Remember them??

From todays Telegraph:

Former Everton director Paul Gregg is expected to be named Sheffield Wednesday's new owner today. The Apollo Leisure Group millionaire, who sold his stake in Everton last year, has been in talks for several months about taking a controlling stake in Wednesday, who have debts of around £26 million.

The one thing that suprises me about this bloke is that he's never been arrested for killing all those people when he sunk the titanic. The relatives have been strangely quiet, he must have paid them off.

Diferent berg mate, different berg.......

There was a lot of accusations at the time but he just let them floe over him........

must be a lot of money in the pasty business

Dibble!

...supply and demand

that deal has falling through

You're absolutely right Mr Teeth.

However it does prove that the rumours were all bollocks from the start eh??

You should've seen the press conference!

Tell us more. Are you one of the 10%??

No chance! "Wednesdayite" (who own the 10%) are bigger wankers than our chairman.

So what happened then??

To cut a long story short...

Our chairman has been discussing a takeover with Gregg for about six months. Gregg's not happy that our board only owns about 30% of the club and wasn't willing to pump money in for such a small chunk.

Our chairman has history with Wednesdayite and uses every opportunity to slag them off. He called a press conference on Friday simply to announce the takeover was off and to slate them and the local media, saying the media had scared him off and Wednesdayite having the 10% was the stumbling block.

He's now said he won't give the club any more money and called the fans "cretins"

Eeek.

Well nowt they haven't been calling him for seven or eight years eh??

Curious about who's got the other 60% then?? Surely they would be the ones to do the deal with??

send him an exploding shit bomb through the post.

Well this is the same group who supported Ken Bates in trying to overthrow him a few years back so you can understand his unwillingness to acknowledge them as anything but!

The other 60% is spread out between loads of people, a bunch of minority shareholders. Would imagine it would take ages to get hold of all of them.

Well just to state the obvious, isn't he painting himself into a corner by doing that?? He simply can't move without another 21% in his pocket or simply selling up and moving on.

Yep. He's trying to convince everyone that Wednesdayite should give those shares back, claiming he will pump money into the club. In reality he just wants to make a tidy profit.

Strange situation that Mr Craig, I mean he can't go forward, can't go back and can't go sideways. Surely somethings got to give somewhere??

Well his "plan" is to convince non-members of "Wednesdayite" to turn on them and essentially force them to give back the shares so progress can be made. However, we're not as stupid as he thinks we are and aren't gonna fall for his bullshit this time around. He really has shown his true colours this time around and I think even the most narrow-minded of supporters will be able to see through it.

However, we aren't all willing to get behind "Wednesdayite" and say enough is enough because their aims are so ambiguous. Most of us really don't know whether they are aiming for fan ownership (a worrying though) or whether they really do have the best interests of the club at heart. Many question how that can be the case when they tried to bring Ken Bates in a couple of years back.

It's not a good situation...but as you say, something's gotta give.

Well I can see why they'll be ambiguous, 'cos if you put three footy fans around a table you get an argument, simple.

But going back to what I said earlier, let's just say he manages to bring them round it's still only 40% of the shares and isn't enough for control. Have you got any idea who owns the other 60%?? Is it the Co-Op bank?? I seem to remember something about them from the Bates bid??

I really don't know. I try not to get involved in the politics where possible - just stick to the footie really. I know a lot of the shares are owned seperately by fans but not sure how much of the 60%

Fair comment spud.

How do you see your season going??

No better than last season. Which isn't bad but this was meant to be the year of the "Big Push" for the Prem.

Anyroad what about you lot? Going for the double promotion?

It'd be nice and my moneys on it.

Then again a fool and his money are soon parted eh??

Decent odds?

Give me some good reasons and I might be tempted to have a punt on you myself!

Yeah decent odds, we're never fancied us.

Errrmmm... good reasons. Danny Wilson, James Brown, Willie Boland and Gary Liddle, three players there that'll light this division up. Solid squad, great manager and a bit of a roll going on. You could spend your money worse.

Hmm...worth a ponder. Anyway I'm off to Blackpool for the darts, back in a bit.