The Hotel End

Utter mismanagement, in any other business you’d be down the road for gross misconduct.

The failure to act when it should have happened (week of Oxford City and Accrington) has proven to be very costly .

Does he actually care, though?

Does look like he is turning into a very poor Chairman, not sure how that sits with the owners of the Club, or if they really care how bad his appointments have been.

I dont think they care as long as we retain league status.
I dont think there was a plan to bring a new manager in when Curle got sacked. They were hoping Brady could do enough to keep us in the battle to avoid relegation and improve the style of football played with all eyes on next years season ticket sales. After today I 5hink they might now be forced to appoint a new manager and the club is going to build up 3ven more debt as a result of that with whoever's appointed wanting his own staff and players at a time we can least afford it.
I fear for the clubs future right now.

Thomas saved the club...don't you forget that...... (but don't mention the Chinese!)

He's been silent since sacking KC...

Absolutely no updates about the managerial situation whatsoever...not even had the decency to have a conversation with Brady!

Would not be surprised if he put us into administration now that relegation is almost a certainty...

Eagerly await the season ticket loyalty reward email which will be dropping into my inbox shortly!

He’s in a real spot now. He must have been praying for a win over the last 5 games. Like I said previously, there is no way he can appoint Brady during this continued run, he’d look even more stupid. He either does
nothing (i.e as of now) or dusts off the chequebook to roll the dice again. Having said that, if he does nothing the dissenting voices will grow louder by the week.
It’s a proper mess for him....created by him.
The sad thing is the results couldn’t have been much worse if he hadn’t sacked KC.

https://www.ntfc.co.uk/news/2021/february/kt_120221/

We’ve probably got to get 22-24 points from 15 games. Big Sam would struggle to do that.
Maybe time to let it roll and recruit at the end of the season now with a big broom.
Those ST offers need to be strong!  :P

Agree with this. Our position is similar to the current England cricket team being set 500 to win in three days on a dodgy Indian wicket taking spin.

Time for a cheeky low bid to prise the club away from the current owners with the understanding that the debt owed to them is written off and removed from the Balance Sheet.

To put that into perspective, we've won one of our last 16 league games, and now we need 6 or 7 wins from out next 15.

We've played the majority of the teams around us, and games against the better sides to come.

All 8-9 million of it?

Yes, as I said, nothing since that initial update after sacking KC!

People slag off the boro chaiman, but at least he keeps the lifeblood of the club updated constantly...

So where do we start
1. Big mistake giving KC a 2 year contract last summer, OK he got us up through more luck than judgement but last season was pretty much sh*t apart from 5 or 6 games, so it was bound to be a bit of a struggle and struggling managers usually get sacked.
2. We had a £1.75M windfall with the sale of Goode and last seasons FA Cup money but decided not to invest any of it in the team.
3. Despite several dire performances we stuck with KC during the January transfer window, where apart from Kioso, the signings were underwhelming.
4. KC was only sacked when it was blatantly obvious that ST sales would fall through the floor if he remained in position and KT hoped that Brady might be able to get something that didn't exist, out of the poorly assembled squad.
5. KT has no interest whatsoever in the fans of NTFC, the fans won't make money, the land will and that's the only reason he's here.
6. I think we have a "Yes" sir attitude at with most of the senior staff agreeing with what ever comes out from the men at the top, even when they know it's wrong, no one questions anything. I do realise that KT pays their wages but sometimes you have to grow a pair.
 Seems like it was the same with the players as Ricky Holmes found out.
7. Some fans still think that KT is our saviour, we are allegedly losing £3M when our playing budget is in the region of £1.2 - £1.5M, where is the other £1.5M going? Not to mention the Football League money and the very near £1M from ST sales also coming in.

Let's admit it, happy clappers excluded. Thomas has been a disaster from day one and was never here for the benefit of the club.
I was there at the meeting when he promised £4 million was "ringfenced" for the stand redevelopment and I don't think much has happened in that department, so I would suggest he was possibly lying, allegedly.

From who?

I thought the Trust were interested in buying at the right price. Anyone can bid.

1) Probably too worried that someone might come in an poach Curle following promotion so offered him the two years...perhaps there was actual interest from someone else so he tied him down to that contract because it was the easy thing to do.
2) Seems to forget the Goode money and the FA Cup run money when he goes on about the debt.
3) Claims that he waited too long last time to get rid of a manager so this time he went early.....really? He went far too late in my view, the writing had been on the wall for a couple of months before. Then we all got over excited by a 0-0 draw with Accrington!
4) Agree with that
5) I'm sure he's as interested in us as he was with Torquay and Oxford before us......
6)  Agree with that too..... thats where KT's "right kind of players" came in.....those who just shut up and toed the party line.
7) He may have headed the consortium that bought the club in 2015 and that paid the immediate debt to the taxman to avoid us being wound up.....but its now 2021, and the progress on and off the field has been negligible under his watch. We are losing money hand over fist (he says) and by the end of this year the debt to Bower/him/Ventures/Belle de Jour will be in the region of £9m. That right there is the reason there have been no takers for either buying the club or any outside parties putting in some investment.

He never has (had to) answered for the Chinese debacle....did they sell 60% of the club or did they sell 100% of the club, did the money change hands, did the full amount paid by the Chinese get returned to the Chinese when the deal went belly up 9 months later? Why did the losses from that (the Hasselbaink wage and transfer splurge) get covered and hidden on a balance sheet somewhere in the British Virgin Islands?

There will be no deal with the Council, there will be no new/finished stand, and there will be hard times ahead for the club....its about time people realised this and stopped with the quite frankly pathetic "Thomas saved the club" mantra.

I'm not sure who the “happy clappers” are. Or those that think he's the “saviour”.  ;D ;D

Point me in their direction..

Isn't there a point when they/he will want to cut their/his losses especially as doubt has been raised about the value of the land justifying the investment.

I feel like that point is just around the corner.

Look forward to next season.....possible relegation and therefore a cut in the TV revenue package and the League solidarity payment, a big drop in season ticket revenue in light of an expected compensation package to the regular season ticket holders this season.

If there's no prospect of the new Unitary signing off on his redevelopment deal (and even if they do what prospect is there for actually developing on the land in these times of crisis?) then you have to ask how many more seasons are they prepared to keep adding £1m-£2m per season just to keep the club alive?

I've had this debate on twitter and with a few people outside of that who do not like our chairman. What I would say is that this is not the time for such discussion, in my view. We are paying the wages, the bills, and sailing the ship through covid. Lets face it...the team got promoted at the wrong time, if that is ever possible.

A perfect storm has developed since, which also includes the likely stalling of any possible development due to the new council structure and economic reasons due to the obvious.

As Delboy once said, Belly's in Rodney! Not many on here will get that but I'm essentially saying we need to remain calm for now. Ive read many comments (derogatory) saying things like we cant run the club on zooms etc, I think its fair to say that KT was pretty active prior to COVID and its not his fault he cant travel here at the minute. We should remain calm, and accept that THIS SEASON we've been found out, trying to blag it on a shoestring (good house keeping!) against either more established league1 teams or teams whom are prepared to risk more £ on progressing without any decent income.

We all feel like sh1t, because thats what happens when we are bottom of the league we are in. Gotta blame someone. For me, where we went wrong this season (and it does really frustrate me) is that we didn't g@mble a bit in the January transfer window. Some will say Curle should have been fired, and a new man brought in to take his place at the roulette table. I disagree because any decent manager would have wanted £ to spend and lets be honest, that money wasn't available. MK Dons signed Grigg, we signed Leon Constantine's love child, whilst sending Smith (who no doubt will earn more than Leon junior) up to Scotland. I doubt the Cowley brothers would have found a striker prepared to play for a few hundred quid a week that was any good either! Or even Pep.

I will say this though. Its not my money. And I accept that any g@mbling would cost, with no guarantee of any return. Its frustrating. I felt Curle got us to January, without seeing us adrift, which was the best realistic outcome in August. A few quid spent then would have got us out of it. We didn't spend, we got worse, Curle gets sacked, caretaker appointed, he plays good football...but we get 2 points from 5 games. I believe and I said it countless times, Curle wanted to play 'football' but didn't think the players we had were up to it. So he went hoof ball. Would he have got us 3, 4 or even 5 points from those games? Who knows, and its a pointless debate, but people seem to expect that our chairman, our manager, play good football, pay good wages, win games, whilst making virtually no money. Its all right for us, we just log onto the awful i-follow and shout explicits at our ipad/laptop and then whinge on here on on twitter/facebook! We don't pay the bills...

In summary. See out this season, see out covid, and re-assess. Thats where I've been for some time. But in the meantime, appoint a bloody manager and show some intent!/

Thomas cannot be trusted. The fact that he has made a pigs ear of running the club compounds this and now he is bringing home the bacon. If only we could give him the chop. This will not end well. He and his mate will not be allowed to make a killing on the development by the new council and why should they? That they have called the holding company Belle de Jour makes you think he is a stinker, and now he is stunk. I smell deceit.

We did pay transfer fees for Rose and Sowerby, I bet Mansfield & Fleetwood couldn’t believe their luck

And we paid fees for Ashley-Seal and Korboa!!

Awesome recruitment!

