It adds another layer.
Think of it like the Trust board representing you as a member. They don'tin your opinion, do they? They only represent themselves.
So will Tom still be picking up the phone and answering emails to individuals or will that go?

The idea that Terry or another HE mod could sit around that table and purport to represent my views is outrageous.
I've no affliation with any other Cobblers or travel group, only the Trust who have not been offered a seat at the table.

I posted a link to a youtube video where Tom answers questions like some of the ones you raise.  Why not hear it from the horses mouth?

Of course Tom will still speak to individuals.  Email him with your questions tonight and see what response you get.

You seem to want to find problems in something that's underlying purpose is to reach more fans and obtain wider viewpoints.  Might not work, who knows.  Plenty of other clubs do it though and the FSA see it as a positive way for fan engagement.

The FSA met with the Trust six months ago and suggested the Board re-engage with their members/supporters to see what they want from them.....they decided not to do that.

I’d be amazed if he doesn’t take a salary because it’s normal business behaviour.

https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/people/cobblers-supporters-trust-withdraws-land-deal-backing-but-chairman-hits-back-3286118

Well KT has said it on a couple of occasions I remember and a quick google search shows this article where he is quoted as saying:

“We have been here a long time and since saving the club from going under, we have invested millions of pounds, we have paid bills and staff on time, we have settled some very hefty bills that were incurred from the previous ownership and board of directors, which included a Supporters Trust representative, we have not charged interest on any of the money loaned or taken salaries ourselves and we even topped up everyone’s wages during the pandemic."

That's why I asked Random to clarify how much, in what way and what evidence he has that KT is taking money out of the club.  Should be pretty easy to answer if you are going to make that claim.  I mean, it would be a bit odd to bring it up as a problem but not explain the details.

I was thinking the same about 86/87, how many games did players miss through injury that season? The difference between 30 years ago or so and now seems to be huge, there has to be a reason for it.

I was thinking the exact same thing.  Feels like we only used about 15 players that season, though that's probably just my poor memory.

Like you say there must be reasons for it and it's not like we are the only club that have this issue.

I know JB has mentioned the longer matches i.e. additional time being much longer.  Certainly people are more at risk of injury when fatigued.  I've witnessed that problem even at the low level of coaching I do.

Think there is also aspects of how hard athletes in general are pushed compared to years ago.  Think about how much more work defenders particualrly full backs get through in the modern game.  Also playing RW and LW players that are expected to defend and attack.

With Just 2 days to go, anybody going to be refreshing every 5 minutes or was it over before it began?

Felt like it was done after the loan signings.

Might be a late surprise cause I think we need someone in midfield but definately not a refresh every 5 mins type of year.

Gee, that says it all!
Can we put a Freedom of Information request into the club??!!
I’d just like to know which 4 camps they sit in:
Imminent (next 2 weeks)
Short Term (between 2 and 4 weeks)
Long Term (between 1 and 3 months)
Major (over 3 months)

Yep just seems a bit silly really.  Would probably save JB a whole bunch of time in his interviews if they pointed out certain players were out for a couple of months for instance.

We are at NINE now, I think that's correct :

Tyler Magloire (Last update - FEB RETURN)
Aaron McGowan (Groin injury against Shrews)
Jack Sowerby (No update)
Sam Sherring (No update)
Ben Fox (Secret throughout, player apparently said a couple of weeks - a couple of weeks ago  )
Danny Hylton (broke down after TWO Sub appearances)  
Ali Koiki (No real updates)
Shaun McWilliams (No update)
Akin Odimayo (No update)

Plus we need to manage the minutes of Louis Appere and Lee Burge could be playing through injury(?) and we're totally stuffed to be quite honest.

The interesting thing I think is that I reckon you could class 6 of the 9 in that list as injury prone.  As in reguarly picking up various knocks that keep them out for decent lengths of time.

That's something the club need to consider moving forward in recruitment even if the player in question is decent.

One example is Koiki.  Personally I'd have let him go in the summer.  I like him as a player but never plays enough games.  It's a question mark who is the better player out of Brough and Koiki but which one has benefitted the club more in their time here so far?

How can the Tom be denegrating the trust?
The club cut all ties with the trust last July !!

