If anyone of the 14 on the Trust £10 a head bus to Swindon today got an update from Andy Roberts as to what the board are being instructed to do and what the plans are… could you share it with the wider support base or was the cheap trip a silencer? 

Sorry Glen, most of us just wanted to chat Cobblers, have a beer and cheer on the lads like everyone else on all the other coaches.

The hooded cloaks and sacrificial goats came later - never mix business with pleasure after all.

Fox for me too.

Really enjoyed yesterday. Thought we played well throughout, but the difference this year is that we're able to change styles and we can make effective substitutions as we have real quality on the bench - even with all the injuries/illnesses we had.

First half we played some decent stuff on the ground with Leonard, as usual, being the focal point. Second half we went a lot more direct with Hylton and Bowie making things really uncomfortable for their defenders and Fox giving us some real drive on the counter attack after coming off the bench.

Would have absolutely taken a point there prior to 3pm, and certainly when we went 1-0 down. So to come back once again and get all three points against a pretty decent team is an excellent afternoon's work.

[Bowie.]

Think I'll go with Bowie.

Could easily have been any of the others already mentioned though.

I think some of the criticism of Brady being a reactive manager was a bit harsh last season as we had very little in reserve. He actually seems to be becoming pretty adept at working out tactical problems as matches are progressing. Switching Pinnock to wide on the left certainly helped as well, he always seems to play his best football there.

That's a fair point actually. This year, even with the likes of McWilliams and McGowan on the sidelines, we've got genuine options off the bench at the moment which will surely make it a lot easier for them now to make those tactical changes.

I do think they still wait too long sometimes to switch it up tactically (the Doncaster game springs to mind a few weeks back), but it's being pedantic really because it's virtually their only flaw I can think of. Yesterday they made the subs that needed to be made at half-time and reaped the rewards, because the second half performance was excellent.

[The Board of Directors upon an application by not less than 20 members or 5% of the membership, whichever is the greater, delivered to the Society’s registered office, shall convene a general meeting. The purpose of the special general meeting shall be stated in the application and notice of the meeting. No business other than that stated in the notice of the meeting shall be conducted at the meeting. A special general meeting called in response to a members’ requisition must be held within 28 days of the date on which the requisition is delivered to the registered office. The meeting is not to transact any business other than that set out in the requisition and the notice convening the meeting.If, within one month from the date of the receipt of the application, the Society Board have not convened a special general meeting, any three Members of the Society acting on behalf of the signatories to the application may convene a special general meeting, and shall be reimbursed by the Society for any costs incurred in convening such a meeting.]

I truly believe that there should be a democratic solution to the impasse that currently exists within the Trust. If the majority of members are opposed to the actions of the current board (as I believe is the case) surely a challenge could be made within the rules and constitution that the trust currently operates under. If a group of committed trust members were willing to put themselves forward to challenge the board and to seek election in their stead there must be a process that allows them to mount such a challenge. It may have to wait until the AGM or it may be possible to do this through another route. I am sure ex board members who post on this forum will have enough knowledge of the constitution to advise on how this could happen. A possible alternative would be for current holders of key positions on the board to resign if they knew that willing and able trust members were waiting in the wings to take their place and lead the Trust in another direction.

In terms of electing board members, outside of an AGM there is an opportunity still to co-opt people onto the board. According to the model rules, no more than a third of the board can be co-opted.

If we're going on the post from GPC regarding board members a few weeks back, then there are now eight board members following his resignation, one of which is co-opted. So I think effectively there are two casual vacancies now - as three co-opted members would take the numbers to 10 (under a third) but four co-opted members would make 11 (over a third).

At the next AGM, a third of the seven board members who had been elected - those who have served the longest on the board - will resign and have to stand again for election. So I would see this as two elected board members needing to stand down at the next AGM.

Given the board can go up to 15, say there were now three co-opted board members and five remaining elected members - that would leave seven vacancies for the Trust board. Of course, if there's only seven people standing then they would all be elected unopposed.

Not entirely sure when the AGM would be, given the last one was in February. This was however delayed due to COVID, I seem to remember them being around the November mark when I was on the board.

