Yes, that's always a worry....'be careful what you wish for!' However, there is a slight feeling of reassurance here, if ever this take over comes to pass. IIUC, the 'Australian chap' is the leader of a consortium. In this group behind him we will quite probably find some names known to us, as people who actually care for the club.
Anna Firth alluded to this on her Bookface post
The thought never occurred to me, but you may have a point.
Good point!
I hope you're right. John Batchelor also had a group of "associates" who promised to finance his plans for the future of York City if he bought it but they failed to honour those promises. With him as the sole registered owner it was easy for the "associates" to renege on word-of-mouth promises. For greater safeguarding of SUFC, if our Australian is the leader or figurehead of a consortium, the ownership of the club ought to be be legally transferred to the consortium as a whole and DD applied to all of the consortium members but I don't know if that is possible under football club ownership rules.
There are quite a few like the guys you highlighted. John Holmes who owns Chelmsford City FC is another Ron Martin type. An Essex businessman, set up Great Leighs racecourse which went bust, he left a trail of debts amounting to many millions. He was at one time made bankrupt but owned a bit of the land which is now Chelmsford City racecourse (formerly Great Leighs) and restarted the racecourse in partnership with Betfred. He took over Chelmsford City Football Club six years ago, promised a new stadium, entry into the EFL within ten years and other promises. Nothing has happened of course, the club still struggles financially and he is never seen at the clubs games. Another dodgy property developer similar to Martin, Essex bandits.
Chelmsford have history for this . in 1972 Brentwood town was bought by a property developer who had links with Chelmsford, he merged the two (Brentwood were in the Southern league Prem at the time , one league below div 4) and promptly built houses on the ground , it was a decent stadium iirc.
Think of Ron as the troll under the bridge.Anyone dealing with Ron Martin has a bridge to cross he extending the bridge so it never ends lol
Did it even not go silent?
Hope this is a joke.
He's bankrupt thankfully
You've hit the nail on the head there. The most valuable asset in terms of making a potential profit in the short to medium term for would-be buyers is the land related to our club, which is why Mr Martin wants to hang on to Roots Hall, Boots & Laces, Fossets etc or to get big bucks if any of that land is included in the sale of the club. At present, the club itself is a money pit that only a very rich philanthropist would be mad enough to buy on its own without any of the real estate.
Exactly..and that's probably why it's taking so long to sell. Ron won't give up the profit making areas without a fight. In the meantime, he's happy to gamble with the future of our club. My worry is that rich philanthropists are very difficult to find.
Probably best to just check the National League table on Friday to see whether we have -1 points or -11 points. That will tell us all we need to know
