NEWS
27 June 2003
"They came from all these godforsaken new towns ; Milton Keynes, St Albans. As bad as it was in London for young people, they had nothing at all in the satellite towns"
This 1992 quote from
the immortal Johnny "Rotten" Lydon could just as well
sum up a certain plight of a team that today CAN'T go to the
National Hockey Stadium The Stadium : MK because they haven't
paid the bills. With further talk that Franchise could be liquidated
by Monday (in other words, their players can simply foxtrot oscar),
this really could be the long awaited plunge into oblivion we all
hoped for.
Earlier this morning, the Admin people said that Franchise were still going to Selhurst Park, which led SW19 (after leaving my hospital bed, yup I've had the op) to mobilise plans for a final send-off for the Crewe game. Except that typically, Crystal Palace had to spoil my fun by announcing that Franchise WEREN'T going to play there after all. So what are the Admin people up to? Yes, I know that they are reputable etc etc, but if there was any doubt now that they weren't bought in to bail out Koppout there isn't now. To constantly risk your reputation on shrilling MK when it looks like a no-go "for the foreseeable future" (their words, not mine) but to then massively cock-up over Selhurst means serious questions have to be asked.
Anyway, looks like the severence payment got settled (with Reg Davis' money?) and Franchise called up Pickfords, but now the Hockey Stadium have got fed up with waiting, Franchise have absolutely nowhere to go. Really, nowhere to go : they don't have enough money to pay anyone else to borrow their ground (and I don't think the Dons Trust are happy to see the KM pitch ruined by Franchise's remaining players for £5 a week), and even if they did, their players wages have a slightly more urgent need to be settled...
More on what Franchise could do later, but tonight on BBC Radio London (or whatever it's called now), Tom "I loved AFCW vs RP Vile" Watt had a rather interesting discussion apparently with Wankelmann and the CPFC Chief Exec. The Admin people didn't go, and apparently Koppout was supposed to be on (I didn't hear it so I don't know if we got Rent Boy's desperate propaganda). Anyway, in a nutshell looks like Wankelmann was trying to push it without trying to sound like he's been stitched up and the CPFC guy and Watt just ripped into the whole thing. Obviously, if this was Talksport the presenters would be performing oral sex on the brave Charles Koppel while accusing anyone opposing him of forging Iraqi war documents, but it was a different radio station and for once the BBC acted like a proper broadcaster instead of state propagandists. But then, they're not in the position of having a rich elderly South African lawyer who sells shares illegally in telecoms companies on their board are they?
So, as alluded to above, what now for Franchise. Well, apart from liquidation, there IS still a way of surviving for them, and it's those loveable scamps up at Luton. Who when they're not having their managerial phone poll (ahem) amended by fans of other clubs (supposedly) are themselves unable to pay their players wages. Gurney is losing it - he quoted "What is the date today? June ends on the last day of June" to a journo asking when the players wages were to be paid, and those still largely ignored comments about Franchise merging made last week still playing on my mind and somehow I can't help thinking that Franchise will be dancing gaily hand in hand with Luton come this time next week. Well, you think of somewhere else they can go
Anyway, enough of that, back to AFCW. They had a party last night to celebrate getting Ks' leasehold. It also saw the launch of the share issue and fundraising scheme that TBWA has been working on. First things out of the way : I wonder if anyone told TBWA that calling it the Fans Stadium makes it sound like something from Communist East Germany? :) Looks like watching UEFA cup games on the telly from the Eastern Bloc countries in places like the Volkstadion has left an impressionable mark. I can see the concept behind it, it's actually very clever, and with current footballing climes has as much chance of succeeding as anything. Though to have the desired effect it has to be careful not to be too preachy about community etc (insert comments about pendulums here). We will naturally see how it all pans out, though judging by the new website for this, they're going all out
And yes, the TV adverts are very good. But then, from TBWA, I shouldn't have expected anything less.
And no, I'm still not convinced with buying KM or buying shares.....
25 June 2003
As of today, and for the first time since 1991, we are officially no longer homeless. As a press conference tomorrow will confirm, we've bought out the Kingsmeadow leasehold and can now start doing things like putting decent beer in the bar, or decent food. Maybe even do some things to the toilet. That sort of thing. Anyway, everyone is really happy about it
I've said too much unpopular stuff over this already, so I won't bother repeating myself over it. I just can't help thinking "Selhurst" all over again, and that killed one club I loved. I don't want to go through all that again. If today's purchase is a dilution of returning to Merton (which after all was our home, was stolen from us and until we get it back we will find it very hard to fully move on) then it will be disaster for AFCW. All the "it's only 1.5 miles from Merton" and "It's our best hope" talk will count for nothing.
