The murky tale of Iles, the ST, SKD and Michael James?

Anybody else wondered why random events keep happening in respect of the club?

I mean a while back not one but two Baronesses wrote a joint statement about the issues at the club - how often does that happen, did you even know we had two Baronesses in the first place?

What was all that about Bassini saying he bought the club without having any obvious money to buy it with - how often do you see Jim White having exclusive interviews on Sky with such bizarre storylines?

The yesterday we had the latest 'random event'.

It started off all seemingly innocent with Iles publishing the story that Mike James had paid some staff wages from his own pocket - a good news story at last but then something quite unexpected happened - Kevin Davies seemingly had a major pop at James on Twitter (in reply to Iles twitter tweet about his article), so much so that he copied his tweet to the Administrator at the club!

Any conflict of interests here? Did he/Prescot Business Park Ltd loan the club £5.5m secured against the stadium/offices ?? Has it been paid back?

— Kevin Davies (@Kevin__Davies) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ok, odd in a way, but even odder when people started to point out later that the gift of money to pay the staff wages from James was not news at all - it was mention weeks back by non other than Ken Anderson himself!

So why has Iles written an article about it weeks after the event?

He states in his article that the Bolton Wanderers Community Trust wrote a statement stating James largesse, so I thought I'd go and have a look at it at source but nothing on the BWCT website or Twitter account - strange?

And as BWCT is a charity and the donation given to them by Mr James, then why are they only now just publicising the fact?  Did Mr James want them to, did they seek his permission first to do so?  

This is a reply to a poster called Chris I did yesterday morning before things became more clearer as to what seems to be going on -

"It does seem a bit random this?
Thought nothing of it until Kevin Davies tweet about a 'conflict of interests' and thought why is he sticking his beak in, then I remembered a throw away line in an interview he made some months back about being asked to be involved in a bid to buy the club from Eddie by a group that included Stelios (up to that time I just thought the Stelios bid to buy the club was some made up joke - but apparently it was a genuine attempt).
So out of curiosity I thought I'd see what the Bolton Wanderers Community Trust statement said and couldn't find it either on their web site or twitter account (well not in the last few days, I've not dug back to see if they said something around the time of the event itself).
So is there something more to all this, is Davies involved in one of the rival bids that the Administrator turned down in favour of FV, what prompted the BWCT statement and where is it - is it an official announcement or simply an answer to a question asked by someone (Iles?) and if so why make it known now - before the FV deal has been struck?
Probably nothing more than an unconnected series of events but I do find it strange that Davies is rattling his cage and referring it to the Administrator at the club (as per his tweet) as you would think it would be good news - not something sinister - that a local Bolton fan is putting his own money into trying to save the club.  Also strange that as I suspect Mr James didn't want a fuss being made when he donated the money to the BWCT (a charity remember) otherwise no doubt it would have been headlines in the paper at the time in respect of his generous donation to help out others - that the BWCT is putting out a statement (where is it, I can't seem to find it on their official site?) that they are broadcasting the news now? Did Michael James know they were making such a statement about him and if so did he give them permission to do so?
Maybe I'm over thinking it but it does seem an odd sequence of events particularly at this moment in time with nothing yet signed or sealed.
Oh and Chris for what it is worth I would have thought the ST would be much more closer involved with Davies than Michael James and Iles breaking the story now would indicate they are all closely linked together still.  Maybe they have backed the wrong horse again?".

Then today another tweet from Davies clearly showing why the shit is being stirred now -

Obviously I do not know all the facts but it looks like Mr James saw an opportunity to make money from the club when it was in turmoil by doing a deal with his good mate Mr Gartside for the offices/car park on prime retail land knowing the Middlebrook owner was also interested

— Kevin Davies (@Kevin__Davies) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ah, so that's it!

A smear campaign - or at least it certainly looks like it to me.

A random article with no obvious link to the source of where it originated from(?), that enabled a high profile ex player to make inference to dodgy dealings to the person seemingly on the threshold of taking ownership of the club - yet this same ex-player having said no a dickie bird about it - even though it happened some three years ago, until this most crucial of time - how convenient.

Also explains why the ST was so much against James - in particular Nightingale's outburst, at the public forum they held recently.

A contrived article from Iles (a massive supporter of the ST) that enabled an attack on James (on the cusp of him taking over the club) and putting stuff into the public domain at the worst possible moment for James, by Kevin Davies, who is coincidently also a massive supporter of the ST too.

