Worst start to the year in the clubs history.

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

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

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

Not Hill's fault though.

"“I can’t be a victim of the circumstances or the situation or the fact we have won one in 12, or whatever,” he said. “I won’t be a victim and I’ll look forward to the future with the group of players we’ve got".

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


Phil Parkinson doing ok though!

I don't do Twitter, Sluffy, too many trolls, but I followed your link this morning to see what Marc Iles has been saying recently and found this related to his article on MK Dons finance:

'MK Dons boss Russell Martin on [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Some worthy sentiment in there... But not convinced his club is the business model I'd want to copy.'


He doesn't say that in his article. What he said was:

'The club’s total losses in the last financial year were almost £14m'.



Followed immediately by this from Russell Martin:



"It's not easy,” he said. “Managing budgets, expectations, all that kind of thing. It's all about the owners and what they believe and how they want to do things. It's easy to chuck money at it and pray and hope for the best, but if it doesn't you're in real trouble. I'm grateful here, we've got an owner who cares about the future of the club, wants to look after it and protect it."


He could have been taking the opportunity to have another dig at Ken Anderson but who told him that the Don's losses were almost £14m in the last financial year. They were actually £1.4m and the club had more or less broken even in aggregate over the previous five years.

Its plain he has very little idea of what he's talking about but has he also been relying on duff information from someone else, for years? If you are going to try to read a balance sheet, you do need to know where to start. Otherwise its not a lot different to a cowboy builder building a wall without a foundation.

He relied solely on the 'B' in FIBS financial interpretations on BWFC and more recently the self styled guru on everything financial in football, Kieran Maguire.

I'm fairly sure Iles took this as his bible for the MK Don's article -

MK Dons total losses now £14 million [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

MK Dons owe £11 million to Stadium MK, the holding company controlled by owner Pete Winkleman. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

All revenue streams at MK Dons significantly down apart from car park fees. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

All revenue streams at MK Dons significantly down apart from car park fees. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

MK Dons summary for last decade. Income £60.5m, wages £50.8m (84% of income) and operating losses £26.9 million (that's £52,000 a week to you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I'm not interested in other clubs to go to the bother of analysing their accounts but someone at the link below has and it seems to me that what Maguire says is that MK's TOTAL losses are £14m, yet Iles has taken that to mean they lost £14m LAST SEASON.

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

We all know Iles is a joke but he's not going to go away anytime soon, that most people don't seem to mind him and the vast majority of them haven't a clue when it comes to accounts and blindly follow ANYONE who they think have - thus why people hung on to every word of folks like Bower, Iles, Nixon, Maguire, Howard and even ourselves - irrespective of what ignorance, bias or hidden agenda they might have.

And also why people like ourselves who play with a straight bat are categorised as cranks by those who rather put their faith in others telling them misleading/misunderstood narratives conflicting with what is actually happening/happened.

Their choice, after all we are just random and anonymous people on the internet whilst the likes of Bower, Iles, Maguire are people who can be seen in the flesh but if that is the criteria that people use to judge honesty and integrity then no doubt they believe every word from the likes of Boris and Trump who also can be seen in the flesh too!

I see that Iles has STILL not got his interview with FV yet.

I wonder why?

I'm genuinely intrigued why you both feel the need to assassinate everything Iles writes. Granted, he's not winning a Pulitzer any time soon but he's a local writer for a local paper.

Woodward and Bernstein would get the same treatment.

boltonbonce wrote:Woodward and Bernstein would get the same treatment.

You couldn't be more wrong, Boncey. Nothing I like better than well-researched, well-written  investigative journalism, free of political prejudice.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:

boltonbonce wrote:Woodward and Bernstein would get the same treatment.

You couldn't be more wrong, Boncey. Nothing I like better than well-researched, well-written  investigative journalism, free of political prejudice.

You must be a Guardian reader. Well done that man.

Natasha Whittam wrote:I'm genuinely intrigued why you both feel the need to assassinate everything Iles writes. Granted, he's not winning a Pulitzer any time soon but he's a local writer for a local paper.

Fwiw I was attempting to say in my summary towards the end of that post, that he isn't going to be going away anytime soon and that if people want to believe anything/everything he says, then that is their own choice, whether it be accurate or not.