Terry fenwick etc etc.

I'm not sure who the “happy clappers” are. Or those that think he's the “saviour”.   

Point me in their direction..

You've defended Thomas from day one and you're a Chelsea fan, so don't know how you qualify as an administrator on a Northampton Town forum. Too many Northampton born and bred support/follow/jump on the bandwagon of successful teams and it does my head in. That's half the reason we are where we are. It doesn't happen in any other sport. How many Northampton
rugby fans support Exeter? How many Northampton cricket fans support Yorkshire? How many Northampton tidldeywink fans support Peterborough? Fukking load of c***s.

And Smith!

Who has now been replaced by our first choice attacking target in January... Edmondson.

I support Yorkshire, it has to do with the county of my birth. However I will always be a Cobblers fan. It was what I grew up with and it's who my son follows even though he was born in Bahrain. It doesn't matter where you were born to support a team, especially a lower league team(geographically I should be a Darlo supporter) for me it's where you were blooded and that was in The Hotel End.

Thought that might yank your chain. Point me in the direction of them “happy clapper” posts of mine then.

Anytime you fancy stacking your Cobblers supporting credentials against mine... Let’s do it.

😀😀😀😀

👆

Another one that can't do it..  ;D ;D

Top post mate..

Nice to see some keeping their heads.

Ok, firstly, I don't proclaim support for "my beloved Chelsea"  or any other team on  a  Northampton Town forum,  as I remember from a previous post of yours, you should be ashamed of yourself. That alone detracts from any of your imagined superiority as a Cobblers fan. I imagine you've probably been a fan of your second team for a similar length of time as me but how are you going to determine "credentials".  I'm sure I  can easily match yours despite not posting on here as ong as you and not professing my love for another team on a Northampton Town forum.

Won't Get Fooled Again.

You can’t find a thing to back up your point.. Nor will anyone else. Don’t let that get in the way of your “story” though.   8) ;D

I’ll never deny it, I do love Chelsea.

I was going to challenge you. But I need to be a grown up 😀😀😀

A chairman who has put in 8-9 million of someone else’s money, has little time for the supporters, set up holding companies and failed to build a stand. Didn’t we get rid of him?

I’ll never deny it, I love Chelsea. But I support the Cobblers.

Anyway.. Let’s not bore everyone else with this. PM me with your real name, I’ll respond likewise. Of course I won’t start by calling you a “c+@t as you did me. But I reckon I’ll wipe the floor with you..

If not. I will happily put the results on here and apologies. It’s quite exciting isn't it 😀😜

Not a computer wizard, so don't know how to put other posts in a neat little box.
 Firstly, if you reread my post,  I didn't personally call you a c***, it was the Northampton, Peterborough supporting tiddleywink fans.
Secondly,  I can't see how you'd "wipe the floor with me" despite what you may or may not have done "behind the scenes ".
I'm a season ticket holder, been a supporter for over 50 years, was present alongside the other 7000, in the 942 against
Chester, was present at the Exeter rooms, am a trust member and go to most away games. So, apart from being a Lee Geary, superfan, we're probably  at a similar level of "credentials", although professing love for another team on a Northampton Town forum massively detracts from yours.

Well done. You’re an example to us all..  ;D

It 's not uncommon to have a second team, many years ago I fervently supported Newcastle United  but at school I was known as that Oink from Northampton .......so it began. 8)

I see the OTT comments on KT are coming thick and fast. Yet he is the one that keeps the Club afloat and pays the bills and all this in an nasty pandemic. If he should cut his loses we wont have a club to speak off. Are you all mad or deranged or so full of your ego's you don't know your elbows from your backsides. You can at least take over the club buy the Club...............................oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  as you ain't got the money.

Typical condescending reply from on high.

Dear Blackbird 8) - the last sentence is the most relevant. I believe we should hold our nerve and exactly as you suggest.

It 's not uncommon to have a second team, many years ago I fervently supported Newcastle United  but at school I was known as that Oink from Northampton .......so it began. 

I see the OTT comments on KT are coming thick and fast. Yet he is the one that keeps the Club afloat and pays the bills and all this in an nasty pandemic. If he should cut his loses we wont have a club to speak off. Are you all mad or deranged or so full of your ego's you don't know your elbows from your backsides. You can at least take over the club buy the Club...............................oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  as you ain't got the money.


I'm well aware of Cobblers fans having "so called" second teams, even friends of mine, although they can never justify it if
we ever play each other, ie, who do you want to win etc?

Also, mainly for Singcobb. I was on about Northampton born and bred, not Yorkshire.

Also, mainly for Everbrite, why do you think Thomas is keeping us afloat, paying the bills etc, in a nasty pandemic? Could it be anything to do with hoping for a good deal from the land sale?

I certainly hope he is as if not he is an misguided benefactor. One thing go easy on whom you argue with on here - some of the admin crowd get trigger happy. 8) Just a thought!

Well, if they're part of the "Admin crowd" they should be well prepared for any sort of dispute and if they want to get "trigger happy" because of anything I've said, then maybe they shouldn't be in that position. How do you become an administrator anyway? Is it just by posting more than anyone else in a condescending, I know better than you, manner?

Just watching the end of Piers in James Bond. As I said take it easy. its up to you!

+1 although I would just about stick with Brady, only because we don’t have the minerals to stay up no matter who gets the job.

Clearly you are someone who has joined up with an agenda. You onto to a loser with that. I couldn’t a toss what anyone says on here, as long as it is factual and not offencive.

Don’t mistake not giving a shyte for being condescending.. I make a point of taking neither myself or comments on here serious. Some people struggle with the context of it being a bit of fun.

Excuse me. I didn't come on here with any sort of agenda, just concern for the potential demise of my football club.
You're the one who "yanked my chain" and tried to make out you were somehow a better supporter with more credentials
than me. Sounded to me like you did give a s***e. As for not being condescending, what was your reply to my list of
"credentials"? 
I don't have anything against you personally and would rather not be having this little tiff, but I'm not going to just sit back and
accept your holier than thou attitude. I have a point of view and opinions, that's why I'm on here.

Of course anyone can bid, but who would. The trust can bid, but how will they make the club financially  viable. They've never said. How will any new owner make the club viable. People are calling for change, but any new owner is faced with the same set of circumstances. The money owed to the current owners has plugged the defecit club,not invested into the land or the stadium. A completed East Stand is going to make minimal difference to the club's income. While we remain poorly supported it will remain the same. If there was an easy way to increase our fan base then surely someone would have found it by now. There are enough on here that have all the answers.

Don’t tell me you have given up  8) ???

You would have thought that an 'administrator' would, at least, understand an internet forum. It is a place for opinions and opinions do not, of themselves, have to be based on facts. It is a personal view. Facts may play a part but are optional. Bung that in your Calabash and give it a suck.

And as long as you adhere to the small print guidance below, you are welcome and encouraged to continue...despite the factual inaccuracies that everbrite likes to spout about the Administrators  8)

Shoemender,  you have fallen into the trap set by Hammy. He gets into 'personal' disagreements to deflect any criticism of KT,  makes the thread boring and people switch off.  JUST IGNORE HIM and focus on KT

I want a proud and passionate owner, whoever that is, local or distance millionaire or hard working genuine supporters who can change the perception of NTFC to the local community and the footballing world (it worked for Wycombe)

Yes we all know it's been hard this year but same for the 23 clubs above us in the league and at least 15 clubs below, who are in a better state than we are. Season after season Accrington out perform us WHY?  the answer is their Chairman, same with Burton.

I watched 30 mins of the Rochdale game and saw 30 secs of football, feel sorry for you lot who says thats a big improvement, passing the ball to the defenders to hoof forward to one single 19 years loanee is not the basis of successful football.

This is all a build up of decisions and attitudes of KT, the club has no ambition, no plan and no future. I am disappointed that Sammo has been more of an influence, perhaps he is happy to pay his mortgage and go through the motions like most of the other key staff members at the club

As i said KT was handed an open goal with last season's promotion, he response was to give the manager 2 year deal (on the back of him suddenly become a mastermind manager, nothing to do with our players and style benefited greatly by playing unprepared teams and players at 2 weeks notice) and then even worse, give him nothing to work with in terms of budget, support or expectation.

Time to move on and give someone else a go, stay in the background if you want (like u do now tbh) but please give us our club back

The club can be run as a viable operation, it was for a few years under Cardoza. How much of the deficit has gone to paying off poorly appointed managers on too long contracts ? If NTFC can't be run viably, how do clubs like Accrington, Burton and virtually all of League 2 survive ?
    The Trust did enquire about buying the club a few years ago, the price they were quoted was £1M different to what a former director was quoted at the same time, both prices were ridiculously over the top for a club that has no real assets.  

Have I at any time not adhered to any of the small print guidance below? Not that I've read it all.

The whole budget thing is such a myth, we payed transfer fees for four players as well as I think it’s fairly safe to say a wage budget not in the bottom four. It was just abysmal recruitment, pointed out by me and a number of other posters at the time, saying there were no goals in this team.

It is subjective on behalf of the Administrators (see the final sentence ;) ), but I didn't say that you had.

I don't know about that. Wages are at least low enough that there wasnt any concern about being under the salary cap, other than Accrington I dont know who else we'd be 100% better funded than, pit crowd level was always below average at this level.

