Iron Bru › Forums › Blast Furnace › Fans forum › Reply To: Fans forum
I’m nervous. We’re all nervous. We should be nervous. Our club is hanging by a thread. Swann was a bad club owner. We’re hurt. We’re human. There’s a temptation to assume all owners are the same. Might not be true though.
What do we know?
Swann was a disaster for the club.
We had an unpaid tax bill under Swann.
The club was on the point of going bust before Hilton.
Swann was not honest with us.
Swann had many schemes planned which didn’t actually happen.
Swann fell out with the Council.
Swann had other issues (see gambling debts court case) going on.
What is most likely to be true?
In my opinion Swann has a history of moving goalposts.
Previous bids to buy the club were supposedly all agreed then fell through. What put off other consortiums? I think we all suspect Swann was at fault, but we can’t prove it.
In my opinion there are genuine problems with the GP land purchase.
If Hilton goes, the club probably dies. Phoenix club won’t be easy.
What has Hilton done?
He bought the club, knowing it could go bust if he didn’t. He saved the club. Temporarily at least.
He’s brought in a lot of players in a desperate attempt to keep us up.
He hired the wrong manager for the National League. Could be the right guy for National League North. Who knows?
We’ve made a lot of signings early and they seem higher level than National League North.
The training ground wobble was bad.
The 1899 club. Good idea, launched too early.
Hilton has been mixed so far. I think the positives have outweighed the negatives.
What don’t we know?
Whose fault it is (Swann, Hilton, or both) about the land sale problems.
Lots of details because this could end up in court.
We want details. We’re probably not going to get them. We have to deal with that.
What should we believe?
We’ve all spent years saying Swann should go. Swann was a disaster for this club.
I don’t think Swann now makes a credible ‘witness’ to support a case that Hilton is bad.
For now we should assume that Hilton is telling the truth until it’s actually proven otherwise.
What should we do?
Give him 1 full season from now. Let him do his thing, and then judge the results. No progress on and off the pitch by then, I’ll be as negative as some posters are now.