The end of NTFC

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, so please, don't take my Northampton away.....

The end of NTFC could possibly be taking place as I type. 

Today, not only is the £10m loan repayable to the council that lent it, but we also hear that HMRC has issued a winding up order for non-payment of tax. All in all, from a financial point of view, it really couldn't be much worse.

I was born under the Hotel End. I was one of the 942 v Chester. I've put money in buckets before. I was in the Exeter rooms that night. I was in the pub in Southend when the police horse nearly came in. I was there the last time we played at Newcastle (not the other week - the time we nearly beat them). I was at Liverpool on 'that' night - sitting in with the Liverpool fans oddly. I was at the match at Shrewsbury when we said 'this must never happen again'. I was on the cricket side when we knocked Coventry out of the FA Cup and saw Phil Neales last game for the club. I was there for the 6-0 drubbing of Bournemouth. I was at the first two of the old Wembley occasions. And sadly I was there to see Trevor Quow kick off the match against Aldershot, in what turned out to be their last league game before going bust mid-season.

And now it could be us

The likelihood is that unless a white knight comes galloping along with a bag full of money pretty shortly, we'll be into administration, have points docked and quite possibly, once all the good players have been off-loaded, find ourselves playing Conference football next season.

That's actually one of the better scenarios. The worst could be complete closure followed by the prospect of a phoenix club a-la AFCWimbledon/Hereford taking the place of the original. But it wouldn't be the same would it?

But all that is to come. For all I know - which like most fans is next to nothing, there may well be a group of cavalrymen coming to stage a last minute rescue. 

Younger readers may not realise we've been here before. NTFC fans formed the original Supporters Trust to help save the club the last time this happened. What I find particularly interesting is that last time - in the early 90's, the web was only just coming on-line and all we had to rely on for news was the Northampton Chronicle and Echo, (then a daily broadsheet and now a weekly). No Twiiter, no web. no facebook, no message boards. Everything we knew came from the Chron. 

Now, everyone has an opinion, most of them are almost certainly wrong, everyone knows who to blame, or think they do and everyone has a means of self-publishing- and the consequence of all of that, coupled with almost nil communication from the club itself and a much weakened Chron, is that the rumour mongers have been going over-board. 

One thread on the Hotel End message board runs to nearly 700 pages of posts - most of them complete and utter nonsense. The posters even have little arguments amongst themselves...and the language on twitter is unbelievable. Don't these people realise that employers etc read your twitter feed and other social outlets to find out more about you. And the poor old Chron - nowhere to be seen in my view. I'm not aware of 'it' asking the chairman one really meaningful question throughout this entire saga. I might be wrong, I don't live in Northampton, and only have their website to go on, and I'm ready to be shot down in flames on that one (as indeed I already have been by their editor).

What has the man done with the money? Even I couldn't get through £10m in a year, so surely the majority of it is sitting in a bank somewhere, presumably just not NTFC's account! The HMRC amount is £100,000 which in the overall scheme of things doesn't seem a huge amount. So what exactly is going on? The £10m certainly hasn't gone where it was intended too, on the new stand and surrounding development, so where is it? And irony of ironies, we're now back in a three sided ground - albeit one which doesn't have even remotely the atmosphere of the last one.

Doubtless it will all come out in the wash. But whether the club survives that long is debatable. Buyers are alleged to be hovering and so this story may well have a happy ending. Lets hope so.

I don't mind admitting that for quite a while I was on the Chairmans side. After all we didn't go bust in his first 12 years of ownership, when many other clubs did. I still find it very hard to believe that he's apparently got it so catastrophically wrong this year -not because I like or support him, simply because it seems to me almost impossible to get it SO wrong.

What I find very difficult to swallow though is his complete lack of transparency for much of this year. He seems to have a complete disregard for the clubs supporters and while I understand he cant tell us everything, actually he's told us almost nothing - to the point where now, whatever he does say no-one believes.

Its whats known in the trade as a reputation management, PR and communications disaster.

But none of that is the point is it. Us Brits have a funny relationship with football, that transcends common sense and every ounce of business acumen or logic we posess in our normal lives - I'm 53 for goodness sake, I shouldn't care, but like thousands of others I find that I do.

So, if you're out there with a bag full of money and fancy saving a proud old club now's the time.

NTFC are away at Cambridge United this weekend. It wont be their last game by any means - this process is bound to take longer than that - but I hope the 1000 fans that make the trip have a fantastic day out, which is what being a Cobblers fan is all about.

Last time I was at Cambridge I think we won 3-2. Morley scored that day and Mark Shiavi got the winner.

Lets hope the entire club doesn't become just a collection of distant memories.