Fans Forum - Reaction

[Summerof69]

Who was the moron who said the Trust is just full of personal empire builders.......there were some definate set-ups in that front row who just praised the board to the hilt

I wasn't the only one to spot that then. I see Cliff 'Man of the Fans' Puffet, who was in the middle of these 'people',was nodding like a horse with every word that came out of Holt's mouth.

[glos_robin]

I was getting death stared and tutted by some old bint sat a couple of seats away from Puffet for clapping anti board questions.

To be honest it was a waste of time and some idiots seem to fall for it, on the adver site someone thinks the board came accross well...

[Batch]

These are the notes that I took, it was impossible for me to keep up with everything and so they can not be deemed complete. I have made them as accurate as I can but can not guarantee 100% word for word accuracy:

In attendance: Paul Sturrock, Willie Carson, Mike Bowden, Matyn Starnes, Andrew Andronikou (administrator), Bob Holt, James Wills, Mike Diamandis. NB: Mike Diamandis was introduced as a STFC shareholder (amount of shares and in which company not divulged).

I will use initials to denote speaker.

AA - The CVA
- The terms of the current CVA agreement was drawn by AA as he is the most objective person to do so.
- The 5 years at 100K payments are now up to date and so we have no outstanding payments to date.
- The CVA was put together on assumptions that STFC would become profitable. This did not happen and secondly a new stadium was not forthcoming that would have provided a "windfall" payment.
- The variance is to be sought on the bullet payment (the big 900K one), and we have a year to do this if AA guidance says so.
-The variance has not been presented to creditors yet .
-AA talked at length about how the Wills have made substantial injections to the club over 5 years and info from them means that he has confidence that the board can work to fulfil obligations of any restructured CVA.
There was a QandA answer session and some debate took place between Paul Davis and AA amongst others.
AA did state that creditors will be made aware of potential investors/takeovers and that the delay in negotiating the bullet payment with creditors was partly to see if anything came of this (consortium or other investor not specifically mentioned.

JW
A lengthy statement was read out by JW from his solicitor stating their legal position on takeover talks. There were some questions from the floor but nothing of significance.

[The statement was nothing new and I guess will appear on the official site in due course]

MB
-Talked about how passionate a Swindon fan he was.
-Stated how Roderick(?) Bluh (council leader) was a breath of fresh air.
- Believes the club have the most cordial relationship with the council in years.
-In his opinion the council members he has spoken to were very pro of keeping STFC in the borough
- Hopes Bluh will make announcement on the matter in due course
- Stated that there were some meetings he has had that are either of a confidential or informal and private matter. He says to divulge these details would cause a loss of trust which could lead to derailing any CG redevelopment.
- Stated that moving to Chippenham was a personal view and that he had not had any discussions with anyone regarding moving the club to Chippenham.
- Stated that the absolute preference is to redevelop the CG. Then if that failed an alternative site would be looked at inside the borough (J15/J16), then as a last result outside as his personal view was better to move the club outside the borough than have no club.
QandA - Apologised to people that he had said the CG redevelopment proposal would encompass 38 acres, it is in fact 33.3 acres (which I believe he said was the whole footprint incl. annex but that needs checking)
QandA-Stated that no financial dealings with St Modwen impact his job of looking at new ground
QandA- Stated that the Trust proposal "fatal flaw" was linked with housing and the fact that the Trust had not talked to the relevant councilers that would ultimately be responsible for the approval of CG redevelopment.

PS
-Very open and amusing when asked about players. Says 1 target fell through this morning and that another is being worked on maybe in time for Saturday (though one target may be ineligible for that game for technical reasons.
- Talked explicitly about one or two players, so expect to see one of our strikers moved to the wing and one of our wingers apologising for recent bad behaviour
- Said that the one or two players he swore may not play for us again may earn a reprieve (one already has)
- When asked about whether he would quit if a takeover happened said that he came to the club because of the vision sold to him and was very happy working with the current board.

[Batch]

My opinion is that other than the CVA 100K finally being paid nothing of any substance came out.

Diamandis got away without question, however I'm not sure there was much point arguing the past with him with anyway.

I think one gent over emphasised his points a bit and that was balanced
by Bob Holt and his snide remarks at Paul Davis and the consortium.

There seems little movement on the possibility of discussing a takeover and the lawyers are getting richer.

I was expecting some kind of clear plan forward on the CVA and some more flesh on an apparently "advanced" plan for CG redevelopment.

I respect Sturrock for only answering a direct question about the takeover and otherwise remaining totally football focused.

[Arriba]

so it got nobody anywhere then?
questions were dodged and nobody is any wiser about anything?

[deltaincline]

I was getting death stared and tutted by some old bint sat a couple of seats away from Puffet for clapping anti board questions.

My obs on the forum:

Andronikou was posturing and giving out the glib shite that he thought we were worthy of hearing. I don't think he'd prepared for many, if any of the questions asked of him. The trusts Paul Davies asked some good searching questions and Andronikou flapped about like a cunt.

