Swindon 3 Bury 1
A good three points for town today. It was more battling than silky against a Bury side which would have made a collection of pub footballers look like FIFA player of the year candidates, but still...
We went two up in the first eight minutes: Andy Gurney got the first, Bobby Howe bundled in the second minutes later, and Wayne Carlisle added the third with a free kick midway through the second half. In between, in 25 minutes, Bury hit us on the break with Jon Newby tapping in at the back post, and had some decent pressure.
But the Town defence held firm - I thought Alan Reeves and Matty Hayward both had excellent games, and Andy Gurney looked pretty good too. Interesting to see him race off to the dugout after scoring, waving to Andy King who was sat in the stand.
After the match, King told Wiltshire Sound there were a number of possible signings waiting in the wings if the PFA debt was paid off - as well as Thomas Butler, Ian Woan wants to return - and bring a team-mate or two from Nottingham Forest, too.

Housekeeping... you'll notice a link at the foot of each post, which makes it easier to link to individual blog entries. The archive page has also been made much easier to navigate (I hope).

Hmm... seem to have upset a few with my thoughts on the planned protest. Somebody's just emailed me (I'll not name them, to spare blushes), to tell me that, with Roy Evans in charge, everything at the club "WAS fine - hope and a good manager and now it's awful again" (their capitals, not mine).
Perhaps the great outpouring of grief is actually caused by the penny finally dropping among part of the support (the penny dropped for the leading lights of, say, TrustSTFC six months ago): we're in a desperate hole. They're blaming the current board, but it's been this way for years. It got very much worse earlier this year when Brady walked out. And it was just as bad the day Evans was appointed as it is now.

If they'd put this saga in the plot for Dream Team, Sky's soccer soap, it would have been rejected by the producers for being too far-fetched - and far too bloody depressing.
The loan move of Thomas Butler has been called off this afternoon, reports Wiltshire Sound this evening. Because Town had to take a loan from the PFA during the Donegan era, and have yet to pay it back, there's an embargo on new player registrations. Even ones which are free.
Bob Holt is reported to be "looking in" to the matter - presumably sussing how quickly we can pay the money back, so that King can at least make up the numbers with a few short-term loans.
But, for tomorrow at least, everything stays the same.

Andy King is expected to add a new signing to his squad tomorrow - Sunderland midfielder Thomas Butler. Andy King says Butler's style is similar to Joe Cole, and his arrival will certainly be a boost ahead of a tricky game against Bury.
It’s cheap entry for all tomorrow at the County Ground, and the team will need our whole-hearted support if they’re to get a win.
First, Bury are the obvious banana skin - a game which even a Town team on a steady keel would be perfectly capable of messing up. Bury might be in 19th place, and we did beat them 3-0 earlier this year (and 3-0 in the same fixture last year). But they’re only two points behind us and have stuck some respectable form together in recent weeks.
Back in mid November they were unlucky to only get a point against Bristol City, conceding a late penalty to let our local rivals equalise. That denied them their fifth home win on the run - what’s been letting Bury down this season is their away form.
But they’ve started to address that too, with an away win against Notts County and a boxing day draw against Wigan at the JJB. The only thing unlikely to happen against Town is that they get force another 0-0 draw - they’ve gone 47 games since one of those, according to the BBC!
So, defeat is quite possible tomorrow, even under the best of circumstances, we would face a tough game. But circumstances, as we all know, are far from best, and that is what fills me with real dread.
The team have a hard enough job without the turmoil that protests around the ground are likely to bring (see below). With fans planning to move away from the director’s box, or stay out the North Stand altogether, it’s likely to be a strange day.
Town team news? Neil Ruddock jarred a knee in training on Christmas Eve, which is why he missed the Bournemouth game and will likely sit out tomorrow. Paul Edwards will also likely miss this game after hurting himself against Notts County. David Duke, injured on Boxing Day, is likely to be fit, however.
With Bobby Howe and Steve Robinson looking as good as we've seen them midweek, we could perhaps see Butler take the place of another loanee, Wayne Carlisle, who didn't enjoy the most effective of afternoons on Wednesday.

