Its happening!!! The takeover!!!

If the takeover does eventually go ahead will John hand back 200k worth of shares to the Trust?  

The line trotted out at the time was that he needed them so that control remained in the boardroom, and seeing as he will no longer be part of the board (please!), he will obviously not need them for this purpose.

Notwithstanding of course that he didn’t actually pay for them.

Quoted from psgmariner

I don’t think you can saving us from admin was a huge mistake. Admin isn’t a silver bullet and it means a lot of people you owe money to don’t get paid. I’m glad we’ve never gone down that route.

I'm with you 100% Clubs like ours are nothing if they're not a part of the community in which they operate and admin would have hit other local businesses hardest. I want JF gone for aomebody progressive and optimistic but I don't for a minute agree it would have been better if we'd just gone into admin and copulated off a load of creditors.

Quoted from Quagmire

If the takeover does eventually go ahead will John hand back 200k worth of shares to the Trust?  

The line trotted out at the time was that he needed them so that control remained in the boardroom, and seeing as he will no longer be part of the board (please!), he will obviously not need them for this purpose.

Notwithstanding of course that he didn’t actually pay for them.

And it doesn't matter a fig if he's in the board room or not because by dint of his loans he controls the club anyway.

He didn't pay for those £250,000(?) worth of shares. But more the fool the Trust and the membership for voting to give him them.  It could be paraphrased as 'if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to take my bat and ball home'. The fools gave in to him. My mother should have spoken to them before they made that decision. She knew how to manage naughty children.

He effectively begged for control of the club. He didn't have to. He did it to protect his loans (fair enough you might say). He did things his way. He called the shots. He didn't want to share his toys. He managed to lose two previous investors in the club, at a time when we needed the money the most. He fell out with the ambulance brigade. Under his watch relations with the police are at their lowest ebb. We get fined by the football authorities for 'tapping up' another club's managers. We get fined by the FA for lack of control over public safety in the stadium. He makes decisions on the club's behalf on motions tabled at meetings abroad, and doesn't think he should consult his fellow board members, consequently losing the club thousands in lost gate receipts each game. He thinks people poorer than him are not as important (he does have a car that cost £80,000 which someone scratched, not something that cost only £1800 which obviously wouldn't matter as much if it got scratched). He connived in the hijacking of a local journalist at a public meeting that said journalist had agreed to chair. He suggested that those people who worked for the radio doing all the technical stuff that enabled the meeting to be broadcast, could stick around doing it for a bit of unpaid overtime if he bought them a drink. He says a manager resigned because of the fans, when the manager concerned says it was because he wasn't given what he was promised. He invites people to call him but then tells them not to speak to him when they ask questions he doesn't like. He contacts the operator of a message board to pull posts he doesn't like.

It's amazing why no one gives him any slack eh. It's all someone else's fault of course.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

And it doesn't matter a fig if he's in the board room or not because by dint of his loans he controls the club anyway.

He didn't pay for those £250,000(?) worth of shares. But more the fool the Trust and the membership for voting to give him them.  It could be paraphrased as 'if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to take my bat and ball home'. The fools gave in to him. My mother should have spoken to them before they made that decision. She knew how to manage naughty children.

He effectively begged for control of the club. He didn't have to. He did it to protect his loans (fair enough you might say). He did things his way. He called the shots. He didn't want to share his toys. He managed to lose two previous investors in the club, at a time when we needed the money the most. He fell out with the ambulance brigade. Under his watch relations with the police are at their lowest ebb. We get fined by the football authorities for 'tapping up' another club's managers. We get fined by the FA for lack of control over public safety in the stadium. He makes decisions on the club's behalf on motions tabled at meetings abroad, and doesn't think he should consult his fellow board members, consequently losing the club thousands in lost gate receipts each game. He thinks people poorer than him are not as important (he does have a car that cost £80,000 which someone scratched, not something that cost only £1800 which obviously wouldn't matter as much if it got scratched). He connived in the hijacking of a local journalist at a public meeting that said journalist had agreed to chair. He suggested that those people who worked for the radio doing all the technical stuff that enabled the meeting to be broadcast, could stick around doing it for a bit of unpaid overtime if he bought them a drink. He says a manager resigned because of the fans, when the manager concerned says it was because he wasn't given what he was promised. He invites people to call him but then tells them not to speak to him when they ask questions he doesn't like. He contacts the operator of a message board to pull posts he doesn't like.

It's amazing why no one gives him any slack eh. It's all someone else's fault of course.

There is so much stuff that has gone on you could literally write a book. Your excellent post has just scratched the surface. Let us hope for new owners soon.

Quoted from chaos33

Forgive me whilst I guffaw at the monumental irony of you posting that whilst recalling all your posts on the brexit threads! 🥴

Ssssh don't give the game away, nothing to see here

Quoted from KingstonMariner

And it doesn't matter a fig if he's in the board room or not because by dint of his loans he controls the club anyway.

He didn't pay for those £250,000(?) worth of shares. But more the fool the Trust and the membership for voting to give him them.  It could be paraphrased as 'if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to take my bat and ball home'. The fools gave in to him. My mother should have spoken to them before they made that decision. She knew how to manage naughty children.

