Bush wrote:

rncfc wrote:I was of the understanding that it was the trust or bust. Whether that was my imagination running wild I'm not sure, but that's how I read it at the time.

Yep me too.

My understanding was that Fan Ownership was Les Scadding's preferred option.

Whether there was a "Plan B" who knows.

What I understood was that Les wanted out and that the fans Trust was Les’s preferred purchaser. I thought better the likes of me buy in rather than another bogus “ millionaire “ benefactor to take us into oblivion. That was my take on it, other views are available

After speaking with Les he made it clear to me that he wanted ownership to be in the hands of the fans as he felt it was our best option to survive and thrive.

We haven't stepped up enough. The vast majority of our trust members only "shelling out" £10 per year (yes I know that's on top of our shares & ticket prices etc but a lot of our fans thinks it's Ebsfleet over again

Exile 1976 wrote:After speaking with Les he made it clear to me that he wanted ownership to be in the hands of the fans as he felt it was our best option to survive and thrive.

We haven't stepped up enough. The vast majority of our trust members only "shelling out" £10 per year (yes I know that's on top of our shares & ticket prices etc but a lot of our fans thinks it's Ebsfleet over again

I agree - my opinion being that this will be emphasised by the Board at next month's meeting - the ownership poll will be irrelevant and the Trust ownership model will be spoken about in the past tense. I think that is also reason for the deafening silence on all matters and the resignation of at least one of the most enthusiastic Trust model Board members.

Les sold the club to the trust because they offered more money for his shares than anyone else

PMG wrote:Les sold the club to the trust because they offered more money for his shares than anyone else

Really i didn't realise that. Who were those unnamed anyone else's?

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:

PMG wrote:Les sold the club to the trust because they offered more money for his shares than anyone else

Really i didn't realise that. Who were those unnamed anyone else's?

Apparently everyone from Arthur Askey to Zinedine Zidane. But mysteriously every one of them was too shy and retiring to speak publicly about it. Other than Dean Holdsworth - and that was about a year after the Trust bid was successful.

whoareya wrote:

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:

PMG wrote:Les sold the club to the trust because they offered more money for his shares than anyone else

Really i didn't realise that. Who were those unnamed anyone else's?

Apparently everyone from Arthur Askey to Zinedine Zidane. But mysteriously every one of them was too shy and retiring to speak publicly about it. Other than Dean Holdsworth - and that was about a year after the Trust bid was successful.

Thought so

So the question remains were we misled or not? I believe we chose to be and maybe rightly so. In fact I think we were right to “ put no faith in saviours “. They are usually megalomaniacs with only their own interests at heart. That’s my opinion. If they had an honest plan to benefit the club, they certainly failed to tell us about it.

We were definitely misled
Les was willing to ditch the shares for £50k
Tony Pring who was on the board at the time knew of the offer
went behind the board and offered Les £300k on behalf of the Trust
The trust then gave everyone the impression that this was the only route and the club was going bust
Load of crap
The club had a very strong board far better than the one now
Lots of experience
Fact

PMG wrote:We were definitely misled
Les was willing to ditch the shares for £50k
Tony Pring who was on the board at the time knew of the offer
went behind the board and offered Les £300k on behalf of the Trust
The trust then gave everyone the impression that this was the only route and the club was going bust
Load of crap
The club had a very strong board far better than the one now
Lots of experience
Fact

If true, why did nobody point this out?

PMG wrote:We were definitely misled
Les was willing to ditch the shares for £50k
Tony Pring who was on the board at the time knew of the offer
went behind the board and offered Les £300k on behalf of the Trust
The trust then gave everyone the impression that this was the only route and the club was going bust
Load of crap
The club had a very strong board far better than the one now
Lots of experience
Fact

Funny that this very strong board were utterly duped isn't it ? They didn't know anything about this alleged back door approach and even when the Trust bid was publicised they still sat back and did nothing? Didn't fancy putting a bid in themselves then - if, as you say,
Les would have sold to anyone? Or were they convinced the club was a money pit without him and didn't fancy financing it on their own?

The Trust bought Les’s shares for a highly inflated price
They were not worth anywhere near that
All the buyers and including the existing board were happy to take it on with the debts
No business person or group in their right mind would pay £300k and take on the debts
The Trust were willing to pay over the top because they were using YOUR money
So a very nice little project,
get you the fans to cough up the money elect themselves to spend it
And have a jolly nice time slagging off the old board who put their time and money as volunteers into a club they loved and cared about and did it for the right reasons
But as I said they put their own money into it
Just to be critised and slagged off

PMG wrote:The Trust bought Les’s shares for a highly inflated price
They were not worth anywhere near that
All the buyers and including the existing board were happy to take it on with the debts
No business person or group in their right mind would pay £300k and take on the debts
The Trust were willing to pay over the top because they were using YOUR money
So a very nice little project,
get you the fans to cough up the money elect themselves to spend it
And have a jolly nice time slagging off the old board who put their time and money as volunteers into a club they loved and cared about and did it for the right reasons
But as I said they put their own money into it
Just to be critised and slagged off

'Les was willing to ditch the shares for £50k
Tony Pring who was on the board at the time knew of the offer
went behind the board and offered Les £300k on behalf of the Trust'

Are you going to cough up some hard evidence to support this ?

ta Dave

My recollection was that the £300k (mentioned earlier here) was the debt in terms of director's loans owed to Les and so was repayable either by the trust or by any other party intending to buy the club.

And my recollection was that Les was to gift his shares (which was a separate item to the loans) to the trust and a schedule agreed to repay Les's director's loan over x years.

And my recollection was that HG and MS also said that they would gift their shares at some point. What I cannot recollect was whether any of this gifting of shares was ever accomplished, though I think in the case of Les's shares it was. Perhaps someone with a more perfect memory or certain knowledge can answer that.

As to

But as I said they put their own money into it
Just to be critised and slagged off

I'm afraid that's par for the course in a football director's life. Whether a director has put in their own money or not is immaterial, they still get criticised and slagged off.