Update: Quite a few people were riled by this one, and in the cold light of day much of the langauge seems a bit extreme.Most of it was provoked by a couple sat behind me, who appeared for one game only to treat us to one of the more astonishing displays of "support" I've ever witnessed. They weren't representative, but they got me riled... I didn't want to offend people, but that's the way it turned out.

Luckily, few clubs in the football league can claim to have an element of their support so daft they’re campaigning for a fifth manager in three years and the resignation of the board which is keeping the club afloat.
Unluckily for us, a few of these people call themselves Swindon Town fans.
The reception for Andy King was lukewarm from most of us on Boxing Day, and that’s understandable - reappointing a sacked manager is hardly something to set the pulse racing.
And I felt the boos at the end of the game were much more aimed at the appalling ref than they were at King.
But he felt different, and there was little doubt at the meaning of the “King out” banner which a couple of knuckle-draggers produced at half time.
Who do the fools think is going to take over? Louis Van Gaal might be looking for a way out of being Dutch manager, after all. George Graham’s still looking for a club. Or how about Dick Advocaat, bumped upstairs recently at Ibrox?
In reality, the choices our board had were limited. Malcolm Crosby was my pick, but King’s not the terrible choice some are making out (and Ruddock, who appears to be the favourite for many, has been involved in management for all of three months and has a lot - a lot - to do to prove his temperament is suitable for the job).
But how is the team going to react to hearing their manager getting booed by these clowns? After all, he brought many of them to the club. Will these boo-boys (and girls) see sense and give their backing to the side they no doubt claim they are diehard “fans” of? I’m not holding my breath.
They’re planning a protest tomorrow, this time against the board, despite the fact there’s nobody waiting in the wings should the protest have its desired effect, and the board quit. That means the club would collapse.
Yup, Bury fans, we actually have “supporters” campaigning to unsettle the team and close the club, if they could only realise what they’re doing.
I've no axe to grind, and I think the new chairman hasn't made a very good job of explaining what he's doing there, or of putting forward some kind of vision for the future. But I've got the two eyes in my head needed to see that's all we've got.
A few of the protestors appear to be massing under the pretty moronic catch phrase “we r solid”. If they were solid, they’d support the team and wait to see what results King - and the new board - could bring in the next few weeks. A few wins and a proper set of accounts, so we know what state the club is really in, would be a start.
Maybe it's frustration born of the fact that, only a few years ago, Town was in the Premiership. Even more recently, we were in the first division. That's understandable - but if the fans were were solid in the head they’d realise that the name of the game at the moment at Swindon is survival - in the second division, in football at all.

Sleepingminnow has been looking back over Andy King's playing career with Everton, and rightly points out that Kingy - had he been a star today - would have been made so wealthy by his top-tier exploits he wouldn't need to bother with the likes of us. King was, in his day, a pretty handy attacking midfielder, it seems... Good work minnow!

Sorry about the lack of updates yesterday... Blogger.com, the web service I use to put together this weblog, was hit by the scourge of hackers, and was out of action all day.
This, however, was probably a good thing - it means the rant due to arrive later today on the half-wits with their "King out" banner sat behind me in the Nationwide won't be peppered with quite so many swear words. But I'm still disgusted at them, and all the others who gave such a hostile welcome to the man, without thought for how it might unsettle the team.

Merry Christmas to all... footie prezzies? A new hat (good for tomorrow, I suspect) and a rather nice painting of the County Ground - sun shining, Stratton Bank open, crowds streaming in. Let's hope there are many more days like that ahead.