In terms of holding an extraordinary meeting. From what I can see the model rules of Supporters Direct, which according to the Trust are the rules they link to on their website, state:

The Board of Directors upon an application by not less than 20 members or 5% of the membership, whichever is the greater, delivered to the Society’s registered office, shall convene a general meeting. The purpose of the special general meeting shall be stated in the application and notice of the meeting. No business other than that stated in the notice of the meeting shall be conducted at the meeting.

A special general meeting called in response to a members’ requisition must be held within 28 days of the date on which the requisition is delivered to the registered office. The meeting is not to transact any business other than that set out in the requisition and the notice convening the meeting.

If, within one month from the date of the receipt of the application, the Society Board have not convened a special general meeting, any three Members of the Society acting on behalf of the signatories to the application may convene a special general meeting, and shall be reimbursed by the Society for any costs incurred in convening such a meeting.

So effectively, from what I can see it would take 5% of the 705 members (using numbers from last AGM) to call for a special general meeting to discuss a specific issue i.e the ACV. So this would be circa 35 members who would need to do this.

Probably a good time to break my silence!!

Firstly, the presentation as laid out by the club for supporters to see last night and now in writing does not make great reading and certainly shows or at least attempts to show the Trust board, certain board members in particular, in a very bad light.

What I would say is that as posted above, this is one side of the story, and for me a lot of it has no context added and can be read in a number of ways. I was not involved in 2018 so I can't go back that far and relate to any of this with any certainty. I am still somewhat surprised that the club have felt they needed to go to this level to basically rubbish the Trust. It shows how far downhill relationships have got.

I might expect the Trust to come back with their own "mudslinging stories", and believe me there are a few of those too!!

For everyones information though I now announce that I resigned from the Trust Board on 30th August. There were a number of reasons for this, pressure of my work, family related issues, but also I found myself to not agree with some of the Trusts methods and the direction of travel on certain issues. That's all i'm going to say on the matter!

I'm not the first to resign from the Trust board and I won't be the last! I just want to get back to posting normally on here without having to face questions about this that and the other!!

I have tried to remain a "moderate" throughout the whole process and have hopefully stayed away from personal attacks on anyone, and I think by and large people have done the same with me. I'm not confrontational on here, have tried to remain calm and measured but even that was becoming difficult in the end!!

I have been active on here for many years, did a lot of digging into the Cardoza plans and subsequent unravelling of them. My actions in the past few weeks do not mean suddenly that i'm "pro-owners"...I still think there is a lot of talk and in my opinion have seen very little action in the past seven years. So my feelings towards certain aspects have not changed. I will still comment and criticise as I see fit, and also give praise where praise is due.

I hope you will understand the reasons for my silence in the past few weeks, and as I say i'm not going to go into any more detail about anything on that matter.

I still want what I truly believe that we all want, that is the best for our football club, but I will do that as a regular supporter now, not as a Trust Board member.

UTC..... GPC..... Simon

As echoed by others, a real loss to the Trust board. Thanks for your efforts GPC.

[Leonard]

Yer. Leonard absolutely bossed it today.

Honorable mentions to Magloire before he went off, Hoskins for two more goals, and Guthrie.

All fair points re being a former board member - however if you are still a board member or official adviser, like it or not, fair or unfair if you make comments on social media there is an implicit understanding you are representing that organisation - anyone who had held a legal director position will understand they have to be extremely careful when speaking in a personal capacityabout the affairs of their company - in the case of a listed company the restrictions are even more

Don't disagree with any of that.

Onto the actual NN Journal story. They're incredibly reliable so I take this at face value, and I have to say I didn't see this coming from the Trust at all. I await more detail!!

Standard response from the “I’m not on the Trust” Trust.
I guess if buying a piece of land where the lease holder is unlikely to give permission to do anything on it, is the plan…then I look forward to the statement showing how this will be in the best interests of the football club.
Not from you though, you’re not on the trust are you.

You do realise that you can not be on the Trust board and A) be informed about what they do by reading the stuff they put out and B) have an opinion on them still.

Being a former board member doesn't mean you speak on the Trust's behalf now, but neither does it constitute a gag on speaking about them for eternity or being allowed to have an opinion on them.

It's the equivalent of me saying you're a spokesman for the football club just because you support their point of view and have been to all the home games recently.

I think there's a lot of very fair summaries. Could have been 3-0 down even before we scored our early goal, and Barrow started quick and looked a real threat. But the start to the second half was a sucker punch they couldn't recover from and we saw the game out really comfortably in the end. Great to see Pinnock back out wide where he belongs, and thought the three at the back really worked - Magloire looked a lot more solid and chipped in with a goal. Was impressed with Sherring too.

