Only in Swindon

[Shaun Taylor]

5 minutes ago, BanburyRed said:

Swindoin? Blue Nemesis?  Is that their latest favourite vaping flavour? Or the colour of their aforementioned Ford Escort, prior to crashing into a lamppost or 3..? Or Irene's favourite pulling perfume?

They definitely got a chip on their shoulder 

[Swede]

3 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

They definitely got a chip on their shoulder 

I don't think its a chip, more like a full blown potato head. I expect nothing less from a nothing club with a dwindling fan base with a history of doing nothing yet think they're on a par with the likes of  Norwich. They will continue to show a complete lack of respect for the rest of the League Two clubs and even complain that it's not fair that the same clubs "up their game" when playing them.

[BetterRedthanBlue]

11 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

Your neighbours up near the prison are a bitter lot

 

I'm guessing they're talking when City and Swindon were in the same league and that was the local Derby because rovers were in the division below. Its just like our main rivalry now is with Cardiff. 

They're upset we are going to utilise a local club for potentially getting game time for our younger players? Ben Garner had a decent reputation for developing youngsters so why not. 

The checking the phones bit made me chuckle as I remember a video from in the Basement Bristol Rovers where a neutral fan went to the mem and said they recorded more footage of fans checking the score for us then watching the football! 

[Shaun Taylor]

6 minutes ago, BetterRedthenBlue said:

I'm guessing they're talking when City and Swindon were in the same league and that was the local Derby because rovers were in the division below. Its just like our main rivalry now is with Cardiff. 

They're upset we are going to utilise a local club for potentially getting game time for our younger players? Ben Garner had a decent reputation for developing youngsters so why not. 

The checking the phones bit made me chuckle as I remember a video from in the Basement Bristol Rovers where a neutral fan went to the mem and said they recorded more footage of fans checking the score for us then watching the football! 

I think they're just jealous and in awe of you guys and hate the thought that the divide between you both is huge.

[Shaun Taylor]

Ben Gladwin re-signs not bad for league 2 

[Shaun Taylor]

With power gone the feel good factor is back. Queuing for season tickets

[SecretSam]

On 23/07/2021 at 18:54, Shaun Taylor said:

New shirt for next season awaiting sponsors name. Better that blue & white square shirt from north Bristol!

 

The irony is, that's not bad...

You should do a raffle for the sponsor, like the Fewers did a while back. It was (whisper it) actually a good idea

[Ska Junkie]

4 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

With power gone the feel good factor is back. Queuing for season tickets

No offence ST but I didn't know you could still queue for tickets of any sort, we haven't done that for years.

As for a 'nemesis', isn't that 'something you come up against regularly'? We haven't faced our 'nemesis' for over a generation.

I thought I would look up the definition...'the inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall'.

Erm, they've even got that wrong, they've NEVER caused our downfall as they are too busy causing their own! 

[Shaun Taylor]

49 minutes ago, Ska Junkie said:

No offence ST but I didn't know you could still queue for tickets of any sort, we haven't done that for years.

As for a 'nemesis', isn't that 'something you come up against regularly'? We haven't faced our 'nemesis' for over a generation.

I thought I would look up the definition...'the inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall'.

Erm, they've even got that wrong, they've NEVER caused our downfall as they are too busy causing their own! 

Everything was shut down within the Power era and has only been opened up since last Friday an there's been all sorts of IT glitches. The club are saying fans should be able to purchase / renew season tickets online within the next day or so.

At the moment our nemesis are having a golden period in league one but they always seem to be the bridesmaid rather than the bride when they reach the play off finals and similar to yours have spent some time playing non league football!

Edited July 27, 2021 by Shaun Taylor

[City exile 79]

5 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

With power gone the feel good factor is back. Queuing for season tickets

When I drove past I thought they’d opened a soup kitchen

[MarcusX]

3 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

Everything was shut down within the Power era and has only been opened up since last Friday an there's been all sorts of IT glitches. The club are saying fans should be able to purchase / renew season tickets online within the next day or so.

At the moment our nemesis are having a golden period in league one but they always seem to be the bridesmaid rather than the bride when they reach the play off finals and similar to yours have spent some time playing non league football!

I read that you only sold 600 STs so far but that makes sense if they couldn’t get them online.

That shirts nice btw, preferred it when it didn’t have a sponsor though. It does look a little bit like 2002 Man Utd though now, one with Vodafone sponsor and the black bits under sleeve

[Shaun Taylor]

8 minutes ago, MarcusX said:

I read that you only sold 600 STs so far but that makes sense if they couldn’t get them online.

That shirts nice btw, preferred it when it didn’t have a sponsor though. It does look a little bit like 2002 Man Utd though now, one with Vodafone sponsor and the black bits under sleeve

The season tickets only went on sale yesterday morning and hopefully online up and running later this week. It appears Power took last seasons season ticket money for himself and left debt to every single supplier leaving us right in the s**t with more skeletons being found in the closet daily and considering we've only had the new owner for six days we're removing quite quickly even though we're playing catch up.

ww would all like shirts without a sponsors name on it and I'm sure the away strip reflects our Aussie owner.

it could be worse we could have made lots of signings and only draw against a non league team this evening!