So now people are planning a protest - banners at the boxing day game, a full-scale effort after the game on Saturday. It's difficult to know what to think. I can understand the frustration at the turn of events - a new board with no cash, little vision (so far) and the loss of a high-profile director of football. And salt has been rubbed in the wounds by the re-appointment of King - an honest guy who did his best for Town, who was got rid of in a shabby way, but who's not the man to lead Town on to a new dawn.
But what do the protestors hope to achieve? The resignation of the board? The return of Danny Donegan - someone who, for all his promises, had never proved he was going to do any more than increase Town's level of debt? You'd have to be daft to want either without a sure-fire multi-millionaire sugar daddy waiting in the wings.
Some have asked for greater clarity on what's going on, but to me it couldn't be clearer: we're broke, need new money, or we fold. That's why Evans walked, that's why King's in. I suspect the greatest impact we could have on our team is to all be at the County Ground - and bring along a friend (or two) for the next two home games. That would have the dual effect of boosting our uphappy side - and helping stem the losses which threaten to bring the shutters down on the club.
Still, myonlyswindon.com now has a protest messageboard where those determined to demand something - anything - can swap ideas. Maybe they'll come up with a good one before kick-off.

Black humour's frequently the best kind. So well done to Somersetred for a post that lifted the gloom this morning...

Notts County 3 Swindon Town 1
Notts County grabbed their first league victory in 14 attempts last night. I couldn't make it up to the match, but Dave over on Rivals.net has posted a good match report which gives about as much gory detail as any of us are going to want.
It's interesting that Andy King was watching, and afterwards said the side lacked fire in their bellies. Can he put it back? And what happens about Neil Ruddock? He's clearly not going to be on King's Christmas card list after lording it in the stand during one of the pre-season friendlies, eying his new side when King was still in charge last time round.
It's being said this morning that King's heart is in the right place, and that we should now back him because - essentially - he's all we've got. That's a fair point, and the team itself deserves nothing but our unflinching support, especially in these dark days.
But I'm finding it difficult not to fear for the worst - after all, the worst is all that seems to happen at the County Ground for the moment.
What effect is this going to have on team morale? Will Ruddock, sent off last night, leave the club after not managing to get the top job? Will the players have respect for a manager who's been sacked only months earlier? Too many questions, and I'm dreading the answers.

Reaction varies to today's (still unconfirmed) news. Pragmatism. Anger with the board. Fear for the future.

There are rumours, unconfirmed for the moment, that Andy King is the new manager of Swindon Town. It's back to the future time.
The good news is that we know King, and so do the players. We know he can spot a great signing at ten paces too - witness the important presence that is now Matty Heywood in the centre of our defence. And, of course, he was at the helm when we stayed up - and was quite cruelly sacked just weeks before the start of the season. It wouldn't have been a bad thing had he continued as manager.
But the bad news is that he didn't continue. In came Roy Evans, the ex-Liverpool boss who showed us what a really good coach could do with the players we already had.
Players talked publicly about the transformation in their game, and the team's performance, and it was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that the side was playing far better. Sure, the old inconsistency was there, but the highs were far better than before - Evans' last game in charge, at Hereford, was a fine example.
So the King is back: what does it mean? I'd say we now have two cheesed-off coaches - Crosby and Ruddock - and a team that is going to have to learn to respect a sacked manager. The motivation every player gets from having a new boss isn't there - King comes with all his previous knowledge. Don't expect players like Bobby Howe and Graz to play with much confidence (if they had much anyway) - both will recall where they stood in King's eyes.
And the excitement that a new manager brings to the stands won't be there either. Even Ruddock (not my choice - that was Crosby) would have given something of a boost to our unhappy club. We don't even get that.
I opposed the way King left the County Ground last time - and I'm afraid I'm none too happy about the way he's come back.