Bob and I, although we do not know each other and have never met, both share the same value of honest and unbiased reporting, at least where it is not that difficult to actually verify the facts and report them as openly as one is able to.

That clearly wasn't the case over Anderson and led directly to the toxicity that almost destroyed the club.

Better understanding and reporting of why the club wasn't paying it's way was because the business was insolvent rather than the much implied Anderson was pocketing the cash, may have led to a better understanding by the masses as to what the problems were and what the inevitable outcome would be.

Maybe it would have led to the same thing but at least the hatred would have been much less - probably on Anderson's side to - and may even have made things go smoother than entrenching his position.

Iles clearly is being kept at a distance by FV.

They clearly have their reasons for this and to be honest based on Iles relationship with former owners and club Chairmen I don't blame them in the least.

Now how can that be good for Wanderers fans that the main conduit for news about the club (and I don't mean weekly pre and post match interviews with the current manager) is obviously unwelcome by new owners who have only been here five minutes?

We get what we deserve in life some say in which case we the fans of BWFC have been lumbered with Cheltenham supporter Marc Iles.

A cross we will have to bear indefinitely in seems.

Thanks Sluffy. I had noticed that the aggregate losses since the company was formed in 2003 amounted to £14m.

I had also noticed the operating loss and tax credits. The latter seemed a bit big on first sight but I haven't looked further. I expect that there will also have been profits on player sales that would have helped keep the aggregate losses down. The only clubs that ever show a profit (outside of the big Premiership outfits) only ever do so from profits on player sales.

I was interested in comparing the Don's financial results to our last published results in 2017 and what conclusions might be drawn as to how much our present operating loss might be.

I suspect that our present total wage bill will be all loss. i.e. income just about covering costs excluding wages and cannot foresee income doing anything other than continuing to fall.

Its not at all helpful to any business, if the local newspaper cannot be relied upon to get its facts right to the detriment of the business or its owners. Its especially bad in this case because of the numbers of interested parties and the passions that are easily aroused from misinformation.

Its got worse, much worse in recent years but I believe it has been a particular problem in Bolton for quite a number of years and not just with Marc Iles.

P.S. If Iles is picking up from Bower and Maguire, have Bower and Maguire ever commented on how much Holdsworth cost the club or where the £525K fee went? Is this, in other words, an alliance of individuals bent on picking and chosing whatever facts might suit inherent prejudices whilst ignoring any others that don't?

boltonbonce wrote:

Ten Bobsworth wrote:

boltonbonce wrote:Woodward and Bernstein would get the same treatment.

You couldn't be more wrong, Boncey. Nothing I like better than well-researched, well-written  investigative journalism, free of political prejudice.

You must be a Guardian reader. Well done that man.

I did say free of political prejudice but I do read books written by left and right-leaning authors.
I'm presently reading Ben Elton's Stark. I didn't care for him as a performer but he's a very entertaining writer.

I was right about the profits on player trading at MK Dons. Over £6m in aggregate 2015 and 2016 but I still haven't fathomed the size of the tax credits. Not worth spending time on though.

You'll know them better than me, Sluffy, but would I be right in thinking that most of those who seem hostile to publishing financial facts are of a certain political persuasion? Or am I imagining that?

Ten Bobsworth wrote:I was right about the profits on player trading at MK Dons. Over £6m in aggregate 2015 and 2016 but I still haven't fathomed the size of the tax credits. Not worth spending time on though.

You'll know them better than me, Sluffy, but would I be right in thinking that most of those who seem hostile to publishing financial facts are of a certain political persuasion? Or am I imagining that?

I've no idea Bob.

To be honest I think a number of other factors come into play with them before political allegiances.

The first is ignorance and denial - if you stand against the crowd you are assumed to be in the wrong or a WUM - particularly so if what you are stating goes against highly popular views - namely that Anderson was a thief, raping the club of its wealth for his own pocket.

The second is peoples blind faith in social media and it's 'influencers' such as Iles - not much of which was rooted in fact but driven by agendas and prejudices.

Then it is about how credible we are perceived to be.  For me at least I was so highly disbelieved on my own site here that it became an utter waste of my time posting anything on the subject anymore on here and contributed to the debate over on Wways instead.