 

[MarcusX]

10 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

The season tickets only went on sale yesterday morning and hopefully online up and running later this week. It appears Power took last seasons season ticket money for himself and left debt to every single supplier leaving us right in the s**t with more skeletons being found in the closet daily and considering we've only had the new owner for six days we're removing quite quickly even though we're playing catch up.

ww would all like shirts without a sponsors name on it and I'm sure the away strip reflects our Aussie owner.

it could be worse we could have made lots of signings and only draw against a non league team this evening!

 

Thanks for explaining, like I say I just seen the headline and thought that was poor but given what you've just explained it makes sense now

I'm glad you've got rid of Power, got a few good mates who are Swindon fans and I'd hate to have seen the club go under. I hate Swindon more than Rovers, mainly because of that rivalry with friends, but no one wants to see that

Of course, shirt is still smart. Over the years I always felt you tended to out do us on shirt designs, although we've got better the last few years.

The away kit seems a bit marmite from seeing comments but I like that too, reminds me of early 90s Swindon, the Burmah away shirt

[Shaun Taylor]

52 minutes ago, MarcusX said:

Thanks for explaining, like I say I just seen the headline and thought that was poor but given what you've just explained it makes sense now

I'm glad you've got rid of Power, got a few good mates who are Swindon fans and I'd hate to have seen the club go under. I hate Swindon more than Rovers, mainly because of that rivalry with friends, but no one wants to see that

Of course, shirt is still smart. Over the years I always felt you tended to out do us on shirt designs, although we've got better the last few years.

The away kit seems a bit marmite from seeing comments but I like that too, reminds me of early 90s Swindon, the Burmah away shirt

Cheers Marcus, of course rivalry is good and really makes for the atmosphere and having been to many City v Swindon games over the years that one game that I miss more than any and hope one day we get to play you at the redeveloped Ashton Gate which looks superb.

Reading between the lines we came really close to collapsing last week and if the new owner had pulled out we were gone as Power had literally stoped making any payment serval wwwks previously and had tried to put into administration which was refused by the EFL. People in the know are saying he coul even go down with his other court cases looming.

 

i love the home shirt but would have preferred the away shirt if it was white with a red pinstripe but up until last week we had no new kits and were looking at using last seasons without and sponsors name on the front.

At the moment there is plenty of euphoria as we have our club back similar to how you guys would have felt in 1982

 

[Shaun Taylor]

Just a little insight into what we had to put up with under power 

Special report: The ‘complete and utter shambles’ of Swindon Town

Stuart James, Matt Slater and more
 
It is hard to know where to start with Swindon Town, but the story about the players taking their own warm-up while listening to the public address system in the hope that they might find out the team that way feels like as good a place as any.

Swindon were not just sleepwalking towards relegation last season, they were sliding out of League One in the most shambolic fashion possible. “The only time I’d seen preparations like it was Sunday League when you’re walking your dog in the park,” one of the players told The Athletic.

The money at the club had dried up to such an extent that they ran low on bandages and tape in the medical room. Some players ended up offering to cover the cost of their own MRI scans, while GPS vests were discarded because nobody knew how to download the data after the strength and conditioning coach left. Even making up post-match protein shakes became a problem.

A proud football club that won the League Cup in 1969 and spent a season in the Premier League in 1993-94 had descended into farce or, as another player puts it, become “a bit of a laughing stock”. In the midst of a relegation battle, a player claims they found out the line-up for one match 10 minutes before kick-off when names were scribbled on a board.

So much of what has taken place at Swindon in recent times has been shrouded in mystery, right down to the club’s ownership. Lee Power transferred his shares to the Australian businessman Clem Morfuni last week, bringing to an end his tumultuous eight-year reign as chairman but leaving plenty of questions unanswered about the original deal that was struck when he took over at Swindon in 2013.

That tangled web has found its way to the High Court and, via a judgement that was published last year, Gareth Barry’s name was thrown into the mix after Power alleged that the former England international had met with him in 2013 and agreed to equally fund Swindon’s “ongoing working capital requirements”. Barry denies being an investor in Swindon and agreeing anything with Power.

Indeed, it is Michael Standing, Barry’s close friend and former agent, who claims to have gone into business with Power at Swindon and verbally agreed a 50 per cent share — something that would have breached Football Association (FA) regulations around ownership because of Standing’s occupation.

The FA has since charged many of those involved. In truth, Standing has far more important things to worry about right now than being in trouble with the governing body, bearing in mind that he claims he is owed the best part of £4 million.

Whatever comes of the ownership dispute, it will be interesting to see where Power turns up next. He has sold Waterford, the League of Ireland Premier Division club, and Swindon in the last two months, and if history is anything to go by, the 49-year-old will be looking to get involved with another football club soon. The EFL has, though, requested documents from the court hearings (not the proceedings where raspberries were blown and pornography played — more about that later) to dissect in the event of Power taking up a boardroom role at another club.

Power’s backstory is colourful and complex, certainly after he hung up his boots. Raised in Peckham, south London, he played in the Premier League for Norwich City in the early 1990s and represented nine other professional clubs in England and Scotland, as well as the Republic of Ireland Under-21s.

