Wigan in Administration

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
Know about dead sheep, do you? You seem to have the intellect of one.

 Please stop i'm no match for your rapier like wit and offensive put downs, i can't cope 

I'm starting to lose my sanity on here now.

Norpig, pass me a knife so I can slit my fucking wrists.

Jesus Christ!

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

Embattled, as in surrounded by the enemy?

If so, yes I believe I was, no doubt Bob felt the same.  I suffered some awful abuse both on here and ww at the time.

Bob and I were certainly in a minority that's for sure - I don't think anyone took our side did they?

I certainly can't remember anyone chipping in and saying something like Sluffy and/or Bob may have a point here - it was all anti-Anderson hatred and we were labelled as being on his side and being hated as such along with him for being 'seen' to be so.

Anyway water under the bridge for me now.

You've got a victim complex if you think you were surrounded by enemies. Getting bored of reading it, you weren't abused on here, you gave us good as you got to the few you got into running battles with ovber this.

If you still can't understand why fans were unhappy with Anderson's time at the club then there's no helping you. I've explained to you so many times the difference between being a dick and doing something illegal, the fact no illegal activity by Anderson has been uncovered does not excuse his poor behaviour during his time as chairman which clearly affected our performances on the pitch.

Like so many other issues we discuss, you seem to decide your position first and work backwards from there. You dug in on Anderson and refused to see any other view point.

Stop trying to rewrite the past with nonsense statements like this.

Yes I was abused on here, read the threads at the time if you've forgotten and if giving back to someone telling the world that I'd got mental health issues by replying to him that he was a moonman was on the same level for 'giving it back', then I simply don't agree with you.

I've not got a victim complex at all, I merely stated what was actually happened at the time and not what people wanted to believe was happening, nothing more, nothing less.

You seem to be totally fixed on the mistaken belief that Anderson could run the company within the law and do MORALLY the right things at the same time - he couldn't, it wasn't a moral choice he had, it was a physical one - it was one or the other, not both - he couldn't pay the players their wages and continue to trade within the law at the same time, you don't seem to understand this?

To but it as simply as I can, once he emptied the clubs bank account it required him to declare the club insolvent, have his ownership taken from him and stop any potential sale he may had been working on.  By not paying the players, suppliers or whoever else but still have some money in the club he still had a chance to sell the club, settle the wages and supplier bills and earn himself something at the end of it all.

Maybe you believe you would throw yourself financially under the bus to do the moral thing but perhaps if it actually came to that in real life maybe you might have second thoughts over being so magnanimous and taking such a self-sacrificing stance when you don't actually have to.

Anderson didn't need to 'do' the moral thing, he chose another option that was open to him and was better for him.

Six thousand people pledged and gave their word to join the ST when it was first set up - only three thousand actually did so - and we are only talking about a tenner cost to each one of them - how many people like those calling out that Anderson wasn't acting morally would act and do what they were calling for him to do when it might have lost themselves potentially millions?

Not many I would think.

I'm not sure I would and I like to think of myself as someone who would do the right thing at the right time.

I'm not stupid I know why people don't like Anderson but how many of those had any clue why he acted like he did - in his position and given the choice to do the right thing or potentially safe yourself a fortune by not doing - would do exactly what Anderson did do?

More than a few I would suspect.

So it's easy to pontificate about someone else when you only see one side of the story and don't have a considerable sum of money at stake.

I'm not the one whose 'dug' in on Anderson, I'm simply the one explaining what options he had and why he chose to do what he did.

Maybe a more pertinent point would be how he ever became club owner in the first place and that leads back to the lengthy discussions between Bob and myself over the last few days and I guess only Eddie could have answered that.

He's gone now and so to has Holdsworth and Anderson and as I've been trying to do over a considerable time since FV took over is to move on from there myself to.

Carpe deim perhaps instead.

Norpig wrote:
 Please stop i;m no match for your rapier like wit and offensive put downs, i can't cope 

This is just like the Lincoln v Douglas debates in 1858. Marvellous stuff. They had seven debates, each lasting three hours, so you boys have a way to go yet.

karlypants wrote:I'm starting to lose my sanity on here now.

Norpig, pass me a knife so I can slit my fucking wrists.

Jesus Christ!

You massive bellend, you're the only one who can put a stop to it.

