Thetownend.com

Having witnessed some near fatal / major difficulties STFC have found themselves in.

Who can remember worse situation based on

An absent sole owner who seems to be broke
Second rate manager
A team lacking in most departments.

Fu#king hell what a mess

COYMR's

the end of the Wills/Diamandis era was pretty desperate too.

can't remember what we were like on the pitch though tbh

No.

HTH.

 :crash: :crash: :crash:

And I thought 2020 was shit  :( :badmood:

Not far off

If it is just about 2 parties squabbling @bout who is entitled to what, then no.

If it’s the forerunner of the opening of a huge can of worms, then yes.

Nobody knows what position the club is actually in. As Power has tried to shaft Clem and, possibly, Standing/Barry, I doubt he cared muchly about how he got his slice during his tenure.

I fear the worse, though. We all knew it would all come tumbling out once Power had to open up about how he ran things.

Just remains to be seen what the level of shithousery he has been up to.

This.

We don't know. It could be close.

Not even the top 3 in my lifetime. Yet.

On the face of it bloody close.
Once the cupboards have been cleared of Skeletons, then yes.

I would say yes BUT isn't every football club in one of their worst positions ever. How no one has yet gone to the wall during this I do not know.

On the plus side if the worst does happen we have the CG for a rebirth

wouldn't the leasehold revert to the council?

You’ve still got the Arsenal though fatters

and Ebbsfleet, or is that over now

No, we've been hours from going to the wall at least three times this century.

I think what's particularly annoying about the current moment is that previous boards (possibly a rose tinted view of the Wills/Diamandis years and not one I felt at the time) felt like they were trying to make us better, but were just bad at it. I suspect the tone after Fallon was sold in 2005/6 was pretty similar to this mind.

We've been a lot worse.

But sadly I don't think this is the low point of this whole debacle.

Judge me in five years ? You were a cunt then and you are an even bigger cunt now.

We’ve been worse. I remember looking out at the players warming up in the late 90s thinking, “who would want any of these players?” and deciding the only one was Gareth Davies (on the rare occasions he was fit). The others were Alan Young, a 40 year old Jimmy Quinn, Gareth Hall and co. Cliff Puffett had every best intention but no money, and the club was about to go under. As things stand, we’ll be in League Two next year. We have to hope that it is with a new owner, a plan, and a manager with ambition.

It's hard to answer because none of us know where we really stand financially, or what the real reason behind the sale of DJ. Was it to keep the club afloat? Was it to line Power's pockets before he goes?

I just made the mistake of popping onto Twitter, amazing how many fans of other clubs take great delight in seeing our club in distress. Not all of them, but plenty. Cunts.

I remember sitting at my computer pressing F5 every 30 seconds or so to see if we'd gone out of business yet.

This is nothing like that. It's a kerfuffle that's holding up a potential sale leaving us lumbered with an owner who has apparently given up. Things could change for the worst, as can be said for most clubs at any time, but I feel little existential angst as things stand. I fear we may be relegated, but I don't think we're in immediate danger of going out of business.

It probably feels bad now because people are disappointed with the transfer business and current events are still fresh in the mind. But it's nowhere close IMO.

Definitely one of the worse but we’ve had a fair share.
I think this one feels particularly bad as we appeared to be on a high and moving once again in a positive direction.
Then CRASH ....... it’s shit it really is.

Just need a new owner / new direction and at least we can hope.

^ This, I remember those F5 days fondly....

I don't think its just us TBH, I know when Bolton were in the shite there was much gloating from other fans, I imagine if you have not been there before (We are old hands at it) you think it will never happen to you, Wigan fans learnt this the hard way after gloating at Bolton.

Isn't it amazing that during a horrific global pandemic, with the CG mostly empty for almost a year now, barely a trickle of income into the club, multiple court cases relating to club ownership, question marks over the owner's activities, several of the starting XI leaving for a variety of reasons, our manager walking out because he thought we were shite, the new manager not exactly setting pulses racing, and us sitting in the relegation zone the season after having brilliantly won the title, there is healthy debate as to whether this is the worst situation for the club or not.

Personally I am hanging on to the prospect of another shot at the League 2 title. Every cloud.

That would have been Malpas wouldn't it?

Sent from my CLT-L09

I see a socially distanced protest for tonight seems to be gathering a bit of momentum on Twitter.