After retiring from football at the age of 28, Power had a spell as a football agent and later had stints in the boardroom at Luton Town, Cambridge United and Rushden & Diamonds before taking over at Swindon and Waterford.

Outside of football, racing has long been one of his passions. He owns racehorses and has co-owned betting and racing newspapers, too. Indeed, it was the jockey Richard Dunwoody who introduced Power to the world of sports publishing. Power set up a company called Cre8 UK in 2003 with his business partner Daniel Lake, specialising in match-day programmes.

According to an interview that Power gave to Irish sports website The42 in 2017, they had 44 professional football clubs among their clients, including three-quarters of the Premier League and all of the Premiership rugby union teams. Power said he was “fortunate enough to sell that” and then moved to Switzerland.

Cre8 UK collapsed in 2009, owing creditors more than £2.1 million. Power was also registered as a director of another company called Cre8 Publishing but stood down shortly after its launch. Cre8 Publishing was put into liquidation three years later, owing unsecured creditors more than £2 million. “They said I left owing football clubs millions of pounds but I had already sold the company,” Power told the Independent in 2014.

Swindon were flying high at the time of that interview, playing attractive football and, through Power’s contacts — in particular his close relationship with Tim Sherwood (Sherwood was Power’s best man at his wedding) — loaning and signing some talented players from Tottenham Hotspur. They finished fourth in League One that season and missed out on promotion to the Championship after losing to Preston in the play-off final.

Power, Sherwood, Swindon
Power (left) with Swindon’s then-director of football Tim Sherwood in November 2016 (Photo: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
If that was the highlight of Power’s time at the club, last season was the nadir and culminated in Swindon finishing the season in a terrible state. By the time pre-season came around this summer, a new manager had come and gone in the space of a month, and not enough professionals left at the club to field a team.

Morfuni’s takeover has brought fresh hope, heralding talk of a new era that comes with the promise of stability, transparency and fan engagement. Swindon’s new owner was pictured outside the County Ground on Tuesday, personally thanking every supporter who was queuing up to buy a season ticket.

On the pitch, though, the club faces a huge challenge. Ben Garner, Swindon’s new head coach, inherited more trialists than professionals when he took over last week. The new season starts in nine days with a trip to Scunthorpe and Morfuni has made it clear that there can only be one objective in the short term: League Two survival.

Warm applause breaks out as a suited figure makes his way past the Sid Mills Stand and around the perimeter of the pitch at the Webbswood Stadium, where kick-off against Swindon Supermarine is less than five minutes away.

It is a balmy Tuesday evening in Wiltshire and there is a buzz around the non-League club’s ground, especially among the visiting supporters. “Is that the new owner?” asks a Swindon Town fan, looking across to the opposite side of the pitch.

“I don’t think anyone else gets clapped walking around here,” says the supporter alongside him, smiling.

It turns out that Clem Morfuni is not the only new face tonight. Thirteen of the 22 players in Swindon’s squad do not belong to the club. One is a former youth-team player who left Swindon more than 12 months ago and offered to step in to make up the numbers.

Anthony Grant, who is 34 years old and was released by Swindon at the end of last season following their relegation from League One, is also involved after answering an SOS call. The rest are mainly trialists, from Enfield, Dunstable Town, Barrow, Port Vale, Greenock Morton, Birmingham, Swansea, Bournemouth — the list goes on.

Sami Kern is the only scholar able to play because the rest of the youth team are self-isolating after a positive COVID-19 test the previous Saturday. The 16-year-old had travelled in a car to training while the rest were on a minibus.

Swindon had been relying on those youngsters to make training work for the small number of professionals still under contract and to have enough players to get through their pre-season matches. The news that they were unavailable was met with disbelief. “You couldn’t make it up,” says one source.

Word soon got around that Swindon needed help. Agents were peppered with messages saying that it was a chance for their players to train for a week with the club and to put themselves in the shop window in matches.

Some were receptive to the idea. Others took one look at a club that has long been regarded by many as a basketcase and decided it was a waste of time. “You’ve got no manager — what’s the point in sending a player to you when there’s nobody to make a decision?”

Swindon did have a new manager on May 26 but he resigned a month later without taking a training session. John McGreal and his assistant Rene Gilmartin became exasperated with the takeover battle and legal proceedings that made it nigh on impossible to make any permanent signings. McGreal described their positions as “untenable”.

Steve Anderson, Swindon’s long-serving chief executive and an associate of Power, resigned the same morning, leaving the club rudderless three days before the players were due to report back for pre-season training. The clues had been there earlier in the day when a leasing company turned up to collect the club vehicles, including the kit van.

“The coaching staff remaining at that time, along with the kitmen, did a great job scrambling to make other arrangements,” says new Swindon Town chief executive Rob Angus.

Steve Mildenhall, the goalkeeper coach and a former Swindon player, was put in charge. It seems as though Mildenhall gets all the good jobs — a fortnight before McGreal took over as manager, he was asked to notify all 13 professionals who were out of contract that summer that they were being released.

After McGreal’s unexpected departure, a decision was made to push pre-season back 72 hours, from Monday to Thursday, purely to buy some time. Then the players received a phone call to say that they were not going to be paid any wages. How could the club expect them to come in and train the next day?