Notts County v Swindon preview

Football? What - oh, yes - football. What all this supporter lark’s is about, innit supposed to be? Not resigning managers, bank account worries (plenty of those of our own) or fears about Willie Carson’s increasingly manic laugh.
After yesterday’s departure of Roy Evans, Malcolm Crosby takes over as caretaker manager for the trip to Notts County, which is being played tonight to allow everyone to do their last minute dash round the shops tomorrow (all we want for Christmas is a manager - and two or three players, please).
County, of course, is new club of Steve Mildenhall, who left Town just a couple of weeks after inking a new deal. He took a lot of stick at the time because he had held out for some time before signing up - a few fans assumed he’d done the mercenary thing and gone for a bigger wage or another signing on fee. But, given what we now know of the club’s finances, the £100k + fee Town took at the time was likely the real reason he left.
Mildenhall is not guaranteed to appear, mind you - he’s struggling with an ankle injury, which could be good news for Town given his performances for us last season, and the fact he even has a goal to his name...
If Mildy draws a blank, up front for Notts County the dangerman is talented young Aussie striker Danny Allsopp, who signed from Man City in the 2000-01 season. He scored 13 times from 29 starts last year, and has already beaten that tally this term, standing second only to Brighton’s Bobby Zamora with 16 goals. That includes a hat-trick in just 10 minutes against Mansfield in the Worthington Cup.
Despite that, Gary Brazil’s team is not enjoying the greatest run of form in the world - 13 games without a win, to be exact. They lie in 20th place, seven points behind Town, and the new County manager described last week’s 2-1 defeat to lowly Bury as “the worst performance since I took this job”. Word has it he ended up taking a full-scale strop at his players, tea throwing and all, after that performance, and even called off the players’ Christmas bash.
But, with all the upheaval at Town, they’ve got to fancy their chances of ending that dismal run at home tonight, especially as Town’s travelling support is likely to be limited to those who have today off to travel north.
Team news for Town looks broadly similar to last week’s. Because the Huddersfield game was called off, Andy Gurney has to sit out this game suspended instead. Sol Davies and Alan Reeves both played midweek in the reserves (Sol got the goal in a 1-1 draw) and so are back in contention for a place. The extra time also means David Duke could feature after recovering from a knock against Hereford.

What do you make of it all? I'll be on BBC Wiltshire Sound's breakfast show just after 8am tomorrow to talk it all over, and I'm keen to hear as many other fans' views as I can (rather than just the usual suspects I talk to!). Drop me a line at neiltosh@yahoo.com

Roy Evans has said a little more about his decision to leave the County Ground this afternoon. On Sky Sports News, he said the new consortium was "amazed at the amount of debt".
"There are no funds to strengthen the team," he said. "It is sad to leave but sometimes on matters of principle you have to make decisions".
He piled on the gloom by adding that he felt the new board would have "a very hard job to do, and it is probably a bigger task than they first thought... they face a battle to turn it around.
"The club is struggling in terms of finances but so are all the other clubs outside the Premiership and some that are in [the Premiership]. All the clubs seem to be losing money so they need to have a plan in place here."
Talking about his own future, he said he did not have any plans for an immediate return to management.
Malcolm Crosby has taken charge for tomorrow's trip to Notts County, while the Adver is suggesting Ruddock may fancy hanging on to take the assistant manager's job if the club follows Evans' final piece of advice, and appoints Crosby as full-time boss.

And a merry Christmas to you too: Roy Evans has quit town, after failing to get the right promises about money to spend on the team. It's all been very pleasant, with Evans wishing the team all the best for the future, and he rekons the squad is "good enough to do well in the second division". But Willie Carson has admitted the departure was all to do with the financial problems at the club.
Malcolm Crosby - potentially the next manager, until the end of the season at least - takes over in the meantime. The future of Neil Ruddock, who arrived with Evans, is unclear at the moment.
More to follow later today...

Roy Evans will go into a meeting with Town's new board of directors this afternoon to discuss his future. The suggestion seems to be that his mind is still not made up - that the right assurances could persuade him to stay. The questions is: can the board deliver those promises, given the downbeat interview given by Willy Carson last weekend.
If Evans stays, it gives us all the most amazing cause for hope - not only because he's clearly a good manager, but because it means the board has found some way out this terrible mess. If he goes... well, he's still a good manager, but he needs to be at a club with some kind of future.