Would agree with the time wasting points that have been raised. I called out Crewe and Doncaster on it, but did caveat that criticism with acknowledging that we would do the same if we were winning. And we did exactly that. What frustrated me about it is that, frankly, we didn't need to do it as we looked so comfortable. The lack of discipline in the last 5 minutes really annoyed me. Koiki got a totally needless booking for throwing the ball away and then Magloire got a needless booking of his own by reacting to something he didn't need to. These bookings do tally up and it's something we need to massively improve on.

Overall though, important to bounce back after a difficult couple of games, and I think that's a win that come the end of the season will look like a really good three points.

It's impossible for the Trust, or the club, or this messageboard, or anyone in particular - to truly represent the broad views of the entire fanbase.

This is such a polarised issue that the Trust has had to take a stance that a significant number of its members will strongly disagree with. I think there have been some valid criticisms of some of the processes the Trust has gone through (I made it clear at the time that I didn't think there was a sufficient timescale on the vote to invoke the ACV) and the way some board members/advisors have engaged with people who have raised genuinely constructive criticism.

I do think that a lot of people are choosing to ignore the flip side however. There are plain untruths written about the Trust almost every day on here and they should rightly be called out. Yet when those inaccuracies are challenged they are chastised for ignoring their members or being out of touch.

I think we all need to consider the words we write and the impact they may have on someone or indeed a whole organisation.

Poor performance, and some similar problems that we saw in the second half at Crewe in that there was, frankly, a lot of aimless hoofball. This time we couldn't get the equaliser, and to be fair to Doncaster they were full value for the three points and I expect they will be up there at the end of the season.

I remain frustrated that Jon and Colin take soooooooooo long to make substitutions. It was painfully obvious after 55 minutes today we weren't going to score as things stood, but we wasted another 15 minutes trying the same thing that wasn't working. The Hylton chance aside (which he should have buried) we created virtually nothing and should have been peppering their goal against a very poor goalie, but barely tested him.

Pinnock is completely wasted in the middle of the park and I feel sorry for him to be honest, just can't see it being anything other than a massive waste of time for everybody. Play to his strengths, get him out wide and delivering crosses into Hylton.

I was still pretty positive before the game given the results, but we need to start seeing some players pick their form up.

As an aside, the level of time wasting in games now has gone too far. The second half of both the Crewe game and today were painful to watch as a spectacle. I'm not singling Donny out, we'd do exactly the same if we were winning. But I don't pay money to watch players feign injury after every tackle and take an absolute age to do anything between play. The sooner we bring in a stop clock the better to be honest.

Thank you Fez, could you answer the other questions too please?
Much appreciated

I'm afraid you'll have to ask the Trust those questions Glen.

I'm not a board member and haven't been for four years, and don't know the answers to your other questions.

Thought I'd help you with the one that I do know though 

Suspect emailing on ntfctrust1992@gmail.com will be the best option.

Thought we started quite brightly but then their goal out of nothing changed everything. At the time I thought Magloire was pushed off the ball too easily for their first goal, and was happy to give the referee the benefit of the doubt if he continued in the vein of letting the game be physical - unfortunately he didn't. That said, it was one hell of a strike, one of the cleanest I've ever seen hit in a Cobblers game.

I've been a big fan of Koiki, but he was absolutely shocking all game yesterday and his defending for their second goal was pathetic. He needs to rediscover his form big time or it will be increasingly difficult not to give Haynes a go.

Thankfully we got a quick goal back, largely due to Leonard being a bit further forward and actually being able to dictate play in the final third. It was a really nice move in behind their defence which ripped them apart - and the most frustrating part was we barely tried it again all afternoon. Although we had more of the ball and were all over them second half, I felt we completely played to their back line's strength by booting it long to Hylton or Appere all afternoon and we hardly won a header.

Crewe were allowed to time waste all afternoon without repercussion in terms of getting booked, although in fairness the referee did add it on the end. Not sure what their fans/players/manager are moaning about regarding injury time. I counted them take 50 seconds on each corner and goal kick they were getting in the second half so I thought it could have been well beyond the six minutes he gave. It's also well documented that it's a MINIMUM of six minutes, and they proceeded to time waste throughout injury time and there was also the scrap between Burge and their player, so it's no wonder the ref added a couple more minutes on.