It was only after a period of time and in particular my understanding of what was happening and ability to summarise them on a daily basis, that started to get me noticed as someone who actually did appear to have knowledge in company law and how an owner and a company are completely separate legal entities and needed to be seen as such in order to comprehend why things had happened/not happened as people thought they should have been.

My problem was that I couldn't explain such complexed matters in ten words or under and was ridiculed by most who were to ignorant or numb not to want to read or try to understand my attempted 'dumbed down' explanations for those who weren't knowledgeable about the field and may have wanted to learn more about what was going on and why.

I also carried baggage from the years of modding forums and had several trolling me because of old scores and grievances they had with me.

As you know in your case people didn't like your 'public school' type humour and instead threatened you with violence!

I really don't think politics comes much into the mix other than I guess if people follow the crowd and don't wish to avail themselves of knowledge freely available on the subject on one thing - how companies run in law in this case - but rather listen to the uninformed Iles for 'direction' for instead - then I've no doubt they do the same with other subjects (such as politics) with other non informed 'influencers' to follow, also.

People can believe anything or anybody they want but it is clear that your good self and I prefer to try to better inform ourselves than blindly following the crowd.

People may see that as me being patronising or condescending but to me it is just a plain common sense thing to do.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:

boltonbonce wrote:

Ten Bobsworth wrote:

boltonbonce wrote:Woodward and Bernstein would get the same treatment.

You couldn't be more wrong, Boncey. Nothing I like better than well-researched, well-written  investigative journalism, free of political prejudice.

You must be a Guardian reader. Well done that man.

I did say free of political prejudice but I do read books written by left and right-leaning authors.
I'm presently reading Ben Elton's Stark. I didn't care for him as a performer but he's a very entertaining writer.

Never a huge fan, but Thin Blue Line was a masterpiece. And oddly none PC (no pun intended) considering he wrote it.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:P.S. If Iles is picking up from Bower and Maguire, have Bower and Maguire ever commented on how much Holdsworth cost the club or where the £525K fee went? Is this, in other words, an alliance of individuals bent on picking and chosing whatever facts might suit inherent prejudices whilst ignoring any others that don't?

Sorry, forgot to try and answer this in my last post.

Obviously I can only guess at what their thinking was and all that was but clearly Bower had an agenda against Anderson right from the beginning, certainly in his ST Board Member role and was firmly in the pro-Holdsworth camp, so it is no surprise to me at least that he was amongst the first to shout from the rooftops about the £525k shown in the accounts (wasn't it actually shown as an auditor note as something that happened after the annual accounts in question - I can't be bothered to look back now - if so no one including Bower at that time could check that it actually reached it's stated destination, until that particular company published it's account some several months later at best).

He certainly never bothered to check thereafter, or if he did he certainly never bothered to make equally known in public his findings!

Maguire came to my attention much later, from iirc Bower re-tweeting him.  I note that they tended to keep each other in the loop via twitter from that time on in respect of any perceived chance of sticking the knife into Anderson, which were always included and sent to Iles, who often re-tweeted them for his rabid twitter followers to feed on and stoke their fires even higher.

Maguire did an article on the accounts and took glee in pointing out that if you took the first letter of each paragraph of his article it spelled out iirc 'Anderson is a cunt' - I kid you not.

How objective and non biased reporting was that?

I have no problem with either of them having personal views but object to anyone (Bower was a ST Board Member and as such was representing its membership - which at the time claimed to representing the voice of all BWFC supporters, whilst Maguire as a University lecturer and frequent media football finance expert on TV) in my opinion, abusing their positions of authority to push their own agendas.

I doubt Maguire had any desire or inclination to asses and report on what Holdsworth took out of BWFC previously.

I've no doubt that Iles bought into everything Bower and Maguire said as it clearly backed up his pro-Holdsworth anti-Anderson agenda - and gave a veneer of authority to the widely held view that Anderson was basically a crook, raping the club for his own benefit.

Bower has largely dropped out of the public eye in the last couple of years and left the ST Board before that, so I don't think Iles has him to lean on anymore and thus assumed that his (once again) incorrect financial comments - this time in respect of MK Dons - came from Maguire, whom he misquoted!