He effectively begged for control of the club. He didn't have to. He did it to protect his loans (fair enough you might say). He did things his way. He called the shots. He didn't want to share his toys. He managed to lose two previous investors in the club, at a time when we needed the money the most. He fell out with the ambulance brigade. Under his watch relations with the police are at their lowest ebb. We get fined by the football authorities for 'tapping up' another club's managers. We get fined by the FA for lack of control over public safety in the stadium. He makes decisions on the club's behalf on motions tabled at meetings abroad, and doesn't think he should consult his fellow board members, consequently losing the club thousands in lost gate receipts each game. He thinks people poorer than him are not as important (he does have a car that cost £80,000 which someone scratched, not something that cost only £1800 which obviously wouldn't matter as much if it got scratched). He connived in the hijacking of a local journalist at a public meeting that said journalist had agreed to chair. He suggested that those people who worked for the radio doing all the technical stuff that enabled the meeting to be broadcast, could stick around doing it for a bit of unpaid overtime if he bought them a drink. He says a manager resigned because of the fans, when the manager concerned says it was because he wasn't given what he was promised. He invites people to call him but then tells them not to speak to him when they ask questions he doesn't like. He contacts the operator of a message board to pull posts he doesn't like.

It's amazing why no one gives him any slack eh. It's all someone else's fault of course.

But apart from that he’s done okay hasn’t he?

Quoted from KingstonMariner

And it doesn't matter a fig if he's in the board room or not because by dint of his loans he controls the club anyway.

He didn't pay for those £250,000(?) worth of shares. But more the fool the Trust and the membership for voting to give him them.  It could be paraphrased as 'if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to take my bat and ball home'. The fools gave in to him. My mother should have spoken to them before they made that decision. She knew how to manage naughty children.

He effectively begged for control of the club. He didn't have to. He did it to protect his loans (fair enough you might say). He did things his way. He called the shots. He didn't want to share his toys. He managed to lose two previous investors in the club, at a time when we needed the money the most. He fell out with the ambulance brigade. Under his watch relations with the police are at their lowest ebb. We get fined by the football authorities for 'tapping up' another club's managers. We get fined by the FA for lack of control over public safety in the stadium. He makes decisions on the club's behalf on motions tabled at meetings abroad, and doesn't think he should consult his fellow board members, consequently losing the club thousands in lost gate receipts each game. He thinks people poorer than him are not as important (he does have a car that cost £80,000 which someone scratched, not something that cost only £1800 which obviously wouldn't matter as much if it got scratched). He connived in the hijacking of a local journalist at a public meeting that said journalist had agreed to chair. He suggested that those people who worked for the radio doing all the technical stuff that enabled the meeting to be broadcast, could stick around doing it for a bit of unpaid overtime if he bought them a drink. He says a manager resigned because of the fans, when the manager concerned says it was because he wasn't given what he was promised. He invites people to call him but then tells them not to speak to him when they ask questions he doesn't like. He contacts the operator of a message board to pull posts he doesn't like.

It's amazing why no one gives him any slack eh. It's all someone else's fault of course.

Post of the week. Nail. Head. Though just the tip of the iceberg!

As I see it, JF loaned the club 2 million, and his stewardship (by his own admission) cost the club
3 million (the non-league years).

So he "owes" us a million, right?

I'd say let's (us fans) forget about it!

It's got to be worth a million to get rid of the bungling egotist whose cost to the club in terms of
loss of goodwill has been incalculable.

Quoted from GrimRob

To make this thread easier to moderate we have moved some of the contents into an archive which is not visible to non-moderators. All recent posts have been kept and a few of the earliest messsages. Many of the posts which have been removed are perfectly OK but have been removed as they are old and have largely been read

The messages have not been deleted and may be restored at some point in the future once the dust has settled and a resolution to the ongoing talks has been reached.

To help us moderate this discussion please try not to post "inside information" about the talks. Opinions are fine but please don't post facts which are not in the public domain or your posts (and any replies quoting them) may be removed,

I appreciate you're in a difficult "piggy-in-the-middle" position, Rob - and the legal framework you have to
operate in offers you less room than you'd like.

This is a Catch-22 situation: I cannot post facts on the Fishy unless they are already in the public domain.
But the Fishy is where I would want to post a fact (i.e. something which is provably true) about GTFC in
order to put it in the public domain.
It's a Grimsby Town fans forum, after all...

Effectively you're binding the Fishy faithful to the (presumed) confidentiality agreement that exists in the
present circumstances...but we're not signatories to it! And there's no reason for Joe Public to have any
respect for such agreements - they exist specifically to keep us in the dark!

For balance: if a person who's never lied to you tells you something - this is not a fact. It is something
you can reasonably have 100% confidence in...but it is NOT a fact - unless you can verify it independently
(which will generally be impossible in GTFC/football matters).

If I could make a contribution to the debate from a historical perspective.

When the shares gift to the Trust was made it meant that JF didn't hold the majority of the shares. This meant in theory at least that the person with the ability to finance a club that was in non-league and in choppy waters financially could be out voted on any issue which presented itself.

You may or may not agree with the stance but JF decided at the time that he didn't want to commit further money to the club in the situation where he couldn't have a deciding say in what that money was used for.