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I shall be 62 later this month, so it's about time I made my will (should have done it already, actually).

Having ducked out of parenthood, the natural recipients are my brother and sister. In the event of me outlasting both my siblings, I'd always planned
to leave any cash to GTFC. (As I'm the only smoker amongst we three, I expect to go first - but you never know)

The current regime has killed that notion.

However, if the Trust were to establish a 'fan-ownership fund' (in my mind, a bank account which can only grow till it's big enough to take over the club)
I would be happy to make the terms of my will: the estate to be divided equally between my brother, sister and the aforementioned fund.
We won't be talking a huge amount btw! ;D

This presupposes that the Trust openly commits to fan-ownership of the club being its long-term aim. (???????? )

The existence of such a fund might give the Trust's representative a bit more clout, and - in time - the interest from the account would be a source of
income for the Trust. It can receive contributions from the living as well as the recently deceased, of course.

Thoughts?
UTM

Could fans also pay into the account via a monthly direct debit rather than just waiting for lump sums to be gratefully received?

If so then I'm sure many would contribute knowing that the outcome would be worthwhile.

I like this. I'd pay a few quid here and there when I could.

Nice gesture, but don't underestimate what is required in term of funds and expertise. Operation promotion would pale into insignificance.

With the exception of removing the current board members, how does fan ownership change anything? The overwhelming theme on here is that the board don't spend enough money to achieve success, yet the club has consistently lost money. Fan ownership isn't going to bring in the sort of money to start spending like Scunthorpe, who I keep reading we should be competing with. I agree in the short term, gates will rise as people buy into the fan ownership and something new. But unless this is backed up by success on the pitch, continually, then they will drop back down and the status quo resumes. Only now, you have to go back out and ask for fans to cover the losses, which will take time to raise the funds.

All this ignores the fact the you're going to have to raise a significant portion of the £2 million to take control of the club. How much is a normal fan going to pay towards this, and how many fans are going to put into the pot? I'd expect if you can raise £300k then that would be an incredible achievement. Not even close to what's required to buy and then run the football club. I may well be wrong, but nobody has put the wheels in motion, which suggests that there isn't truly the belief that this will work. Even the trust don't seem to be behind fan ownership.

You can quote Exeter City, who paid off the debt largely through £1 million in receipts against Man Utd with a replay and tv money. Don't forget the other end of the spectrum has Stockport County. Wrexham have hardly been a success. Chester have peaked and now heading downwards. Every situation is different, but to only quote a couple of successes and ignore the failures is a misguiding picture. Chesterfield fans tried it and 2 years later it went belly up too.

Quoted from oldun

Nice gesture, but don't underestimate what is required in term of funds and expertise. Operation promotion would pale into insignificance.

Absolutely - I wouldn't know how to set something like that up.....I'm hoping sufficient expertise exists within the Trust (or can be found).

Managers are sometimes accused of not having a Plan B, so here's mine:
Calculate how much JF has paid for all his shares;
Add to this the amount of the benign loans;
Divide by the number of shares JF owns to obtain a 'fair' price for each share;
The Trust then approaches JF and asks if he would be willing to sell his shares (piecemeal) at that price;
If so, and some of his public statements suggest he might well be agreeable, every 3/6months/year the Trust empties its fan-ownership fund
buying his shares at that price until effective control has been achieved.

Effective control is the beginning, not the end of the story. The Fanboard would have to agree a direction and strategy for the club.
Regular visitors to this forum will be well aware that disagreement amongst Grimsby (or any) fans is not unknown.
FWIW I'd offer this as the philosophy of the 'new' club:
GTFC exists to provide an opportunity for local footballing talent, and others, to play professional football at the highest level at which
they can be competitive.
Someone else may prefer 'We don't rest till we've won the Champions League 3 times in a row' .
(by which time we'll have certainly earned a rest!)

Plus a million other things......it won't be easy.

The reason the club has lost money is because of how badly it is run. It's that simple. Poor use of resources and a refusal to move with the times to maximise profits.

Fan ownership would be fantastic and I would be much more confident in the fans running the club successfully and in a sustainable manner than Fenty and his mates.

Big problem is that Fenty had absolutely no desire to sell.

Quoted from diehardmariner

The reason the club has lost money is because of how badly it is run. It's that simple. Poor use of resources and a refusal to move with the times to maximise profits.

Fan ownership would be fantastic and I would be much more confident in the fans running the club successfully and in a sustainable manner than Fenty and his mates.

Big problem is that Fenty had absolutely no desire to sell.

