Good By My Fishy Friends

Quoted from Civvy at last

The likes of Mike Parker


.  Still. It's my toy and I won't share unless it's my terms !

Quoted from BIGChris

A reasonably accurate recollection of events KM. I tried to keep it factual and neutral

Mike Parker retained,( & still does to my knowledge) in round figures, £500k of shares but his holding PLUS the Trust holding of approx £535k meant that control lay outside the boardroom. The club needed a cash injection to meet regular commitments I.e. Wages etc.

The Trust were not in a position to inject cash and Mike was not interested in doing so.

JF had cash but wouldn't do so because, in theory at least, the Trust acting in cahoots with Mike Parker had enough voting powers to remove him within 28 days by calling an EGM.

It is not unreasonable (IMO) that if you are to invest cash that you want a degree of control. Would anybody really expect to invest without a say? Agreed. But if he'd bought more shares instead of lending it would have given him control. And the debt owed to him gave him de facto control anyway.

A proposal was negotiated that in return for transferring £200k of shares from the Trust to JF, he would also invest a further £200k in cash by buying shares. This is often forgotten in that JF did receive the shares but critically the club received a cash injection of £200k too.

From memory JF now owns something in the region of 46% of the club shares  Mike Parker  20%+ and the Trust 13%. The remainder is in the hands of (mostly) individual fans

The vote was something like 84% in favour of the proposal.

Some  said the Trust should have called JF's bluff  Gulity as charged - if anything I'm even more convinced we should have.. The membership decided otherwise. The Trust ( in its current form)at that stage was in its infancy and certainly not in a position to play Russian roulette with the clubs very existence within a couple of months of being relaunched.

Most know I am no longer part of the Trust board but I remain totally committed to the fans, through a properly constituted Trust, having a major say in the running of their club. I will always try and answer any questions as honestly and openly as I can

UTM