The other directors didn’t ‘block’ anything. They weren’t able to because SW was comfortably the majority shareholder at that time.
Wharton was desperate for health and other reasons to get out. There was nothing sinister about it – lest we forget at the time he was over 70 and from memory had already had at least one heart attack by that point.
It looked as if the only interested punter was Hobson, the scrap metal dealer and part time boxing promoter from Sheffield.
There was talk of an American sports investment company also putting money in – which when you looked at their MO in the US was quite scary.
At the last minute. PS pulled out of negotiations to buy Lincoln City (who at that time were in the Conference) and turned his attention to us.
As far as I’m aware, no significant number of shares actually changed hands. SW is still a shareholder and still attends AGM’s etc.
SW was keen that any money coming in went to the club as fresh income – hence there were a series of share issues when the extra shares were taken up by Swann, rather than a simple share sale.
So, as far as I’m aware, SW didn’t make a fortune from the sale – he simply wanted out and Swann at the time looked the lesser of two evils and better funded than Hobson.
At the time it looked the correct decision – and in some respects given the rather unappealing alternative, the only decision.
