Back!

Well, it's been a while - but I'm back, with the blog now retitled. Has much changed since February?

Yes.

And No.

Towards the end of the previous post there was a reference to Wrexham, saying that they had been taken over. It appeared to be true at the time I wrote it . . . but in Wrexham, even more than in the rest of Nonleagueland, things are never quite straightforward.

The people fronting the takeover were Rob Bickerton, Tony Allan and Jon Harris, who had previously been connected with Macclesfield, Chester City ans Shrewsbury, respectively. Chester City - now just Chester - are Wrexham's nearest and bitterest rivals, and their name is forever connected with that of their former chairman, Stephen Vaughan.

Bickerton, Allan and Harris were the public face of an investment vehicle, Van Morton Investments, but they didn't know who the people behind VMI were, having been put in contact with them by Geoff Moss and Ian Roberts, the current owners of Wrexham. Vaughan then admitted that he had been part of a team making a bid for the club.

Vaughan has a background in professional sport, including spells with Barrow and Chester City
and it's not difficult to see why fans of Wrexham - or anyone else - wouldn't want him anywhere near their club.

There were other bids, too. One came from local hotelier Stephanie Booth, who largely communicated with the fans through a dedicated facebook page. It emerged quite early on that she was subject to a disqualification from acting as a director, something that a member of Wrexham's fans' message board, red passion, raised on facebook - much to Ms Booth's annoyance. She does seem to get annoyed quite easily - I was left with the impression that she had no understanding whatever of the relationship between a football club and its fans.

The other bid came from Steven Cleeve, another businessman with a past. Goodness knows why Wrexham attracts such oddballs and ne'er do-wells.

But there were more to come. It emerged that one of the people involved in the VMI bid was "controversial businessman" Colin Poole. Poole knew Jon Harris from Shrewsbury Town; he is subject to a directorship ban, too - it will expire in 2008 - following his involvement with the ambulance-chasing firm, Claims Direct; and last week it was announced that he had been struck off as a solicitor.

The directorship ban means that Poole - who still owns just over 5% of the shares in Shrewsbury Town - can't have an active role in running any sort of company.

This week, Geoff Moss announced that the new owner of Wrexham FC was to be Jon Harris, and it was acknowledged that Poole had given some advice during the takeover talks. Where the money to back the bid - or cover Wrexham's debts - came from is not clear, but Wrexham fans fear the worst.

While all this was going on, Wrexham managed to swat away a winding-up petition from HMRC, to whom the club owed something like £200,000. That amount was raised through a mixture of donations and loans, mostly, I understand, interest-free. The petition was to have been heard on May 11th, just after the second leg of Wrexham's play-off semi-final; they hadn't secured their place in the play-offs at the time the petition was served and the whole issue set the Football Conference into a panic - I guess that their rules didn't cover the possibility of a club being in the play-offs while being under the threat of being wound up, something that I am sure they will change at their next AGM.

The solution that the Conference found was to insist that Wrexham paid off the whole of the debt before their last match in the regular season, which they managed to do.

So, what now?

Well, the sale of Wrexham - but not the Racecourse Ground - to Jon Harris hasn't yet been finalised. It's caught the attention of local MP Ian Lucas, who may refer it to the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, citing the background of Colin Poole.

There's much discussion about it on the Wrexham fan's messageboard, red passion which is a terrific read. It reminds me of the Labour Party in the 1970s and 1980s - lots of people shouting at each other and being rude about "the party opposite" but, if you look closely enough, you'll see that they all care deeply about their club. The Wrexham Supporters Trust (WST) play the role of the Parliamentary Labour Party, finding themselves on the end of all sorts of invective, most of it unfair. The WST was set up with the specific purpose of buying equity in the football club. They are a properly-constituted body, with their own rules; they have been not so much courted as flirted with by all the potential club buyers. The Harris team have said that they will offer the WST 25% of the shares in the club. At a price, obviously. And I'd guess that that price will be more than the £1 that Harris paid for the club.

They have had a meeting with Supporters Direct, discussing issues surrounding a club run by its fans. Some have, wrongly, interpreted this as a "phoenix" club; it isn't. A phoenix club is one formed out of the ashes of a failed club - like AFC Telford Utd. Some, I believe, are thinking about forming a rebel club - something like Bromsgrove Sporting, or Burscough; I'll discuss Burscough in the next couple of days.

The takeover has been cautiously welcomed by Wrexham manager Dean Saunders, and he has taken some stick from red passion as a result - though he could be forgiven for not saying "I don't like the look of this lot! I'm offski!"

Take a look, though, at this photo from the press conference where Saunders made his remarks. Jon Harris is on the left, and Geoff Moss in the middle.

I can't help but be struck by Dean Saunders' facial expression - he doesn't exactly look fired with enthusiasm. Add to that the fact that he is sitting a little way away from the other two - and close to the door . . .

I'm sure I'll return to the subject of Wrexham before too long!