The future of Nuts is in your hands.

(We're fucked).

I can't think of anything to say, so...

Natasha Whittam wrote:

You massive bellend, you're the only one who can put a stop to it.

The future of Nuts is in your hands.

(We're fucked).

You know what, Boncey, don't you think it would be a good idea to cast Nuts posters as Beano characters?

Nat would be a shoe-in for Minnie the Minx and/or Beryl the Peril.

Dennis the Menace? Wanderlust I think.

Smiffy? T.R.O.Y. or Norpig? He doesn't get things wrong, he just answers questions in a different order.

Any other suggestions?

Think we did something similar before, got bonce down as

I'd be Corporal Clott. Bob would be Colonel Blink (Arf Arf).
I see Nat as more of a Pansy Potter.
Dirty Dick is anyone's guess.

Come on Sluff, you're not Custer, and just because 50p concurs with your view of events doesn't mean that your version of events is the last bastion of truth on this subject. As many other posters have reminded you, nobody knows the real truth here, and everybody has their own opinions and interpretations of what went on.
I agree with you that Holdsworth seems to have come out of this whole thing smelling of roses but nobody will convince me that Anderson wasn't just in it to make a fast easy buck and didn't give a rat's arse about the effect it had on Bolton Wanderers F.C.

Hip Priest wrote:Come on Sluff, you're not Custer, and just because 50p concurs with your view of events doesn't mean that your version of events is the last bastion of truth on this subject. As many other posters have reminded you, nobody knows the real truth here, and everybody has their own opinions and interpretations of what went on.
I agree with you that Holdsworth seems to have come out of this whole thing smelling of roses but nobody will convince me that Anderson wasn't just in it to make a fast easy buck and didn't give a rat's arse about the effect it had on Bolton Wanderers F.C.

If you think I agree with everything Sluffy says, you've not got your thinking head on.

Some things I do, some I don't. 

The amount Holdsworth walked off with is one of them. 

The amount Anderson would have earned if he got BWFC out of the brown stuff is another.

And the whole reasoning of why, with his back to the wall, Eddie came up with an inventive scheme that would give the club, its employees and its creditors the chance of avoiding the consequences of administration or liquidation in March 2016, is a third.

But any idea that Ken Anderson ever agreed or had any obligation  to spend whatever money he had on keeping BWFC afloat is just plain bonkers.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:

Hip Priest wrote:Come on Sluff, you're not Custer, and just because 50p concurs with your view of events doesn't mean that your version of events is the last bastion of truth on this subject. As many other posters have reminded you, nobody knows the real truth here, and everybody has their own opinions and interpretations of what went on.
I agree with you that Holdsworth seems to have come out of this whole thing smelling of roses but nobody will convince me that Anderson wasn't just in it to make a fast easy buck and didn't give a rat's arse about the effect it had on Bolton Wanderers F.C.

If you think I agree with everything Sluffy says, you've not got your thinking head on.

Some things I do, some I don't. 

The amount Holdsworth walked off with is one of them. 

The amount Anderson would have earned if he got BWFC out of the brown stuff is another.

And the whole reasoning of why, with his back to the wall, Eddie came up with an inventive scheme that would give the club, its employees and its creditors the chance of avoiding the consequences of administration or liquidation in March 2016, is a third.

But any idea that Ken Anderson ever agreed or had any obligation  to spend whatever money he had on keeping BWFC afloat is just plain bonkers.

Thanks Bob.

Just to straighten the record a little bit though -

I've never said how much Holdsworth walked off with.  We do know some factual things such as Ken initially buying into SSBWFC and that Holdsworth was the highest paid officer of the club for a period but I've never claimed he pocketed £1m from BM, just that KA had claimed such, however from the first two alone he got iirc £400k and say £100k wages, so that's half a million out for just 50p in for a start.

Again I've no idea what KA would have got if he managed to pull of the unmanageable with a sale instead of him going into Administration, of which of course he didn't.  The way he did do it though meant that he walked away without having to settle the £5m personal loan against him from Eddie, whilst staying marginally the right side of the law.  So he could have done the moralistic thing that TROY, BTID, Hip Priest and the rest hate him for and STILL had to pay EDT £5m (plus interest) or be a bastard and not be the gentleman about things and thus save himself £5m - legally (but certainly not morally)

How many of those who hate Anderson would do exactly the same themselves to save them from repaying a £5m debt?