I'm glad it was Crewe on the receiving end of another late goal though. The whole place and its fanbase seem to have this really unjustified God complex that they're better than everyone else and no-one ever gets a result against them fairly.

In terms of our players - the stand outs for me were Lintott, Leonard (who I wish was played a bit further forward) and Hoskins. I've been disappointed with Hylton and would agree with others that he seems to be spending more time focusing on being a wind up merchant than being the very good footballer that he clearly is. I also think Mitch Pinnock looks completely lost in the middle and should have been hooked off, that said I have some sympathy for him because he's clearly being played out of position. I also remain unconvinced with Magloire in a back four, despite his pace and aerial presence. I was hugely impressed with Odimayo in pre-season and would hope he's in the starting XI as soon as he's fit.

The very promising sign though is that we're clearly not performing anywhere near our best, but we remain unbeaten and have had our best start in years. I also can't remember us getting so many late goals, which shows you the amount of both desire and belief from our players. Jon and Colin are clearly big on getting team spirit right, and you can see it permeating through this squad once again. Overall a lot to be positive about.

More to the point, when was the last time the Trust had an AGM?
How many of the board, which have been making decisions apparently on our behalf, are actually elected?
How many are co-opted?
I’d ask the legal advisor to advise if the organisation holding the money raised by the fans is still within the framework I believe it’s supposed to work within?
Would be great to understand if it’s all tickety boo…
I’m sure everything’s in order.

A quick scour of my email inbox shows the Trust last held an AGM, which was done over Zoom, in February this year.

[Lintott]

Although Hoskins has obviously bailed us out again with his goals, for his performance over the whole 90 I'm going with Lintott too. Been really impressed with him so far.

Disappointed to lose a winnable game, although i did go anticipating we would get knocked out. Echo the previous message I thought Haynes played well. That allowed Koiki to play as a LW which was an interesting experiment. He got plenty of shots away but he seems to come infield more often that not despite being physically gifted enough to beat his man (as he did second half that got them a booking) and going away from his left foot.

Magloire continues to concern me in a back 4. I never rated him as highly as many others and I still worry that he benefited massively from being in such a strong back 3 before. He used his pace to cover off danger at times really well, but then lapsed in concentration at least 3 times with not being aware who was around him and a really poor back pass. Think he is definitely best suited to a back 3. Guthrie really is going to be key to us this season, an injury to him would really give us issues as the other CB's just offer us different things to him.

I liked Fox and Leonard. Leonard in particular made a lot of bursts / picked up lots of positions to receive the ball but especially first half was not given it. In our best period after the subs it was him getting on the ball and giving one touch passes etc that got us looking much better, with his lovely through ball with the outside of his boot setting up Pinnock for a chance. Also liked what Fox had to offer, combative and decent on the ball also. To me I would like to see them both start with McWilliams and Sowerby start on the bench.

Bowie did the hard work often and then gave it away, including leading up to the second goal. There is promise there but today wasnt his day. Appere worked hard and glad he got his goal, still dont think he is the man to lead the line though.

All in all it was a very meh game, felt like a preseason friendly in many ways. Still, things to take away from the game at least.

We looked so much better when we actually went through the midfield as we did in the second half, i hope that can continue more so moving forward. Hope we start 433 or 4231 on Saturday.

Would echo pretty much everything said in this post to be honest.

A bit like last year, I just think 4-2-3-1 suits the better players we have and the sooner we change to it the better I think.

Promising start from Fox, and I think Sowerby could be sweating on his place potentially. Leonard looked a different player when he had the first team players around him and showed some of the creativity that we've been lacking in recent years from the middle of the park.

I've been impressed with what I've seen of Lintott actually, and similar to you lordjord I'm not sure I'm convinced with Magloire in a back four either. He constantly looks on the cusp of either doing something terrible or something brilliant, but he does look more susceptible to an error than our other CBs.

There's a really exciting player in Bowie too, but he needs to quickly improve his passing.

I was in the North Stand tonight and thought the PA system was very loud. IT did however have a wobble and buzzed horribly a couple of times.

Thought the same. Sat in the West last year and could barely hear it, but loud and clear last night in the North.