Wazzacobbler - I am not here to answer any questions on behalf of the Trust. As I said, take up your question(s) direct with the Trust please. I post here my own right and not for anyone other than myself.  I hope that is clear.

With respect, the very last place I would disclose any information about the Chinese deal, assuming I had any such information, would be here. I did not come down with the last shower. I know the players on this site.  Enough said other to add sorry, Gareth Willsher, but I am not not going to give you the pleasure of running into your boss’ virtual Florida office with anything of any value. 

Charles, if you can’t work it out in broad terms (I appreciate the “significant amount” that changed hands with 5USports according to The Athletic’s article is undisclosed) then at least remember 2+2 = 4 and not 5). 

As to NBC and the club, events will unfold in the coming weeks and most importantly on the redevelopment. So, wait and see. I am sure it is going to be interesting.

Wazzacobbler - if you have questions to ask of the Trust and on the assumption you are a member (otherwise you have no status to ask any questions about its accounts) send your questions to the Trust - it has a website and email of its own in case you hadn't noticed.  Don't expect comments you post here to be answered by the Trust.

But it is really pathetic and small minded that you bang on about the Trust and this small financial matter. Anyone would think you have an agenda! Talk about not seeing the wood from the trees. But that I realise is a deliberate ploy by you to defect attention from what I would describe as inconvenient truths concerning much more important and bigger things, including the redevelopment (have you forgotten this is what this thread is about?) to which events in 2017 are intrinsically linked. KT is rattled and using all his manipulative skills amongst his small army of loyalists to rubbish those outside his tent. He has a very thin skin.

Try engaging your brain and look at what was reported in 2017 about the Chinese deal and if you know how follow the paper trail do just that. When you have, draw logical conclusions. That is all.

And remember one thing - truth and oil always comes to the surface. The question is when, I don't have the answer to that one but it will and you and others will have red faces.

Apologies to you all and especially to Gareth Willsher, Head of Media at NTFC who I forgot to mention in my earlier post.

Gareth is a monitoring this board closely and extracting from it posts that are supportive of his paymaster and these wing their way to NBC and other interested parties,.  Great work, Gareth but a word of advice - never lose sight that some of us are well informed and prepared for this nonsense. Good servant that he is I recall Gareth being loyal to our illustrious previous owners to the very end.   And we know what happened next but he survived.  One day he may run out of owners to serve but give him credit, he knows on which side his bread is buttered for the present.

I could be mistaken but I see KT’s band of loyalists (how’s it going Tel and Charles?) are busy at work doing their master’s bidding. 

And the Trust is accused of having an agenda! Classic diversionary tactics from the Trump (KT) playbook. Keep it up chaps, you are doing well.

Strange how some are getting up a head of steam up about this minor matter as though it is an issue of grave importance when the very same people have conspicuously failed to comment on the absence of any reference at all in the accounts of NTFC and associated companies for financial year 2017-2018 of anything received from 5USports.  Oh sorry, I forgot, of course no money was received and the club has been sustained since June 2017 by the benevolence of our owners. Silly me.

Theo Foley RIP. One of the great Cobblers, both as player and manager passed away today.  We should never forget those that gave so much in the cause of our club. May he rest in peace.

The Administrators hunting in packs I see.

Be careful not to get out of your depth.

Ask yourself what you have done for the Trust...

You are a two faced individual who excels in sniping.  To answer your question a lot and a lot more than you can possibly know although you would have readers believe you are very well informed. You are not.  Y

I checked with the Trust yesterday following your latest criticism of its stance concerning the East Stand and wider development. Guess what? Not a peep has been heard by the Trust from you or your supporting cast about dissatisfaction on the issue.  No further comment needed.

50+1, tcobb whereas you want to continue with the same old busted flush of the sugar daddy owner. It's permanently broken for clubs such as the Cobblers.  McRitchie, Cardoza and the present owners now closing in on 5 years since their arrival - ask yourself what have they done for the club?

tcobb, one day you and your fellow travellers will wake up and smell that coffee. Wait and see.

Just remember Jolly et al that all that glitters is not gold and when it comes to KT it is never his gold.