I think he’s every desire to sell

It might take a long time to achieve, but the fans will be here long after the current players, manager and board have left. I'm not currently a member of the trust and the handling of the Mike Parker shares plus the £30k a year for nothing has made me wary of joining - but a long term plan of fan ownership would see me signing up and I don't think I'd be the only one.

Fan-ownership is not all as it seems, only so much as fans you can give continually on a monthly basis, I can only afford £200 per month for Darlington. Whereas others cannot anything.

Clubs will always need an investor on the side sticking X amount in the club. There’s not a chance whatsoever clubs can survive with just fans funding.

Exeter managed it due to the FA cup games against the big clubs.
Wimbledon managed it due to selling a ground they effectively stole from Kingstonian.
We are struggling because we have a shitty ground at moment that we’ve funded ourselves and can’t win a cup game to save our lives lol.

If you ever go down this route, it’s a long hard road and you just can’t stop giving money to the club if you are frustrated at teams performance. The club would always be reliant on your incomings to help run it on a day to day basis.

You can guarantee that if a load of people put money into a pot there is going to be disagreement over how that money is spent - which would inevitably result in funds being withdrawn by some after a while. I think having one rich person in charge is the best business model, it makes the whole process a lot simpler. If we had a decent manager and were pushing up the league there would be a lot less discussion about who is on the board.

Quoted from dapperz fun pub

I think he’s every desire to sell

I'd imagine if there was a serious, plausible offer from somebody where Fenty could recoup all or even most of his loans, he'd be out in a flash. Problem is, barring some good football fortune, there isn't likely to be, and it doesn't seem probable that this is going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Simple fact is that we're a smallish impoverished northern town at the end of the line, geographically speaking, which has been going through very difficult times since 2008 especially so wealthy benefactors are going to be few and far between.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to success on the pitch. If we were 10 points better off and in a play off position, we wouldn't be having this debate. So you have to ask if a fan run board is any more likely to pick the right manager than the current board, because that's the crux of it. JF is right in saying to an extent that PR is done on the pitch because if we are winning games, the focus is where it should be, on the team.

I think the board know business and seem to me to be doing a decent job in that regard, although i'm sure some will disagree. The stumbling block is the playing side of the equation. Is there any more knowledge in that area among fans than there is currently in the board room? Then there are the other gripes about communication and PR. Fair enough, there are possibly people out there who could address these issues but that won't put the ball into the back of the net.

In all the years i've supported Town, i have never really given much thought to what happens behind the scenes, but nowadays it's all anyone seems to talk about. From the outside looking in, the board looks a bit same-y and one dimensional to me. This is not a criticism as such, merely an observation and i also think that all the flak thrown their way has made them entrenched and an 'us and them' situation has arisen. The fans forum was a disaster because both sides went into it with a pugilistic attitude and both sides are now drawing a line in the sand it appears.

So even if all the financial and operational hurdles could be overcome and the fans could take over the running of the club, are they any more likely to know what to do to bring success than the current set up? It would be a massively expensive and time consuming exercise to find out wouldn't it? I'm certain that if we somehow came up with a way of doing it and giving JF what he wants, he'd be off into the sunset in a flash. I don't think it is just about money either, because i don't think the board will relinquish power to just anybody who comes up with the necessary dosh. They would have to feel that the club was in safe hands also. I think only then would people get a grasp of how difficult it must be to run a loss making lower league football team.

The only way i can see fans changing things for the better is to grow the Trust somehow and get a bit more diversity into the club decision making process. Can the fans bring their wide ranging skills to the table and work alongside the current regime? Would the current regime be open to that? I'd be prepared to put some money into a pot as mentioned in the original post if it could help in some way.

Quoted from ginnywings

At the end of the day, it all boils down to success on the pitch. If we were 10 points better off and in a play off position, we wouldn't be having this debate. So you have to ask if a fan run board is any more likely to pick the right manager than the current board, because that's the crux of it. JF is right in saying to an extent that PR is done on the pitch because if we are winning games, the focus is where it should be, on the team.

I think the board know business and seem to me to be doing a decent job in that regard, although i'm sure some will disagree. The stumbling block is the playing side of the equation. Is there any more knowledge in that area among fans than there is currently in the board room? Then there are the other gripes about communication and PR. Fair enough, there are possibly people out there who could address these issues but that won't put the ball into the back of the net.

In all the years i've supported Town, i have never really given much thought to what happens behind the scenes, but nowadays it's all anyone seems to talk about. From the outside looking in, the board looks a bit same-y and one dimensional to me. This is not a criticism as such, merely an observation and i also think that all the flak thrown their way has made them entrenched and an 'us and them' situation has arisen. The fans forum was a disaster because both sides went into it with a pugilistic attitude and both sides are now drawing a line in the sand it appears.