Pre-season was put back another three days and by this stage, two contracted players — Brett Pitman and Jonathan Grounds — made it clear that they would not be returning under the current circumstances.

That left the club with only seven professionals: Jack Payne, Dion Conroy, Mathieu Baudry, Rob Hunt, Ellis Iandolo, Jordan Lyden and Joe Wollacott, who had signed on loan from Bristol City before McGreal left.

In theory, there were eight but Harry Parsons was told by the club that the two-year professional contract he signed on June 14 — Swindon carried a story on their website showing the 18-year-old forward with a pen in his hand — was no longer valid.

Parsons’ first professional contract had been due to start on July 1, which is standard practice, but Anderson, the chief executive who had signed the forms, no longer worked for the club by that date, rendering it null and void.

With nobody left at the County Ground with the authority to sign off any paperwork of any significance — it is understood that a five-figure sponsorship deal was left sitting on the table — Parsons was asked to fill out trialist forms to enable him to carry on training and playing for the club in pre-season.

“We can’t comment on specific cases but good young talented players, especially ones the club has helped produce, will be valued,” says Angus.

Parsons has since agreed a new deal on better terms, to reflect the loyalty he showed this summer by continuing to train and play. But his is just one of many stories that capture the shambles that Swindon became. Yet, despite the chaos, coupled with the financial problems caused by COVID-19 that many clubs have experienced, the vast majority of those on the inside — players and staff — refused to down tools. The supporters’ trust got involved too and made a hardship fund available to anyone employed by the club who was struggling financially.

All the while there was a determination to field a team for the pre-season matches — to build fitness for the few senior professionals left at the club but also to generate important funds for local non-League clubs, even if there was a possibility that Swindon would be embarrassed. They ended up drawing 0-0 with Melksham Town and then lost 3-2 at Hungerford.

The team-sheets included unfamiliar names like Player A and Player B. “Cowmeadow and Bell? They’re just listing things they can see,” quipped one wag on Twitter when Swindon announced a callow line-up for the Melksham match. Twelve trialists were invited to the training ground the day before the Swindon Supermarine match to give them 24 hours — or at least one session — to get to know each other.

At least they got off to a good start. Parsons scored the first goal of the Morfuni regime after eight minutes and by half-time, Swindon had raced into a 3-0 lead, with Mildenhall constantly offering encouragement to a team that had been thrown together almost overnight. At one stage, he apologised to the supporters by the dugout because his voice was so hoarse that it started to sound high-pitched.

“Mildy has been doing an incredible job,” one Swindon player told The Athletic afterwards. “Within the circumstances, just getting a team together to play a few games has been a big achievement. He’s a goalkeeping coach. He’s not a manager or an assistant. What he’s done should be remembered, just for keeping the club going when it was on its last legs.”

The fall was undignified and abrupt. One former first-team player is less diplomatic. “It was a complete and utter shambles,” he says.

Swindon finished the 2020-21 campaign 23rd in League One and were relegated with a humbling 5-0 loss away to Franchise on April’s final weekend. The 29 league defeats they suffered was a club record inside a single campaign and the 89 goals conceded was a number unsurpassed by their one and only top-flight season in 1993-94, which brought up a perfectly rounded century of ignominy.

After the joys of 2019-20, with promotion and the League Two title secured via a points-per-game metric, Swindon slowly sank to their knees.

“The heart and soul of that promotion-winning side were cut into and ripped out overnight,” says a former senior player. “That was the worst season I’ve had in football. Everything about it was absolutely terrible. No organisation. No communication. It was a car crash, the whole thing.”

Swindon’s supporter base has grown accustomed to not expecting the world. Since winning promotion to the Premier League under Glenn Hoddle in 1993, they have been relegated seven times.

The last 10 years have seen Swindon bob between League One and League Two, never quite sure where to call home. There was a promotion to League One inspired by Paolo Di Canio in 2011-12 and then another by Richie Wellens in 2019-20, but both of those figureheads had gone within six months of success.

Power’s influence had receded long before his formal departure last week. He was seldom seen around the County Ground last season.

The alarm bells sounded soon after winning promotion as an attacking pair of Eoin Doyle and Jerry Yates could not be convinced to stay on. Captain Michael Doughty also chose to retire.

“The team that got promoted was better than the team we had in League One. No question,” says one promotion-winner. “We couldn’t keep that core together. If the money had been put in to keep it, we could have reaped the rewards. From that point on, when players start leaving a promoted team, it became doom and gloom.”

Wellens was not backed and soon grew unsettled last autumn, joining Salford City in the division below. Wins were hard to come by under successor John Sheridan and the sale of star man Diallang Jaiyesimi to Charlton at the end of the January window depicted a side accepting its fate.

Power, only days later, suggested Swindon were on the edge of a financial abyss. “We’re on the rockface, hanging over the edge,” he told BBC Radio Wiltshire.

Players soon became aware of the money drying up. “There were signs that felt like things weren’t right,” says one dressing-room source. “Things like tape, bandages in the medical room… we had a backlog of payments, money that was due to suppliers of that kind of equipment.

“Players needed that stuff but we hadn’t paid the bills. That was kind of nitty-gritty that affected us.

