The Spirit of '69 and our Day of Action

[4D]

What can morfuni gain with us dropping out the league?  

Also, does the ground development still have to go ahead if we do drop? Mayne the 2 are connected? 

[Leggett]

If we go down with Clem&Co still in charge, we'll go down again.

[Posh Red]

What can morfuni gain with us dropping out the league? 

Also, does the ground development still have to go ahead if we do drop? Mayne the 2 are connected? 

Is the governance in the NL as stringent, or would it be even easier to get up to some dodgy financial dealings

[tans]

Easier

[4D]

Surprised there isn't more interest from the FA, particularly when you look at the history.

[Frigby Daser]

It's not the FA's job. Anyone can submit a suspicious activity report to the National Crime Agency though (if there's any evidence)

[RobertT]

Back holidays, or back back?

Just for Christmas.

[Ginginho]

Just for Christmas.

How's the job hunting going, Rob?

[RobertT]

It went well, started end of July with HomeServe.  The downside is the COO is a Walsall man and has been revelling in my misery.

[Bob's Orange]

It went well, started end of July with HomeServe.  The downside is the COO is a Walsall man and has been revelling in my misery.

You can get in his good books and get them to stop bombarding me with snail mail trying to get me to sign up to their plumbing cover every 6 weeks or so. I mean it's not far from the front door to the recycling bin, so minor in the grand scope of things, but does seem a little aggressive in their tactics.

[JoeMezz]

The thing that we have in our favour compared to other league clubs that have gone down and stayed down is the fan base, attendances and potential. I know that it isn't a given but it makes it more attractive for a rise of the phoenix scenario. Clubs like Chester, Bury, Scunthorpe, Hereford etc isn't comparable in that sense. hopefully...

I had Oldham in my list and then took a look and they are a bit weird, league 2 average attendance floated around low 4000. their conference average attendance is now around 6500.

Morfuni goes and if we're towards the top end of the NL I think we'd average 7500+ home fans a game. Momentum can and has played a massive part in recent lower league clubs, I've thought last couple years we might benefit from going down to gain that momentum, but all depends on the crooks leaving.

[stfcjack]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/this-sydney-plumber-saved-an-english-soccer-club-now-the-fans-want-his-head-20241129-p5kung.html

What a load of shite

[JoeMezz]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/this-sydney-plumber-saved-an-english-soccer-club-now-the-fans-want-his-head-20241129-p5kung.html

What a load of shite

Behind a pay wall could you copy and paste the text?

[stfcjack]

Three years ago, Sydney businessman Clem Morfuni was being hailed as a saviour. He became owner of English soccer club Swindon Town just before the 2021-22 season kicked off. Had he not, the club may have died. He endeared himself to supporters, promising to restore their team to its former glory. Long-suffering diehards dared to dream again.

Today, Morfuni is almost a pariah in Swindon, a drab railway town two hours’ drive west of London, where there is little else to do but follow the fortunes of the cherished local soccer team.


Things haven’t been going well. And everyone is blaming him. To the point where he’s effectively being chased out of town.

“Welcome to English football,” Morfuni, a former plumber who founded the Axis Services Group and is worth a reported $200 million, tells this masthead.

“It’s not for the faint-hearted, I’ll tell you.”

Since losing on penalties in League Two’s promotion play-off semi-finals at the end of his first season as owner and chairman, and the high of hosting Manchester City at home in the third round of the FA Cup in that same campaign, Swindon Town has been trapped in a grim downward spiral, churning through players and coaches at an alarming rate.


This week’s 4-0 defeat to Colchester United has bumped them down to last place in League Two; relegation, which some fans believe is a certainty if Morfuni remains in charge, would end their 104-year spell in the Football League and condemn them to semi-professional competition.