It's the kind of excitement we could all do without. Reports from the County Ground suggest Roy Evans has put back, by a day, his announcement on whether or not he'll stay with Town.
Is he offering the new Town board a chance to win him over? He's already bought a house in this part of the world (in the Cotswolds, near the water park) so perhaps (and this is speculation, mind - just like a real tabloid) all he wants is just a little evidence the board can offer "jam tomorrow".
The worry is, after Carson's despairing interview yesterday, that even the board has little confidence it can offer much at all, let alone some cash to one of the Nationwide league's biggest managerial names.
Let's hope Roy surprises us all tomorrow by saying Town has a future - and he has a future at Town.

The talking point today is an interview with Swindon chairman Willie Carson in my paper, the Guardian, today. It makes for a depressing read. Carson's expecting bad news this week - whether he's referring to the resignation of Roy Evans, bad financial news, or both, we'll just have to wait and see. But what's clear is that Swindon Town is in a very bad way indeed. Perhaps terminal, unless a big-money suitor steps in after reading the piece. Let us pray...

Roy Evans is laughing and joking on Sky Sports this afternoon... about not having a job.
They'd just watched highlights of England's 5-1 rout of Germany. Richard Keys, the presenter, said it was one of those games "you never forget where you are", and asked Evans and co-pundit Nigel Spackman where they were. Evans said he was on the motorway driving home (Town had been playing that day, of course). Spackman said he was doing the same... and Evans cracked: "yea, when we had jobs"... and then looked slightly sheepish. Slip of the tongue (Spackman, of course, really is out of management these days) or something more significant? Or am I just getting paranoid now?

Could we have seen Roy Evans' last game in charge of Swindon Town? Wiltshire Sound reported yesterday there will be an announcement on Tuesday about his future, and the hints around the ground are that it won't be good news. It will be a double blow if he does go: not only have we lost a manager, but he's also delivered a pretty damning verdict on our chances of going anywhere other than down.

This just in... today's match is off because the County Ground pitch is frozen. No news yet on when it's going to be played. See you all down the shops. :-(

Town fans will get a chance to show their support for Roy Evans tomorrow by holding up a specially designed poster that's being given away in the Saturday Adver. The poster is happening after Dublin Red of the Rivals.net board called up the Adver sports desk to suggest it (late update... although Cockney Zoidberg is claiming it was his idea...). With Evans saying today he has yet to make his mind up that's good work fella(s)!

After the excitement of last week's cup win, and the completely depressing drip, drip, drip of bad news from the Town boardroom, it's back to league action with tomorrow's visit of Huddersfield Town.
It feels like a long time since our last league game, although it was only on the first of December, when Wigan beat us 1-0. And our last home game was that very encouraging 1-1 draw with Brighton, when really we should have walked away with all three points.
Our visitors arrive with a point to prove, despite sitting six points ahead of Swindon in sixth place. They had to endure a pretty embarrassing 4-0 gubbing at Mansfield in the FA Cup last weekend, with the Stag's boss Billy Dearden saying it could have been five or six had his side taken their chances.
The key appeared to be a very hard-working performance, keeping the tempo high, which stopped Huddersfield getting into their stride.
Indeed, Lou Macari's side have been enduring some pretty iffy recent form in the league as well - they went through November without winning (four draws on the trot). Perhaps they're suffering from the fact that they have their own boardroom troubles (like a chairman who'd really rather not be there).
Huddersfield will be boosted by the return of striker Clyde Wijnhard, who has been out for over a year since a car accident in which he was lucky to escape with his life, let alone his football career. But how much practical help he'll be to his team tomorrow is doubtful - we're unlikely to seem him put in much more than a substitute appearance.
Not that they lack dangermen - we know all about Chris Hay, a quite recent departure from the County Ground, while Andy Booth is top scorer and young forward Danny Schofield is well known to all us Championship Manager players…
For Town, David Duke is likely to be out with a knock he picked up against Hereford, meaning Robbo could come back at right wing-back. Let's hope Paul Edwards can turn in another impressive performance on the left flank.