“There was also an issue with players wanting scans on injuries. The club thought there were too many scans taking place, even though insurance would have covered most of the cost of a £500 MRI scan.

“They’re just paying the excess but they took issue with sending us to be scanned. It got to the point where a couple of lads were offering to pay for their own scans on injuries because the club were reluctant to send them to get it done. They were dragging it out so much.”

“Issues around suppliers are being dealt with and suppliers are starting to be paid, and going forwards, will be paid on time,” says Angus. “Going forwards, players will get the quality medical treatment that they would expect.”

New depths came in the wake of Jack Deaman, the club’s strength and conditioning coach, leaving the club in March.

“We were left without a ******* strength and conditioning coach,” the player adds. “So, on a match day, we didn’t have anyone looking after that side of the warm-ups. This is going to sound daft but we didn’t even have anyone around who could make up the post-match protein shakes.

“A member of staff — the kit man — offered to make them for us, the protein shakes for the boys, to help with recovery. He was doing a lot of stuff, in fairness. But he was told (by the club) that he wasn’t qualified to do that. It’s a scoop of protein in water! And he was told he was not qualified to do that for us!

“So we weren’t getting protein shakes, we weren’t getting the right warm-ups, we weren’t getting the right gym sessions. It all adds up. It just helped ensure that we were absolutely miles off it. The club was a bit of a laughing stock.”

The players stopped wearing their GPS vests because nobody at the club knew how to download the data and make sense of it.

“We have appointed a very strong medical and physiotherapy team to provide top-quality support to our playing and coaching staff going forwards,” says Angus.

The drip, drip, drip of shortcomings brought a run of just six wins in 28 games after an unlikely victory over rivals Oxford United in November. Sheridan, it proved, was not the man to inspire a revival.

“There was one game when we were in the changing room and the manager (Sheridan) wasn’t there,” explains a player. “Nobody knew the team or who was on the bench.

“We were warming ourselves up, trying to hear over the tannoy who was playing. Then, we get back to the changing room and the manager still isn’t there. Ten minutes before kick-off, he strolls in. Doesn’t say a word to anyone — just writes out a team on the board. We were in a relegation battle and that’s how we were preparing.”

Sheridan denies this happened. “It’s just players making excuses,” he says. “This is one of the reasons I’m not going to be involved in football anymore. I’ve retired… it’s totally untrue.

“They were in a relegation fight before I even went into the place. And, to be fair to the owner, he put everything into the club, but the team was struggling really badly before I went in the place, so the players have just got to look at themselves.”

Sheridan was sacked before the inevitable relegation and the end of a bleak season brought a further exodus of players. One of those was Taylor Curran, whose regular involvement with the first team at Swindon had been a constant source of frustration for some of his team-mates.

Signed in 2019 from Southend United, where he did not make a first-team appearance, Curran was given a new three-year contract at Swindon in August 2020 despite featuring in only two league matches the previous season, both as an 89th-minute substitute.

In two and a half years at the club, Curran made 19 appearances but only three of those were league starts. He was an unused substitute on 63 occasions and some Swindon players and supporters were left baffled as to what was going on, and why he was constantly in the match-day squad. Curran joined Maidstone in the National League South earlier this month.

For those still at the club, wages were not initially forthcoming for June and only when the Professional Footballers’ Association intervened was there a 60 per cent payment, with the promise of more in the next pay packet. Staff have now been paid the remainder of their remaining June wages and have also been paid in full for July.

Among Swindon’s list of debtors from last season is the town’s council. They own the land on which the County Ground stands but have gone without rent since April 2020. The outstanding money now totals in the region of £270,000 and a payment plan had been agreed. Legal action, initiated by Swindon Borough Council, is now under way.

“The next rent payment has been paid and we are working with Swindon Borough Council (Championship) with regard to unpaid rent, but there is strong goodwill and positive discussions,” says Angus.

“We remain committed to purchasing the Count Ground from Championship with the supporters via TrustSTFC and know all parties are committed to this.”

A High Court hearing in February this year was held over Microsoft Teams but, according to one barrister present, soon descended into a circus. Members of the public refused to set their calls to “mute”, conspired to place the judge on mute, blew raspberries into the call, and shared screens showing male pornography.

Master Iain Pester told the barristers: “I’ve got quite a strange screen at the moment. I’m wondering who’s interfering with the conduct of the court?”

He later added: “I’m afraid if this goes on, I’m going to say only the representatives of the parties can attend because we can’t have a hearing like this.” Soon after, a member of the public was heard to shout “suck my dick”. Others on the call wrote #PowerOut into the text chat.

In May 2020, the High Court had published a significant judgement that referred to an ongoing dispute between Power and the football agent Michael Standing. It was a compelling web of claim and counterclaim, the most remarkable of which centred on the allegation that Gareth Barry part-owned Swindon. Barry and Standing are long-standing friends after coming through the ranks as young players at Brighton and Aston Villa together.

Standing’s claim is that up to 50 per cent of Power’s share in the club was held in a trust for him after he had previously secured an interim injunction that prevented Power from selling the club without his permission.