Six months ago, the Swindon Town Supporters’ Trust called for Morfuni to step aside, declaring they had lost all confidence and faith in his leadership. The anger and tension has built since then. Last week, a separate fan protest group formed, committing to rolling “non-obstructive” action with the sole purpose of pressuring Morfuni into selling the club, saying they “will not rest” until it happens.

English media typically doesn’t cover the ins and outs of fourth-tier football, but Swindon’s ongoing plight has captured national attention - helped somewhat by the presence of inimitable lower-league quote machine Ian Holloway, who became the sixth permanent manager during Morfuni’s reign as chairman when he was appointed two months ago. Working his first job in four years, Holloway is still yet to record a league victory, and recently suggested their struggles could be because Swindon’s training ground, located near an ancient burial site, is haunted.

According to Sam Morshead, the founder and editor of The Moonraker, an independent website which covers Swindon Town, the relationship between the community and the owner has been strained by the team’s on-field decline - and then snapped entirely when, last year, the club was fined £10,000 by the Football Association because Morfuni failed to disclose that he had sold shares to another party.

“It’s that sort of issue, when you come in on a mandate of transparency, where things have fallen down. Basically, trust has been broken between the fanbase and him,” Morshead says.

“I don’t think he has really clocked that, and he probably feels quite personally affronted by what’s going on at the moment. I can sort of understand that, because he has put a considerable amount of cash into the business - but there’s more to running a football club than there is to running a construction business. And I think the clash of cultures between how he does business to make the money that he has, and how you need to do business to maintain a football community in a lower league club in the UK, has just been incompatible.”

Morfuni only got into club ownership out of a longstanding love for the game, and says he’s still in it for the same reasons. And while he understands where fans are coming from when they say they want him gone, he reckons the reality isn’t so simple.

If he was accused of impropriety, of taking money out of the club or not investing enough in it, he says he could understand. But their budget was doubled this season.

He insists he can still fix things.

“Like I’ve said in the media, show me a proof of funds, a letter of offer, and someone who can do this a lot better than me, and by all means, I’ll sit down with them, and I’ll go through it. And if I believe it’s best for the club, I’ll go,” Morfuni says.

“But where are they? Show me. I’ve had a lot of people come to me and go, ‘Clem, we want to buy the club.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, alright. Have you got a proof of funds?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll send you a proof of funds.’ Guess what? No proof of funds.

“So you’re looking for a billionaire who’s going to put millions of pounds into a club, go to an advisory board meeting once a month with the supporters, and if it doesn’t go well, you’re going to get battered. You’re going to get abuse on social media, you and your family.


“I said, if you find that person, can you let me know? Because I want to meet this guy.”

Morfuni is a season ticket holder at Tottenham Hotspur, and points to the treatment of Ange Postecoglou as another example of how fickle fans in England can be.

“If next season, we stay up we get promoted ... mate, they’ll build a statue,” Morfuni says.

“I don’t know what Ange thinks, but at least he’s making four or five million quid a year. If I was making four or five million quid a year out of the club, I’d say, ‘You know what? I can cop it.’ But when you’re copping it, and it’s costing you money? Trust me, it’s not a pleasant place to be at all.

“The English are brutal. It’s their religion, football. But listen, I’ve been in construction for 30 years. I can fight with the best of them.”

[JoeMezz]

Three years ago, Sydney businessman Clem Morfuni was being hailed as a saviour. He became owner of English soccer club Swindon Town just before the 2021-22 season kicked off. Had he not, the club may have died. He endeared himself to supporters, promising to restore their team to its former glory. Long-suffering diehards dared to dream again.

Today, Morfuni is almost a pariah in Swindon, a drab railway town two hours’ drive west of London, where there is little else to do but follow the fortunes of the cherished local soccer team.


Things haven’t been going well. And everyone is blaming him. To the point where he’s effectively being chased out of town.

“Welcome to English football,” Morfuni, a former plumber who founded the Axis Services Group and is worth a reported $200 million, tells this masthead.

“It’s not for the faint-hearted, I’ll tell you.”