Well fancy that!

Also do we know if the ST themselves have not been involved in bidding for the club as part of a consortium of one of the other potential purchasers who wasn't selected as the preferred bidder by the Administrator?

Maybe if the FV bid stalls and fails due in someway to this shit flinging, they could be part of the bid that replaces James and goes on to own the club?

Seems to me the ST have already decided who their next bogeyman is going to be once the ghost of Ken as left the building.

Of course it could all just be random happenings that only ever occur at Bolton and no place else!

Your first thought about overthinking it may be correct Sluffy 

I've stopped reading any post over 50 words.

Norpig wrote:Your first thought about overthinking it may be correct Sluffy 

Maybe I am but you can't deny all sorts of random things seem to be happening around the club.

I've been told of a direct link between the Baronesses and the ST - why else would they have suddenly popped up from nowhere and disappear again just at the time the ST was gunning for Anderson and then their credibility got blown out of the water over Allanson?

God knows what the Bassini involvement was - I'm guessing that had something to do with Ken?

Why did Iles suddenly decide to do a story on James (without any obvious reason to do so - it was old news already in the public domain for at least a month or more?) - or no apparent trace of the statement the BWCT supposedly made - and tee up Davies perfectly to launch his 'attack'?

Why is Davies suddenly mentioning it now - he's either known about it and sat on it for at least three years - and fwiw - as far as I remember organised by Trevor Birch and nothing at all to do with being mates with Gartside or Eddie?

Why did the ST have a pop at James (and Eddie Davies family) at their public forum - a really strange thing to do at the time I thought?

Just seems far too many random 'coincidences' for my liking.


PS - just counted, there's more than 50 words so at least Natasha won't be reading this!

Natasha Whittam wrote:I've stopped reading any post over 50 words.

Well I’ve finally started to read them as they are more interesting than your seven words.

Sluffy wrote:Anybody else wondered why random events keep happening in respect of the club?

I mean a while back not one but two Baronesses wrote a joint statement about the issues at the club - how often does that happen, did you even know we had two Baronesses in the first place?

What was all that about Bassini saying he bought the club without having any obvious money to buy it with - how often do you see Jim White having exclusive interviews on Sky with such bizarre storylines?

The yesterday we had the latest 'random event'.

It started off all seemingly innocent with Iles publishing the story that Mike James had paid some staff wages from his own pocket - a good news story at last but then something quite unexpected happened - Kevin Davies seemingly had a major pop at James on Twitter (in reply to Iles twitter tweet about his article), so much so that he copied his tweet to the Administrator at the club!

Any conflict of interests here? Did he/Prescot Business Park Ltd loan the club £5.5m secured against the stadium/offices ?? Has it been paid back?

— Kevin Davies (@Kevin__Davies) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ok, odd in a way, but even odder when people started to point out later that the gift of money to pay the staff wages from James was not news at all - it was mention weeks back by non other than Ken Anderson himself!

So why has Iles written an article about it weeks after the event?

He states in his article that the Bolton Wanderers Community Trust wrote a statement stating James largesse, so I thought I'd go and have a look at it at source but nothing on the BWCT website or Twitter account - strange?

And as BWCT is a charity and the donation given to them by Mr James, then why are they only now just publicising the fact?  Did Mr James want them to, did they seek his permission first to do so?  

This is a reply to a poster called Chris I did yesterday morning before things became more clearer as to what seems to be going on -

"It does seem a bit random this?
Thought nothing of it until Kevin Davies tweet about a 'conflict of interests' and thought why is he sticking his beak in, then I remembered a throw away line in an interview he made some months back about being asked to be involved in a bid to buy the club from Eddie by a group that included Stelios (up to that time I just thought the Stelios bid to buy the club was some made up joke - but apparently it was a genuine attempt).
So out of curiosity I thought I'd see what the Bolton Wanderers Community Trust statement said and couldn't find it either on their web site or twitter account (well not in the last few days, I've not dug back to see if they said something around the time of the event itself).
So is there something more to all this, is Davies involved in one of the rival bids that the Administrator turned down in favour of FV, what prompted the BWCT statement and where is it - is it an official announcement or simply an answer to a question asked by someone (Iles?) and if so why make it known now - before the FV deal has been struck?
Probably nothing more than an unconnected series of events but I do find it strange that Davies is rattling his cage and referring it to the Administrator at the club (as per his tweet) as you would think it would be good news - not something sinister - that a local Bolton fan is putting his own money into trying to save the club.  Also strange that as I suspect Mr James didn't want a fuss being made when he donated the money to the BWCT (a charity remember) otherwise no doubt it would have been headlines in the paper at the time in respect of his generous donation to help out others - that the BWCT is putting out a statement (where is it, I can't seem to find it on their official site?) that they are broadcasting the news now? Did Michael James know they were making such a statement about him and if so did he give them permission to do so?
Maybe I'm over thinking it but it does seem an odd sequence of events particularly at this moment in time with nothing yet signed or sealed.
Oh and Chris for what it is worth I would have thought the ST would be much more closer involved with Davies than Michael James and Iles breaking the story now would indicate they are all closely linked together still.  Maybe they have backed the wrong horse again?".