The questions that needs to be asked are;
Why are we £9m in debt?
Why hasn’t anything happened with the east stand in 6 ( six) years?
Why is history keep repeating itself?
What is your future vision for the club?
What happened to the Chinese money?

There are more, Thomas’s tenure at this club has been nothing short of a spectacular disaster lurching from non league oblivion to relegation, all this in a crumbling stadium with broken windows peeling paint and a shell of a stand.
DOES ANYONE SERIOUSLY THINK THIS CHAIRMAN HAS DONE AN EVEN HALF COMPETENT JOB?

I for one don't.

I simply disagreed that there is any such thing as “happy clappers” or those that solely see KT as the “saviour of the club”. By committing the heinous crime of asking you and SadOldGit to substantiate your remarks, I ended up on the receiving end of some negative comments. Personally I think it is right to challenge some people to prove their ascertains, particularly, as like you, they turn it personal straight away, as they struggle to find anything to justify their perpetual droning on the same subject.

People like you and SadOlGit are in the business of politicising and dominating conversations for your own ends. There are a lot of people who may share the same sentiment in the mainstream, but refuse to make it their sole purpose. They are like me, supporters of the team, but not necessarily enamoured by the whole background to football and club ownership.

In my opinion in all probability as well as Accrington we have a bigger budget than Wimbledon, Rochdale & Crewe. I would say we are at the lower end of a group with Burton, Bristol Rovers, Swindon, Fleetwood & Gillingham, probably Blackpool & Wigan too but it’s hard to say with their financial troubles. With the rest being higher. Obviously this is pure speculation just based on the makeup of the squads.

They are all valid questions. But equally you must know that you won't receive an answer. Most of what you say is only remotely relevant to a handful of people, slightly bolstered by the dire position we find ourselves in on the pitch. You can see that by how much vitriol there is on here, compared to when we got promoted. You are an exception, rather than the rule. Supporters, in the main, have no appetite at all for the politics behind the game, as long as the trade off is success. Unfortunately for us, success is measured in terms of quite minor progress.

We have no effective supporters group. We have no effective mechanism for change. I agree that we have an owner/owners who can drive a truck right through the middle of anything they want. But as I said in my posts right from the start... What people should expect, and what they want, are miles apart. If some supporters, put as much effort into badgering the club (in numbers) and the council, as they do on Facebook slagging off fellow supporters, you might stand a chance. But you know as well as me, that I have always said that KT and DB expect a return on the club and the land. Then, and only then, will any of us have clue about their true intent.

If anyone does have an interest in the politics of the club, and wants to gain a greater understanding of whats going on and be in a position to have a say should it all go pear shaped in the near future then i'm asking you to please join the Trust. They are the supporters group and quite possibly are the only ones who have a voice when it comes to the club hierarchy. I was most surprised to find out that the Trust only has 732 members. Surely there are more supporters of the club who have an interest and want to play a part, no matter how small?

I myself was voted on to the Board of the Trust at the AGM this week, I want to get involved, I want to understand more of what the actual **ck is going on with our club. There is a Zoom meeting between Trust board and NTFC board this week, so they do have a voice, no matter how small some people think it is.

Party political broadcast over.....back to the bitching!!

congratulations GPC. Unfortunately I had no idea, which as a member of the trust is unfortunate. Ive said it before and I will say it again, communication and interaction with the membership is an issue IMO.

You must be looking at a different league table to the one I am then

Can you please ask the ntfc board to show a modicum of respect to supporters by making an official statement regarding the managerial situation at the club, along with details of the mooted season ticket loyalty reward to entice supporters to renew again in L2 next season. A mention of thanks in the match day programme won't suffice!

I'm a lifetime trust member btw and wish you the best on the trust board

Thankfully as well because I don't know if you noticed but there's been a bit of a a crisis going on which effectively stopped the club from being able to operate as a buisness

GPC ,Not everybody regards the trust as a viable supporters body, lots of reasons given on both sides of the argument as to why they are/aren't hence why it has only 700 odd members. There must be 3,000 plus supporters who go to games on a regular basis and even more who are casual supporters. The Trust has been around a long time and it does make you wonder how many members they would have if life membership was not an option ?

The Trust like any organisation is an evolving one. If there was a time that it was not worthy of your attention and input it may be now or at some point in the future? New board members can mean a new perspective?

Like i said Melly, a lot of the supporters do not regard the Trust as a viable supporters body, hence they will not join or will not rejoin. I have no wish to become a member now or in the future.

Yes I did notice the crisis, but we still got ST money and considerably less running costs with no crowds. Also the crisis was not only in Northampton, EVERY club has had the same problems but not every club has followed the same path as NTFC, by getting in as much as possible and spending as little as possible.

Understood. Where have The Trust failed IYO, I am genuinely interested in peoples perspectives regarding this?

Out of interest tcobb, do you have any alternative ideas ?

Maybe we should consider not letting crowds back in then?

Sounds like a plan  :)

 ;D

Just use the quote icon on the top right hand corner.
This provides you with the neat little box of the person you have quoted.
Make sure your comments or reply follow the bracketed

We are where we are due to Curle's piss poor recruitment this summer (and in January).

That's it.

Curle's recruitment up until this summer had been very good on the whole (Goode, Morton, Oliver, Wharton, McCormack etc). It was good enough to get us promotion and to net a £1 million + profit.

As a chairman, there is no way KT could have legislated for a manager turning from a veritable King Midas in the transfer market to a complete no-hoper in the space of two windows.

Yes, there is an argument that he should have got shot before January but hindsight is a wonderful thing and there were some signs of a rally in December (the 3-1 win against Gillingham on 29th Dec being the highlight).




 

Spot on. Be careful with that logic though. The Vultures are circling very low at the moment.

Some good points made re lack of engagement from/with the Trust, I guess that's one of the reasons why I thought i'd get more involved. They know they have to get more people involved, or at least make people more aware of their existence!
Reference Life Members, I believe over 500 of that 700 odd are life members, there's very little take up on the yearly/five yearly option, new member numbers in last year were in the 'teens.

As has been said, perhaps there may be a new perspective, again if I can do anything to influence/change that then its all good. I'll certainly report back on here about any (non sensitive) snippets!!

This week (as already said) there is a Zoom meeting between Trust board and Club board, also on Wednesday there is an NTFC Group call to discuss "season ticket policy"......that particular subject was raised by one poster above, and if there has been no movement on the managerial front by Thursday then i'm sure it can be a topic of conversation on that call!  ;)

Well done GPC.
You're the greatest  ;D

I don't think it's to do with Curle's lack of competence. After all it's the same person that recruited player that got us promoted.
The problem was, and is, the offering the club could give a player in League 1. We were considered decent League 2 outfit with the chance of promotion. We then became a League 1 club and one of the favourites for relegation. If you were a decent league 1 player why take your chances with us?

Spending over a million a season of your own money on a league 1/2 club is a fairly significant commitment by anyone’s measure? KTs recruitment process regarding managers has been poor but I’ve not seen any enlightened thinking elsewhere either? Some of the”away with the fairies” brigade have jumped on here with frankly once again incredible expectations around the East Stand and the like, but sorting that out is going to take a gift of millions. There is no business plan or strategy that is going to give any sort of ROI? Therefore the only step up from KT is an incredibly wealthy benefactor willing to open up their wallet and fulfil everyone’s dreams? Once that happens to a club you can rest assured they will live happily ever after! Unless you are Wigan, Blackburn, Rushden etc etc etc? Understand, blowing millions on stands, managers and players without structuring the finances properly comes at significant risk, and the chances of not having a club at all increase dramatically once you embark on that plan? So KT could have done better, but as chairman go we could have got a lot lot worse?

Those three clubs you use as examples. If I was a longstanding fan of any of those 3 clubs (there must be some Irthingborough fans of the pre Griggs era left) I think I would take the current position of all of them in order to achieve what they have. A premiership, an FA Cup and temporary league status, from a once great Lancashire club but now more realistically a Champoinship club, a non league/lower league club turned Fa cup winner returning to its level and a pub team with no expectations with a few seasons in the professional ranks.
Give me a few seasons in the championship and the briefest flirt with a prem playoff place or a cup semi final, before a bit of financial instability and a return to our natural league two home, and I think I'd take that?

What we need Melly is a chairman to rock up with a £4m war chest for the east stand .......

probably more Manny tbf, not sure there is one, although some have suggested there is?

I would suggest that there are plenty of "happy clappers", you see them when we've just been thrashed 4- 0 at home and produced a totally abject performance and they stand there blindly clapping them off the pitch. As for people solely seeing KT as the "saviour of the club" I'd suggest there are plenty of them too, although to be fair he actually did save us at the time but his intentions probably weren't as honourable as he made out and some people still see him as "He who can do no wrong", while
some are straight on his case the minute anyone mentions anything they consider negative about him. Don't get me wrong, if he made a killing off the land, but also did the things he said he would do, ie developed the East Stand to an acceptable standard, then I would have no problem with him, but it's now looking less likely he'll get anything like the deal he was hoping for and with the debt that has built up over the last 5 or 6 years, where does that leave us as a club if he decides to pull the plug?
 Finally, as for perpetual droning on about the same subject and politicising and dominating conversations, I've only been posting on here for a couple of weeks and specifically on this subject for a couple of days and 5 or 6 posts so how you can throw those accusations at me would suggest to me that you're deluded. This is my final discourse with you on this subject and I won't be rising to any more of your digs, otherwise it will go on far longer than either of us would consider healthy.