It's no comfort to say we could see this coming. Bob Holt warns in today's Adver that we should expect some very bad news in the club's accounts, when they're finally pieced together. The figure of £3.5 million in the red is being suggested as being "there or there abouts". The important questions after that are: who's securing the debts? (because we don't own our ground) How soon do we have to pay the money back? ('cos we ain't got the cash lying around) And exactly how are we going to do that? ('cos a new money-spinning stadium is a long way off)
The wrong answer to any one of these and... well, you know the rest.

The clouds refuse to go away. With the new board settling in, the BBC is doing its best to play up the chances of Roy Evans leaving Town. The Beeb is claiming that Town is "on the verge of leaving the Robins", and quotes a story in this morning's Express.
But, folks, even if things look bad we can rest assured things have not got any worse in the last few hours. The media merry-go-round seems to have made things ten times worse since a similar-looking story (funnily enough) appeared in last night's Adver. In there, Evans said he would be meeting the consortium today or tomorrow, and would be asking what he had to spend. He's keen to freshen things up, and the previous regime had promised - with foundation or not - that he'd have cash in the New Year.
Tonight's Adver has nothing new on the Evans situation. But, merry-go-round or not, Carson has admitted there's not a lot of money around. So, unless the consortium really does have mysterious - and very rich - unseen backers, as hinted at in the summer, odds are Evans will walk sooner rather than later.

The Adver match report from Saturday's cracking cup encounter is now up. You can also read about the roasting the players got at half time - certainly, the fact they were out so early for the second half, and then played so well, suggests Roy Evans got the message across pretty well.

And you simply have to check out this hilarious photograph of new chairman Willie Carson, standing next to Razor Ruddock. Looks like some kind of old-fashioned circus act.

FA Cup draw latest
Live on the BBC today, Sven picked out Man City and David (Platt) picked out Swindon Town... City verus Town in the cup. It's not quite the Premiership big guns we hoped for, but we couldn't have got much better out of the Nationwide league - and a trip to Maine Road has to be several times better than somewhere like Leicester or Bolton.
We're guaranteed a big crowd - and a decent pay-off - and what's more there has to be a decent chance of victory against Kevin Keegan's side. As we all know, any Keegan side is likely to wobble from time to time, and City have their own tradition of doing just that through the years, even without his help.
They haven't much of a recent record to talk of in the FA Cup - they won it last in the same year Town won the League cup, and haven't been in a final since 1981. Last year they were knocked out by eventual winners Liverpool, 4-2 at Anfield.
This year, after a poor start, City have got a little stronger in their bid to bounce back to the Premiership. But had a setback yesterday when Crystal Palace beat them 2-1 at Selhurst Park, and it seems they've got a bit a problem capitalising on long periods of possession. Wouldn't a 1-1 draw to bring them back here be nice?
The (first :-)) game will be played on the weekend of 5/6/7 Janurary.

Today, at 3pm on BBC1, Swindon Town will be in the bowl for the third round of the FA Cup. But it was a close run thing. Hereford United got a warm round of applause as they left the pitch yesterday, both from their own fans and Swindon's, after a spirited display which nearly caused a cup upset.
To sum up quickly (more tomorrow): things had started well, with Danny Invincible scoring early on. Invincible and Sabin's pace up front, combined with some promising work on the wings from Duke and Edwards, looked enough to make the difference.
But then they struck back with a fantastic goal from a corner, Gavin Williams smacking a 30-yard screamer past Bart, and then shortly afterwards took the lead through Ian Wright. The visitors continued to apply pressure through the first half, and were perhaps good value for their one goal lead.
In the second half, Town were transformed. Edwards was seeing a lot more of the ball down the left wing - a neutral I'd brought along to the game described Edwards as being "head and shoulders" above his team mates. And he scored the goal that got Town back in the match, bringing the ball in off the left wing and then jinking into the box, and firing a powerful left foot shot that beat the Hereford goalie at his near post.
Town's winner was scored 14 minutes from time by Bobby Howe, who hadn't enjoyed one of his best afternoons. The Hereford defence could only watch as the ball broke to three Town players who - mysteriously - were all onside despite there not being a white shirt anywhere nearby, and the biggest danger was they'd fall over each other in trying to score. They nearly managed that, but not before Bobby had applied a boot to score.