Then today another tweet from Davies clearly showing why the shit is being stirred now -

Obviously I do not know all the facts but it looks like Mr James saw an opportunity to make money from the club when it was in turmoil by doing a deal with his good mate Mr Gartside for the offices/car park on prime retail land knowing the Middlebrook owner was also interested

— Kevin Davies (@Kevin__Davies) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ah, so that's it!

A smear campaign - or at least it certainly looks like it to me.

A random article with no obvious link to the source of where it originated from(?), that enabled a high profile ex player to make inference to dodgy dealings to the person seemingly on the threshold of taking ownership of the club - yet this same ex-player having said no a dickie bird about it - even though it happened some three years ago, until this most crucial of time - how convenient.

Also explains why the ST was so much against James - in particular Nightingale's outburst, at the public forum they held recently.

A contrived article from Iles (a massive supporter of the ST) that enabled an attack on James (on the cusp of him taking over the club) and putting stuff into the public domain at the worst possible moment for James, by Kevin Davies, who is coincidently also a massive supporter of the ST too.

Well fancy that!

Also do we know if the ST themselves have not been involved in bidding for the club as part of a consortium of one of the other potential purchasers who wasn't selected as the preferred bidder by the Administrator?

Maybe if the FV bid stalls and fails due in someway to this shit flinging, they could be part of the bid that replaces James and goes on to own the club?

Seems to me the ST have already decided who their next bogeyman is going to be once the ghost of Ken as left the building.

Of course it could all just be random happenings that only ever occur at Bolton and no place else!

Can I just point out that Phil Gartside had died by the time it was reported that the car park had been sold, if memory serves.

I'd always been led to believe Trevor Birch sold the Car Park after Eddie Davies stopped funding us.

Maybe my memory has gone though.

I’ve got to say that I thought good old Trevor sold it too from what I remember.

BoltonTillIDie wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks mate. Could have sworn he sold it off but appears that we are wrong.

It must be the amount of shit that’s been flying around the last few years.

karlypants wrote:

BoltonTillIDie wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks mate. Could have sworn he sold it off but appears that we are wrong.

It must be the amount of shit that’s been flying around the last few years.  

No Nigel and yourself are absolutely correct in your recollections - poor Phil Gartside had died of brain cancer on the 10th Feb, 2016, and Eddie had employed Trevor Birch to replace him and bring the club to sale some several months earlier when Mr Gartside could no longer work.

In fact I'd remembered that It was Birch and not Gartside who did the deal with Mike James but had been holding that little nugget back just in case things got a little bit more interesting on the Wways thread, so that I could see where the debate was going, knowing I was able to trump whatever argument developed with the actual facts - ie that Birch had come in from 'outside' and was working to secure the best deal for Eddie Davies and not be involved in some 'old boys' network to 'defraud' the club/Eddie and financially benefit Mr James.

The debate never took off though, so I never got round to using the fact.

Well remember though Nigel and Karly!

Sluffy wrote:

Norpig wrote:Your first thought about overthinking it may be correct Sluffy 

Maybe I am but you can't deny all sorts of random things seem to be happening around the club.

I've been told of a direct link between the Baronesses and the ST - why else would they have suddenly popped up from nowhere and disappear again just at the time the ST was gunning for Anderson and then their credibility got blown out of the water over Allanson?

God knows what the Bassini involvement was - I'm guessing that had something to do with Ken?