How the trust can purport to be the voice of the fans and charge people money is beyond me.
They are just half a dozen fans who don’t get on with the owners and have been cut adrift by the football club as a consequence.
They then continue to advertise a joining fee when they have zero chance of any influence going forward.
I feel this is where we are or am I being unfair?

Tom isn't denegrating anyone. 

I have no problem with the Trust charging membership fees.  It's up to individuals if they choose to join the kind of organisation they currently are.  The membership/fans get the type of Trust they desire.

Can you explain why this makes it easier to canvass supporters opinions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVk7rwUsf1Q&ab_channel=NorthamptonTownFootballClub

He has said that. I seem to remember there was some accusation or other that the club paid for his flights back and forth to Florida.

No idea if it's true and I don't have too much of a problem if they do!  I claim expenses for work travel so I don't see why he shouldn't.

If he didn't come back as often he'd be pilloried for never going to games!

Exactly.  He doesn't tell you how much KT takes out of the club.  Doesn't back it up with any evidence.

I could just as easily say the Groundsman takes money out of the club.  There's just no context just a sly comment he hopes picks up traction with the few idiots left that are incapable/unwilling to challenge him.

He literally needs one of those Twitter fact check boxes under every post.

Take this Trust owning more of the club than KT.  Last time I saw actual shareholding figures a couple of years ago the Trust owned 2.7% of the club and Northampton Ventures owned something like 86%.  KT at that time owned 10% of Ventures.  So 10% of 86%.

Now maybe that's changed since two years ago.  Maybe the Trust bought some more shares?    Still a good enough comment for the echo chamber to shoot their load over.

As I said to him/them.  The stupidity is if KT was taking unwarranted significant sums of money out of the club I'd be the first to want to know that.  But you have to do more than just say he is...especially when historically you haven't been great at telling the whole story (that's being polite).

This guy literally attended the club AGM on behalf of the Trust.  Ask yourself whether he brought this up at the AGM and what the response was?

Daniel Levy pays himself £3million a year.

I think almost all chairman earn a wage. Who’d have thought it.

Pretty sure KT has said several times in the past neither he or DB take a salary or charge interest on their loans.

That's why I was asking Random to clarify what he means by taking money out of the club and what evidence he has to show this.

 

I think it's worth reminding everyone that Tom set this FAB up so he could more easily canvass the opinions of our supporters.  Surely that's a positive step?

The ommission of the Trust raised some people to question him.

What was he supposed to do...lie.  That's why the letter got mentioned.  The same people that were annoyed he didn't invite the Trust and were asking why then started accusing him and the club of using it as another opportunity to have a public dig at the Trust.  You can't have it both ways.

Then you get Random posting on here that Tom has created the FAB purely to denegrate the Trust.     

I can see why the club don't provide detailed updates on injuries why would you want future opponents knowing what players might be fit or not

I can get that if they are potentialy nearing a return but we have some injured players where we as fans don't know whether they are out for weeks, months or even years.  The secrecy does seem to have reached slightly OTT levels.

Or is it just part of the game and everyone has them?

i.e. we need to stop making it our excuse

I agree everyone has them.  What you are missing is the ability of a club to handle the loss of key players.  When we have to turn to our reserves or aquire a new player we are probably looking at significantly different levels than those with budgets that are double or more of ours.



  

I got some stick a couple of years ago when I said we weren't ready to go up from league two under Brady.  That was way before Bristol Rovers did us a favour.

My view was that JB wasn't ready and if we had gone up he'd have likely got the sack.  Another season of learning and improving in league two and look at us now.  It's my personal opinion that extra experience both good and bad has made us what we are today.

Similar logic applies to the Championship.  I get why fans would want it at face value and as was pointed out a couple of years ago you can't pick and choose when the opportunities arise but we are so not ready as a club in every single way to play Championship football.  It would probably damage the club for years.  I can't even believe fans would enjoy it past the initial buzz as we likely would lose most weeks.

Feels like some people just want to tick it off their bucket list...which I do as well but would rather it was achieved at a time when we could stand a chance of being competitive.

There is no probably, we don't own anything at Moulton.

As part of running a professional football club we rented a building, rented some pitches, and for some reason, some think that every penny spent by the club comes from the owners. It doesn't, the club generates £5m +

Last I knew, we don't even own the outside ticket booths, they are rented too.