So even if all the financial and operational hurdles could be overcome and the fans could take over the running of the club, are they any more likely to know what to do to bring success than the current set up? It would be a massively expensive and time consuming exercise to find out wouldn't it? I'm certain that if we somehow came up with a way of doing it and giving JF what he wants, he'd be off into the sunset in a flash. I don't think it is just about money either, because i don't think the board will relinquish power to just anybody who comes up with the necessary dosh. They would have to feel that the club was in safe hands also. I think only then would people get a grasp of how difficult it must be to run a loss making lower league football team.

The only way i can see fans changing things for the better is to grow the Trust somehow and get a bit more diversity into the club decision making process. Can the fans bring their wide ranging skills to the table and work alongside the current regime? Would the current regime be open to that? I'd be prepared to put some money into a pot as mentioned in the original post if it could help in some way.

This sums it up perfectly for me.

The only reason all the crap that is coming out at the moment is because of the crap being served up on the pitch. A change in management and an improvement in the playing side of things and it will all be forgotten.

The only stumbling block is getting the RIGHT management team in place given who and where we are.

Quoted from ginnywings

At the end of the day, it all boils down to success on the pitch. If we were 10 points better off and in a play off position, we wouldn't be having this debate. So you have to ask if a fan run board is any more likely to pick the right manager than the current board, because that's the crux of it. JF is right in saying to an extent that PR is done on the pitch because if we are winning games, the focus is where it should be, on the team.

I think the board know business and seem to me to be doing a decent job in that regard, although i'm sure some will disagree. The stumbling block is the playing side of the equation. Is there any more knowledge in that area among fans than there is currently in the board room? Then there are the other gripes about communication and PR. Fair enough, there are possibly people out there who could address these issues but that won't put the ball into the back of the net.

In all the years i've supported Town, i have never really given much thought to what happens behind the scenes, but nowadays it's all anyone seems to talk about. From the outside looking in, the board looks a bit same-y and one dimensional to me. This is not a criticism as such, merely an observation and i also think that all the flak thrown their way has made them entrenched and an 'us and them' situation has arisen. The fans forum was a disaster because both sides went into it with a pugilistic attitude and both sides are now drawing a line in the sand it appears.

So even if all the financial and operational hurdles could be overcome and the fans could take over the running of the club, are they any more likely to know what to do to bring success than the current set up? It would be a massively expensive and time consuming exercise to find out wouldn't it? I'm certain that if we somehow came up with a way of doing it and giving JF what he wants, he'd be off into the sunset in a flash. I don't think it is just about money either, because i don't think the board will relinquish power to just anybody who comes up with the necessary dosh. They would have to feel that the club was in safe hands also. I think only then would people get a grasp of how difficult it must be to run a loss making lower league football team.

The only way i can see fans changing things for the better is to grow the Trust somehow and get a bit more diversity into the club decision making process. Can the fans bring their wide ranging skills to the table and work alongside the current regime? Would the current regime be open to that? I'd be prepared to put some money into a pot as mentioned in the original post if it could help in some way.

Best post on this thread by a country mile...

Can anyone name a fan owned club that has or is successful ? I may be wrong but can’t think of one. Pie in the sky dreams me thinks. A non starter for me. Unless a dozen or so millionaires suddenly turn up !

Quoted from barrattstandman

Can anyone name a fan owned club that has or is successful ? I may be wrong but can’t think of one. Pie in the sky dreams me thinks. A non starter for me. Unless a dozen or so millionaires suddenly turn up !

Newport and Exeter appear to be doing ok, for now anyway. Don't know what baseline they started from though, so it could have been an easier task for them, or could have just been a case of having to do that because there was no alternative.

I think it's time to put the whole fan ownership thing to bed for now and either go support the team or stop going altogether. We've been through worse times on the pitch.

I think Exeter got back on track after their Cup ties against Man United some years back. Footballing fortune that cleared their debts and helped them redevelop the club. Obviously, they've been well-run since then and have been lucky (or clever) enough to sell a couple of players on for good money.

Newport were bankrolled by lottery winners when they won promotion out of the Conference, I seem to think?

Problem is that there will always be one or two exceptions to the rule, but they will only ever be exceptions. Not everybody can get have success and develop players for profit because you've always got to have losers somewhere in the chain and there aren't enough good players around these days, especially since the big clubs started to hoover up all the most promising youngsters.

I agree that it's not much fun at the moment, but I've got my season ticket so I'll continue to go in the hope rather than expectation that things will improve.