Why did Iles suddenly decide to do a story on James (without any obvious reason to do so - it was old news already in the public domain for at least a month or more?) - or no apparent trace of the statement the BWCT supposedly made - and tee up Davies perfectly to launch his 'attack'?

Why is Davies suddenly mentioning it now - he's either known about it and sat on it for at least three years - and fwiw - as far as I remember organised by Trevor Birch and nothing at all to do with being mates with Gartside or Eddie?

Why did the ST have a pop at James (and Eddie Davies family) at their public forum - a really strange thing to do at the time I thought?

Just seems far too many random 'coincidences' for my liking.


PS - just counted, there's more than 50 words so at least Natasha won't be reading this!

This may or may not be relevant to your 'conspiracy theory'

I seem to remember the Supporters trust asking for donations to help buy the club during the winding up petitions, which then changed to "a fighting fund"against the EFL over the points deduction for going into administration. 

I thought it strange they switched focus. Had they already talked to somebody who was bidding? 

Now of course, the news of the 'fighting fund' has now disappeared. Wasn't there £18k in it? Or am I imagining that?

£19,142 at present.

Nigelbwfc wrote:This may or may not be relevant to your 'conspiracy theory'

I seem to remember the Supporters trust asking for donations to help buy the club during the winding up petitions, which then changed to "a fighting fund"against the EFL over the points deduction for going into administration. 

I thought it strange they switched focus. Had they already talked to somebody who was bidding? 

Now of course, the news of the 'fighting fund' has now disappeared. Wasn't there £18k in it? Or am I imagining that?

Thanks for that Nigel.

The link to the Just Giving page for future reference.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Fwiw I reckon the ST fancied that they were first in the queue if we went into Admin, with the Administrator being required to talk to them and that they expected other people to piggyback their bids on to them (form a consortium) to be able to buy the club before the others had a chance - with the ST being the public face of the winning bidders but with someone else being the moneymen.

I had in mind the Gaspard bid with the kilji's, although I had nothing to base that on other than the most feasible and realistic bidders after FV if you rule out the nonsense of having billionaires fighting amongst themselves to take us over (anybody still think the Chinese were here to buy the club or look at the ice-bath as I suggested was far more likely?).

Anyway it doesn't work like that and all the Administrator is required to do is consult with them in the first 21 days of marketing the club and I think they realised that with James being part of FV they had no chance in reality.

Once they realised that then the only hope they had was if they could knock out the FV bid and thus all this concoction by them to seemingly smear James and get him somehow excluded from the FV bid.

I thought it was really weird and random of Iles to write and publish that article on James - it wasn't even recent news(???) and then for Kevin Davies to tweet such an inference as he did in relation to the story (did the baronesses turn the offer to do such a random thing this time(?).  It's not even as though SKD tweets to Iles articles - so why on earth do it this time with such an apparent attack on James at just the most crucial moment of the sale being on the cusp of it being signed???

All very odd and contrived to my way of thinking.

Anyway back to the ST's solicitor - did anyone catch this on the ST's official FaceBook site from about 5 or 6 days ago. Mike  Smith being the founder and Board Member of the ST -


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Is there no update from the solicitor the trust employed

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] As soon as you become a member Trevor. I'm sure you'll be one of the first to know...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The Trust is supposed to be looking after the interests of ALL Bolton supporters not just those who are paid up members of the Trust. Hence your comment Michael is insulting to any true Wanderer.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Why is me informing a non-trust member (who by the way is not only derogatory, but often libelous against ST Board members) that one of the advantages of being a full member is you get early access to trust business insulting to any true supporter... ???

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Michael Smith surely the Trust isn't supposed to be a private Club, and don't you exist to pride a link to the Club for all supporters not just your members. Hence in my humble opinion you should be providing all supporters with the same information at the same time.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Terrible isn't it considering the ST in their own words - and the very first thing they state on their website is describing their reason for being as -

"The Bolton Wanderers Supporters’ Trust is a democratic, not for profit organisation of supporters, committed to strengthening the voice of supporters in the decision making process at the club, and strengthening the links between the club and the community it serves".

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Hardly treating all fans as equal then and hardly looking to strengthen the links with the new owners as seems likely they will be FV and Mike James!

Oh and Mr Barber has gone on several more times to ask the question on Facebook and is clearly being ignored.

The thing is though that many who contribute towards their funding plea certainly were not ST members and Mr Barber may well have contributed money into the fund and have quite a reasonable request to know what has happened to his (and everybody else's) money!