This post is a great summary of why you have so little credibility outside the echo chambers of the Trust.  You still to this day don't understand why this kind of rubbish doesn't wash with the masses.

Every single piece of good news or progress from the club is disected to the nth degree and spun negatively.  Literally everything.  Nothing will ever be good enough under these owners.  It will probably not be good enough under the next owners or wasn't under any of the previous owners. 

You belittle training facilities you have likely never even been to.  Facilities that are way ahead of what we had 7 years ago.  We also have access to other facilities that Moulton can provide. You present it like we are playing down the Racecourse. 

People aren't dumb and if you are right about everything you say about the owners you will have failed miserably to take any but a very small number of people with you.  And that will be on you not them!

KT takes money OUT of our club not invests in it. He is the Chairman and owns less of the football club than the Trust.

Genuine questions.  How much has KT taken out of the club?  In what form do the withdrawals take place?  Can you provide evidence to support this?

Marvellous.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-rig-next-election-planned-boundary-changes-benefit-a8471811.html

Every little bit helps maybe.   

If you read past the headlines Labour already needed a record breaking swing BEFORE the boundary changes.  Now just need a little bit more, 12% before now predicted to be 12.7% after.

Labour has won 3 recent by-elections with 20% plus swing, some in areas they historically have performed poorly in.

Explains why quite a few tories are getting twitchy within their own party, let alone within their constituency.  The way some Tory MPs are currently bahaving they will be pinning their hopes the boundary change brought in more racists to their consituency.      

Talking of news or lack of, has anyone seen anyone from GRS poking around the back of the East stand as per KT grand announcement?

or anyone from those companies that KT also announced they starting to do remediation on the land?

Below is taken from the Sept 2022 open forum PDF

•To protect the Club and to simplify matters we have begun the remediation process to take away any risk of the lease being terminated
•Club has instructed local planning consultant CC Town Planning alongside national planning consultants and environmental impact experts Lichfields
•We have begun the planning process
•Remediation WILL be dealt with satisfactorily as required by the lease in the appropriate time

The Council have the option in April 2024 to cancel the leases but everything and everybody at risk of getting nothing !

Ah the old "dead cat" strategy.  No problem I'll play along.

So for clarity you want us to overlook the significant legal challenge the Council identified in breaking the lease you refer to, as identified in the JR and other council documentation and believe that challenge no longer exists?

You are raising these concerns with the wider fan base as there is serious risk the owners and therefore the club could lose this leasehold land.  Despite constant posts suggesting the the club won't see any benefit anyway and the owners who remember you claim are only here for the land could be about to lose it.

If we ignore all of those facts, this concern is being raised by a board member of the Trust Board, god knows which one I'm speaking to today, who literally entered into partnership with Cilldara to do the exact same thing and strip this leasehold land away from both club and owners!

Tell you what let's make a deal.

If you supply me with ACTUAL EVIDENCE that nobody from GRS has looked at the East Stand and none of those bullet points mentioned have happened regarding land remidiation I'll personally raise your concerns with the club directly alongside your evidence.  I'll publish the response on here.

If you can't provide the evidence, you raise the concerns directly with the club yourself and publish the response.

Can't say fairer than that.

I asked the question before but no one answered. Is whoever publishes the letter, the one who is liable for it's content?
If so, the swift reaction could have saved this board some hassle. If not. why don't NTFC publish it?

You did get an answer...straight from the horses mouth as that sure isn't Random talking is it.  

FOR THE LAST TIME:

That letter contained not only allegations that were false, they also made accusations that could be considered defamatory in reference to John Morgan (and others)

But it was a private letter between two parties.

It is only when the letter is made public that it becomes of greater concern hence it is about the publication of defamatory material, which is why THE mods removed it.

On the subject of the letter in question I found the Trust did actually mention it in their minutes of 3/8/23.  I quote:

"NTFC responded to the Trust’s letter on Monday 24 July, saying they wished to decline a
meeting with the new board."

Quite a neat summary of a SEVEN page letter.  

By the way I agree the club should publish it.  I'm sure you and others will back them if they choose to do so?
 

Bit of a low key signing but I trust JB.

Have to say the scouting report posted on youtube was clearly having to scrape the barrell to find actual highlights.  Probably one of the worst I've seen for an attacking player.  Hopefuly just down to the lack of game time, on available video, the lad has had!