If "happy clappers" are the ones who constantly trot out the "we should be grateful we still have a club to support, if it wasn't for him we'd be playing on the Racecourse" analogies then yes we have plenty of them!!

I've got to be honest, i'd expect a bit more than a completed East Stand. What happened to the Conference Centre? What happened to the hotel? Would a completed East Stand give us that 24/7 income stream that we were looking forward to?

The development land is the last chance.....if all we get is 16 boxes, a couple more rooms and no more seats in the stand then what? What does the future hold? The land deal was supposed to provide so much more.

What for? Who is going to sit in it?
I'd rather see 4million spent on the team and the stand finished when it was required.

Cheers for some clarity GPC, let's hope for a productive week on & off the field!

Now who rocked up 6 years ago saying this ???
Since then we have amassed a debt of £9m in 6 years to end up back where we started !

To be honest, £1.5m a year isn't that bad when propping up a lower league football club?
Especially taking into consideration the overspend when they thought the Chinese money was incoming                                              ?
I know that it was a schoolboy error but it happened!   
He must believe that, once the land deal is completed, he'll make a profit or he/they wouldn't continue to do it?

In my opinion, Thomas is as genuine as the Cobblers tat they sell on the hill on cup days . I was there at his opening episode with his whiteboard and pictures, "im a football man " he declared "ive got 4 million ringfenced" he said. for all those in the 'wed be at the racecourse' camp, there was another consortium at the time, but Thomas won the bidding , probably with the same bulls***.So the thought that he saved us and we would be out of business is entirely wrong We are reckoned to be 8-9 million in debt, the same as Cardoza put on us. How the fcuk are we ever going to move forwrd with this bloke in charge.
Hes an Arthur Daley type salesman , silver tounge, no substance, hes managed to aquire all that land, how much has it cost him to con that off the receivers.?
Im almost done with the Cobblers till hes gone, i stuck with , backed and campaigned for the last conman ,' i wont get fooled again '

I get what you’re saying CJ, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all scenario, it’s a valid point? On the flip side, hypothetically imagine if during the 60s when we were in div 1 the support base pushed an agenda that got us a new ground at considerable cost? Now following the free fall back down the leagues the club ended up with a white elephant ground and crippling debt that bankrupted the club? My lifetime experience of following the club wouldn’t have happened and all of the current generation would have been denied the opportunity to follow a league club? Do you drive the club forward to maximise it’s potential and accept the associated risk or do you ensure that every decision is sustainable guaranteeing the future of the club? My preference is for the latter. However here’s the rub, I genuinely think there is no right or wrong answer, it is all subjective, with one exception. Whatever the decision the only wrong answer is “I didn’t expect that?” If you drive an agenda do it with your eyes open and accept the consequences because both options come with a risk. Safety and an increased likelihood of apathy, a shot for glory and an increased likelihood for destruction, take your pick?

There are increasing similarities between the two....'misplacing' millions of pounds off the council aside. DC was never shy in funding on the field activities, in fact it was difficult to criticise him regarding that.
Neither have delivered any redevelopment off the pitch or anything like sustained success on it. Maybe KT over promised and under delivered early on, probably the one thing he said he wouldn't do.
The role of a Cobblers chairman has been a poisoned chalice since the year dot. We'd have to be lucky to find anyone who was in it for the love of the Cobblers, or even football. It's not really the industry you go into to make your fortunes, especially at our level. Maybe it is time to try something totally different, bottom up and fan driven. I'm not sure we have the fan base to do that and we always seem surrounded by apathy. Remember the 'We Want Answers' campaign and it's seriously mooted response, when it couldn't have been any more obvious that things were rotten at the very top.

Until the land deal plays out I can't see too much changing and the positive is that the bills are getting paid. The one thing for sure is that we won't get the 'debt' paid by the council this time!

I now officially know who GrangeParkCobbler is. It will be good to 'meet you' later in the week!  :)

Lol, I already knew who you were!!  ;D

The meeting was a bit like that though, putting faces to the names....a bit of a who’s who!

Catch you next week....Thursday is off!! 😪

Agree... ;)

To add to what Grove and Manwork have said, I was also at the first meeting with Kelvin and thus a witness to the “£4,000,000 for the East Stand, I’m a football man, I’m looking into a slide on the bank etc”. I’ll confess that I bought into it and was excited for the future of the club, genuinely believing that we were on the brink of finally pushing on.

Roll on five years and we supporters still haven’t even seen a drawing for the suggested plans to complete the East Stand.

I’ll never not be grateful for him getting involved when he did. I’ve spoken with him a few times and also found him personable in the flesh. But we haven’t come close to delivery of what we were sold, and I’m not sure we ever will do under this regime.

His decision to delay the sacking of Curle is the reason we are going down. That is on the board. The fact we have heard nothing since the day post his sacking about the next manager, worries me massively that we aren’t any closer to a decision there after; and they were banking on a win early doors from Brady so that time could be bought.

I’d love to be proven wrong as I’m absolutely sick of League Two.

I can only apologise if you felt that I was solely directing the droning comment at you. But I can already see the potential for you to join the one trick pony mob, who have very little to do with topical football debate, but lurk in the shadows of the web, peddling misery at any given opportunity.  :P ;D

I have asked one thing of you and SadOldGit to back this point of yours, that I will quote "You've defended Thomas from day one". I can confidently predict that if you search hard enough, you will find areas where I have agreed with some of his points and running of the club. But like our old friend Vintage, you will never be able to find anything more than a balanced perspective, that could easily prop up any side of this particularly difficult situation from me. After a very short period of time, you have like so many, decided to draw demarcation lines, that derive from simply stating you are either with KT, or against him. In order for me to meet the criteria that the likes of you and SadOldGit have laid down, I don't have to undertake any balanced perspective, I merely have to agree with you and him., then I am right  ;D ;D

But like you say. Let's call it a day... I'm off for a bit R&R from the HE for a few weeks again. I look forward to all of this white noise turning into something tangible on my return. Good luck with the armchair revolution guys..  8) :P

A football club wil either be bought as a business opportunity or a passion project.

At the end of the day, KT et al are businessmen who saw a potential opportunity which hasnt emerged due to various factors. It won't be long before they cut their losses and try and find another businessperson/consortium to try and take things forward, or a wealthy fan is happy to blow loads of money. I think given the circumstances, neither will be easy to find.

Even if they are, we will simply not see forward progress until the football club is given the opportunity to become fully self sustaining with alternative revenue streams. That is what KT is trying to do... and I'm sure in the business plan there was £4m in the pot to develop the East Stand and other areas that will bring year round revenue. Obviously they wouldnt have planned for this. I don't know how stiffled the owners have been in progressing, and how much if their fault/naivity, but I'm certain there is no benefit to KT in delaying development, getting relegated or losing season ticket holders.

It's easy to say KT waited too long to sack KC, but if he did and we went down, it would have been too soon. It's a thankless task and not one that anyone would take on lightly. As someone mentioned, it felt like KC might be just doing enough to keep us up, which would have been a succssful season in the circumstances.

I dont have a strong opinion on him either way, I think he's done some good things and made some mistakes... but who doesnt? For me if KT keeps the club afloat for now, especially considering is bleeding money, we should be grateful and as far as I can see, he has 3 options:
1) Keep pumping money in to a black hole and hope for the best (knowing that it's unlikely to pay off)
2) Be sensible, keep the club going as best you can and look for sustainable/growth options (with a get out point as the longer it goes on, the harder it is to recoup)
3) Try and sell up (but who in their right mind would buy right now?)

In his position (taking the NTFC passion out of the equation), what would you do?

Just wonder if one or two can take this stinging rebuke on the chin? Would have thought that Shoemender would have an issue when he launched his anti Club campaign.....then claiming he has no agenda ::)

I meet people like Kelvin on a daily basis or I did before we had lockdown and without being smug I saw through him from day one.
 I am sure Kelvin is an OK sort of guy but from that first PowerPoint presentation  I really didn’t warm to him, now we have sporadic quarterly updates from Thomas Towers which look as though they are way too much trouble.
Kelvin and his finance backer are stuck between a rock and a hard place, in for a few million with the only exit ramp available being the land deal.
The council are key to our future far more than our current backers, we need funds from that land sale to finish that dreadful stand but much more importantly get rid of our incumbents and get someone in who is interested in the club.
I was playing golf at the Centurion Club about 3 years ago with some heavy hitters from the game, I was told then that KT and I quote “ had taken us as far as he could and wanted out”  low and behold a senior member of the FA showed me an email that night saying the club was up for sale !

This seems to be another thread morphing into the redevelopment one!

Wow just wow, you seriously think there is no benefit in him delaying the stand for SIX years, hilarious, you truly deserve the club you’ve got.