Malpas was under Fitton. Wills/Diamandis ended around 2006-7, with the Power/Emmel/Trust takeover efforts not getting much traction and the board ended up selling to Fitton & co. from memory.

I think BEST holdings were a brief, terrifying flirtation during that period too. https://thewashbag.com/2012/11/07/hall-of-shame-20/

We have had some absolute chancers at Town over the years...

The end of Rikki Hunt days into Cliff Puffett with a 40 year old up front, Gooden, Onoura, Ndah etc all sold and club in admin was worst. At the end of the Wills regime we were minutes from liquidation.

This is just par for the course in terms of events at STFC.

I think this was the darkest hour I remember as a Swindon fan, I think this was when I was stood in the away end at Brentford (1 nil loss?) seemingly hours away from the club closing it's doors for the last time - saved at the 11th hour, literally

yeah, Brentford.

I still remember the Brighton players acting like pricks waving money in our faces.

I recall a match at Southend away thinking it was the last time I'd watch this club. Can't remember the year. Must have been the same period as the aforementioned Brentford game.

If anything the clubs the most stable it's ever been.

Just unstable people in charge

Cheltenham at home in the JPT was one that I recall thinking "this could be it"

Sent from my CLT-L09

No doubt about this - I hope it is "just" and we come through this

We have a club. Yes it might be during bad times, but the club have done well to survive. Wages have been paid, and no-one, that I am aware of, has been made redundant. No income, or very little.

New Training Ground in progress.

Not all bad, but not all good. Wellens started the sinking ship and was certainly a coward jumping. He made poor decisions on recruitment. What we don't know who actually makes the footballing decisions.

Is Power a cunt? I don't think he is. Does the club need a change. Yes, most definitely. There is more going on behind the scenes than anything we all know about. Who, can honestly say, they would want to buy a football club even more so during the last 12 months.

Sorry but that's a bollocks argument, the same as "Ooh, Boris is doing the best he can, would you do any better?". No I wouldn't want to buy a football club. But I didn't. Power did. He bought our club. And he's making a right fucking mess of it at the moment.

Me. If I had the money.

is power a cunt?

yes.

and no I'm not quantifying the reasons I think that

If I had a fairly large supply of money then yes I would, If I had a smaller amount of wealth as Lee Power appears to have then no I wouldn't.

Wellens didn't start the sinking ship, COVID did.  Wellen's recruited poorly, but ideally didn't want to recruit the majority of those positions at all, Covid put paid to that.  Once he had to recruit there wasn't the same level of money available, because of Covid.

Did he jump ship? of course he did, and I would have done exactly the same given similar circumstances.  Would I have done it in a more honest and honourable manner, I would hope so.

As for is Power a cunt, I concur with PV.  He likes to play in a wealthy mans world, which is manageable in the normal world, but in the new world he is out of his depth.  This just proves that him financing the ground purchase and the training ground without dipping in his mates pockets was not viable and therefore he has sold us a pipe dream, for that he is a cunt.  He should have sold a long time ago, but didn't because he was greedy.

Some memories there (most of them bad!) Arthur Hunt, what a terrible commentator, he didn't rate Fjortoft!

Interesting, how much do you personally want/need to then be able to support a club like Swindon to a level you’d feel was appropriate?

A lot, I would be talking about Roman Abramovich levels to comfortably afford to invest in the ground, team, staff, infrastructure etc...

Not a chance. I wouldn't have the patience to deal with the % of football fans that seem to know everything and are massively vocal about it. Way more hassle than its worth IMO.

What I might be inclined to do, if I did have a ridiculous sum of money behind me is just be a very silent benefactor and let people that have experience to deal with that. Even then I'd be likely to get grief and a driveway painted etc.

Black was ‘only’ worth c £100m or so. Any one of us could scoop the lottery.

I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Probably a no from me, thankless task owning a club

I'd have to win big enough to be able to waste 20% of it on the club.

You'd want to put in £20m minimum I think - capital expenditure at the top and 2-3 years running costs.

Black is worth c£500m today and if you prefer to be an even more 'silent benefactor' of that era, The Arbib Family were and still are worth c£350m.

I think it was Berni who nailed it though, Power really is trying to play in a rich/wealthy person's game. He can't compete and it looks like he's desperate now, thanks to the failure to swallow personal pride; the hole always gets deeper that way.