Thetownend.com

Town poised to claim £300,000 Austin cash boost
           
           


  SWINDON Town are set for a £350,000-plus cash windfall courtesy of the imminent transfer of former striker Charlie Austin to Huil City from Burnley.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10533993.Town_poised_to_claim___300_000_Austin_cash_boost/?ref=rss
           
           
           

Wont get it now. Failed the medical

So Charlie Austin moving from one shit northern town to another was somehow meant to generate a cash windfall of £126,000 to two ex-Directors of Swindon Town.  That feels all wrong to me, regardless of the form of the contracts written at the time.  I'm almost pleased that the deal has fallen through.

All that cocaine must take its toll.

Doesn't sit right with me either...  strange set up, wonder how common it is?

Personal terms, not medical apparently.

Can't believe how little people are making of this,it is disgusting.If this was the current board Freddi would of had us fire bombing their houses by now

If he turned down personal terms someone else must have turned his head. Wonder if someone like Aston Villa jumped in late in view of Benteke's transfer request?

Not happy about this, but there's not much we can do about it.

Villa were "monitoring" Charlie last season so maybe his head has been turned by his agent. But then again if I was Charlie and the rumour was there that Villa and Hull were after me then I am afraid its a fucking easy choice to make, Hull are a recently promoted team and a bit of a hole of a place.

Also £4.5m is peanuts for a club like VIlla that are trying to sell Benteke for £20m+ so thats an easy £15m profit.

As for DRS saying that...I agree if it was the new board then the fans would be totally up in arms about the sell ons and fees to previous board members etc.

It was a clause inserted into the contract for the sale of the club, wasn't it? In which case why should we be getting upset about it? They wrote off millions, if they want to try to recoup some by inserting clauses to take a percentage of an anticipated future windfall then whats so wrong with that? Unless I've missed something, in which case feel free to enlighten me.

And if it was a term of the sale of the club, why did the new lot agree to it?

I did state monies going to the old board weeks ago and I got slated for even suggesting it!

http://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=28647.msg1203529#msg1203529

http://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=28647.13635

http://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=28647.13650

Steve Bruce just confirmed on Talksport it was a failed medical if that is definetly true I cannot see Charlie getting a contract anywhere else in the Prem with his dodgy shoulder a real shame for the lad

I missed the bit about the cut of the sell on being arranged at the time of the Club's sale.  Seems more reasonable in that case.

some of us got stick for suggesting fitton was a cunt ages ago.

I'd wager the club left them a lot more out of pocket than that small portion of a transfer fee would cover. I don't really care to be honest. People who've previously helped the club taking a cut, is like a drop in the ocean compared to the blood sucking agents' cut.

Yeah what a cunt, not wanting to write off 100% of the money he was owed.

IF this was part of the sale agreement I can't really see a problem with it. Everyone's getting a cut and the majority is still going to the club.

Sky reporter on twitter saying early reports that he collapsed during the medical??

Would this arrangement have been common for other transfers of the era? Richie and Cox

Not if it was part of the sale of the club, no I wouldn't have thought so.

plenty of negatives too. Meddling in team matters saw us relegated. The bloke was here to have his ego stroked. A posh boy wannabe football manager. Not like he sold his wedding ring-remortgaged his house to aid stfc

To an extent, I agree with what Arriba says with regard to my take on Fitton - virtually everything bar the initial takeover and 'finding' Austin went wrong. The delay of Wilson's sacking, his replacement, and poor transfer moves to name the main ones, ultimately leading to our relegation to the basement.

Didn't he 'find' Flint? I wonder if there was a less-publicised fee in HIS contract when he was sold on.

Pretty much sums up 99% of football club chairmen, so yeah I agree.

My point was that this "deal" doesn't make him a cunt IMO. Sounds to me like it's been set up with the interests of both parties (old and new boards) in mind.

Surely he means the deal collapsed?

@SkySportsMatt: Early reports about Charlie Austin's medical claim he collapsed during his medical. #HCFC #BFC

But by putting the takeover together he got rid of Diamandis and for that I am truely grateful.