Judging by the tone used, the "excuse me" metaphor, the arguments that spring out of nowhere, I would suggest that Shoemender is not a he but a she. I could have course been wrong, but I have heard and seen all this stuff before. So come on Shoemender, I am calling you out. Bird or Bloke, I know where my money is.  :-*

That’s a proper Wow! Is it a husband and wife team? Perhaps the earlier inability (now resolved) to overcome some messaging might be more of a clue?

Blimey. If that's a "stinging rebuke" I'd be happy to take them on the chin all day long.
I said I'd finished my discourse with TFAMH, but that doesn't mean I'll sit back and take it when other people stick their oar in.
What's this anti club campaign I've launched then? I simply posted an opinion on Kelvin Thomas in a Kelvin Thomas thread,
no sinister agenda, but it seems you have to involve yourself, almost always negatively, in every dispute on here, whether it involves you or not. What's your agenda? I admit I did bite very easily when TFAMH "joined the debate" as I fully expected him to.
But his Chelsea comments on here in the past have long rankled with me. I've had my say about it now so it's off my chest.
As for The Milky Bar Kid, I won't be rising to your juvenile attempt at an insult.

Just for those still watching this thread and who noted my comment earlier about a Zoom meeting between Club Board and Trust Board which was scheduled for Thursday, this has now been postponed as KT has a family commitment in Florida. It is hoped that this meeting will be rescheduled within a week.

The meeting taking place on Wednesday to discuss all things Season Tickets, both this season's and next, still goes ahead on Wednesday. Two people from each of various supporters "groups" (Trust, Shoe Army FB Group to name two) have been invited to take part.

Fixed it for you.

What if KT and his men stop funding the club? Then what? For all that he hasn't done (redevelopment), he has kept the club trading. We all want more of course, but under his watch we will only get more when he gets his land deal.

Wise words of caution, if the funding stops what happens? Ask Bury or Macclesfield or, closer to home, R & D.

You make some reasonable comments. From Feb 16th you started to post some very 'angry' posts on KC's/then  Brady players which is understandable given the circumstances. The impression you gave was that we were doomed with 15 games to go! Then later on you launched your ire on Kevin Thomas which seemed pretty risky to me. In fact you basically told me off for defending as a benefactor. Perhaps there was some confusion in your early messages as you apparently hadn't mastered the quote button! Finally your comments relative to KT; IMO KT is the Club, he pays the Bills etc. Strangely enough think I have recently noticed a post from you suggesting JB was not up to the Job! If incorrect am sorry.  
As an aside KC has gone and so has his style of play. It appears now that JB maybe here to the end of the season. Tuesday game against an inform Plymouth side may give us the final answer on his tenure.
Simply I ignore those who appear to accept relegation as a de facto fate. As one distinguished poster said (quote) 'I shall support the team until it is mathematically impossible  to avoid relegation'. The cynics will say that it is now too late. 15 games to go says rubbish too that!

I really haven’t a problem with supporters demanding the board out, that’s fine it’s their right. However, has anyone any insight on a post Thomas strategy to move the club forward, or even tread water? Because without it the whole debate is fairly pointless?

Whilst KT has not backed up his words concerning the expansion of Sixfields, he has given a stability of ownership.

I have not seen one viable alternative from the anti-KT posters.

A question to KT, will you have the courtesy of giving all Cobblers supporters your 'roadmap' to the future of NTFC?

Not one player or manager has criticised the support of KT .
Not one serious contender has looked to buy the club and relieve him of his duties as chairman .
It’s as simple as that .
My criticism is that he gives the manager too much autonomy and they get away with too much .

You do know we have 3000 season ticket holders, sponsors, EFL solidarity payments not to mention bail outs etc
This adds up to well over £2.5m yearly income, in L2 it’s a lot more than most of the teams.
FFS there are people out there who would buy the club but not at a ridiculous price.
IF KT would walk away, which he most definitely won’t, we would not fold.

Manny, according to the submitted accounts we turn over 4 million a year and pre Goode sale were losing a million a year. That’s 5 million a year income to run the club pre Covid. As far as I can recall thats what the accounts say anyway? They are abbreviated so it’s a bit difficult to tell what goes where, but that’s what the inland revenue are given? Presumably if the club were to be moved forward on the pitch the spending would need to go up and that’s before you look at the East Stand? People are stating what we need to do and I am just stating where we are at, I’m not making this stuff up? It’s going to be a real challenge and commitment financially to move us forward. Others have managed it so it’s not impossible obviously, but I would argue exceptionally difficult?

Questions:

1) How much do you realistically thing the club is worth?

2) How much would DB/KT want for the club bearing in mind they are between 7 and 9 million pounds down since they arrived?

I daresay the gap between the two is quite considerable and that will play a big part in anyone coming forward to buy the club.

As a comparison, Ipswich Town are on the brink of a takeover by an American Sports Investment Fund with them paying £17.5m to take all but 5% of current chairman Maurice Evan's shareholding. Evans is writing off a reported £100m of debt owed to him.

You’re possibly asking the wrong questions GPC? For me the big questions are what is any prospective land deal worth in terms of profit to the owners, what is the likelihood of getting it across the line and in what time frame? Answer those and you might have a fair idea of the appetite for any deal and at what cost?

I think we both know abbreviated accounts can say anything, £5m to run a L2 club, never.
I seem to remember the wage bill was around £1.5m.
Now I am not saying if KT left we would immediately move forward, the point I am making is we wouldn’t go bust as some people think, in fact we could do OK in L2.
We definitely need investment if we are to become a solid L1 club, the lack of movement on the land deal has closed the purse for good.

Standby for an idiot question:
Could they take the development land (less that immediately adjacent to the ground) in lieu of the circa £9m debt?
Then sell the club as a separate entity at a realistic (peppercorn) price for the club and the ground itself?

Or is that legally tied to the club in the various deals and agreements with councils/boroughs etc..?

Manny answers,
1) last time the land was up for sale Cardoza turned down £29m but I heard rumours it was worth a lot more.
2) I think after nearly 6 years very slim of getting a mutually acceptable deal done.
3) The whole process needs arbitration by a third party, otherwise I think never.

KT would rip your arm off if you offered him this, the council want the sale of the land to benefit NTFC, payback what we owe and deliver a profit to KT and Bower.
All is not gloom and doom though, if we get the economic hockey stick effect post COVID-19, which most analysts predict then land prices could shoot up and there could be enough in it for everyone.

Not so much of an idiot question as I thought the same myself!  ;)

Then I remembered the big song and dance about CDNL (the leaseholder) now being controlled by the club....common directors and all that.

I just don't know whether the CDNL land is all of the land or just the adjacent running track area. (that was the "blue land" in the original Council documents) whereas the entire leased land stretched up to include the tip, the overspill car park etc.

With the dramatic growth of online trading, desolate office space and flat pack warehouses sitting empty, plus the unsuitability of residential development, I'd imagine the value of the land at this point is heading south. I think hospitality and leisure (including football) will see a post-Covid boost, assuming they have survived the past 12 months!

I can’t speak for NTFC Manny but we also produce abbreviated accounts. In our case every penny and cent is fully accounted for and to do otherwise for us would be suicide? You’d be out of your mind to take the p1ss with the HMRC and ATO, trust me. Having also worked at board level in the US I can confirm that the IRS are cut from entirely the same cloth.

How much KT et al would take for the club depends on how confident they are of getting any council approvals for the land use.
If you were to offer them a penny for the club and repay what the club owes they would probably have a good long think about that. Otherwise they are here until such time as they run out of money or feel that putting any more into the club is a waste as they will not recover it from the land deals. If it comes to that the club will fold because as long as the HMRC have been paid up tp date they are going to want first bite of the cherry to get their money back.

Manny is not saying the accounts are made-up but no-one ever knows the actual details, like how much salary or charges does the club incur from KT / DB

Remember DC saying the new stand was the best value out there, yeah because he didn't mentioned the £2m 'consultant' fees he was charging

Easy to rack up paper debt, especially if the 'invoices' are coming from some off-shore business with little or no accounting and no taxation.

As I said I can’t speak for NTFC, but we have quite a bit of cash moving between countries and through various channels. This assumption that it is easy to hide income etc simply wouldn’t be the case. You would need balls of steel and a backbone of tungsten. For example the HMRC and ATO (Australian Tax Office) have a reciprocal open book policy, they tell each other everything to combat money laundering practices and the like? This arrangement is in place between quite a few government revenue departments internationally, flirt with it at your peril? We once got into a bit of a scrape with the HMRC through what I would argue was no fault of our own and it’s not an experience I am keen to repeat. We haven’t crossed swords with the ATO yet and have absolutely no intention of doing so, they are a lot bigger and harder than I am. There are obviously going to be companies and individuals that try and take the p1ss from time to time, but IMO it’s never a good idea and definitely not easy? It’s a line I’ve used before and I’ll say it again, I would be less critical of a neurologist attempting to perform brain surgery on himself.

As a foot note to the above post I thought I’d share this. Despite the sheer brilliance of my Ryan Watson as striker suggestion I don’t consider myself particularly intelligent or well educated. I’m am a bog standard bloke from a working class background. As a result, I have been on quite a steep learning curve in the corporate world I seem to have inadvertently stumbled into. I have to say I had a number of preconceived ideas about it and the reality is something of a disappointment? You lot are talking about slush funds in the Cayman Islands. Meanwhile I am about to send in my receipt from yesterday’s breakfast meeting in a hopeful attempt to justify to the ATO that my bacon roll was necessary?