My Dad wasn't going to bother going at the weekend but relented in the end. Wouldn't surprise me if the same thing happened next weekend!

Quoted from Maringer

I'd imagine if there was a serious, plausible offer from somebody where Fenty could recoup all or even most of his loans, he'd be out in a flash..

If Marley is to be believed (which I find difficult and don't generally advise) there was, from the USA but Fenty didn't bite their hand off.

I'd take that claim with a huge pinch of salt. Why would anybody in the US with no links to the area want to buy a small football club on the East Coast of England? No money to be made, little chance of great success. Seems a bit too bizarre to be true.

How about instead of 4000 of us descending on Sincil Bank on March 17th and swelling Lincoln City’s coffers we each donate the £25 we would spend to a ‘Trust’ fund to begin the process, there’s £100,000 to start with.

Quoted from ginnywings

At the end of the day, it all boils down to success on the pitch. If we were 10 points better off and in a play off position, we wouldn't be having this debate. So you have to ask if a fan run board is any more likely to pick the right manager than the current board, because that's the crux of it. JF is right in saying to an extent that PR is done on the pitch because if we are winning games, the focus is where it should be, on the team.

I think the board know business and seem to me to be doing a decent job in that regard, although i'm sure some will disagree. The stumbling block is the playing side of the equation. Is there any more knowledge in that area among fans than there is currently in the board room? Then there are the other gripes about communication and PR. Fair enough, there are possibly people out there who could address these issues but that won't put the ball into the back of the net.

In all the years i've supported Town, i have never really given much thought to what happens behind the scenes, but nowadays it's all anyone seems to talk about. From the outside looking in, the board looks a bit same-y and one dimensional to me. This is not a criticism as such, merely an observation and i also think that all the flak thrown their way has made them entrenched and an 'us and them' situation has arisen. The fans forum was a disaster because both sides went into it with a pugilistic attitude and both sides are now drawing a line in the sand it appears.

So even if all the financial and operational hurdles could be overcome and the fans could take over the running of the club, are they any more likely to know what to do to bring success than the current set up? It would be a massively expensive and time consuming exercise to find out wouldn't it? I'm certain that if we somehow came up with a way of doing it and giving JF what he wants, he'd be off into the sunset in a flash. I don't think it is just about money either, because i don't think the board will relinquish power to just anybody who comes up with the necessary dosh. They would have to feel that the club was in safe hands also. I think only then would people get a grasp of how difficult it must be to run a loss making lower league football team.

The only way i can see fans changing things for the better is to grow the Trust somehow and get a bit more diversity into the club decision making process. Can the fans bring their wide ranging skills to the table and work alongside the current regime? Would the current regime be open to that? I'd be prepared to put some money into a pot as mentioned in the original post if it could help in some way.

Sadly for whatever reason the Trust at present don`t seem to be getting back to people who offer to help? I take this that they are currently weighing up which direction they want to go and perhaps are looking to this survey for a way forward so to speak?

Quoted from 1mickylyons

Sadly for whatever reason the Trust at present don`t seem to be getting back to people who offer to help? I take this that they are currently weighing up which direction they want to go and perhaps are looking to this survey for a way forward so to speak?

Yeah, there does seem to be a few people that make the point that the Trust don't get back to them, but they are all volunteers with jobs and lives other than GTFC, so maybe that is understandable.

Quoted from Maringer

I'd take that claim with a huge pinch of salt. Why would anybody in the US with no links to the area want to buy a small football club on the East Coast of England? No money to be made, little chance of great success. Seems a bit too bizarre to be true.

What ties to Scunthorpe does their multi millionaire Chairman have, who pumps in over £250K a season with no return.

I like the idea of the trust having a paying in account to either buy more shares or use the money to invest in something that will benefit the fans.

The problem is if the trust were to be in a position of power to challenge Fenty we saw what happened last time, £200k worth of donated shares gobbled up by a man who if he equalled MP shares as agreed wouldn't have put the trust in that position.

Why would anyone work with someone like that. Fenty needs to be surgically removed like a deep rooted benign verruca.

There is no perfect model for fan ownership. Newport sort of manage it through fundraising and subs but, as I understand it, basically it is underpinned by the former owner keeping his money in the club while handing over all decision making to the Community Trust. Even so they still have to raise at the very least the equivalent of our OP every single year just to cover expenses.

Swansea did it when they were desperate but theirs was backed by the local council and eventually the fans element sold out to private ownership because they simply could not sustain the income needed even in an area of high population. Other clubs have done it for other reasons, like Chester re-starting the club. The point is that there is no single blueprint for running and financing a club. Looking at other clubs is no real help, GTFC fans would have to find their own unique solution.