I think he may be regretting not doing his home work for tonight as he seemed a bit annoyed that he couldn't answer questions on points of his professional conduct.

Holt was his usual confrontational and aggressive (pre-arranged in the 'hard man' maxwellian influenced warm up no doubt )  He went after the trust in public tonight, but I thought that Paul davies fought his corner well, being very obviously put in the spotlight glare.

Holt asked if he knew who the trusts solicitors were :?  WTF? was he trying to catch him out on something that we don't know about?

James Wills was fucking embarrasing. Why the fuck did he turn up and just read out a statement (from his own fucking lawyer, quoting himself and his own fucking dad) about the phantom consortium / power / emmell / trust-consortium / non-consortium / fucking bollocks that everyone knows is legit, but the club want to still perpetuate as a load of old bollocks?

The pissed-up gobby bloke who stood up and made some good points was class. He went on a bit a couple of times, but fair play to him for making some hard hitting points which the crowd agreed with.

Sturrock: On honeymoon. We'll see.

Diamandis: Why bother showing up?

Bowden, Starnes:  

[millom red]

I wasnt pissed.....yes i was gobby.
 

[sonic youth]

Unless I'm mistaken, the CVA says in black and white that the final bullet payment is not dependent on ground redevelopment?

[pauld]

You're not mistaken sonic, although worryingly the Administrator didn't seem clear on the point. I had to read him that section from the CVA and even then he came back with his stock "I am Administrator, I am God" answer. But later in answer to questions from others he said it was not dependent. So then he was asked directly again and said no the "bullet payment" was not dependent on the CVA. So that was how the topic finished - not dependent on the ground redev.

[lebowski]

i wasn't present last night so may have mis-interpreted what's been said, but earlier in this thread it was mentioned that the board said that the takeover was off the agenda, is this right?

if so, wills reading out his anti-consortium email, and holt asking paul davis who the solicitors confirms that this "fans forum" was being used solely as a board propaganda vehicle, as many suspected it would be.

bring on the protests.

[Amir]

Some guy asked a question and he quipped something about giving him 10p for a phone call or something.

It's been 20p for a while now.  He's made himself look a right mug there


Nothing much was ever really going to come out of last night.  Glad to hear PaulD fought his corner well.

[Samdy Gray]

I wasnt pissed.....yes i was gobby.
 

You we're lucky not to get chucked out!

And as for trying to go after Mike D afterwards, fair play but as soon as he saw you he gave security the nod and then ran away!

[Batch]

i wasn't present last night so may have mis-interpreted what's been said, but earlier in this thread it was mentioned that the board said that the takeover was off the agenda, is this right?

No idea on the agenda, but to be fair the board did open the floor and seemed to take all questions asked. The questions after James Wills statement were none to pressing.

Whether anybody submitted written questions that were not read out I don't know.

[Power to people]

I think last night it was Board 1 Fans 0 as they was well prepared and didn't want to diversify from what they had decided to talk about, doing it deliberately, Holt & Bowden were real ases, Holt was clearly spoiling for a fight with the Trust but didn't get one.

They are still denying a consortium exists, perhaps BP, PE, MW & PD need to organise a Press Conf together and invite Mickey D to be in the audience.

What was the point of Diamandis being there though, I was dissapointed no one asked any questions of him, after them bumping up security as they did he got an easy ride and must have gone home laughing and thinking that it is just those nasty internet people that don't like me and everyone else loves me.

I don't think anyone came away any the wiser though, which was probably the point to give out information that is already known.

I suspect the letter to the Consortium's lawyers will be on the web site soon though so it can be read by all, but they are just playing stalling tactics though, they wil keep bouncing letters around with the same old rubbish on them hoping the consortium will just give up and go away.

[pauld]

I think last night it was Board 1 Fans 0 as they was well prepared and didn't want to diversify from what they had decided to talk about, doing it deliberately, Holt & Bowden were real ases, Holt was clearly spoiling for a fight with the Trust but didn't get one.

By your own take then that rather sounds more like 1-1? And remember they wholly failed to establish a key part of their agenda - that the CVA is renogotiable dependent on the ground redev. In fact Andronikou contradicted both his own opening position and Mike D's statements before Xmas on this - in a public forum. That's pretty major ground to concede. The rest of Mr Andronikou's performance also left him wide open on a number of fronts. So

They are still denying a consortium exists, perhaps BP, PE, MW & PD need to organise a Press Conf together and invite Mickey D to be in the audience.

What we don't need to do is dance to the board's agenda in the way you suggest. They're starting to look ridiculous with this whole "There is no Fans' Consortium" thing - Bill Power's interview in the Adver made it very plain where we stand, as did Phil Emmel at the Trust meeting on Monday (and indeed at the Youth Cup game to those who spoke to him). If the board have difficulty understanding that, then no amount of press conferences, tattooing "There is a Fans' Consortium and they want to buy the club" on their foreheads etc will make them understand it. This is just an extremely weak propaganda play on the board's part - even Holt looked uncomfortable trying to deliver that BS last night.