I think you should try rearing your own porkers Melly. Think of the tax breaks in that little operation.

I thought it had been christened the economic hard-on? But how long does that last

Allegedly with the right tablet it can be as long as three days  :o

I don't recall it ever being mentioned before about DB or KT's salaries, do they get a salary and expenses from NTFC ? Or do the take dividends ?

But do you take the red tablet or the blue tablet?

So, any of the chosen few able to give an insight to the zoom meeting with the club this evening, regarding season ticket refunds? Or have you all been swarn to secrecy?

I believe that Zoom meeting has been moved to another date because of a family commitment.

The Zoom meeting between Trust board and NTFC board scheduled for tomorrow has been moved to Monday 15th March, however the meeting/phone-in that was scheduled for tonight was a separate matter.....

Thanks for the clarification.

The meeting last night was about how Season ticket holders should be compensated. Interestingly it appears some who were on this are not season ticket holders ........  ::) Can you confirm that GPC?

It used to be a 'splint' in the old days... ;D

;D

I'm afraid I can't! I know who the two Trust reps were but I don't know of their season ticket status. I also know that representatives of other supporters "groups" were invited but don't know who attended nor their s/t status either.

Isn't that how it should be?
A balanced view from those with and without Season Tickets in order to propose a viable recompense that's agreeable to all?

Deepcut, no I don't think that is how it should be. Why should non season ticket holders, who have not shelled out any money, have any say in how season ticket holders should be rcompensed?.

Maybe because you don't want to alienate non ST holders too?

No idea really though and doesn't bother me despite being a ST holder.

If the proposal is coming from the Trust, yes they should, in order for it to be agreed by all members or their representatives.
Is this proposal only for the STH who are Trust members, do the others have to barter for their own deal(s), or is this on behalf of the whole support?   

I do not see that STH who are trust members would be treated any differently than those who are not, and they should not be.

I agree. We're all in it together.  ;)

Absolutely not on this case in my opinion and seemingly many on social media. If it true, that was a spectacular own goal by the club.

I hope it proves to be duff information.

As a non season ticket holder I agree that I shouldn't have any input. I'd be pretty annoyed in the reverse position.
There isn't going to be a solution to please everyone. I'm sure some will have bought a season ticket knowing they are unlikely to attend in person but happy to 'fund the club'. Others will have bought them expecting to be refunded any difference if they cant attend in person, and everything in between. I'll just be sitting here with my popcorn reading the comments when the plans are announced  >:D

I think the fact that KT (the club) are even going to “consult “ the fan base means there’s not going to be good news for season ticket holders in terms of a refund.
For once I am with KT on this one, you purchased a season ticket in the middle of a global pandemic, I am pretty sure your not going to get anything more than a small discount off next years and why should you, buyer beware.
We have 3000 season ticket holders @ between £200 to £400 a piece, that’s got to be over £1m alone, the club couldn’t and shouldn’t pay that back.

I agree. We bought our tickets in the hope rather than expectation of going to games and sadly that hasn't come off. The club have done all they could in providing an alternative in the form of iFollow though.

You just know the ones who start throwing their toys out of the pram about refunds will be the same ones complaining about lack of investment in players!

I can't comment, I'm not a STH... ;D 8)

Spot on post, we all knew the risks involved (Covid)

Thought your Dad was/is a ST? and many of your Trust Pals are!

When I renewed our season tickets I did it in the knowledge that there would be games supporters would not be able to attend. However, where our seats are located there are only a handful of non season ticket seats available all of which are single seats. If I had waited for things to return to normal before purchasing season tickets the chances are that I would not ha

Sorry continued from above,
Had I waited for things to return to normal the chances are that I would not have been able to buy such good seats.
The club was fair with their offer last season and I would expect them to be this season and then it is up to the individual to make their choice.

Yes he is, so I have to sit in the vicinity of Jeema if no where nearer is available (I just take my hearing aids out)  ;D
Shouldn't you be saying OUR Trust pals? 
My initial comment is still correct, I'm not a STH.  ;)

Certainly when i bought my season ticket, there was no indication that the whole season would be a washout

The decision to not dismiss Curle before January has cost us our League One status. A total disgrace of a season.

The decision you made to look at this message board and this thread is your biggest mistake. See you at the KA.

Spot on Dan.

If Brady had been appointed earlier do you think we would be in a better position?. 2 of the last 3 games have been as bad as any under KC.

Brady should not have been appointed in the first place, another Thomas mistake.

Brady is out of his depth. Time to stop the experiment and start building for next year with the right man in charge.

This will be seen as the invisible season. A promotion we didn't really warrant followed by a campaign we never got to see and then slam dunked back to where we started from. It will then be deja vu with a 3 sided tired stadium and lost hopes and expectations.

Both spot on.

I said at the time that I had nothing against giving Brady a go - and I sincerely wish(ed) him well - but I saw no logic cementing him in place until the seasons end. He was already in place, so for KT to publicly hand him the reins (especially after a ropey start) made very little sense.

But there were many who were 'demanding' it... ::)

Yep. And I hope they turn out to be right. Serious question: if a new man was appointed now, is it likely we'd see the famous 'new manager bounce'?

IMO, no.

With a few notable exceptions we have a squad of bang average National League/League 2 players, and nothing approaching a consistent strike threat. Even Jesus would struggle working a miracle with today's squad.

Difficult to argue with that. We have enough decent players to maybe scrape by, but only if they are all fit and firing on all cylinders, and therein lies a problem. :-\

I doubt we’d get anyone whom the players seem more on board with.
We are clearly good enough to stay up but can’t replicate it consistently enough. As much as I don’t like singling players out, Mitchell could be the difference this season and has cost us a few points. That coupled with Curle’s inability to secure any decent strikers who will grab you a dozen plus goals.

Unfortunately the new manger bounce is a myth.


Boring statistical reasons why it's a myth
 (https://socceranalytics.substack.com/p/is-the-new-manager-bounce-really)

As Brady is proving in spades  ::)

I do not think the problem is Brady but the League 2 standard midfield and attacking players (at best).

I honestly didn't rate Cornell, but Mitchell make him look like Gordon Banks ! At least Dai used to make a few really good saves between the howlers, I cant really remember Mitchell  making anything but "average" saves, ones you would expect any professional to make, and makes a "big", game changing mistake every 2 or 3 games. The thing is, he's not some Premiership youngster, he's 26 years old, at his peak, and has never been a first choice anywhere.

It certainly is for us.

Mitchell is odds on for a clanger, but he's not responsible for our current plight. When the midfield/strikers are regularly managing less than two shots on target in a game, every mistake the keeper makes is likely to be a highlight (low point).

I blame Mark Bunn.
We were spoilt with him as a keeper and all the rest have failed to life up to him. Poor old Chris, who followed him, suffered the worse simply because his surname was one letter wrong. Cornell, Mitchell and all the other that preceded them were typical league one and two keepers, they just weren't up to Bunn's standard

Not quite true. The porno geezer from Leicester was red hot until the Man U fiasco and one performance killed him.

I think you are right there!

Sad but true Jolly.
And there in lies the challenge. No one fit to replace Mitchell and, thanks to KCs / KTs refusal to invest in keeping or signing a single competent striker we are impotent up top! You gotta feel sorry for JB - what’s a man to do)

The blame for the situation we are in lies at KT's door and no one else. The squad we have was put together on the cheap to save money as we were in the middle of a pandemic. We obviously couldn't offer enough money to bring in quality players and Curle was happy to go along with it and bring in bang average league 2 players. The problems were then compounded in January when he was still allowed to choose who was bought in and we didn't address the issues with the spine of the team. We needed (and still do) a decent keeper, a decent (fit) Centre Back, a quality central midfield dynamo and a striker who could find the net on a regular basis, what we got were loans that aren't that bothered as they can go back to their parent clubs at the end of the season.
I don't think anyone could do any better than what Brady is doing and if Thomas doesn't splash the cash for next season we may as well keep the Brady bunch in charge as at least they care about the club.
Thomas needs to sell up to someone who wants to take the club forward, if there is anyone out there who is interested, let KT take the land and get someone in who cares.

I had a serious think about who to blame, but thought it would be very unfair if I didn't try to balance my perspective with a bit of research. After spending  around 10 seconds on thoroughly looking into who's fault it is/was, I have come up with the following hypothesis.

You're totally fcuked, no matter who you appoint as a manager. Unless they do a Wilder. Oh... Hold on a minute, didn't a bunch of our "supporters" call for his head at one point  ;D ;D

Hopefully David and Kelvin will take note of my findings.

 

David and Kelvin is it Hammy. Your support for these 2 is unreal. I can only imagine how u would be if we had owners who actually cared about the club.
This season again has proved that they have no interest in taking NTFC forward. A free pass to a higher division and still nothing, just going through the motions. I know many supporters are happy with just keeping the doors open but every other club has done this too.
The leagues lowest scorers say everything,
as someone posted, we are the smallest club with 100 year history yet have the biggest catchment area, yet most fans accept it when the owner says we are a club not worth developing
Has Kelvin even bothered to visit in the last year ? 