All of them?

I probably would myself I'm ashamed to say.

And as for Eddie's masterplan involving penniless Holdsworth I never gave an answer, as I couldn't square the circle and still can't.

If there was to be a 'genuine' bid involving Holdsworth he would have to have a backer first, in order for them to provide assets against the loan from BM. I reasoned that couldn't be the case because it was known before the event that Gordon would step away on the court date and that Eddie would allow security on the BM loan on BWFC assets in advance of this.  So Eddie had to be integral to what then flowed from this.

Bob seems to steer me along a path where the plan was to let Eddie hand over the club to someone who he trusts and thus allow him to walk away from it. But who is going to settle the BM loan when it falls due? Not Holdsworth, the only assets he had was 50% (or as near as damn it) of the club ownership shares and we already know from his sale of a 15% of the total club holding for £400k  that IT would have amounted to something like a value of £1.5m originally and after selling the chunk to KA leaving Dean about £1.1m or so left.

I don't suppose Holdsworth is the brightest but even he most have known he had to have some sort of a safety net behind him to pay the money back (which became due just 10 days after he and Anderson bought the club) so who was his safety net - not Anderson for sure, so it can only be Davies but Davies did all this so he could step away from Bolton yet by brining Holdsworth in and guaranteeing the loan against the club meant he couldn't?

The only way that plan could have worked was for Anderson to give Holdsworth £5m for his half of the club shares and they simply were not worth that much were they?

If Holdsworth isn't paid up and walks off into the sunset at the start then he's going to own 50% of the club from day one but have no financial input (or business skills to turn it around) whilst Anderson presumably is expected to put both his money in and turn the club around on his own and only receive half the money when he's done so - that's never going to be acceptable to him or anyone else is it?

So clearly, at least to me, something doesn't add up here and I fail to see how what happen in the structuring of events leading to the sale to Holdsworth was ever going to allow Eddie to walk away if that was the object of the whole thing?

I do agree on your final point though!!!

Hip Priest wrote:Come on Sluff, you're not Custer, and just because 50p concurs with your view of events doesn't mean that your version of events is the last bastion of truth on this subject. As many other posters have reminded you, nobody knows the real truth here, and everybody has their own opinions and interpretations of what went on.
I agree with you that Holdsworth seems to have come out of this whole thing smelling of roses but nobody will convince me that Anderson wasn't just in it to make a fast easy buck and didn't give a rat's arse about the effect it had on Bolton Wanderers F.C.

I'm not absolutely sure what you are saying to me here, sorry.

You're free to believe whatever ever you like and yes Anderson doesn't do voluntary work and was certainly here to earn himself a decent return for his time and energy - wouldn't you, wouldn't everybody?  I know I would.

He would have had some considerable concern about the effect he had on Bolton Wanderers FC, not least he would have had his eye on the £6m difference or so for being in the Championship to being in the third tier but his prime aim was about saving the business by turning it around financially and making money for himself doing so (as opposed to putting his OWN wealth into the club like Eddie did).

I'm not Custer, that is true - is that a reference I made about me being the cavalry sometime back which I only really made in jest anyway, otherwise I don't know what you are talking about?  Also I take it you mean Bob is 50p and if so - and as he has already said for himself above - he doesn't concur with a chunks of what I've previously posted.  I do think however that he and I are generally both heading in the same direction though.

The bottom line is that whatever you think of Holdsworth and Anderson they were the bridge from Eddie to FV and that is where we are now.

Sluffy,  its not that complicated. Eddie had drawn the line in 2014 not 2015 as you seem to have claimed. And it most certainly was not the case of turning off a tap without notice as you have implied.  

ED hadn't been a director of BL or BWFC for years and had paid off all the bank debt in 2009 putting the club into a more saleable position. And though he'd had a multitude of 'interested parties' he didn't trust any of them.

He wanted to pass it on as a Premier League club but that was scuppered by relegation on the last day of the 2011/12 season. He wanted to get back into the Premiership. That didn't work. Even worse, the prospect of relegation from the Championship loomed.

All the while the board, through Phil Gartside, kept going back to Eddie time after time for more money. He drew the line in 2014, from then on the board had to manage as best they could.