I wouldn’t say fan ownership is impossible but I just cannot see how it is financially viable, given the current state of the club and support.

Some of it must come down to what happens to the money already loaned and invested in the club. If there are repayments to be managed then the drain on income may be unsustainable. A new ground might help if only by taking ground management decisions out of the equation to be replaced with a predictable annual rental bill. Even without that, the costs of running a club may well be beyond the capability of a community effort and leave very little left over for transfers and wages. Judging by the split response to the PPW site for a new ground community support does not look promising and it is a sad fact of life that, while many people like us love the club, many in the local community would be apathetic to its demise.

.

Newport have just beaten Leeds in front of the TV cameras, so that's their finances sorted for a year or two. This time last season, they were in a relegation battle.

Quoted from Ipswin

If Marley is to be believed (which I find difficult and don't generally advise) there was, from the USA but Fenty didn't bite their hand off.

Yes I mean on that note do we really believe an offer was there and these lot never grabbed it based on the levels of abuse they get which keep all and sundry from joining the board?

Quoted from ginnywings

Newport have just beaten Leeds in front of the TV cameras, so that's their finances sorted for a year or two. This time last season, they were in a relegation battle.

Good for them but Newport is not Grimsby. Last January we sold Bogle for a small fortune and now where are we?

Football doesn’t work like that. If Newport get a decent draw in the next round tonight, that might give them a financial boost but so far they won’t have made a lot of cup cash. The problems for fan ownership don’t happen when things are going well but when they are struggling on the field and it becomes very hard to enthuse the not so faithful to put their hands in their pockets. That’s the same position we are in.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Good for them but Newport is not Grimsby. Last January we sold Bogle for a small fortune and now where are we?

Football doesn’t work like that. If Newport get a decent draw in the next round tonight, that might give them a financial boost but so far they won’t have made a lot of cup cash. The problems for fan ownership don’t happen when things are going well but when they are struggling on the field and it becomes very hard to enthuse the not so faithful to put their hands in their pockets. That’s the same position we are in.

Well yeah, i know all that. I'm not advocating fan ownership. In fact I've already said in other posts that i don't think it's feasible. I'm just pointing out that they have progressed far more in a season than we have.

They may not have made much money yet, but they have made a good deal more than we have from a cup run and upped their exposure and confidence levels. They are on the up and will probably beat us on Saturday i fear.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Good for them but Newport is not Grimsby. Last January we sold Bogle for a small fortune and now where are we?

Football doesn’t work like that. If Newport get a decent draw in the next round tonight, that might give them a financial boost but so far they won’t have made a lot of cup cash. The problems for fan ownership don’t happen when things are going well but when they are struggling on the field and it becomes very hard to enthuse the not so faithful to put their hands in their pockets. That’s the same position we are in.

I'd say that the difference is they have a manager with some greater level of ability in distinguishing a decent player. Why we were never in for podge baffles me still

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

I'd say that the difference is they have a manager with some greater level of ability in distinguishing a decent player. Why we were never in for podge baffles me still

There will be fun and games if he scores the winner on Saturday. ??)

Quoted from mimma

The only reason all the crap that is coming out at the moment is because of the crap being served up on the pitch. A change in management and an improvement in the playing side of things and it will all be forgotten.

The only stumbling block is getting the RIGHT management team in place given who and where we are.

Well obviously no-one would want to get rid of this board if they were doing a good job. The whole point is that they aren't!

After 15 years of Fenty's best efforts the side produces a performance against Morecambe which had most Fishy posters in utter despair.
15 years is a long time, certainly long enough for a fair assessment of his capabilities as chairman/non-chairman.

So the first thing to point out is that his record of 'getting the RIGHT management team in place' is pretty abysmal.
We need more football wisdom in the boardroom; huge egos and yes-men are an excellent recipe for corporate disaster.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Good for them but Newport is not Grimsby. Last January we sold Bogle for a small fortune and now where are we?

Football doesn’t work like that. If Newport get a decent draw in the next round tonight, that might give them a financial boost but so far they won’t have made a lot of cup cash. The problems for fan ownership don’t happen when things are going well but when they are struggling on the field and it becomes very hard to enthuse the not so faithful to put their hands in their pockets. That’s the same position we are in.

In terms of getting through to the 4th round they have likely had around £100,000 in prize money and a similar amount if not more in additional gate receipts and live TV money.

Whereas we earned diddly squat.