However no doubt I'll be told once again that I'm obsessed with the ST and that the ST are perfect and I'm the one with the problem.

Yeah, right.

Thought I'd bump this.

For two reasons really, the first is that I wanted to talk about Iles behaviour from yesterday/today and thought I'd done a general thread on him, which if I had I couldn't quickly find but also that I'm sure Bob would enjoy the read above if he hadn't seen it before anyway - Iles behaviour yesterday...

The background is that the the young co-commentator on the radio did an interview with Evatt and later Doyle after the match, I didn't hear it myself but this is a part of it Tweeted by the young man himself -

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Can we make it clear that all main pre-match questions were asked as per running order and that I took a conversational approach with the Manager, which he engaged with. I couldn't repeat questions so took this approach, linking back to commentary and prior chats. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Harlan Dane Fallon - Broadcaster (@Harlan_BRDCST) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

...seems Iles didn't like it and tweeted and an aggressive slap down to it - which he said that to do post match interview you don't talk much, ask short questions and any player interview you safe for Monday.

Well the lad stuck up for himself, tweeted back his reasons why he did the interview as he had and importantly asked Evatt at the end if he was happy with how the interview had gone and that he was happy for it to go out.

Iles then received a torrent of tweets asking why (in my words) he was bullying the young bloke?

Here is a couple he replied to -

General annoyance.

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

With respect, Harlan, a post-match press conference is not a "chat". We're there to ask questions.

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I did speak to him face-to-face

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Fair enough. Point made.

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Another also pointed out Iles himself did a player write up following the match last week on Sunday (Baptiste nearly missing his goal) so he didn't even do what he was preaching himself!

Seems Iles has since got cold feet about all of this and has now deleted most of his tweets, including his original one, in respect of all this.

The general feeling of most seemed to think that Iles didn't like the competition from the youngster!

All a storm in a tea cup I know but interesting that more than a few called Iles out about this rather than blindly follow his every word as they normally do!

Bit of an arsehole.

Sluffy wrote:Thought I'd bump this.

For two reasons really, the first is that I wanted to talk about Iles behaviour from yesterday/today and thought I'd done a general thread on him, which if I had I couldn't quickly find but also that I'm sure Bob would enjoy the read above if he hadn't seen it before anyway - Iles behaviour yesterday...

The background is that the the young co-commentator on the radio did an interview with Evatt and later Doyle after the match, I didn't hear it myself but this is a part of it Tweeted by the young man himself -

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Can we make it clear that all main pre-match questions were asked as per running order and that I took a conversational approach with the Manager, which he engaged with. I couldn't repeat questions so took this approach, linking back to commentary and prior chats. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Harlan Dane Fallon - Broadcaster (@Harlan_BRDCST) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

...seems Iles didn't like it and tweeted and an aggressive slap down to it - which he said that to do post match interview you don't talk much, ask short questions and any player interview you save for Monday.

Well the lad stuck up for himself, tweeted back his reasons why he did the interview as he had and importantly asked Evatt at the end if he was happy with how the interview had gone and that he was happy for it to go out.

Iles then received a torrent of tweets asking why (in my words) he was bullying the young bloke?

Here is a couple he replied to -

General annoyance.

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

With respect, Harlan, a post-match press conference is not a "chat". We're there to ask questions.

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I did speak to him face-to-face

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Fair enough. Point made.

— Marc Iles (@MarcIles) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Another also pointed out Iles himself did a player write up following the match last week on Sunday (Baptiste nearly missing his goal) so he didn't even do what he was preaching himself!

Seems Iles has since got cold feet about all of this and has now deleted most of his tweets, including his original one, in respect of all this.

The general feeling of most seemed to think that Iles didn't like the competition from the youngster!

All a storm in a tea cup I know but interesting that more than a few called Iles out about this rather than blindly follow his every word as they normally do!

Poor from Iles. Really really poor from SKD though in 2019. If Shazza’s cosying up to the ST, how will it go down with MJ?

So how much was involved in SJK's seemingly spiteful 'conflict of interest' claim? How much did MJ donate to Bolton Wanderers Community Trust? 

BWCT gets most of its money from grant-aiding bodies and charitable trusts  and doesn't disclose details of its donations. However its audited accounts show that it received total donations of £29,445 in 2018/19 and £27,728 in 2019/20 (including any tax recovered under Gift Aid).