SOCCALOT - 22nd September 08

No.s 02, 13, 17 & 20
Drawn by Rob Morgan.
No claims and next week's prize fund is an estimated £5,850.

SOCCALOT - 15th September 08

No.s 04, 11, 20 & 21
Drawn by Ian Lang.
No claims and next week's prize fund is an estimated £5550.

SOCCALOT - 8th September 08

No.s 06, 07, 13 & 14

Drawn by Jeanette Evans.

No claims and next week's prize fund is an estimated £5250.

Link to the Cardiff City Trust

http://www.ccfctrust.org/

IT’S A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME THANKS TO SUPPORTERS DIRECT

By Susan Press

Dave Boyle has two major passions in life. One is sport and the other is politics. Luckily he is able to combine the two as the new Chief Executive of Supporters Direct.For the past eight years, in a variety of roles including Deputy Chief Executive & Society Secretary, Dave has helped build the initiative from the beginning as a sporting curiosity to an increasingly major player with well over 100 clubs now signed up across the country.The big multi-million- pound hitters like Manchester Utd and Liverpool may have a formidable stranglehold over the game – but increasingly supporters have had enough of over-priced tickets and a world in which the ‘beautiful game’ has become a role-model for global capitalism and rank profiteering.Dave and his team at Supporters Direct believe there is another way – an ethical way. They help football fans create trusts to help them get a share in their club. And there are even clubs – like Stockport County – that are now fully owned by their fans.Dave, who originally hails from Rochdale and is now a keen Wimbledon supporter says ‘Supporters Direct has basically changed the way in which football is talked about and changed the language and most importantly shown that people can be involved and that they should be listened to. They are not just prisoners of loyalty’.Last year four trust run clubs won promotion – Stockport County, Exeter City, AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester. ‘I think their success is something everyone in the trust movement can celebrate because at clubs where they are finding it tough to make an impact, it is a struggle’ says Dave. ‘There are 13 clubs that are owned or controlled by a supporters’ trust, and every time one of them wins a promotion or goes on a cup run, they put the issue of trusts in the limelight. But more importantly they show that there is another way and that this other way and that this other way doesn’t mean the end of a decent team’.Like many other co-op enterprises, supporters’ trusts tend to take over the reins in a less than perfect financial situation.‘Trusts have usually taken over in awful circumstances. As we know, the only people left standing when the sums look appalling are the people who aren’t looking at it from a financial point of view – the supporters. In many cases the club has been nose-diving, and relegation either immediately preceded trust-ownership or has swiftly followed’.As Dave points out, 40 clubs have gone into administration in the last 15 years, and Supporters Direct offers fans another, collective way forward in line with the best principles of the Co-operative Movement.‘Breaking that spell – that the only way to run a club is through a ‘benefactor’ – is absolutely essential to any trust achieving its goals in the longer term. And that’s why successes of trust-run clubs are to be celebrated’.Another plus is that Supporters Direct has good friends in Government. Its former Chair is Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport and previous CEO Philip French is his Special Advisor. Supporters Direct is set to commission some research on who joins trusts and why. Dave says: ‘We’ve consistently pointed out what is wrong in our sports, but we need to start pushing our ideas to make it right and focus on getting them implemented.’REFLECTAnother key task is reviewing the way in which trusts are set up.‘When the model rules were written, there were only three or four trusts in existence, and it’s time to revise them to bring them into line with what the 150-plus trusts are actually like. We’ll be advising trusts on what they might want to get rid of; what they need to keep in their rules and what they need to add to reflect the way things are.’Above all, Dave believes it is the ethic of Supporters Direct which makes it an increasingly attractive proposition for football fans. ‘We also need to be mindful that while we say we know what our values are and what that means for trusts; we can’t take it for granted. There are still a good many people who will be either delighted or unsurprised if a trust were to fail or to bring the Movement into disrepute.’In May, Supporters Direct launched a one-year sponsorship deal with Virgin Media to help fund its development.There are also plans to expand its Rugby League involvement and over the summer SD tested the water by working in Ireland. The Welsh Assembly government has also made a formal commitment to funding Supporters Direct and in Scotland the organisation is close to finalising a new three-year funding package. Even more exciting is the news that a UEFA-funded feasibility study to develop Supporters Direct in Europe has almost been completed.‘We make the case stronger everywhere that supporters’ trusts are not just there for the nasty times in a club’s life – they’re the future. In the years to come I would like to see more trusts and more household names getting involved and being at the forefront of the movement. It’s a different way of doing trade and a better way of doing it’‘When people think of Barcelona, for example, they don’t necessarily think it’s a co-op – they think what a great football team. But that’s the kind of thing we can offer in the future if we get the chance. And we owe a great debt of gratitude to the Co-operative Movement for helping us get started’.