The dispute dates back to 2013 when Power purchased the club. Power acknowledges that a second person was involved in the acquisition but, as the judgement reads, “extraordinarily he says that it was not Mr Standing, but his, Mr Standing’s, very good friend, the well-known England international footballer, Mr Gareth Barry”. Power goes on to dispute that either Standing or Barry owned 50 per cent of the club but “does accept that Mr Barry has certain contractual rights”.

Standing, for his part, outlines an oral agreement from March 2013, whereby he and Power would buy the club on a 50/50 basis. However, the judgement explains that Standing’s involvement had to remain confidential as he ran the risk of breaching FA regulations concerning the ownership of football clubs.

Standing had an interest in an agency called First Touch Professional Management and Barry was a client. The FA prohibits intermediaries of agents from owning or having interests in football clubs, and current players (as Barry was at the time) are unable to hold shares in a football club.

In April this year, the FA charged Swindon, Power, First Touch and its company director Standing with a breach of regulations regarding the ownership and/or funding of the League One club. The case is ongoing and all parties have yet to comment.

According to the court papers, Barry “says categorically that he was not the investor and did not agree to anything with Mr Power”. He does, however, accept that he lent Standing “some of the money needed to fund the acquisition and for ongoing working capital contributions but that he did so as a good friend of Mr Standing and he himself has no rights or interests in the club”.

The two parties, Power and Standing, therefore, both appear to accept there was a silent partner in play but although Standing insists it was him, Power claims it was Barry.

Power’s account alleges a meeting was held at Barry’s home in March 2013, at which it was agreed that Power and Barry would equally fund the club’s “ongoing working capital requirements”. Power further alleges that although Barry would not own shares in the club, he would be owed 50 per cent of the profits from any increase in value of Swindon, “including 50 per cent of net profits arising from sales of certain players”.

Standing, however, counters that he was the silent partner. Power’s account argues his belief that Standing was acting on behalf of Barry, while Standing said “he did not think it necessary to put the agreement into writing as he had trust and confidence at the time in Mr Power”.

The identity of the co-owner remains unclear but the court judgement shows how relations between Power and Standing drastically deteriorated.

Standing claims alarm bells started to ring when Matt Ritchie was sold to Newcastle United by Bournemouth for £12 million in 2016. Ritchie was previously a Swindon player and a sell-on clause meant that Swindon received £1.85 million of the proceeds. Standing argues this was to be split between him, as the co-owner, and Power.

However, the club’s previous owner Andrew Black had a debenture covering a £2 million loan to the club and wanted his money returned to him from the profits made on Ritchie. Standing, who thought he would be in line for £925,000 from the Ritchie sale, therefore found himself sacrificing that sum, and adding an extra £75,000 to make up his share of the £2 million owed to Black.

Yet the court document alleges that in 2019, Standing uncovered that Black had not received his money and the debenture still existed. The document adds that Black’s accountant confirmed this to be true as of April 2020 and it “does not appear to be disputed by Mr Power”.

Matters worsened on June 7, 2019, when Standing says he discovered Power had sold a 15 per cent stake in the club to Axis group, owned by Morfuni. Standing alleges he had first discovered the news in a local newspaper. It later transpired Axis had paid £1.1 million.

Then, in August 2019, Power told Standing that an American-based company, Able, was interested in buying the club and a letter of intent stated it was prepared to pay £7.5 million. Power claims Able has links to a Boston-based commercial property company called the Abbey Group, whose main shareholders also own stakes in the Boston Celtics.

Standing argued that his original agreement with Power meant that Power was unable to sell the club without Standing’s consent, yet Standing alleges he had not been consulted. The document adds: “Mr Standing was also extremely concerned that Mr Power would not properly account for his share of the proceeds of any such sale.”

The court paper continues by alleging that Power “took steps to prevent Mr Standing from having access to financial information concerning the club”, such as allegedly changing the online banking log-in details and removing Standing’s accountant as a director of Swindon. This, Standing claims, prevented him from being able to gauge the club’s financial performance.

The judgement continues: “As a result, Mr Standing refused to provide any more funds by way of working capital. Since the acquisition, Mr Standing had provided over £6 million in loans to the club and after some repayments, the current amount outstanding to him is over £3.7 million.

“Despite that huge investment in the club, some of it borrowed from Mr Barry, Mr Standing now had no access to any financial information and Mr Power appeared to be trying to sell the club without letting him know or giving any transparency as to the terms of any sale so that he could secure his position.”

Both Standing and Morfuni secured injunctions to block the sale to Able, despite Power telling the court that blocking the sale risked administration for Swindon and £5.8 million in costs to Power. Yet the judge argued that a deal worth £7.5 million was unlikely in the circumstances of a pandemic and dismissed Power’s claim. Able has never commented publicly on the matter.

In the next 12 months or so, there will be a trial to resolve all remaining matters between Power and Standing.

Standing, Barry and Power declined to comment when contacted by The Athletic.

“Football tragic”, “construction guy”, “fair dinkum Aussie”. Clemente Giovanni Bruno Morfuni — “Clem” to everyone who has spent more than five minutes in his company — is many things but he knows what he’s not.

“I’m no Roman Abramovich,” the plumber-turned-plutocrat admits when asked if he is going to shower Swindon with money. “But I’ve done OK. My business turns over a couple hundred million dollars a year — it makes enough.