To be fair he still wrote off cash to take this forward, I never understand the argument that there is uproar if season tickets go up, but owners should just plough cash into the club.

Steve Bruce said -

"There has been a bit of a problem with his medical, which is the worst scenario for everybody concerned," said Bruce. "It's an awful situation we find ourselves in but the medical is not great so it looks as if it is a non-starter at the moment.

"I think he is surprised because he has not missed many games over the last couple of years. It is a blow for him and a blow for us but these medicals are so stringent and obviously he has got a problem."

I was a huge fan of Fitton at the beginning.  There was a massive sigh of relief that Diamandis had been moved on, and the improvements AF brought to the back office within weeks were clear to see.

As others have said, it was after that that things went wrong.  And because there was a well of goodwill towards AF and his people, he got off very lightly at the time in terms of criticism.  With hindsight, he probably did 90% of his good work with the club within 3 to 6 months of arriving.

That's extraordinary.  Sounds like general lack of fitness as being the problem.

Does Steve Bruce's repeated use of the word 'blow' indicate some other problem?

It all does seem a little strange to say the least, especially as I don't think he has done his shoulder since 2011 anyway, also I am not sure how much of an issue fitness would be as that obviously can be worked on?

I do wonder if anything unforeseen has come up with regards to the plethora of tests they no doubt do, I assume they do blood tests etc which i suppose could show up some unexpected issues.

With a bit of luck this new board will end up being exactly the opposite.

If you completely ignore the huge amount of work Fitton, Wray and Watkins did to overhaul, set right and completely turn round what was an utter basket case of a business when they took over, then yeah, he was rubbish on the football side. I'd suggest the appointment of Watkins alone means Fitton deserves a far more generous retrospective than this slightly one-sided summary suggests. They didn't exactly inherit a thriving business that was ticking over nicely and just needed a steady hand on the tiller.

To be fair they didn't exactly leave a thriving business that was ticking over nicely and just needed a steady hand on the tiller either.

He failed due to a knee cartilage problem. Not sure anyone else in the premiership will want him now, this info came from the man himself (via his next door neighbour)

Neither Fitton nor Wray were involved when Black pulled the plug which was set off the Administration alarm bells. But Wray has to bear his share of the responsibility for Di Canio's overspending, granted

I agree with what you say Paul, but I would attribute that more to Watkins and to a lesser extent, Wray. That's just my understanding though, I could be over-egging their roles and doing Fitton a disservice.

Well no-one knows exactly who did what, but the art of good leadership is often about recognising your own shortcomings and bring in people who can plug those gaps. Watkins probably takes the lions' share of the credit for most of the heavy lifting that created a thriving business out of the broken shell they walked into, but Fitton and Wray appointed him. If they did nothing else, that alone was a masterstroke and gives them a good share of the credit too IMO

His signing of Caddis and Ferry was quite shrewd to be fair.

Not sure about that. Not as though Ferry made us a load of money with a sale down the line. Brought for 6 figures and released on a free. Caddis we will see, but it was reported we paid £350k for the pair of them and I can't see us flogging Caddis for an amount like that.

Depending on who you believe, there was talk that Wilson didn't want those 2 but Fitton went and got them anyway.

Reliably informed this is incorrect. Or 'bollocks' if you want the exact phrase.

But they were both key parts of a team that won the League 2 title and got to Wembley in the JPT. Not all about how much they were sold for, would argue we got good value out of those signings.

Quite, Ferry played nearly 150 times for us, featured prominently in two L1 play off teams and an L2 winning side. Indeed the only time he wasn't a regular in his time here (when Prutton ousted him and at the start of PDCs reign) the team struggled .

So I'd say we got our moneys worth.

I agree. The true value of a player is in how he contributes to a team and not purely in a resale value.

Well that's encouraging.

Failed a medical......was it that niggly shoulder or something else?

twer his kneecap this time, a new injury.

Wasn't his knee the reason that he was let go by Reading? Or am I dreaming that?

I thought he was released for being too small?