Since losing on penalties in League Two’s promotion play-off semi-finals at the end of his first season as owner and chairman, and the high of hosting Manchester City at home in the third round of the FA Cup in that same campaign, Swindon Town has been trapped in a grim downward spiral, churning through players and coaches at an alarming rate.


This week’s 4-0 defeat to Colchester United has bumped them down to last place in League Two; relegation, which some fans believe is a certainty if Morfuni remains in charge, would end their 104-year spell in the Football League and condemn them to semi-professional competition.

Six months ago, the Swindon Town Supporters’ Trust called for Morfuni to step aside, declaring they had lost all confidence and faith in his leadership. The anger and tension has built since then. Last week, a separate fan protest group formed, committing to rolling “non-obstructive” action with the sole purpose of pressuring Morfuni into selling the club, saying they “will not rest” until it happens.

English media typically doesn’t cover the ins and outs of fourth-tier football, but Swindon’s ongoing plight has captured national attention - helped somewhat by the presence of inimitable lower-league quote machine Ian Holloway, who became the sixth permanent manager during Morfuni’s reign as chairman when he was appointed two months ago. Working his first job in four years, Holloway is still yet to record a league victory, and recently suggested their struggles could be because Swindon’s training ground, located near an ancient burial site, is haunted.

According to Sam Morshead, the founder and editor of The Moonraker, an independent website which covers Swindon Town, the relationship between the community and the owner has been strained by the team’s on-field decline - and then snapped entirely when, last year, the club was fined £10,000 by the Football Association because Morfuni failed to disclose that he had sold shares to another party.

“It’s that sort of issue, when you come in on a mandate of transparency, where things have fallen down. Basically, trust has been broken between the fanbase and him,” Morshead says.

“I don’t think he has really clocked that, and he probably feels quite personally affronted by what’s going on at the moment. I can sort of understand that, because he has put a considerable amount of cash into the business - but there’s more to running a football club than there is to running a construction business. And I think the clash of cultures between how he does business to make the money that he has, and how you need to do business to maintain a football community in a lower league club in the UK, has just been incompatible.”

Morfuni only got into club ownership out of a longstanding love for the game, and says he’s still in it for the same reasons. And while he understands where fans are coming from when they say they want him gone, he reckons the reality isn’t so simple.

If he was accused of impropriety, of taking money out of the club or not investing enough in it, he says he could understand. But their budget was doubled this season.

He insists he can still fix things.

“Like I’ve said in the media, show me a proof of funds, a letter of offer, and someone who can do this a lot better than me, and by all means, I’ll sit down with them, and I’ll go through it. And if I believe it’s best for the club, I’ll go,” Morfuni says.

“But where are they? Show me. I’ve had a lot of people come to me and go, ‘Clem, we want to buy the club.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, alright. Have you got a proof of funds?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll send you a proof of funds.’ Guess what? No proof of funds.

“So you’re looking for a billionaire who’s going to put millions of pounds into a club, go to an advisory board meeting once a month with the supporters, and if it doesn’t go well, you’re going to get battered. You’re going to get abuse on social media, you and your family.


“I said, if you find that person, can you let me know? Because I want to meet this guy.”

Morfuni is a season ticket holder at Tottenham Hotspur, and points to the treatment of Ange Postecoglou as another example of how fickle fans in England can be.

“If next season, we stay up we get promoted ... mate, they’ll build a statue,” Morfuni says.

“I don’t know what Ange thinks, but at least he’s making four or five million quid a year. If I was making four or five million quid a year out of the club, I’d say, ‘You know what? I can cop it.’ But when you’re copping it, and it’s costing you money? Trust me, it’s not a pleasant place to be at all.

“The English are brutal. It’s their religion, football. But listen, I’ve been in construction for 30 years. I can fight with the best of them.”

What an arrogant wanker. Wonder if this is a bit of a slip too?