Quoted from AndyDarloFC

Fan-ownership is not all as it seems, only so much as fans you can give continually on a monthly basis, I can only afford £200 per month for Darlington. Whereas others cannot anything.

Clubs will always need an investor on the side sticking X amount in the club. There’s not a chance whatsoever clubs can survive with just fans funding.

Exeter managed it due to the FA cup games against the big clubs.
Wimbledon managed it due to selling a ground they effectively stole from Kingstonian.
We are struggling because we have a shitty ground at moment that we’ve funded ourselves and can’t win a cup game to save our lives lol.

If you ever go down this route, it’s a long hard road and you just can’t stop giving money to the club if you are frustrated at teams performance. The club would always be reliant on your incomings to help run it on a day to day basis.

That’s simply a lie about Wimbledon stealing Kingsmeadow Andy. They bought the lease from the guys who owned Kingstonian at the time. The guys that owned it at the time had bought the Ks for a quid and undertook to clear the debts, and made millions from the sale of the lease.

As sad as it is for the Ks, it wasn’t theft and if anyone is culpable of any immorality it’s the former owners. Also I don’t recall there being much opposition from Ks fans when the debt was run up by the previous regime through giving Chappel a bigger playing budget than they could hope to sustain. That’s why I think we should avoid the sugar daddy model of club ownership that many on this board are supporting.

Quoted from barralad

Best post on this thread by a country mile...

In your opinion. I'll state again, I admire the Trust greatly but they have no power and pay for a meaningless seat on the board. Marley, Day & Chapman will vote Fenty's way all day & every day - they have no money in the club & one in particular treats the fans with the same disdain as Fenty does.

You can grow the trust all you like but without a position of power & influence, GTFC will continue in the same, time-honoured Fenty way.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

In your opinion. I'll state again, I admire the Trust greatly but they have no power and pay for a meaningless seat on the board. Marley, Day & Chapman will vote Fenty's way all day & every day - they have no money in the club & one in particular treats the fans with the same disdain as Fenty does.

You can grow the trust all you like but without a position of power & influence, GTFC will continue in the same, time-honoured Fenty way.

Of course it's my opinion just as the stuff you keep repeating is yours. I don't know what you base your opinion on facts-wise and seeing as I don't have records of votes made I'm not sure how you can say with such certainty the way individual board members voted on any given issue. Under your argument the only way The Trust would have any influence at all would be to have a majority on the Board of GTFC. We don't deserve that level of representation and unless the club becomes fan owned which is extremely unlikely in the short or even medium term then it isn't going to happen. You say you admire the Trust but then criticise that what it has worked hard to achieve is meaningless. I speak to people weekly who are heavily involved in football trusts across the country and there are a lot who would kill for the profile we have with our arrangement. You should try ap0lying some balance to your view. Everything isn't as black as you paint it...

Great response Ian. UTM

Quoted from barralad

Of course it's my opinion just as the stuff you keep repeating is yours. I don't know what you base your opinion on facts-wise and seeing as I don't have records of votes made I'm not sure how you can say with such certainty the way individual board members voted on any given issue. Under your argument the only way The Trust would have any influence at all would be to have a majority on the Board of GTFC. We don't deserve that level of representation and unless the club becomes fan owned which is extremely unlikely in the short or even medium term then it isn't going to happen. You say you admire the Trust but then criticise that what it has worked hard to achieve is meaningless. I speak to people weekly who are heavily involved in football trusts across the country and there are a lot who would kill for the profile we have with our arrangement. You should try ap0lying some balance to your view. Everything isn't as black as you paint it...

I stated that the seat on the board is meaningless, nothing else.

Quoted from barralad

Of course it's my opinion just as the stuff you keep repeating is yours. I don't know what you base your opinion on facts-wise and seeing as I don't have records of votes made I'm not sure how you can say with such certainty the way individual board members voted on any given issue. Under your argument the only way The Trust would have any influence at all would be to have a majority on the Board of GTFC. We don't deserve that level of representation and unless the club becomes fan owned which is extremely unlikely in the short or even medium term then it isn't going to happen. You say you admire the Trust but then criticise that what it has worked hard to achieve is meaningless. I speak to people weekly who are heavily involved in football trusts across the country and there are a lot who would kill for the profile we have with our arrangement. You should try ap0lying some balance to your view. Everything isn't as black as you paint it...

