the main characters come out of this covered in glory. Credit due to AB et al (but not Fitton), even Sir WP (?), for steering the club through all of this, taking a huge hit on write-off of monies owed and the club avoiding admin (this time......). Admittedly I doubt they'd have got any money back from admin as the loans were unsecured but lesser men could have put us down this route out of spite. Re PDC, I prefer to remember the great times he gave me watching Swindon on the road. As for the new owners, as per Ardiles' post, be interesting to hear what they have to say about their future plans.

What's amazing is that throughout all of this, we haven't lost in the league for three months, we're top and for this the players deserve our utmost respect. Hopefully we can move forward on a more sustainable basis; if we go up, how sustainability would interact with life in the championship god only knows, we’ll leave that for another day but, one thing’s for certain, it’s never dull following the Town.

Anyway, found this vaguely cleansing for the soul but still feel we only have about 2% of the jigsaw. Look forward to being further enlightened by the TEF. Keep the faith and all the best.

[horlock07]

I suspect that Black was/is a comparitively young guy who found himself with a substantial wedge of disposable cash and invested with his mates as a bit of fun.

Which rapidly spiraled out of his control and led to him losing friendships and cash, cash that AFAIK he has never moaned or whined about losing.

How people can have a go I don't know.

[Frigby Daser]

That was perhaps the most interesting read I've woken up to in the Adver for a few years. Hopefully the dust will settle on this. It would be painful to watch a war of words between Di Canio and the club.

On Black: he deserves a huge credit. I was not convinced by the timing of the sale, but when you consider his earlier attempt to sell, you could argue that we got a 3/4 of a season 'bonus' out of him.

Di Canio: There's a bitter taste left, which is a shame. He was always going to whip everybody up into a frenzy, making the highs higher and the lows a bit nasty. It's entertaining, but no doubt creates a difficult working atmosphere. The bottom line was that we scored more goals and conceded less goals, and for that reason alone, he will go far.

McCrory et al: I have had my rant in the past few days, part tongue in cheek, part from a genuine concern that the new board may not display the professionalism we have become accustomed to. I hope that now they're in place we see that and move forward. It's wonderful news that Nick Watkins is being retained, to ease the transition and because he would appear to be very good at his job.

Next manager: I just hope we go for the best man for the job, not somebody's mate. Regardless of any relationship the board may have with Mike Newell, his abysmal record makes appointing him incredibly difficult to justify and would result in an instant loss of credibility. I don't think it will happen. I've always been very impressed by JFH as a pundit, but as a manager, none of us know. It is tempting!

Bring on tomorrow. I cannot wait.

[jonny72]

On Black: he deserves a huge credit. I was not convinced by the timing of the sale, but when you consider his earlier attempt to sell, you could argue that we got a 3/4 of a season 'bonus' out of him.

The timing was unfortunate but I'm not sure Black is to blame for that. Seems like it had been building up for some time with Black being continually pushed and pushed (more and more money, Paolo's press releases etc) and when his countless warnings hadn't been headed he said enough is enough. He couldn't keep waiting another month, it had to stop somewhere.

As you say we should look at it as getting some bonus time from him, rather than him cutting things short.

[Ardiles]

That was perhaps the most interesting read I've woken up to in the Adver for a few years. Hopefully the dust will settle on this. It would be painful to watch a war of words between Di Canio and the club.

On Black: he deserves a huge credit. I was not convinced by the timing of the sale, but when you consider his earlier attempt to sell, you could argue that we got a 3/4 of a season 'bonus' out of him.

Di Canio: There's a bitter taste left, which is a shame. He was always going to whip everybody up into a frenzy, making the highs higher and the lows a bit nasty. It's entertaining, but no doubt creates a difficult working atmosphere. The bottom line was that we scored more goals and conceded less goals, and for that reason alone, he will go far.

McCrory et al: I have had my rant in the past few days, part tongue in cheek, part from a genuine concern that the new board may not display the professionalism we have become accustomed to. I hope that now they're in place we see that and move forward. It's wonderful news that Nick Watkins is being retained, to ease the transition and because he would appear to be very good at his job.

Next manager: I just hope we go for the best man for the job, not somebody's mate. Regardless of any relationship the board may have with Mike Newell, his abysmal record makes appointing him incredibly difficult to justify and would result in an instant loss of credibility. I don't think it will happen. I've always been very impressed by JFH as a pundit, but as a manager, none of us know. It is tempting!

Bring on tomorrow. I cannot wait.

Spot on.  Agree with pretty much every word.

And for what it's worth, I think your comments earlier in the week about Jed's lack of neckwear were taken rather too literally by some (when you were clearly pointing to the wider issue of professionalism, which you return to above).  Public image does matter, for all kinds of reasons.

[Flashheart]

I'm just astonished that he goes out for beers as well.

[Bob's Orange]

I'm just astonished that he goes out for beers as well.

A beer drinker that DOESN'T wear a tie?

Nurse, my blood pressure is going through the roof!

[Gnasher]

I won't accept him until he amends his profile to Swindon Massive ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!!!

[Bob's Orange]

I'm willing to bypass the apparent lack of professionalism for a bit. He's only been in the door 5 minutes.

Although his Twitter description thing is a little annoying.