The Hotel End

I hear 2 or 3 local people are interested in taking over NTFC (reasonable source, honest). I would hope that anybody with the slightest interest stand up now and join them so it gives the club a sustainable chance for the future. Surely the larger the base for the investment the greater the chance of success.Now is the time to stand up!
Maybe the Trust Chairman could be a contact point to coordinate any interest for the benefit of the club.

Brilliant if true.

But, anyone with a few million will be looking to make a few more.

Football is a money-makers gamble.  Nothing more, nothing less.

When you have 5 million or so you look to secure the future of your family above all else. It’s a rare breed that would place the love of a football club before the future security of their family? Any that are would probably not be the type that you would want running the club? I am afraid the best chance is people who can afford to blow 20 million or so and not see that, whilst still a disaster, as not financial ruination? Anything less would probably be treading water and not lead to the progression some demand? There are some on here that would have you believe differently, and steady sustainable growth is achievable with a collective group of individuals with a few million a piece. All I can say is that they are not one of those in a position to put a financial foot forward on that basis, because if they were they wouldn’t be talking like it.

Completely right - sometimes people don't seem to understand how much it costs to run a football club or how small a sum 1-2 million is in that context - if as an individual you retire with a million in a pension pot and live for 25 years you would enjoy a reasonable but not lap of luxury life style.

I know Beds will talk about a club sustainable on gate money and non match day income but the reality at the lower league levels is just that - sustainment but not progress. 

I think Beds will be what you call a sceptic?

Possibly - but I completely don't disagree with his vision just the practicality of it happening.

That one sentence sums up the ReDev thread and its 1166+ pages completely.

One of the two names quoted to me has assets of over £100 million and lives in a village just west of Northampton!
Let's hope if something happens it is completed before the end of the year!

What we need Village, is to stumble across a valuable statue in the snooker room

Or a John Harrison "lesser watch"

John Strowbridge?

You need significantly more than a million quid behind you to even consider being part of a consortium .
The chairman wants about £2 mill for the club as an initial outlay .

You keep spouting this ridiculous figure. KT picked the club up for next to nothing. Sure, he payed the tax bill, and has kept things ticking over. However, he has so far reneged on his agreement to complete the East Stand; which was a part of the reason the council agreed to waive the ten million owing.
So, tell me, (unless this figure includes the additional CDNL leases?), how the f*** is NTFC worth 2 million?

Errrr last time I looked my name isn’t Kelvin Thomas .
I suggest you ask him . That’s what he wants though .

My hopes for our club is that we achieve a 50% increase and growth in all aspects of the club, from building up the support base, increases in food and beverages, match day advertising, sponsorship and corporate takings, non match day takings, player budgets, player sales, league position etc etc.
 I'm not that interested in us being a rich man's play thing but would like to have owners that pushes hard for a community club spirit that has the local population wanting to watch and are proud to be involved with.
It would be long-term project, that would finally see things being achieved.
We've had15 years of smoke being blown up our arses, how nice would it be to have something finally happen.

That would be more than enough.

I think he lives in north of Northamptonshire, so I was told AN Other.

Grove- The statues went for £5.3 million so look in your garden quick!!!

What he wants and what he gets are likely to be 2 different prices, but I think that is a pretty accurate price.

This is where I don't understand the logic - if it's really that easy to pick up a football club (particularly one on the bones or it's arse) for next to nothing and run it solely on gate money with no further investment (Essentially the scenario that you accuse KT of) - why have none of these so called local interested parties picked up the ball and run with it as you would wish (past, present or future) - why did the local group at the same time of KT's arrival  pull out because by their own admission they only had funding to get us out of a hole and not to take the club forward in a sustained manner. Why did Derek Banks pull out, citing he only had limited funding and no one else was prepared to come in with additional support. Why did Stonhill and co sell out to Cardoza again saying they had limited means to take the club forward.

No disrespect but I think the back of a fag packet economics of running a football club in both a sustained and progressive way is simply fantasy 

Derek Banks was pre-Premier League and pre-Solidarity Payments.

No-one knows what other groups were interested in the club in the last crisis and why Cardoza chose to sell to Bower for a pound.

Any millionaire worth their salt will be pretty savvy. Why would they offer anything more than the pound the current owners (according to Cardoza in court) paid for it. The club has no assets and all the other costs are sunk.

Aren't some of the players assets?

I always think to myself, when i buy two lucky dips for those ridiculously high jackpots on the euromillions (like the £145m recently) "I wonder if I could persuade the missus to let me dump some money into the Cobblers....

But how much would it take?