I've just listened to Humberside Sports Talk, I didn't hear one comment in support of JF or RS. My view is a lot more balanced than many and things are far more black than they are white. UTM

Dear me
Fan ownership would be the end of GTFC.
People bleat on about the Bennie loans etc but show me anybody who ever walked away without getting there money back !
We are not a big club and some fans need to remember that we have spent most of the last 50 years in the lower leagues of football yet they still think we should be up there with the bigger boys.
John Fenty (love him or hate him) ploughed money into this club to save it from collapse and that is why the club owes him money and why should he walk away with nothing ?
I wish we did have a sugar daddy that could plough millions into our great club without wanting anything back, but that’s just a pipe dream.
The club is not in a bad position but allow it to be taken over by people with no big business experience at your peril as it won’t be the conference we need to worry about heading for it will be winding up orders and the end of our small but great club.

Contentious first post. Good luck. :)

Welcome BTW.

Quoted from ginnywings

Contentious first post. Good luck. :)

Welcome BTW.

Think I might need it with my opinions lol

But thats what’s great about free speech

Quoted from Gtfc123

Think I might need it with my opinions lol

But thats what’s great about free speech

You're in the wrong place for that son. Free speech here is controlled by the acidic replies of fellow posters or by the moderators but mainly by John Fenty

Quoted from Gtfc123

Dear me
Fan ownership would be the end of GTFC.
People bleat on about the Bennie loans etc but show me anybody who ever walked away without getting there money back !
We are not a big club and some fans need to remember that we have spent most of the last 50 years in the lower leagues of football yet they still think we should be up there with the bigger boys.
John Fenty (love him or hate him) ploughed money into this club to save it from collapse and that is why the club owes him money and why should he walk away with nothing ?
I wish we did have a sugar daddy that could plough millions into our great club without wanting anything back, but that’s just a pipe dream.
The club is not in a bad position but allow it to be taken over by people with no big business experience at your peril as it won’t be the conference we need to worry about heading for it will be winding up orders and the end of our small but great club.

Mike Parker. Spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on shares, gave them away to the Trust because someone didn't keep their part of the bargain.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Mike Parker. Spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on shares, gave them away to the Trust because someone didn't keep their part of the bargain.

Absolutely, he basically donated 1.25 million pounds to the club.

Quoted from ginnywings

At the end of the day, it all boils down to success on the pitch. If we were 10 points better off and in a play off position, we wouldn't be having this debate. So you have to ask if a fan run board is any more likely to pick the right manager than the current board, because that's the crux of it. JF is right in saying to an extent that PR is done on the pitch because if we are winning games, the focus is where it should be, on the team. If it all boils down to success on the pitch, why re we wasting our time on a second rate, 4th division outfit? Granted poor performances always bring the other gripes into stronger focus. But if those gripes weren't there, it'd make the periodic downturns in performance on the pitch more tolerable and folk would have more patience. Famine always makes revolution more likely but prosperity doesn't remove the basic demands.

I think the board know business and seem to me to be doing a decent job in that regard, although i'm sure some will disagree. The stumbling block is the playing side of the equation. Is there any more knowledge in that area among fans than there is currently in the board room? Then there are the other gripes about communication and PR. Fair enough, there are possibly people out there who could address these issues but that won't put the ball into the back of the net. I'd suggest that overall there are people with better skills out there among the fan base than those currently in the boardroom. Just removing the self-inflicted words of poor communication would save the club a packet in the long run. It'd do a huge amount to get more people supporting the club in practical way. A better explanation of the business case for the new ground for example would convince more people it was worth getting behind. Transparency in the appointment of development partners (and of course selecting partners who look like they know what they're doing) would also help. A greater sense of ownership will give more people the incentive to help in all sorts of ways (not only financial). Of course it won't put the ball in the back of the net, but more support = more revenue = a better budget

In all the years i've supported Town, i have never really given much thought to what happens behind the scenes, but nowadays it's all anyone seems to talk about. From the outside looking in, the board looks a bit same-y and one dimensional to me. This is not a criticism as such, merely an observation and i also think that all the flak thrown their way has made them entrenched and an 'us and them' situation has arisen. The fans forum was a disaster because both sides went into it with a pugilistic attitude and both sides are now drawing a line in the sand it appears. To an extent I can understand them feeling there's been some unjustified criticism (and way back in the days of 'Keep the Mariners Afloat' campaign the response from the people of Grimsby was poor). But the board handled any questioning and criticism in a completely unnecessary aggressive way over years turning people against them. Even as far back as 2005 (before there was much criticism from the fans) JF had adopted a bunker mentality (witness the spat with RH and Ambulancegate).