“I’d like to run this club properly, make it sustainable. I want to clean it up and make the fans and the town proud of it again. I’ll put enough in to get us back to where we should be. We’re a Championship club at a minimum but that could take five years or 10.

“It’s a great club with so much potential, and I wouldn’t be involved if it wasn’t for the fans and the community in Swindon. They love the club and they deserve better.”

It is a manifesto for change that fans at hundreds of clubs around the world would sign up for in a heartbeat but why Wiltshire? How does a guy from Sydney end up as the saviour of Swindon?

It’s simple, really: Australia likes football but it prefers Australian rules football, rugby league and cricket.

The 51-year-old Morfuni, on the other hand, loves the game, plays twice a week and has been sponsoring Australian grassroots soccer for years. Ideally, he would own a team closer to New South Wales than old South Wales but, as he puts it, “the other Australian sports are too big — it’s hard to make an impact with Aussie soccer”. And making an impact is what Clem is about.

He launched his first company, Axis Plumbing NSW, in 1994. Nine years later, Axis had spread to Queensland and by 2006, it had subsidiaries across Australia and its first overseas operation in New Zealand.

Axis Services Group now operates in Thailand, the UK and the US too, and employs 700 people. In fact, it was when Morfuni opened the UK office in 2008 that he first mentioned to one of his managers that he wanted to buy a club.

“The guy said, ‘Don’t do that — it’s cheaper to sponsor one and my son is involved at Harrow Borough (a non-League team in north west London)’,” he recalls. “He set up a meeting and I told them I wanted to sponsor the club. They thought I was full of shit, so they just made up a number. They were a bit shocked when I said yes and wrote them a cheque straight away.“

That relationship bumped along for a few years — the club cleared some debts and enjoyed a period of relative success — but, as Morfuni puts it, “it’s non-League, right?”. He wanted a bit more bang for his bucks.

He cannot remember exactly when he met Lee Power for the first time but they were introduced by a mutual associate in the construction business, and agreed to have dinner in London. Axis first appeared on the back of Swindon’s shirts in 2015. Then, in 2019, Power asked Morfuni if he wanted to buy a 15 per cent stake for £1.1 million. In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Clem.

But it was only when his involvement in the club went from paying for the privilege of using them as a sandwich board to having to chip in 15 per cent of Swindon’s budget deficits that Morfuni started to realise all was not as it seemed at the County Ground.

He and Power never really “fell out” — “he’s not a bad guy” is Morfuni’s assessment — but Morfuni was now getting regular messages from fans. Then he found out about Standing’s claim to own 50 per cent of the club, and his close links with Gareth Barry. Then came the proposed sale to American group Able.

Power, though, made two mistakes when he informed Standing and Morfuni that he wanted to sell the club: one, he made Standing realise there was no point hoping Power would honour whatever private deal they made when Power became Swindon’s public owner in 2013, and two, whatever he offered Able, he was obliged to offer Morfuni.

A legal battle with Standing was unavoidable — it was the only way Standing would ever get any of his money back — but Power had now given Morfuni a path to acquiring the 85 per cent of Swinton Reds, the holding company, he did not already own for the far more reasonable price of £2,500 a share, or £212,500.

It took several trips to the High Court to enforce this claim but Power was eventually forced to transfer the shares to Morfuni for the contractual price.

In a recent interview with Talksport, Power said: “Obviously, I’m not happy. It’s an aggressive takeover, hence why we went to court and fought it. I lost — that’s it and I take that on the chin. I have to abide by the court order.

“In the meantime, people are expecting me to pay the wages, for maintenance, for this and that… it’s like selling a house and in the meantime, ‘Lee, can you put in a new kitchen and do the roof?’. I can’t be expected to fund the club.”

The fact he stopped funding the club properly sometime before the court ordered him to sell to Morfuni was left unchallenged.

When you have been through a relationship as stormy as they have, Clem had most Swindon fans at “hello” but the EFL needs a little more persuading in these post-Bury days as to who they let buy clubs.

Morfuni had already passed the EFL’s owners’ and directors’ test (ODT) when he bought the minority stake but, with concerns about Swindon’s ability to start the new season growing, the league asked him to provide much more information about his finances so it could fast-track approval for the change of ownership once Power released those shares.

Morfuni did not bat an eyelid and sent the league each and every document it asked for, so when Power finally folded, Clem was in.

He had already put £300,000 into an escrow account for settling Swindon’s most pressing bills. Paying the June wage bill was high on the list but that probably will not stop the EFL from charging the club. Given the circumstances, the EFL is unlikely to push for the death penalty but, as Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday have recently discovered, it is not giving out lunchtime detentions for late payments anymore.

The EFL’s compliance team has seen too many bright dawns cloud over to get excited about anyone — its mantra is that he ODT is a test of eligibility, not suitability — but The Athletic understands that Morfuni has impressed them. The league will keep its hand on the tiller for a bit, via a business plan monitoring arrangement, and the club is still under a registration embargo as a condition of the pandemic loan it took from the EFL, as well as various unpaid bills.