All water under the bridge now, Anderson's gone, the Administrators had a good look at the books and the weeks continue to roll on since then without any apparent sanctions against KA, and of course FV now hold the reigns.

Onwards and upwards from now on I hope - although I still can't understand what the masterplan is yet?

I would have thought an esteemed reporter would have found that out and told us by now - wouldn't you?

Thanks again, Sluffy. I know from my various personal contacts that the majority of BWFC supporters understand very little about the ED era, the circumstances in which it ended, the role of Ken Anderson afterwards or the present FV set up. But I also know that there are many with strong opinions based largely on myth, falsehood and selective reporting.

The failings and inadequacies of the BN have been the major contributor to the widespread ignorance and misunderstandings but the flames were also fanned by the ST who, as you know, established a dubious relationship with Dean Holdsworth very shortly after the 'Sports Shield' takeover.

I think it was in 2009 that I first became aware of the deep mistrust between the BN/BEN and the board of BWFC. Phil Gartside had been invited to be Guest of Honour at the Lancaster Whites Annual Dinner held as the first event at the new function suite of the University of Cumbria in Lancaster.

PG had been a frequent visitor to Lancaster Whites events which he plainly held in the highest regard. He couldn't do enough for them, nothing was ever too much trouble but he began his opening remarks on this occasion with the words, "I'd better be careful what I say as Gordon Shorrock is here".

It became clear later that evening, from comments made by Gordon Shorrock, that this was no casual remark but a clear statement of how PG could not trust the BN. I'd had my own doubts before then but not much to go on and frankly I hadn't taken a great deal of notice.

Shorrock had been a Manchester United supporter, Neil Bonnar, Manchester City and when Marc Iles arrived from Cheltenham, or wherever there seemed little real allegiance to BWFC or the seriously challenging issues it faced in the boardroom before ED finally made public the fact that he could no longer afford to financially support the club. Marc Iles recently reported, again falsely, that that was in 2015 implying that it was abrupt. It wasn't, it was a year earlier and not remotely abrupt or without warning.

But ED, it appears, continued to finance the club until his dying day and the club is presently being financed on the security of assets paid for by Eddie Davies.

If it is the case that the directors of FV are keeping Marc Iles and the BN at arms length, its not without very good reason. They've taken on a tough enough task as it is.

When was the last time you went to a game Bob?

Natasha Whittam wrote:When was the last time you went to a game Bob?

Let me put it this way, Natasha. This is the first year since 1952 that I've not attended a BWFC match. I bought my first season ticket in 1958 and I've been buying season tickets or corporate tickets continuously since 1992 for myself and, at different times, eight other members of my family.
But not this season.

Nothing to do with FV or Ken Anderson but quite a bit to do with the vile and toxic atmosphere generated over the last few seasons.

I do have to travel a distance to get to matches but to answer your question directly, the last match I attended was on 19 April 2019 against Aston Villa. And btw I am a  Lifeline member and a shareholder, until it gets liquidated. How about you?

It's mad and heartbreaking to think that we will have dropped 2 divisions in 2 seasons by the time we get to April 2020 

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Let me put it this way, Natasha. This is the first year since 1952 that I've not attended a BWFC match. I bought my first season ticket in 1958 and I've been buying season tickets or corporate tickets continuously since 1992 for myself and, at different times, eight other members of my family.
But not this season.

Nothing to do with FV or Ken Anderson but quite a bit to do with the vile and toxic atmosphere generated over the last few seasons.

I do have to travel a distance to get to matches but to answer your question directly, the last match I attended was on 19 April 2019 against Aston Villa. And btw I am a  Lifeline member and a shareholder, until it gets liquidated. How about you?

You clearly have a love for the club, so it's in your blood like the rest of us.

Yet you seem to delight in mocking our fans because they don't share your love of facts and figures. Don't you see that most people just want to watch the game on a Saturday afternoon, see some friends or family, and then talk about the match on the way home. Most don't care how the Reebok was financed, how much cash FV have (or don't have) or whether Iles is a finance expert.

It doesn't make them thick, or make you a better person.

Well said Nat