Latics and England

I presume you mean me Tracy. The independent supporters club ran in the mid 90s. It was founded and run by John Stanley who is sadly no longer with us. It primarily ran away travel and social events. John had his run-ins with the club (well Alan Hardy) but it didn't actively get involved in club politics. Stop the Rot, and latterly SAFE (Save Athletic's Future Existence) were the groups who actively protested to get rid of JW Lees and got involved when things were falling apart under Chris Moore. When the Trust first formed, it was really a follow on from SAFE. There are still quite a few from STR and SAFE who still go to games on a regular basis but plenty more who don't. For what it is worth I think there is an opening at the moment for an independent group but I think there is a lack of consensus amongst fans as to what the right way forward is. This makes it very difficult to form a cohesive group. The Trust is currently in a very difficult position with a director on the club's board and another director working with the FLG. It can very easily get ripped apart and I am not clear whether Darren speaks for himself or the Trust when he engages on Social media. As a director of the club I understand his positivity towards what is going on but as a director of the Trust, that worries me. It is right that the Trust uses its position to try and effect change from the inside and that to be challenging the ownders publicly makes that difficult. This is where a new organisation working in parallel with the Trust could be very powerful.

Bradford 3 - 1 Latics h/t 1-0 Fage 15,496

Latics 1 - 1 Crewe h/t 0-0 Nepo 3,851

FGR 2 - 1 Latics H/t 1-0 Nepo 2,659

I DM'd you yesterday Steve but didn't get a reply. Am I ok to transfer the cash to the same bank account as last year? Cheers

He wasn’t shite. He was pretty average though from a natural talent perspective. The thing was that his desire and work rate made up for his lack of natural talent. It doesn’t come as a big surprise that some people will look for those capable of moments of brilliance when identifying their favourite players whilst others will be attracted to those who gave their all for the club. Both views are perfectly reasonable. The story that surrounds Ernie will undoubtedly help keep him further forward in some fans’ thoughts than other players but those memories are still based upon what he did for the club at a time when things looked pretty grim (differently grim to now). There are other players who have been taken away too soon or been through very tough times after leaving the club. Their names are not filling these lists so maybe Ernie was a bit different.

Not necessarily the best but three players who made Saturday's exciting: Beckett Baxter (1st time round) Wijnhard

Hopefully this training camp means that we will pull a squad together over the next couple of weeks. 10 days in Morocco isn't going to come cheap and the only point of doing it is if we are taking most of the players who will be playing this coming season. This should be about team building and getting the players ready for the season ahead. That's not going to work with half a dozen first teamers and a load of trialists.

Yeah, probably. I am usually wrong.

Not a prayer we would take 20k to a league 2 play-off final. We get so excited when we take 4k to a game, where are the other 16k coming from? We would probably make five figures.

A list of questions were sent with the letter. This doesn't include answers to any of those questions. Those questions were clearly produced to try and acquire evidence to back up a number of statements that the chairman has made in recent months that have been contradicted by statements from others. In other words, they were designed to see if his word can be believed. It may be that the Trust have now received answers to these questions which can't be shared. If that is the case I would like them to confirm this (I don't have any issue with the evidence not being widely shared). I think it is a positive that the Trust will be allowed to review accounts. I presume this means detailed management accounts and not just the abbreviated account that will be publicly available anyway.

Interesting but I think there may be a flaw in the data. I presume the records only go down to Conference level because Darlington, for example were promoted in 2013, 2015 and 2016 yet this shows them as not being promoted. What at is the criteria used for being on the list? Most Premier League clubs aren’t there but some are and we include some clubs from outside the league but not all down to a specific level. It it would be interesting to see cup wins too and date of last ‘success’. I think that barring us and Ipswich there is nobody who has waited more than a decade for something positive but that might be outdated. I am am not criticising what is an interesting data set, just trying to understand it.

We'll go into pre-season with half a squad as usual, loads of our fans will decree that we'll walk the lead when we turn over Chadderton 3-0 and anyone who questions the situation will be hounded for being negative.

Oldham 3 - 1 Northampton H/t 1-0 Sylla 5,841

Newport 3 - 1 Oldham H/t 1-0 Baxter 3,629