I'm not sure how once again, you have assumed that by me suggesting the obvious, that it automatically equates to supporting someone.

It was purely a bit of a joke.

Aren't you a bit concerned about how much this is all getting to you, if the sheer mention of their names has such a profound impact on you  ;D ;D

It's not. their names, it's their actions or lack of them that get to me

Another 5 years wasted with owners who mothball the club whilst waiting for some magical payment

I apologise if wanting more for my football club is a concern

Northampton has it's issues but generally has a lot to offer, just wonder why our sports clubs can't deliver and are always the poor relation. As a town we really should be promoting and celebrating that we are unique, we have 3 major sports represented, are centrally located and have a large catchment area.

As a football club, in a time of great development and change, we have stood still or gone backwards.

To think that we could have had a top class Rugby League club too.😂 Mind you that would have ruined our pitch....

I just don't think they have the means to take anything forward, but also don't fancy selling on and taking a huge hit as well on the money they're already in for.

You were probably the only one laughing.

Hear, hear

Bit harsh on the Saints and even the Steelbacks.

The post-mortem inquest can wait until we actually have a corpse.


Suffice to that personally, as I've said before, I just don't think KT can be entirely blamed for the piss-poor recruitment of a manager who had hitherto been very astute in the transfer market (Morton, Goode, McCormack, Wharton, Oliver etc).


The more pressing question is this: given the extremely limited cards at his disposal, what can Brady do differently? If Sheehan is back and Mitchell is out then he could try this:

                                                  Mitchell
                                           
                                      Horsfall  Sheehan Jones
                     
                              Kioso      Morris/Sowerby McWilliams. Mills

                                                    Watson

                                            Hoskins        Jones/Edmondson


I think there will come a point when we just need to really attack teams and go for it.

                         

Miller presumably.

The defense has been a lot better since going to a back 4.

I doubt that very much. I'm quite confident that most of the lurching crew on here attract plenty of derision. We’re never more than a couple of wins away from content supporters. And conversely, a couple of losses from all out rebellion.

I don’t agree mate, it’s all Thomas’s fault, he’s the Chairman and if he had one ounce of interest he would have overseen what Curle was doing, after all he’s a self professed “football man” and should have know what quality we needed.
Compound this with the Nuttall debacle, the guy should be sacked for gross misconduct.

At some point one or two of Rose , Edmondson , BAS , Hoskins , Miller , Marshall , Chuck - had to come off and get us 15 goals .
None of them have threatened whatsoever and they have all had failure seasons / half seasons .
If we are to stay up , one of those players has to miraculously produce .
Furthermore not one of the youngsters has come through and the goalkeeper has cost us dearly .
We would have struggled in league 2

Does DB use Thomas for any of his other business interests?

Well KT did save the Club from extinction by paying the IR and others. There is more subjective comment than hard facts in your post. Some credit is due surely just for that. Maybe KT is a hard nose businessman who wants to recover his losses and some. Most of us would do the same. Great introduction for the Salop game by the way.

I think as time goes on it becomes more and more apparent that KT is pretty much a clone of DC, maybe that's your average chairman. Both waiting for the fruit machine to pay out. The trouble is that the deeper you get in the harder it is to walk away. At some point you get that deep in that you need to cut your losses.
DC tried to take his 'opportunity' and made a royal mess of it.
They both have/had the benefit of being surrounded by apathy and (understandably) the average fan is only interested with what's on offer on the pitch.
If he'd just built the stand, then that would have been enough for those still asking any questions.
 
We really need a super fan with a Euromillions win who needs a hobby!

£2 a week each, Hotel end euro millions syndicate. 

??
Why did it take you five weeks to reply?

In my opinion, I don't believe that DC had that intention, he was 'convinced' by a couple of crooks that he was able to make a quick buck or skim some of the Council grant and it all fell apart.
KT on the other hand has never hid the fact that he intends to profit from his 'liaison' with NTFC. 
As you say, the problem now is that he/they have propped up the club financially to such an extent that that they cannot leave before being able to take advantage of the redevelopment in order to balance their financial input.  Their problem is that no one will buy what is available at the moment for the price they need to break somewhere near even.

Latest accounts are out.....

https://www.ntfc.co.uk/siteassets/image/downloads/northampton-town-football-club-limited---full-accounts-2020-for-companies-house.pdf

£1.291m owed to Ventrues, £4.84m owed to Belle-De-Jour = £6.131m owed to DB/KT

Christ. And yet the masses still believe they are doing a sterling job. As posted above: the reason they can't find a buyer. :-[

Not sure I agree with this. Even if by some miracle we scrape to survival, it won't mask the flaws in the way this season has been mishandled. Of course, there will be those who blame it entirely on C-19. Isn't that right, Terry? ;)

What's the answer? How does the club become sustainable?

As I've stated quite a few times, NTFC CAN be run on a break even figure, well it could before Covid, and it was under DC for a couple of years. How much of our current debt is down to paying off previous managers who were given too long contracts ? How much is KT paid ?
      I presume our the detail of our debt to Belle De Jour is not visible due to the company being based in the Virgin Islands ? Remind me again, why do people set up businesses  in the Virgin Islands ?

OI, pack it in or we'll have Beds back in here again.

EMPLOYEES AND DIRECTORS
The average number of employees during the year was 287 (2019 - 283)
Have we really got an average of 287 employees? Seems a lot to me. I'm sure to be corrected but I thought the bar and catering were franchised and the stewards were voluntary. 31 in the first team squad leaves a balance of 256....256?? Someone help me out I just can't see it.

Large families?

James Whiting will have a schedule of how those employee numbers are calculated. Ask him via twitter. I've found him responsive in the past.

Over a million on administrative expenses?
That’s a lot of post it notes, staples and paperclips.

I tick 2 of the 3 boxes, if that´s any help ??

Mostly tippex.

Admin expenses can mean a whole load of things.

I know each business is different, but as an example, where I work (headcount approx double NTFC's), the monthly admin expenses budget is nearly £1m.

I think the bars and catering are in house at the moment. I seem to remember this question coming up in previous years and being told that ALL the part time staff were included in those figures.

Lee Geary...though he may struggle with the millions side of the deal!  ;D

Blimey, can you imagine how much strife there would be if a syndicate of, say 100 diehard NTFC supporters did this, and actually came up trumps!

It would be chaos...

I fully expect a painful, can’t really be bothered, broom cupboard style KT interview on why the accounts are in fact great and things like that should be left to important people.
Everything is too much trouble for “self important” KT, I once had the misfortune to share a corporate stage with Theo Paphitis of Dragons Den fame, he spent the entire evening telling me how great he was and how much his Maybach had cost him, I liken him to KT in many ways.

256 staff. £5million turnover. Bonkers. £20k if they were all paid equally and none left over for a liver-sausage bap for Clarence.

I don't think we need a miracle because all we have to do is play reasonably well; with determination and spirit. From that goals will follow. Our biggest ally is the other 5 or 6 teams threatened by relegation whose results fluctuate like the proverbial tarts knickers. You could have 6 balls in a bag and the first four out go down! It is all very unpredictable; we also have to have hold our nerve. Some of the death wish comment on here is breath taking. You almost get the impression that some will only be happy if we do!

That's not bad pay, just under a grand per game for the match day staff.  ;)

https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/football/chief-executive-james-whiting-in-positve-mood-as-cobblers-file-their-annual-accounts-3184601

Casual workers are not classified as employees in accounts so none of the players are included in that figure.

Every expenditure is included in the accounting figures, it’s how the tax liability is calculated.

 ;D ;D

We must be paying some of the lowest wages in League 1 and would be mid range in League 2 .
It is no surprise we have got players that are extremely average .
Any player we want to keep next season could easily be tempted away with the offer of only a moderate pay rise i would imagine .
No wonder we recruited from non league and players literally on the scrap heap .
Meanwhile , our losses are cut by two thirds .
Watch out for our few decent players going for nothing .

Abracadabra  8)

Ref your claim that we are paying some of the lowest wages in League 1 can you advise on any source where you can be confident that they are fact. Sounds to me a typical B&S statement based on personal opinion presented as fact.

I’m glad James Whiting thinks being £8m in debt in a business that turns £5m and that is constantly taking top up loans from it owners is stable.
Do people realise that all the money DB and KT have put into NTFC is a loan?

It's obviously only going to get worse with very little match day income this season.
There has been some poor decision making to generate that total amount of debt over the past few years. We've had the odd cup run and player sale incoming too.
You could be thankful that the bills keep getting covered but not sure what that leaves the end position looking like.
It's fair to say they are in waist deep without a clear plan to recoup the losses or generate growth.

Have they got ball boys, stewards, car park attendants and passing dog walkers in the employee numbers?! Some Prem teams have around 1,000 so could be right. Does seem a lot though.

sadly it’s true and no i can’t tell you !

What I posted yesterday

And what's that answer?  ;D still not seen any.

The money DB and KT put in is an investment. They obviously think that there is still a substantial amount of money to be made from the land and will keep putting money in until they don't.
Should the club be sold I would assume they would want at least a percentage of the money returned and the land separated from the club.