Nice Vintage. The Trust has an agenda to have fan ownership of the Club, they do not care if the majority of supporters are against it. The clique of the board wants it to happen, they do not engage with the vast majority of supporters who are not their members. They haven't spoken or canvassed opinion outside their own circle, they do not represent me and alot of other supporters. For some reason Vintage you fail to understand that  and just keep persevering with your anti KT rhetoric.

Any supporters trust that is not readying itself for community ownership in the present crisis would be deficient.  Community ownership may come about from need not choice. I have for a long time been in favour of the German 50+1 model, a club truly a part of the community and not an adjunct to it attracting gates of a woeful 2% of its population, a club run on transparency and the publication of full accounts.  It is coming like it or not.  The days of the sugar daddy owner in the lower leagues is pretty well over. 

And all this constant crap about agendas is pathetic. I have a view not an agenda. You don't have an agenda or a view other than anti-Trust rhetoric?  What makes you think for a moment you may speak for the majority? Speak for yourself as I do and tell me what you want and why you admire owners who are secretive, absent overseas for much of the time, have allowed over £5 million of debt to land on the club's balance sheet, have invested nothing in the infrastructure of the club and achieved little over 5 years.  If you think the club is blessed to have such owners let me have some of what you are on.

Brian Lomax will be turning in his grave to read posts such as Shoemaker's last one and also would have another turn looking at the ownership structure of the club with the controlling company being in the secretive tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.  

He was a strong advocate of transparency and supporters having a say in the running of the football club.  We have none of these things.

The Trust statement looks perfectly reasonable to me. After all that has gone on surely the only logical stance is 'seeing is believing'. Whether you are pro or anti either the Council or the club owners, they have hardly shared their intentions with us. I wouldn't blame the council for staying well clear of the football club altogether. If you want to change the Trust then get involved, anyone can.

Agree entirely.

The Trust is beyond changing, they have an agenda and they intend to carry it out. The only way that can stop is for the Trust to cease all activities, its had its day, the majority of fans of NTFC have no interest in it whatsoever.

Unutterable balls

I know very little personally about Andy Roberts other than that he’s a lifelong cobblers fan and I enjoyed his work when he worked at the Chron, Tom Reed has certainly come out with a few strange ideas both on here and at various notorious trust meetings - I’m sure his hearts in the right place but it’s like he’s desperate to turn us into some kind of socialist experiment. I don’t know what the timeline looks like but it seems like a lot of the poor PR and attempts at spin have been on their watch?

I know Tom Reed and what you are stating about him wanting "to turn us into some kind of socialist experiment" is utter tosh. What he is advocating (as am I) is the 50+1 ownership model run very successfully in the German Bundesliga. The last time I looked Germany was a modern capitalist country.

According to the Trust's Facebook site the statement was provided to the BBC at the request of the BBC.  I do not read it as negative at all and the issues it mentions in that statement are going to have to be dealt with, like it or not.  

The BBC article indicates a deal is close at hand.  It provides titbits of information but that is all.  I ask and any thinking supporter should ask what are the details of the deal so that a proper assessment can be made of it.  The club's future prosperity hangs on it since that land is one of its few assets and once bought and sold that is it gone for good.  Hence all the perfectly valid questions I continually ask and I very much hope the Trust will ask and more.  That, I repeat, is the job of the Trust's directors and if that gets under KT's skin then so be it.

I very much doubt that there is any intention by either KT or NBC to disclose the information.  All that they do on anything important is shrouded in secrecy and they will fall back on "commercial confidentiality" when the deal is centred on publicly owned land and in my view should be open to public scrutiny.  This goes very much against the grain for both NBC and our owners. No doubt KT will hate the comparison but it was exactly the same under Cardozas and if that is hard on their successors I'm afraid it comes with the territory.  We have had fast approaching 5 years of opaqueness, bland statements and an unwillingness to demonstrate transparency in any financial or commercial matters.  It is hard to trust in owners when they conduct themselves in this manner.

It would be nice to see some kind of statement from the club about this - I don’t think I’ve seen anything to date? Just out of interest - and the last thing I want to do is drag myself into the trust/anti-trust argument - whoever is doing the PR for the trust at the moment isn’t really doing themselves any favours. Did I read somewhere that the ex-Chron journo Andy Roberts is heavily involved and Tom Reed?