Tomorrow, there is going to be the first of probably many piss-ups that AFCW can claim the bar takings to, though if the standard of food and alcohol remains the same the club will probably end up losing money. I won't be there, I won't be able to touch anything anyway, and given all that I have written all this above I would feel just a little bit hypocritical being there. And besides, I don't want to intrude on anyone else's celebrations.....
As far as I am concerned, today is the day that we secured a platform to move forward. This gets us an asset, not a home. We are not where we want to be yet, we are still travelling the Holy Grail. The day we lose sight of that is the day that we repeat the Hammam/Koppout era mistakes. To (probably inaccurately) quote somebody from last season about buying Kingsmeadow, "It's not the glorious homecoming we want".......
22 June 2003
More totally and completely justifiable abuse of Franchise FC and the cocks that still work there. It's been 10 days since my last update, and that means the Admin people are owed another £100k. Things have been quiet from them, but their position seems to be more precarious day by day. Firstly, there has been NOTHING from Grant Thornton, not even a little pro-MK thing on the Franchise OS. I know they're probably busy trying to sort out Hammam's companies in the British Virgin Islands (their tourist motto is "BVI : where the only thing you need to file is your nails") but their silence is deafening.
Secondly, it looks like
the promised threatened firesale is about to occur. Already,
Reo-Coker and probably Jobi McAnuff are Premiership bound, Pompey
is their destination. In fact, Reo-Coker went there instead of Spurz
because "Portsmouth are a team going places". Hmm, downwards
I presume. Anyway, they're going for the low sum of £500k
each, which I don't think will cover their wages and the Admin fees.
Perhaps more damaging is Connelly reportedly Reading-bound (no,
not Reading Town bound), again for £500k. Nuff sed on this
score, but really, who will they have left? The longer this goes
on the lower the transfer fees will be, as the Admin people get
more desperate.
Thirdly, perhaps the most damning insight into Franchise's glorious predicament : hidden away in one of this week's Daily Telegraph was the news that the Admin people have decided that MK isn't a viable option any more. Which if true (and it hasn't exactly been shouted from the rooftops, which surprises me) is Game Over as far as I am concerned. This may explain a couple of things from this week : firstly, Franchise will probably be playing their first game against Crewe at ....... Selhurst. Oh, the irony. Now, typically, it clashes with the Sutton friendly, which majorly annoys me. There could have been a chance for a final two-fingered goodbye, but I am sure something will be done on that score.
Secondly, it's been rumoured that Koppout himself is hinting at keeping Franchise in South London. While this would prove fatal for them, it also puts us at AFCW in a difficult predicament. Do we stay at AFCW or will some drift back to Franchise? I'm sure that such talk, as repeated verbatim by mouthpieces like Mellor, is partly trying to unsettle us, I have no qualms about the sniping tactics that Koppout can still use. My own feelings are this : read my WISA piece on the last game at Selhurst for them (you'll have to search through the archive for it) and you'll see why I think that people will go for a couple of games then go back to AFCW. The stench at SP on that day still gets up my nostrils, and I'm not referring to the smell coming out of Koppout's cum-filled arse either. Will we put up with it for long? As said above, the whole place is a firesale and in truth, there is nothing at Franchise I would want to put up with again. Even the first division place, I genuinely believe pro football in this country isn't worth saving.
Of course, I doubt if it will come to that, if comments by Gurney (the Luton Town bod) on Radio Dive Live are anything to go by. He's mentioning a merger again. Yup, despite Football League rules, which as we all known are adhered to and binding, this has come up. Now, why is he mentioning it? After all, there's moves to move the club back to South London, surely? I think this is manoevering (all right, face saving) on certain people's part. Don't believe me? OK, Wankelmann is increasingly pissed off, Franchise are now a joke (and a particularly unfunny one at that) and are IMO permanently damaged. Luton are in shit, and the merger of the two sides gives Koppout a bail-out, Wankelmann his team (let's face it, they'll move to MK) and Luton can simply use another 3 man commission to over-turn the merger rulings. Unless somebody is throwing money at Franchise incognito, there aren't many other ways I can think of that will resolve Franchise's problems. Shame.