FA Cup - Swindon v Hereford
For Hereford, this is a big, big match. All the talk is of giant-killing: the Times took an interesting look at their serious money problems and the realities of Conference football yesterday. It found a side struggling financially and in the league, but looking forward to tomorrow's match with a degree of confidence, as their messageboard suggests. United fans are having a few debates about who they should play up front, and make some interesting observations on what us Townies are talking about too.
What is clear, especially in the Adver's profile of the club, is that they have a huge incentive to beat Town. Not only does the club badly need the "reward" money of a win, and the possibility of landing a dream tie against a Premiership side, but it also has a proud giant-killing heritage dating back to 1972 when they beat Newcastle United. Town will have to be on their toes.
For the Robins, Roy Evans has issued a pretty uncertain statement about his future at the club, saying only that he'll be leading the club for tomorrow's game unless he gets the sack. That being pretty unlikely, he is getting a few options back after the recent bout of suspensions and injuries.
Long-term absentee Sol Davies could make his return to left (wing) back, and Razor Ruddock could resume his place at the back as well. Andy Gurney is suspended, so Adam Willis is likely to deputise. Up front, Danny Invincible is said to have shaken off a knock and is likely to play, but Matthew Hewlett is rated doubtful because of an injured knee.

There's news from today's EGM which - as expected - elected an interim board of Willie Carson, Wendy Godwin, Bob Holt and Nick Prescott.
One big worry - outgoing director Ian Blatchley suggests that £1.5m of debt has to be repaid within 28 days, and that overall debt stands at £3.5m. This is far worse than suggested so far.
We don't know if that's true, of course, and the consortium is engaging in a PR campaign to explain why they've done what they have. A leaflet called "the Informer" was distributed by them at the meeting, and may be available from reception tomorrow.

Peter Rowe, Town's current chief executive, is in today's Adver bemoaning the planned changes to the transfer system.
He says one of its provisions - that there should only be two "transfer windows" in each season, could badly hit clubs like Swindon, who might need to sell players through the season to balance the books. He makes the example of George Ndah, who was sold a few seasons back to keep the club going.
I'm not sure why Rowe is saying all this - maybe to impress the new bosses likely to be appointed at tomorrow's EGM? If so, I'm not impressed. Here's why.
First, it might seem a little obvious, but why can't this club live within its means without having to suddenly sell off players? Such action reeks of the kind of mismanagement that this club has suffered enough of down the years. If you're needing to sell off your assets just to keep going, you're in long-term decline. Set a budget, don't exceed it, and such fire sales won't happen. Then, when it comes to letting players move on, at least you'll fetch a decent price.
Second, the proposed European plans could be quite good news for teams like Swindon which have a young side, and a strong youth system. Say, for instance, Alan Young is sold at the end of this season for £100,000 to Wolves. Then, after a season or two, he moves to Derby where Colin Todd has shown typically shrewd business sense, and decided to splash out £2 million. Well, Town would get a cut of that money for having helped develop Alan. We'd be quids in where, before, we wouldn't have got a sausage, unless there had been a sell-on clause included. Under the new plans, it would be automatic.

With grovelling apologies for the lack of post of late, I'm happy to say I'm back in the saddle after a trip to the frozen north for a few days. While I'm away, though, something strange seems to have happened - the Adver has started saying that Paul Edwards and - here's the odd bit - David Duke - look "more than comfortable" at left wing back.
Umm... safe to say, I'm a fan of Sol Davies, and now that he's back to fitness after injuring both groins (ouch) I'm looking forward to him getting back into the side.