But hopes are high that Morfuni will quickly get them sailing in the right direction again. His first week in charge saw Angus, the deputy chair of the Swindon Town Supporters’ Trust, appointed as club CEO and new staff arrive, most notably Ben Garner as head coach and Ben Chorley as director of football.

So, what’s next?

“Year one: sort out the debts, keep the club alive, rebuild the team,” explains Morfuni.

“Year two: try to get out of League Two. Years three to five: push for the Championship but we don’t want to go up until the club is ready and can sustain itself.”

Finally, though, Swindon Town is looking ahead with optimism.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Shaun Taylor

[chinapig]

Shambles doesn't even begin to cover it.

Yet the 6th richest club in the country, with a top manager (©J Barton), finished below Swindon!

[Shaun Taylor]

1 minute ago, chinapig said:

Shambles doesn't even begin to cover it.

Yet the 6th richest club in the country, with a top manager (©J Barton), finished below Swindon!

They won't accept that!

[phantom]

The news @Shaun Taylorand all Swindon supporters couldn't wait to see

[Shaun Taylor]

7 hours ago, phantom said:

The news @Shaun Taylorand all Swindon supporters couldn't wait to see

Many thanks Phantom and thanks for sharing! It will be interesting to see how Power fares against Gareth Barry's agent in court next month as there's rumours he could go down 

[Lanterne Rouge]

2 hours ago, Shaun Taylor said:

Many thanks Phantom and thanks for sharing! It will be interesting to see how Power fares against Gareth Barry's agent in court next month as there's rumours he could go down 

Imagine him and Joey sharing a cell. The stuff dreams are made of!

[Shaun Taylor]

1 hour ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

Imagine him and Joey sharing a cell. The stuff dreams are made of!

We can only hope!

[Shaun Taylor]

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Shaun Taylor

[Shaun Taylor]

We're leaving the wealthy Gas behind with our player recruitment!

https://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/news/2021/august/fresh-off-euro-2020-williams-arrives-at-sn1/

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Shaun Taylor

[E.G.Red]

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/20258987.swindon-town-fight-able-winding-up-petition-high-court/

[Sweeneys Penalties]

10 hours ago, E.G.Red said:

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/20258987.swindon-town-fight-able-winding-up-petition-high-court/

Lee Power really didnt do 'em any favours. 

[CiderJar]

15 hours ago, E.G.Red said:

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/20258987.swindon-town-fight-able-winding-up-petition-high-court/

Those local papers are virtually unreadable on a mobile phone with adverts popping up all over the shop. Can someone tell me the conclusion reached by the Wiltshire Times? Is it a wind up?

[Tyna]

48 minutes ago, CiderJar said:

Those local papers are virtually unreadable on a mobile phone with adverts popping up all over the shop. Can someone tell me the conclusion reached by the Wiltshire Times? Is it a wind up?

"American firm AC Sports Wiltshire, otherwise known as Able, have applied for the club to be wound up after claiming that a loan made under the reign of former owner Lee Power is outstanding and should be repaid.

The case was first heard in January before being moved to this week.

As previously reported, the amount of the loan in question, which Able claim should be paid back, was not mentioned at the previous court hearing in January, but it is believed to be between £100,000 and £300,000.

 

But representing Swindon Town Football Company Ltd, the company behind the club, at the hearing, Jessica Powers said there was evidence that the loan agreement was varied and the money was repaid to a petitioner who attempted to purchase the club.

She claimed the case was brought with “improper motive”.

A winding up petition is usually a last resort for creditors that are owed money used against companies that are insolvent and can't pay their debt. If the court sides with the creditors then that company is typically forced into liquidation.

The case will take place at the High Court on Thursday in front of Deputy Insolvency Judge Stephen Baister."

 

 

 

[phantom]

The date for Swindon Town’s next court showdown has been set.

Town will be back in court next month where it will be decided whether to throw out Able’s winding-up petition, or substitute another creditor in their place.

Able have also had permission to appeal the judge’s ruling that the dispute was not suitable for a petition.

As previously reported, Deputy Insolvency Judge Stephen Baister last week ruled the £100,000 disputed debt owed by Swindon Town Football Company Ltd, which controls the club, and to AC Sports Wiltshire LLC, also known as Able, is “capable of being disputed on grounds that are not fanciful but of sufficient substance to warrant dismissing the petition”.

Town had argued that the ‘loan’ was actually a non-refundable deposit for preliminary due diligence.

After the judge ruled the petition should be dismissed, another creditor, Centreplate UK, applied to have its name substituted in.

That firm claims that the club owes it around £312,000, although very little detail about the debt has been made public.

Town opposed this last week and Judge Baister adjourned the hearing for the club to make submissions. It is expected in the next hearing he will rule on whether to allow substitution.

It will take place at London’s Insolvency and Companies Court on September 22 at 2pm

TAKEN FROM : https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/20617302.swindon-town-winding-up-petition-next-court-date-set-club/

[phantom]

This is an amusing story, he thought it was half time when he went into the officials room? 

So either he's got sent off and stormed down the tunnel, so he would have realised it wasn't half time. Or he was in the Swindon dressing room, nobody else around yet thought it was half time?? 

[Davefevs]

Protein drink = lucozade = piss