Soccalot Draw - 01st September

Tonight's Soccalot was drawn by Wayne Turner. The numbers were;

12, 13, 18 & 20.

There were no winners and the prize fund will be £5,000.

Rules of the Society

As requested in tonight's open meeting, here is a link to the rules of the society.

http://www.themartyrs.com/Rules_for_Merthyr_Tydfil_FC_Supporters_Society_Limited.pdf

Welcome to the family

Martyrs to the Causes welcomes both Cardiff City and Nottingham Forest Supporters Trusts to the Supporters Direct family.

Soccalot Draw - 25th August

The numbers for Monday 25th August 2008 were
16, 17, 18 & 24
as drawn by Jo Williams.
There were no winning claims this week,next week's jackpot is an estimated £4750.

500 Club

The latest 500 Club draw was made by the Club's programme editor John Strand. The following winners were drawn out of the velvet bag.

June 08

1st - V.P.Baylis - £70

2nd - Peter Harman - £30

3rd - Philip Mack - £20

4th - Geoff Matsell - £10

5th - Alun Morgan - £10

July 08

1st - V.P.Baylis - £70

2nd - Wayne Hodgkins - £30

3rd - Graham Davies - £20

4th - Colin Bodenham - £10

5th - G&A Jones - £10

August 08

1st - Dial M For Merthyr - £70

2nd - Dai Delaney - £30

3rd - Allan Jones - £20

4th - Lyn Mittell - £10

5th - Emma Wathan - £10

Two Hundred Percent article

The following story has been taken directly from the football Blog - Two Hundred Percent
http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=1042

Merthyr Most Foul

Football club implosions can take several different forms, to the point that it is is probably fair to say that there is no one route to insolvency. Sometimes, mere spending beyond one’s means for a season is enough to have grim long-term ramifications, as happened to Bradford City, who are still paying the price for former chairman Geoffrey Richards and his “six weeks of madness” a decade ago. Sometimes, it’s trying to live in the fast lane and propping up the shortfall with more and more unsustainable (and unfathomable) loan agreements, as Leeds United experimented with so disastrously and Manchester City may be about to embark upon. Occasionally, however, insolvency creeps up on a club over a period of years - decades, even. It appears like rust, innocuous enough at first, but if it takes hold, it starts to corrode from within. You might not even notice it at first, but it’s there, eating away until, just occasionally, the whole edifice that it has invaded collapses.
So, then, to Merthyr Tydfil AFC. Merthyr Town were founded in 1909 and were voted into the Football League when it expanded to four divisions in 1920. They fiinshed eighth in the all-new Division Three (South) and lasted ten years in the League before dropping back into the Southern League, from whence they came, in 1930. They folded in 1934. Merthyr Tydfil AFC were founded in 1945, and were six times winners of the Southern League, getting promoted into the Football Conference in 1989. They spent six years at the top of the non-league game, finishing in ninth place twice before managing a best ever fourth place finish in 1992, before the Southern League came a-calling again two years later. They also, in the era during which Welsh clubs entering into English league competitions were allowed to enter it, won the Welsh Cup three times. After the last of these wins, they achieved possibly their best known result, beating Italian club Atalanta 2-1 in the European Cup Winners Cup First Round First Leg before losing the return match 2-0 and going out.
Since the mid-1990s, though, the rust has set in at Penydarren Park. A history of looking with optimism at being able to, maybe, secure a place in the Football League became a meagre subsistence existence, but at least their club was still there. Last season, they only narrowly avoided relegation from the Southern League Premier Division, but they made the Fourth Qualifying Round of the FA Cup before losing to Oxford United. However, the club has run up very high debts - £500,000 as of 2006 - which have threatened the club’s ongoing survival. The poisonous atmosphere within the club appears to have spread to those running the club. The club banned the chair of the Martyr’s Trust, David Webb, from Penydarren Park last year, and appears to have done so again in the light of recent events at the club.
The most recent crisis began with an announcement that HMRC had brought a winding up order against the club last week over an unpaid £20,000 tax bill. The Trust, which has been pouring money into the club for a couple of years, submitted an offer to take over the running of the club, but this immediately ran into problems. For one thing, this year’s accounts have not been submitted yet to Companies House, so it is impossible to gauge exactly what the extent of the club’s difficulties are. Rumours have varied the amount from in the region of £250,000 to over £500,000.
Secondly, the club appears to be openly antagonistic towards the Trust. Its reaction to the offer submitted by the trust was to return the envelope unopened and ban Webb from the ground again. The club stated the “proposal came as a complete shock to the Board of Directors of the club”. Having had the trust pay many bills for several years, they seem to want this arrangement to continue, with a supporters trust that has no confidence in the people running the club for no return. The Trust’s requirements in terms of shares had been increased from 25% to 51% upon legal advice (unsurprising, considering that part of the deal was for the new board to accept liability for the club’s debts), and Wyn Holloway, the owner, baulked at such a suggestion.
Once again, then, a power play is taking place with a trenchant board who seem to be more interested in keeping control of a rotting shell of a club than with acting in a positive way to reinvent the very club that they are supposed to represent. The Martyrs’ Trust wants to reinvent the club as a community club. As they said in a press release filled with barely suppressed rage:
It is time to end the culture of living hand to mouth, of only just getting by. The fans and community of Merthyr deserve better. When we look to the likes of AFC Telford United, in the hands of the fans and thriving, we know that it’s possible.
As things stand, it is likely that the immediate crisis can be staved off. The debt to HMRC is a comparatively tiny one, though the rumours that the club’s accounts haven’t been submitted because they couldn’t afford to pay the accountant to do it are worrying. On the pitch, a demoralised Merthyr side have lost their opening Southern League fixtures 4-0 and 4-1, but events on the pitch are the least of their concerns. If the Limited Company that owns the club is wound up, whether there will be a Merthyr team to support in a couple of weeks becomes a valid question. Wyn Holloway and his fellow directors should admit that they have, ultimately, failed Merthyr Tydfil AFC, and should pass the ownership of the club over to the Trust, so that they can rescue something from the ashes. The alternative might just turn out to be the end of senior football in the town for a second time.