So even if all the financial and operational hurdles could be overcome and the fans could take over the running of the club, are they any more likely to know what to do to bring success than the current set up? It would be a massively expensive and time consuming exercise to find out wouldn't it? I'm certain that if we somehow came up with a way of doing it and giving JF what he wants, he'd be off into the sunset in a flash. I don't think it is just about money either, because i don't think the board will relinquish power to just anybody who comes up with the necessary dosh. They would have to feel that the club was in safe hands also. I think only then would people get a grasp of how difficult it must be to run a loss making lower league football team. No one pretends it would be easy. If we want 'easy' we wouldn't follow GTFC. There could come a time when the club is available for peanuts. You yourself have said how it feels like the seasons leading up to the last relegation. I think now's the time to start preparing for that fateful day, especially if what you suggest below is rebuffed - I can't see JF agreeing to any meaningful power sharing unless he's had a Damascene conversion over Christmas.

The only way i can see fans changing things for the better is to grow the Trust somehow and get a bit more diversity into the club decision making process. Can the fans bring their wide ranging skills to the table and work alongside the current regime? Would the current regime be open to that? I'd be prepared to put some money into a pot as mentioned in the original post if it could help in some way.

All very good points KM. I honestly don't know what the answer is and as someone who works with my hands, i know very little of how businesses operate. Don't even know if i could manage my own modest accounting- the other half does that for me. I have time, a modicum of enthusiasm and a bit of spare cash, but that's about it.

As you rightly pointed out, the Keep the Mariners Afloat campaign wasn't exactly a roaring success, but operation promotion was a different beast, so i'm not sure whether there is or isn't the appetite locally to raise big sums of cash on a regular basis. How losses would be covered would be my main worry.

I'm sorry, but i think it's a pipe dream without a benefactor.

Quoted from ginnywings

All very good points KM. I honestly don't know what the answer is and as someone who works with my hands, i know very little of how businesses operate. Don't even know if i could manage my own modest accounting- the other half does that for me. I have time, a modicum of enthusiasm and a bit of spare cash, but that's about it.

As you rightly pointed out, the Keep the Mariners Afloat campaign wasn't exactly a roaring success, but operation promotion was a different beast, so i'm not sure whether there is or isn't the appetite locally to raise big sums of cash on a regular basis. How losses would be covered would be my main worry.

I'm sorry, but i think it's a pipe dream without a benefactor.

No one's pretending we'll become Barcelona. But there are plenty of clubs around who are doing alright as fan owned entities. They don't need benefactors to cover losses. They live within their means. And evidently it isn't a pipe dream because others have done it.

Too many people seem to want rich men to subsidise their spectator sport. And there are more examples of that model failing than there are of fan-owned clubs failing. In fact most clubs who are fan-owned got that way because the rich benefactors copulated them up.

If things carry on the way they are, being fan-owned will be the only option for GTFC.

And before anyone else says that Exeter only cleared their debts because of the Cup tie against ManU, agreed that was a windfall that massively speeded up the process. But they had already agreed a CVA and had a plan in place to repay the remaining debt.

But had the Trust not taken over and done the hard work on keeping the club going and negotiating the CVA they wouldn't have been around to benefit from any windfall.

You've got to be in it to win it.

I don't want anyone to subsidise my spectator sport and would be willing to pay more than the £340 for a season ticket that i now stump up. How many others would though?

As a socialist, i love the idea of a fan owned and run club but to live within your means would entail a lot of streamlining to give yourself a fighting chance of a good player budget. A lot of stuff would have to be done by volunteers and one thing most haven't mentioned is the state of the ground. It's falling apart and is no longer fit for purpose. It would need serious amounts of expensive updating unless the fans are also going to get into the process of building a new stadium too. For me, there are just too many hurdles to overcome and that's before you find the right people to implement the idea and run it day to day.

Maybe there is a way somehow, but i haven't got the vision to see it myself. Where would you even start and who has the knowledge to see it through?

Quoted from Gtfc123

Dear me
Fan ownership would be the end of GTFC.
People bleat on about the Bennie loans etc but show me anybody who ever walked away without getting there money back !
We are not a big club and some fans need to remember that we have spent most of the last 50 years in the lower leagues of football yet they still think we should be up there with the bigger boys.
John Fenty (love him or hate him) ploughed money into this club to save it from collapse and that is why the club owes him money and why should he walk away with nothing ?
I wish we did have a sugar daddy that could plough millions into our great club without wanting anything back, but that’s just a pipe dream.
The club is not in a bad position but allow it to be taken over by people with no big business experience at your peril as it won’t be the conference we need to worry about heading for it will be winding up orders and the end of our small but great club.

Are you absolutely sure that among the 3,000 diehards and the many thousands more waiting to be enticed back to BP there is no-one with big
business experience?