42?

With no tangible assets the only answer to enable change is to write the debt off and let someone else have a go.
You could say that will never happen but on the current trajectory it could be a case of continuingly putting your chips on '0'. It's proving to be an expensive project.

You'll get to the point that you are never going to get back into the black, unless we have dreams of the Prem.
Maybe there is some buried treasure on the land?!

In the new Covid world real estate for leisure and retail must be falling through the floor, so that adds another dimension.
People get beer delivered by little white bots these days to drink with their Uber Eats take out, whilst watching a streamed movie. The world is rapidly moving on but the East Stand remains the same.

how about knocking down the whole thing -
building a Rushden Lakes overlooking beautiful Upton , full of leisure experience venues -
and then building a nice compact stadium on say , the land where Rushden have demolished  their stadium ?

Not the worst idea ever, but not a "compact" new ground and never out of Northampton. I'd love a ground right in the town centre.
There's a prime building site right in the middle of town where there once was a perfectly adequate bus station. Any sugar daddy out there?

Quite frankly I find some of the comments here embarrassing.

The trouble here was all caused by Cardoza and without KT stepping in we would be fucked, simple as.

The stadium is poor and desperately needs improvement to generate funds but no sugar daddy, however wealthy would pour money into Sixfields at this moment until every loose end is tied, and unfortunately there are still many of them.

Until the mystery Arabian billionaire turns up some of you should be a lot less sceptical of James Whitings comments and be bloody thankful the club is in the position it is.

Read Tony Clarkes comments on the Trust FB page to know the full story about "KT saved us"

Was Tony Clarke about to step in with his huge wealth?

I don't go anywhere near Facebook but I can imagine, lots of criticism without a single solution. Anyone who thinks the club is being run badly can take over tomorrow if they wish.

I'm no protagonist of KT, certainly not of TC either, just a realist.

We all want Championship football in a decent stadium, we've always had fourth division football and a poor stadium, now one entangled with legal issues.

Until somebody steps up with a solution or tens of millions of pounds to burn, end of conversation.

This, simple as really.

This is what Tony Clarke said.

"It's worth remembering that the deal struck between the current owners and NBC which saved the club, was almost identical to that which the Trust proposed at the time.
The only difference I remember being that the Trust couldn't afford to complete the East Stand without input from the Council, whereas the current owners stated their intention to self fund that work".
 
"There would have been a queue 40 deep to buy NTFC with the deal we got" is what KT said after the purchase of NTFC.

The second line of your comment is incorrect, you are making sh1t up and in your mind it’s fact, there were others who would have taken the club on and with funds, promises are cheap it’s actions that cost money just ask your “saviour “ Thomas.

Well I never saw a list anywhere of these mythical others with funds who would have taken on the club that people keep referring to.
If they were really that intersted the club has been up for sale for quite some time now.

The club was virtually debt free and was sold for £1, It's now £7M in debt and has an asking price of between £2M and £4M. A slight difference that could be the reason there are currently no buyers, don't you think?

You haven't told me who these phantom buyers were when the club was first sold to KT. People keep bleating on about them, but I think they never existed.

Well KT thought they existed, that's why he said what he said.

I think the word at the time is that the ‘consortium’ would be able to pay the debt off but probably not be able to afford to finish the stand. So pretty much what KT has over promised and under delivered on.
We’ll never know.

I refer back to this

I have no reason to make it up, it was nearly 6 years ago..... Thomas got the nod because he said he had the funds,£4m to be exact, to finish the east stand, the rest, as they say, is history!

Surely the other interested party, you keep banging on about, could have stepped up to the plate like KT/DB did and bid the same?

Welcome to the real world, some talk, some do!

Now is the time for KT and DB to stop talking and start doing!!!

Well, not 8 or 9 comments back,  it was mentioned that Tony Clarke said the Trust made an almost identical offer but didn't "pretend" they had any money "ringfenced" to finish the stand, and they would have had the best interests of the club at heart, unlike some people.
 KT and DB have had more than enough time to stop talking and start doing.

That is my point, KT and DB stepped in to sort the initial situation BUT they have not moved the development on one brick.

Now is the time to do it!!!

'Now is the time'. Are you serious? 5 years on and 'now is the time'. Jesus, talk about manana.

No...

The reason there are currently no buyers, is because the assets of the club amount to diddly squat without the enabling land. Plus the huge amount of capital required to bolster up a pathetic little stadium that was not fit for purpose from day one.

The land will always be the only thing that will attract owners, other than the Trust. And you know as well as me, we would be in exactly the same position with the Trust in charge. The fact that the stadium is leased is the issue.

There is not one thing stopping the council flogging the land to DB and KT based solely on the caveat of seeing a direct return back into the football club. In fact, the council could flog the land tomorrow and put the money into improving the stadium that they own themselves. All they would need to insist upon, is controlling the contractor payments.. The last ownership and the current ownership will not develop the stadium without that land, can everyone just get that into their heads, so we can least move past crying over the same spilled milk.

I am so bored of hearing the same regurgitated shyte doing the rounds. The council are the ones we should be concentrating our efforts on. They own the fcuking stadium. They can impose reasonable upkeep on the tenant anytime they like. And if you and anybody believes that they signed over the ground on the understanding that there was sufficient funds to complete the East stand, put their bloody feet to the fire and ask for the the documentation around that agreement. If they can’t provide it, then there's your answer. It would clearly mean it was the council who served up the club and the supporters as sacrificial lambs to any potentially unscrupulous owner who came along.

The Trust should be looking at the source of the agreement, for anything potentially actionable, rather than joining in all the crying about the big bad lying boys, who have crapped on us.  

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2015-11-21/northampton-businessmen-declare-interest-in-buying-northampton-town

The week before Kelvin took over......the local consortium plus former Swindon owner Jed McCrory.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/34938496

2 minutes in....not the only bid in the room,
3 minutes in, there were people in there at the last minute
3 minutes 30...spend4 million pounds by investing in the future, by finishing the stand...... note, they were going to spend this, not have it funded by land sales because at this point they did not control CDNL......
5 minutes 5 seconds "I dont have the funds available to put 4 million pounds in" said Kelvin.... its not him putting the money in, its not him "saving the club"
5 minutes 50..."David (Bower) was instrumental in getting this deal completed"

Couldn't agree more.

Then why if they had the funds as reported by MW didn't they get the club, surely even our incompetent council would have prefered a local deal?

KT/DB had the funds, or rather DB had the funds. They gave the £4m figure to take the club forward and finish the stand.....none of the other buyers said that or presumably could do that.

I think we're missing the point....if someone produced proof of funds and said they were going to do something, then the fact that they haven't makes it doubly worse doesn't it?

Since DB/KT acquired CDNL, getting the stand finished has become dependant on enabling monies from the land.....that's the big change, because this was not how it was set out at the beginning.

But this was obviously their plan from the start. I would like to know exactly whose money they are playing with.

I think so!! However when the Council signed off the takeover deal we were told that part of the deal would see THEM take back land that THEY could redevelop in order that THEY could recoup some of the 10.25m loan losses..... what happened there? KT/DB ran in and took over CDNL and gazumped the council so that they (the Council) never got the land back.

What happened here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-42749446

A further loan from the Council to the club as late as 2018 in order to kickstart the redev.....how has that worked out?

The club was bought 'debt free' as the millions owed to the Cardozas was written off. We now owe millions to the DB/KT ownership. I don't see why there would be a queue of buyers, the club racks up losses. It's not an investment. Clearly DB/KT are here because they think they can make money from the land.  I'm sure there most be safer ways for them 'invest' their money.

It's obvious that KT/DB did their homework regarding the holdings of CDNL and that company's legal hold on the land before they even thought of taking us over. I can't see them doing it on the off chance that they would make money from the land, only a sure thing would have tempted them.
I have to wonder how long they will sit on their hands before going down the appelant route to get the permissions they want.

I never said he was the saviour. If "KT" or another party had not bought the club we were fucked. I attended the court in London as was not aware of other parties involved, I apologise if that was not the case.

I would love a local consortium with funds to take over.

They tried mate but were outbid by big spending KT and his proof of £4m investment.

Then lobby the council to see how that deal was ratified without a specific agreement in terms of how the development was going to be delivered. Even if we all agreed that KT and DB have not delivered on what was promised, what practical use it for us and the Trust to be nothing more than whinging spectators of the whole debacle. I 100% stated over and over again to the Trust, and any other poor sod that would listen, that you have to pursue the real owners of the ground. Go after the council for the lease agreement. If it doesn’t state anything about an agreement to finished the East stand, all you have is a couple of dishonest businessmen. That’s about as rare as Beds mentioning about a community owned club. Meaning that all of the moaning in the world will not shift the owners. But we can all push the council to make sure that any land deal is bullet proof in terms of making sure it had to include investment into the club and the stadium.

If, as there should be, some mention of ring fenced funds, that was used to secure the lease for a quid, we still push the council to enforce it, or remove their names off the lease.

Going after KT and BD is utterly pointless.

Show me a signed legal document that holds them to that "promise" and then I will quite happily start legal proceedings, but since there isn't one I will spend my money on a new motorbike.

It's probably time to move this discussion to the Redev thread.... ;)