16 August 2008 Statement

16 August 2008

Statement from the Board of Martyrs to the Cause.

This morning, the Board of Martyrs to the Cause met with Wyn Holloway, Perry Johnson, Martin Greenham and Leighton Davies of Merthyr Tydfil Football Club at Pendarren Park.In that meeting, we presented an outline offer to the club, following initial discussions with our legal representatives, the key points of which were as follows:

• Firstly Martyrs to the Cause would loan the Club the money (on an unsecured basis but via a legal agreement) needed immediately to meet pressing creditors.
• Wyn Holloway’s shares in Merthyr Tydfil Football Club Limited would be immediately transferred to Martyrs to the Cause for no consideration, however we would be prepared to consider the transfer of a controlling stake in the company only, with certain guarantees – to be agreed.
• All of this would take place with the simultaneous resignation of the existing directors (without compensation) with a new board appointed by the Trust, which it is expected would be the current board of the trust.
• The new board would meet the Club's ongoing debts and commitments.Under the terms of the deal, what we believe to be substantial existing loans and credit from a number of sources, would continue to be guaranteed by the existing directors (as they are now). And as a sign of our intention to ensure eventual repayment of those loans, we propose that the new board would make monthly goodwill payments in order to assist in the ongoing maintenance of those loans.
• We also propose that annual reviews of this arrangement would be factored in so progress can be monitored by all parties to their satisfaction.However, all of this is contingent on due diligence of the club’s most recent accounts.

However we note that these have not yet been filed with Companies House, although we also understand that they have been completed. If there is any way in which Martyrs to the Cause can assist – financially or otherwise – in releasing these accounts, we would also be willing to discuss providing assistance as part of any deal.

Sadly I have to tell you that Wyn Holloway and his fellow directors rejected this proposal out of hand. We are unsure as to where this now leaves us, however our door is always open for discussion, and we will leave this offer open, and are prepared to discuss this further.We believe that this deal represents an opportunity for Wyn Holloway and the other directors of Merthyr Tydfil Football Club Ltd to be released from their current over-burdening commitments, which must cause significant stress to all of them.

In operating the club, we would be doing so as a team, alongside the fans as owners. We would also be advised by Supporters Direct, which has a great deal of expertise in this area, and which has already assisted with fifteen supporters trusts in taking over or restarting their clubs, four of which are in the Football League.The involvement of the supporters is critical to the future of this football club, and we believe that now is the time for us all to step up to the plate and return our club to its former glories. The board of Martyrs to the Cause is committed to our great club having a future, and that future being under the ownership and control of the supporters of Merthyr Tydfil Football Club.

We will be making no further comment at this stage.

Welcome

Welcome to The Martyrs to the Cause Blog.

We will be using this space to keep all fans of Merthyr Tydfil FC informed on the activities of the Supporters Trust.

Martyrs to the Cause