Anyway, some AFCW stuff
if I really have to. After all, that's why we're here aren't we?
Firstly, we're in the CCL again next season. Now there's
a surprise. More intriguing is the likely launch of the AFCW Share
Issue, probably this Thursday. AFCW are holding a press conference
at Ks that evening anyway. Basically, as you should know, a PLC
has been formed for this share issue, which is going to be dealing
with the ground and AFCW entity. Now, being a PLC means that anyone
can buy shares, which may be problematic. Not because of who owns
the shares, but the likelyhood of raising the necessary dough. This
year, the stock market has taken some pretty heavy slumps, and shares
in football clubs are about as worthy as a Charles Koppout press
statement : I'm sure the whole thing has been thought out thoroughly,
and given the links to some blue chip people that a couple of people
at AFCW PLC have, there should be a couple of major investors seizing
the opportunity to invest in a prime bit of real estate in South
West London community based organisation, though I would urge
anyone who thinks that raising the dough will be easier with this
share issue to just temper their enthusiasm. Remember, investments
can go down as well as up. Your home is at risk etc etc.
There will doubtless be some comments made about the setup of this. Personally, I'm going to keep out of discussions about voting, constitution matters etc for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the mere mention of the word "constitution" sends me into a coma and brings on my legendary ADD just a little bit more quicker than normal. Besides, why have meaningful discussions about where commas should go when a good old fashioned kneecapping will suffice? :) As for the other reason, I won't specify what it is, because if I did I would find it very hard to go to AFCW games again. And no, I am not joking.
Elsewhere, good that Kris (winner of the Hero Of The Season in the SW19 Poll) is finally getting money. If AFCW can afford to pay it without jepordising anything else, it won't harm. I'm sure even small charities don't have a 100% volunteer taskforce, so why should an organisation about to embark on a £3m+ fundraising scheme with a client base of 3k at least expect the people at the top to work for nowt?
Oh, and we're playing Dulwich Hamlet again. Be there :)
12 June 2003
For those of us with sufficient bitterness and hatred to want Franchise (in Administration) to not only die but to die painfully and decompose horribly, this week has been a bit of a good un. In a way, it's a shame that the club had to leave us before this could happen, but better late than never.
So, what's the state of play? Firstly, the Administrators. You could approach their Koppelesque shrilling of why MK is the only way forward etc in one of two ways (or both) : firstly, they are Koppout's stooges in all this. Grant Thornton have a branch in Milton Keynes, quelle surprise, and whilst checking out informal links between both parties could prove slightly tricky, it does seem a little too cheerleading. Now, while I will readily admit that my knowledge of finance is on a par with Tony Blair's knowledge of how to successfully sell the Euro, I am sure that statements to the effect of "we will only consider MK bids" is just a little bit prejudicial. Doesn't that totally go against the whole ethos of admin? What if somebody with more dough than sense had an offer of taking the club back to South London which could guarantee its survival and got turned down? I've heard that Grant Thornton are reputable. But then, so were BCCI.
The other way of approaching this is that Franchise (in Administration) are fucked. Totally fucked. In fact, the porn star who holds the world record for shagging most men in about half hour was less fucked than Franchise. So much so that the Admin people are having to put their reputation on the line to have somebody - anyone - come in for a bid. Time will of course tell the extent of their problems, but consider this : WFC Ltd is ultimately based in the British Virgin Isles, which is a good place to do dodgy company transactions. Especially in Hammam's era, the WFC Ltd company was reportedly used to pass through money to other places. If the Admin people have any integrity whatsoever, these sorts of dealing will be made more public than ever before. There clearly have to be some twitchy people ATM - witness failed actor Vinny Jones selling the MK to the point of embarrasment. Work out who his football friends are....
The best news to come out this week was the announcement that Reg Davis finally got the elbow. Now, normally I wouldn't cheer somebody getting redundant - been there, got the t-shirt - but I am prepared to make an exception for the individual who drives the least aptly-named car going (a Smart car). Davis to me was the epithomy of WFC Ltd : some may claim that he was there to keep continuity going, a bridge between the old and the new, and in an era of multi-bucks and shiny stadia, he was the genial link to WFC's past. Actually, Reg Davis is the most obnoxious cunt I have ever come across, and that's saying something. He was without fail always rude, arrogant and without any charm whatsoever. When you consider that he was the club's PR bod for many years, is it any wonder the club got constant bad press?