To buy out KT
To finish the stand
To buy 6 or 7 quality players first season, then be adding 3 or 4 more the next 2
To fund wages for say 3 seasons....

I reckon you're looking near 10 million?

I mean, no point buying it if you don't intend to have a real crack at the championship....

I wouldnt even ask....just do it! However it all depends on how much you win!

Yes but presumably Mr. or Mrs X wouldn't be planning on spending everything they own on the club

This thread is a bit Deja vu.

It depends if the buyer is purchasing an investment or a dream? However, forget what was paid for it previously, assets (the biggest of which is that it is an operating EFL club with above average attendances) and other points of negotiation. There are only 2 factors that matter, what someone is prepared to pay for it and most crucially of all what KT is prepared to sell it for. That’s what it’s worth.

Like most chairman, he is probably going to want to get back at least the amount of money he put in to pay off debts etc.

Man Utd in the league cup revenue or the 400k we got for Ricky Holmes would have more than paid back the 160k and the 100k in back wages and would have been used for just that.

;D ;D

Citation required for that figure. My analysis of Charlton Athletic's Financial Statements (published on this website) suggested nothing like this.

He knows it is bullsh, but suits the point(s) he is making    ..............well embellishes them!

Beds has sparked fury amongst French fishermen...for his constant fishing!  8)

It's hardly fag packet economics, and nowhere did I suggest that it's cheap or easy running a football club. And I don't doubt for a moment that KT/DB have had to pump sizable funds in to keep the club running, probably accounting for much of their quoted '3 million to spend'. However, the fact they sunk that money into a failed project, it doesn't put them in a very good position for recovering their cash deficit, and certainly not for turning a profit on the sale, does it?
Simply put, I can pump as much money as I am able into any business venture, but if that project becomes a money pit with no profits and very few assets, then it doesn't become more valuable than it was when I purchased it purely because I sunk a pile on it. If I wanted out I'd have to take the hit.
If they'd managed to keep the club in League 1, or even progressed on further, then they could likely have turned a profit; or at least broken even. Either way, it'd likely have been worth more than a bargain basement League 2 club with an unfinished stand.

Yup. If you're savvy enough to make millions then you'll be savvy enough to offer the same quid that Bower paid according to Cardoza. Actually, probably less than a quid given the wage bill and the East Stand saga. We're probably talking 50p territory or getting the present owners to pay you to take it off their hands.

Or you'd wait for one of the semi regular financial disasters and pick it up for nowt in the ashes.

This would Ricky Holmes who for 3 out of 4 seasons won player of the season at 3 different clubs before earning a move to the championship.
An absolute £400k bargain at the time of sale, so if Thomas accepted a bag full of rusty washers for him, those rusty washers were valued at £400k.

Beds i dont know where you get this figure of £400k for Holmes.I can assure you it was more like 150K

£125k from Northampton Town to Charlton Athletic
£450k from Charlton Athletic to Sheffield United

If that figure of £125k is true then it was daylight robbery - how on earth KT saw fit to accept such a derisory offer for our most important player is baffling. I appreciate that Holmes was obviously agitating for a move but to accept an offer that was nowhere near what he was worth is bordering on negligent.

No disagreement with pretty much all of this - no suggestion that fag packet economics was coming from you so apologies if that’s how it read

His head had been turned by the bigger 'home town' club Charlton and that was all they were prepared to pay, despite us requesting 'quite a bit' more.

What turned his head towards Sheffield then?

Don't get me wrong, Ricky was great for us but he's no saint. He's just like every other player (fair enough at his age) who've followed the wonga.

Pi$$es me off he's loaned out to Poxford...

Quote from Ricky himself:

"I couldn't turn down the opportunity to play in the Championship,"

A Chmapionship team pushing towards the Prem too, they were in the playoffs when he signed. Not bad a for a 30 year old player who's never played above L1. Not sure money was the big factor.

are you going to change your name to “just saying” at any point?

Yeah, just a shame we didn't think to include a sell on fee, eh?

No offence taken.  ;)

TBH would you stay with us if a club the level of Charlton (not how self imploding they appear to be now) came calling?

Pay a pound, get everyone involved across the local community and watch the money come in!!

Lincolns gates have gone up from 2000 to 8000 and more......they are very community focussed and are doing everything right.

Their season tickets were priced at £380 so they weren't giving them away....they just seemed to have pulled everyone on board.

Sheff Utd paid the most and got the least out of him. Almost half a mil and deemed not good enough.

I agree, was just clarifying why Holmes has his head turned when the offer came in. In mindsight he should have stayed at Charlton who will be in or around the playoffs this season where the fans loved him!