Ian has asked me to put this on here. lat weeks column

[Seagull73]

Didn't I read on here that Neighbour himself predicted victory for us in an off-camera moment with Lord Bracknell?

No, you read it in the Blackpool programme, but yes, that comment was in there.

 

[BensGrandad]

London Irish actually asked for the article that DK responded back at Ian for pre season.

This is the wording that caused the debate:

'...............As for Knight, a season of change looks very much on the cards.
He no longer has a controlling interest in the club.
That now belongs to the Bloom family so he is chairman because somebody else wants him to be.
His critics would dub him a control freak.
I certainly wouldn’t go that far, but, then again, he’s the kind of person I don’t think is best suited to taking orders from within the boardroom.
It will be extremely hard for him to have to adhere to direct instructions, having run the club carte blanche for more than nine years.
Something may have to give and the Albion could find yet themselves with a new chairman at some point in the season.......'

The point that DK responded to at the fans forum and in the first programme of the season was that he had NEVER had a controlling interest in the club (a point that Harty had been corrected on through NSC prior to publication abeit that it may have been after the article was submitted).

Also, it was made clear that nobody had a controlling interest. i dont have the shareholding details to hand but I think that even combined, the Blooms dont have one. DK remained the biggest single shareholder.

DK felt that it was irresponsible (paraphrasing) for Ian to have written this when it was untrue, and could have been easily checked out. It was written and presented as a fact rather than an opinion.

As I read it and possibly I read it in a different context than it was meant, the 2 major share holders in the club are Dick Knight and Derek Chapman and if they were at loggerheads over an issue, like the sacking of MM for example, whoever the 2 Blooms sided with would have controlling interest. DK had previously said that DC, RB & TB had wanted to sack MM in the summer so effectively DK was the major voice all the time that those 3 agreed. That is what I thought Ian was making comment on.

 

[Yoda]

In answer to your question Hove B and B this appears in the Herald series, which includes the Worthing Herald, Littlehampton Gazette and Shoreham Herald, its not a free papaer and the weekly audited sales are around the 30,000 mark over all three titles.

You mean it's not in the Lancing version?

 

[desprateseagull]

Whereabouts in Crowborough is The Effingham Park Hotel?

there only seems to be one listed on yahoo at copthorne, near gatwick airport (10mins away, other side of the M23)..?

 

[Harty]

That's the one.........