But they couldn't manage because its impossible to run a Championship club without a Sugar Daddy and so they had to hope that Mr Moneybags would eventually turn up. He didn't. Holdsworth turned up  and he wasn't Mr Moneybags. Eventually Ken Anderson arrived on the scene. He wasn't Mr Moneybags either but he was a very experienced and capable insolvency expert. 

So Eddie assisted the handover by allowing Blumarble to have security for their loan and privately agreeing to provide up to £2.5m, if needed, to help what was going to be an exceedingly difficult challenge.

But that £2.5m would not go directly to the club, it would go to the new owners. They weren't putting in any money of their own but if they spent any of Eddie's money they'd be personally liable to repay Eddie.

Would Dean Holdsworth be good for the money? Would he take that risk? I would doubt it on both counts.
What about Ken Anderson? He might if it helped him realise a profit but would he do it if Holdsworth was going to take half the profit? No chance is the answer.

As for Eddie borrowing money from Blumarble then reneging on the deal days later, I think you are barking up the wrong tree entirely. But its  entirely possible that Blumarble thought that, if push came to shove, Eddie would come to the rescue as he'd done so many times before. And, of course, he did but it was after two and a half  years of pushing and shoving.

Thank you Bob, I appreciate your views.

However I've no idea how you've interpreted several things of what I've previously posted, I can only imagine I've not been clear in how I've written some of the stuff, if so I apologise to you and anyone else misunderstanding what I've wrote so please allow me to attempt to rectify that below.

I've never said or even implied Eddie should have taken on the loan from BM , let alone not settle it 10 days after the club was taken over???  

What I have been attempting to say was instead of Holdsworth taking on the loan and in so doing become integral to the whole thing (and that as you freely admit was a major problem to anyone else involved- because he had no money and had taken on a £5m debt with with no money as such personally to his name, put into his company he had just set up for a quid  (Sports Shield Investments) and no means of paying it off?) then why didn't the club (not Eddie personally!!!) - Bolton Wanderers FC - which Eddie owned prior to the sale - take out a loan against their remaining assets directly with a loan company (it needed not have been BM) and have the same assets secured against by them and achieve exactly the SAME THING without having Holdsworth involvement in any way, shape or form???

It would have taken Holdsworth out of the picture entirely, not effect Anderson in anyway other to benefit him by not being saddled with a joint owner of the company he was taking on and who could add nothing to the running of it either financially or from his non existent business acumen?

There was absolutely no need for Holdsworth's involvement at all, other than maybe a deflection as such leading up to the sale with all eyes on him and Gordon and non at all on Ken Anderson?

It could have been sold to the fans that the Holdsworth deal collapsed at the very last minute but Anderson stepped in, saved the day and stopped it falling in to Administration by becoming the new sole owner.

In short I can't understand any logic for Holdsworth to be there at all let alone become joint owner!!!

As for Eddie 'turning off the taps'.

I've always said it had been 'known' that for some years prior to the eventual sale that the club was available for purchase and that Eddie wanted to step back from it.

I'd read somewhere (maybe even something you had said) that he had given the club notice that he intended to stop funding it some 18 months before, which would place that to be in 2014, so it all seems to fit - I don't have any problem with any of that.

What I can't understand and which seems to undermine this intention is the action of the club KNOWING and being fully aware of what was about to happen???

For example on the 10th December, 2015 the club made an this official statement saying that the club failed to pay its monthly tax bill to HMRC for November -

Update from Bolton Wanderers regarding the club's current HMRC situation

Bolton Wanderers can confirm that the club has now received a winding up petition from HMRC in respect of unpaid PAYE and VAT for the month of November.

Despite requests from the club to HMRC to give it further time to either conclude a sale or raise additional funds, HMRC has proceeded with due process and duly served a petition.  

Trevor Birch, advisor to the board and owner at Bolton Wanderers, said: “Quite clearly the club remains in a critical financial position. We will continue to try and finalise a sale or alternatively raise some short term funds needed to give the club a breathing space and time in which to consider its options.”

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2015/december/club-statement/

So if it could not pay the taxman in November how then could it seem to think it could afford the signing of a player (Ben Amos) on a FOUR YEAR deal at £16k per week, in July 2015, just a matter of some four months earlier???

