Tangled up in Blue
Certified Senior Citizen⭐
<Introduction - Good News Anyone ?
A colleague of mine is helping a friend collate some information on our club’s season and asked me for input - I had to look at his request 3 times before I could think of anything positive. Our football club’s chairman of course is always positive and dislikes having negativity around him…I mean imagine you hadn’t been paid for 2 months – “good morning young poor person” – “oh er good morning Mr Chairman top of the morning to you”
Season Tickets - Have you bought yours yet? I’ve just got mine – not for the football, but for the journey to the high court.
Ok, enough of the attempt at humour – no seriously, I’m gonna cry soon if Ron’s Easter Bunny doesn’t appear soon.
With affairs on the pitch not much better than those off of it, we look to be destined for the good old 4th Division. A desperately disappointing result against Exeter, despite several decent performances (not least from our captain) leaves us in a perilous position.
As predicted by many, the club were unable to pay the Trust back the money loaned in December. As a result of this, the club asked for more time to pay and the Trust has agreed to an extension with a revised date target of April and a final repayment date of 30th June.
The original loan and indeed the extension has created a lot of feedback (not all positive) and I thought it worth explaining a little more of the circumstances behind the loan.
Members may remember the large payment made to HMRC in late 2009 – the Trust were aware soon after, that many local suppliers had not been paid and approached Ron Martin primarily to see if the supporters could help but not necessarily financially.
That approach developed into his request for a Loan and based on the “Help not Hinder” principle we agreed that we wanted to help and a potential agreement was drawn up. This was agreed by 100% of the committee via e-mail.
Nothing much happened for a while; until I got an "urgent" phone call on a Friday (I think our next game was Tuesday). You may remember we were previously in an Embargo situation and I think we had 10 first team players fit. Ron Martin was trying to clear the embargo and had come up short - so asked for help.
The Trust funds were used to help lift the embargo on that day. The loan was accompanied by a personal guarantee from Ron Martin – so that if the club were unable to pay the Trust back then Ron would. Borrowing money from supporters openly is a sensitive issue and I agreed to his request for this to be low key in announcement terms. Of course, Ron then announced it, alongside the separate issue (which he had agreed many months before) of the seat on the board (although he changed it from Operating Company to Football Club (Without telling us) - I favour Operating Company - maybe we'll get both - or none of course, who knows...!).
I did believe this was commercially sensitive personally, although I know that a lot of people are unhappy about the decision not to announce publicly. In addition, despite everything that has happened since, I still believe this was the right decision based on the situation at the time. Obviously subsequent events and the passage of time have made this information less sensitive.
I stand by the decision and acknowledge that it may turn out to be wrong and despite the agreement of all the committee originally, I will take the fall if necessary.
The extension to the loan was easier to explain because by then, of course, Ron had announced it (the extension by the way was not unanimous - although it was a very clear majority).
If any member wants to talk to me about any of this I am available match days in the Shrimpers Bar, can be contacted via the Trust Website. You will also get the chance to discuss matters with the committee at our forthcoming Members Open Meeting on Monday 12th April, details of which can be found later in this Newsletter.<
A question.
In the event of the Chairman's or SUFC's bankruptcy does this mean that the Trust will seek to recover the 60K directly from the Chairman's personal assets which were used to guarantee the 2m loan from Sainbury's?
A colleague of mine is helping a friend collate some information on our club’s season and asked me for input - I had to look at his request 3 times before I could think of anything positive. Our football club’s chairman of course is always positive and dislikes having negativity around him…I mean imagine you hadn’t been paid for 2 months – “good morning young poor person” – “oh er good morning Mr Chairman top of the morning to you”
Season Tickets - Have you bought yours yet? I’ve just got mine – not for the football, but for the journey to the high court.
Ok, enough of the attempt at humour – no seriously, I’m gonna cry soon if Ron’s Easter Bunny doesn’t appear soon.
With affairs on the pitch not much better than those off of it, we look to be destined for the good old 4th Division. A desperately disappointing result against Exeter, despite several decent performances (not least from our captain) leaves us in a perilous position.
As predicted by many, the club were unable to pay the Trust back the money loaned in December. As a result of this, the club asked for more time to pay and the Trust has agreed to an extension with a revised date target of April and a final repayment date of 30th June.
The original loan and indeed the extension has created a lot of feedback (not all positive) and I thought it worth explaining a little more of the circumstances behind the loan.
Members may remember the large payment made to HMRC in late 2009 – the Trust were aware soon after, that many local suppliers had not been paid and approached Ron Martin primarily to see if the supporters could help but not necessarily financially.
That approach developed into his request for a Loan and based on the “Help not Hinder” principle we agreed that we wanted to help and a potential agreement was drawn up. This was agreed by 100% of the committee via e-mail.
Nothing much happened for a while; until I got an "urgent" phone call on a Friday (I think our next game was Tuesday). You may remember we were previously in an Embargo situation and I think we had 10 first team players fit. Ron Martin was trying to clear the embargo and had come up short - so asked for help.
The Trust funds were used to help lift the embargo on that day. The loan was accompanied by a personal guarantee from Ron Martin – so that if the club were unable to pay the Trust back then Ron would. Borrowing money from supporters openly is a sensitive issue and I agreed to his request for this to be low key in announcement terms. Of course, Ron then announced it, alongside the separate issue (which he had agreed many months before) of the seat on the board (although he changed it from Operating Company to Football Club (Without telling us) - I favour Operating Company - maybe we'll get both - or none of course, who knows...!).
I did believe this was commercially sensitive personally, although I know that a lot of people are unhappy about the decision not to announce publicly. In addition, despite everything that has happened since, I still believe this was the right decision based on the situation at the time. Obviously subsequent events and the passage of time have made this information less sensitive.
I stand by the decision and acknowledge that it may turn out to be wrong and despite the agreement of all the committee originally, I will take the fall if necessary.
The extension to the loan was easier to explain because by then, of course, Ron had announced it (the extension by the way was not unanimous - although it was a very clear majority).
If any member wants to talk to me about any of this I am available match days in the Shrimpers Bar, can be contacted via the Trust Website. You will also get the chance to discuss matters with the committee at our forthcoming Members Open Meeting on Monday 12th April, details of which can be found later in this Newsletter.<
A question.
In the event of the Chairman's or SUFC's bankruptcy does this mean that the Trust will seek to recover the 60K directly from the Chairman's personal assets which were used to guarantee the 2m loan from Sainbury's?
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