Davis, like many others, hasn't been paid, and I doubt if his pension would be that safe. He - stupidly - sold his house in Mitcham to buy one in MK and now will find it very difficult to pay it off. He will be worrying a lot about his finances : well, if his service to Wimbledon over the years is to be adequately repaid, I hope the smug cunt dribbles in his adult nappy about Wolves at the Pensioner Hardship workshop for many moons to come. No, I am not bitter. Or enjoying this. Honest.
Other major thing to
happen was a BBC 3 Counties radio thing from the National Hockey
Stadium The Stadium, Milton Keynes. The transcript of what went
on will doubtless be available elsewhere, but the rub of it is thus
: Wankelmann appears to be losing patience with the whole thing.
He won't admit it but he seems to have felt that Koppout has strung
him along over this. There is no major campaign to help Franchise
(in Administration) in MK because - reportedly said - "the
locals do not consider it their team yet". Which if that does
not give an indication of how things are really going, I don't know
what will. Also, reportedly the local authorities don't have
to rely on Franchise (in Administration) being at Denbigh. So now
they tell us? Christ, this whole thing is unravelling quicker than
a giant unravelling thingy, and it seems like our entire efforts
in all of this seem to be for nowt. OK, that's not true, we got
AFCW out of what we done, and there is no way that we weren't
at least partly responsible for the current plight Franchise
(in Administration) find themselves in. That all said, I just can't
help feeling a little bit more bitter at this whole thing - why
the fuck did we go through all this? Or perhaps our fight was not
to stop Franchise but to bring to the public's attention what was
going on.
I want two things to happen. Firstly, I want Franchise (in Administration) to go bust horribly. Koppout to get his just deserts (ahem), the name and honours returned to us and the whole episode to end. Secondly, I would just like somebody responsible for all this just to say "sorry" to us. Just one little two-syllable word. It won't erase half of the anguish, anxiety, energy and sheer and utter torture the entire thing has caused us, but it might help. Will I get such a thing? There's more chance of Wankelmann saying that he doesn't believe that Franchise (in Administration) have sold so many season tickets as they claim......
6 June 2003
Sometimes, even the shitty days can have a nice thing happen to them. Having spent the last 48-72 hours battling illness, chronic knackeredness and various other things too horrible to contemplate, along comes Franchise and goon-in-chief Rent Boy to cheer us all up. Yes, Franchise are in administration, whatever that means. At last, they've finally twigged that they really couldn't run a bath.
Turns out (according to the Evening Substandard anyway) that they're something like £3.5m in debt, haven't paid the staff and players for last month (wonder how Steve Allen will afford his mortgage now?) and could be closer to the heavy brick wall than first thought. And with new FA rules coming in to punish clubs who take this option out, looks like things could be getting quite heavy.
So, without the aid of reading much up on it, what's SW19's take? I have two strands of thought. The first one is the thought that Franchise really is French Connection UKed, and the inevitable has happened. How the hell have Franchise managed to keep going with a 60-90% slump in attendances (depending on who you believe) is beyond anyone with an inch of economics knowledge. How long will they keep going? It depends on what happens in MK itself, they trumpet it being a "sell out" but given that the cost of the season tickets won't pay for half their squad's wages, it's hardly going to be the major bail-out they need. Koppout was reportedly in Oslo today trying to get KIR to fish - boom boom - for some more wonga, and apparently wasn't very successful. So, are we reaching End Game?
The second strand of thought is more sinister, more conspiracy theorist and therefore probably much more accurate. This thing has come out like a bolt from the blue. There were no tiny little inklings, no sly leaks, no legal moves made, nothing. Is Franchise using a rather underhanded method to get rid of any overheads, debts and the like, so that ownership can be transfered for a neglible sum? Remember that they HAVE tried underhand methods before - EGM anyone? - so none of this should surprise you.
Something else got me when I was looking at the news. No idea who the admin guys were, but was it just me or did they seem like cheerleaders for the whole MK project? There was none of the typical admin speak that seems to happen at other clubs. Their comments came straight out of the "If you repeat something that is bollocks ad nauseum you may eventually convince people" book, written by C R Koppel. Wonder if they were employed purely because of their sympathies, if you see what I mean?
This one will run and run.
One more thing - yes, if you were at the DT SGM last night, that was your humble and esteemed editor walking out early. I had a particular Creedence Clearwater Revival song in my head...