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2015/july/ben-amos-completes-bolton-wanderers-move/

Fwiw this was attributed to Iles in November -

According to friend of the site Marc Iles, short term funding options are said to involve the sale of the hotel and offices at the Macron Stadium.

https://lionofviennasuite.sbnation.com/2015/12/10/9885774/bolton-wanderers-formally-issued-with-winding-up-petition-from-hmrc

PBP went on to secure against the hotel on 29th January, 2016, with the infamous BM loan secured as well on the club sale on 17th March, 2016.

So £10m worth of loans needed to be put into the club within a matter of months after signing a player to a FOUR YEAR deal at £16k per week???

It certainly doesn't sound like a business that had had a 18 months notice to get itself ready for the withdrawal of its principle financial benefactor does it?

I'm not saying Eddie didn't give notice and maybe the financial mess was down to Phil Gartside illness but never the less Eddie MUST have known that the financial position the club was in meant he either stuck to his guns, turn off the taps and walk away and let the club take its chances OR keep involved in someway and prop it up from his own wealth.

He didn't turn his back and walk away - we know that so why then did he get Holdsworth tied up in becoming joint owner of the club and takeout the BM loan and pay it to Sports Shield Investment - when he as Bolton Wanderers FC could have done exactly the same with Holdsworth's involvement at all???

Another thing I've pondered on but never mentioned before because I'm not knowledgeable about such facts is how much was actually borrowed from BM?

We know BM had security on BWFC for £5m and that only £4m was received by the club.

An explanation between the two amounts is the £4m was borrowed but £5m secured in case of default and to cover accruing interest charges.

However I have noted that when the Administrators settled the charges on assets to allow the club and hotel to be sold they paid out the secured sum PLUS additional interest.

For example PBP secured £5m on the hotel but the settlement amount from the Administrator was £6,482,425 (p10 of 28 of the Administrators Progress Report, 12th December, 2019).

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03674979/filing-history

It would seem to me on that basis therefore that the BM loan WAS for £5m handed over to Holdsworth's SSI - although I can't find any mention of it on the company's accounts - for the year ending 31st July, 2016.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09712490/filing-history

Maybe there is stuff I'm not aware of but on the face of it and compared to what the Admin (appointed by Ken Anderson remember) paid to PBP it does tend to suggest that £1m does seem not to be fully explained as to what happened to it?


Anyway the bottom line to ALL of this is that whatever did happen, happened.

Holdsworth was involved, his company took out the BM loan and put £4m into the club (secured on £5m of assets), Anderson had to sort the mess out and Eddie did not walkaway from the club as he might of planned but put millions more into it leading up to his untimely death.

Anything happening at Wigan though?

wanderlust wrote:Anything happening at Wigan though?

Yes, lots.

Thanks for asking.

wanderlust wrote:Anything happening at Wigan though?

They might be taken over by someone who knows how to slice and dice his onions.
The main conversation should be somewhere else but its here so you might as well live with it.
But as you claim to be a bit of a whizz on finance, why not pop over onto the Vince Watch thread and give us all the benefit of your  wisdom, expertise and insight.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
They might be taken over by someone who knows how to slice and dice his onions.
The main conversation should be somewhere else but its here so you might as well live with it.
But as you claim to be a bit of a whizz on finance, why not pop over onto the Vince Watch thread and give us all the benefit of your  wisdom, expertise and insight.

Nice of you to ask. Pointless having a conversation based on declared losses though isn't it?
Meaningless as Trump's tax advisors will tell you.

The Amos situation is interesting, Sluffy, but it is a bit of a diversion.

Presumably the person who signed it off was persuaded that Amos was worth the money and could be sold on at a profit as Madine subsequently was. It was poor judgement and may well have taken place when Phil Gartside was very ill.

Its not hard to imagine how frustrating Ken Anderson must have found it having to pay out unaffordable amounts to players whilst being under pressure to pay long overdue suppliers with money he didn't have. If Amos wouldn't compromise and he wouldn't, the best thing was to get him out to another club on loan and at least try to get some contribution to his wages. That's what he did.

But the position the board faced in 2015 was that, without someone to replace Eddie's funding, they were staring into the abyss. Battening down the hatches wasn't an option. Wage costs had been reduced by a third but the club could still not have paid its way if all its players played for free.

Eddie would do what he could to help a takeover but he was not making any kind of comeback. You must try to understand that.