Andy Roberts is the Trust's Chairman. Tom Reed is not a Trust director and is an independent journalist.

Errant nonsense, Shoey. Get your facts right. The Trust reps resigned when the Cardoza scandal broke.  KT does not want any directors other than his own clique for obvious reasons.

The Trust is not a supporters club like Sixfields Travel and the “endorsed” Facebook Shoe Army, it is doing its job.  Too many of the posters on here are far too quick to criticise the Trust and far too slow to seek to hold our owners to account.  Many memories are short and 2014/2015 has been conveniently wiped from mental hard discs.

The club has not commented on the BBC article because it does not want to, by which I mean it does not want supporters to know any detail of what is in progress. We may get another in the KT series of “good progress” updates that tell us nothing and many of you will swallow it hook, line and sinker and think he is doing a great job.  Only a few raise valid questions and the Trust is one of that number.  KT does not like that one bit.  Something about the inconvenient truth.

The BBC article is less than clear but I am going to predict for those who seem to think the building contractors are going to be on site in a couple of months time that you are likely to be disappointed.  I know a few things about property development and a lot about the situation on the East Stand and the land behind it.  My knowledge is up to the beginning of this year plus what little I can make of the BBC article.  I have read all the disclosures made under the FOIA process and my conclusion is that our owners’ strategy is to get the Council to agree that the East Stand will only completed out of profits from the development (probably from the sale of plots) of land behind the stand and beyond.  The £4 million spoken about in 2015 for finishing the stand is a broken assurance.  No profits or the certainty of profits from plot pre-sales with planning permission and there will be no stand.  The club are indebted to our owners and their associated companies for over £5 million and rising.  Full praise to our owners astute financial management and their misguided supporters! Apart from perhaps a finished stand, completed to what standard I dread to think, the realistic prospect is that any profits from the land development will be used to settle the debt leaving the club with very little for its future prosperity.

We could be in for a long wait but yesterday’s story is perhaps a small step forward in what I venture to say will still be a long journey. It looks like the Council has still to approve whatever the deal is (no Cabinet meeting has been recorded minuting approval) and the opposition parties and some Tory councillors may have something to say about the failure of our owners to do what they said they would do when being allowed to buy the club in 2015 and then there is the matter of the Council being under a legal obligation to secure best value for the Northampton tax payers from the sale of public land.  It is not a done deal.

Thank you, MC. I just wanted to make clear and remind you (and others) that I have long been arguing for an alternative business model going forward. 

I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this board is representative of the wider body of support and that on this subject there is a minority of only 4 or 5.  By contrast, of the group of 4 with whom I attend matches at Sixfields all are in favour of the 50+1 model.  As it happens, all 4 share my views on the current ownership. Of the 4, I am the only one to post on this site. That is not to say there is an overwhelming majority in favour of 50+1 (or, by the by, about our ownership) but I think it may be reasonable to think that a wide, growing body of opinion is in favour of radical change to safeguard our football club and other long established football clubs in the EFL and National League. 

You are absolutely right that a change in the law will be necessary and therefore Damian Collins’ proposal needs to move forward quickly.  Professional commentators are saying that up to 10 EFL clubs are in immediate danger of going under and that a financial crunch is coming for many more clubs when EFL advanced monies (Sky payments largely) are spent.  The end of the summer looks to be that time.  It seems likely that there will be no crowds allowed at stadiums before the end of the year. That there is an existential threat to League 1 & 2 clubs, including NTFC, cannot be underestimated.  Several Championship clubs must also be under threat.

You mention the Trust.  All I know is that it is not sitting on its hands.  I understand there is regular contact with other Trusts including Exeter, Motherwell and Hearts which are all community owned clubs.  Something good may come out of something bad but time is short and looking at the proposals I forecast that many EFL owners will be resistant and argue for hand-outs with no or few conditions attached citing the £16 million UK Government grant to the Rugby League . 

The resistance will be sophisticated and organised.  Turkeys do not vote for Christmas. It is going to take a national drive from supporters and politicians to bring about change. 

PS. I looked up Damian Collins and see that he was born in Northampton!