Sign Petition
Please fill in the details below to sign the petition. You do not need to be a trust member to sign this petition, this is for all fans.
Join 854 others who have signed this petition.
Petition launched October 10th 2022. Please note these details excluding email address will be shared with the Trust when delivering the petition.
Why we have reached this point
The Trust, and more specifically the trust's board have descended down a path that we feel is not appropriate for a supporters trust. It is abundantly clear that the trust no longer represent us, the fans and likely no longer represents even the trust's own members.
It has moved from a honest and genuine asset to our club to an organisation that is destructive both to the club and sadly also to the fan base. This organisation now clearly puts the personal agendas and opinions of it's board ahead of what the fans want and the club needs.
The trust, because of the current board now pose a significant danger to our club. It is our opinion that they clearly want to force out our current owners & take control of the club at all costs, if they are successful in doing so we stand a very high probability of losing our football club. These current board members are not the people we want anywhere near the operation of our beloved Cobblers.
Failure to attend key club events
The Club held an open forum on 22nd September 2022 to allow all fans to come and ask questions about anything relating to the operation of the club. Topics discussed here were a lot of the issues the NTFC Trust board takes issue with against the club and the owners, a perfect opportunity to ask the club about all the things that concern them in a very public setting - No board member attend this event, which we feel is inexcusable. Regardless of the issues discussed, the board should have been in attendance as they claim to represent our fan base.
Abusing and Threatening Fans On Social Media
Current board members and advisors to the board have been seen multiple times belittling, threatening and abusing fans across social media channels. This is not acceptable, the behavior of the individuals while representing the board is disgraceful, and the board not taking action against these individuals is reflective of the board overall. In any other organisation these individuals would have been immediately asked to resign.
This is one of the primary reasons this board needs to go, they clearly believe themselves to be above the rest of us "normal fans". The trust as it stands does not represent us, the fans. One trust board member has gone as far to publicly reffering to representing the fans a "false narrative", they do not care about the opinions of fans.
Lying to fans
The trust has used various tactics to try and create a false narrative about the club and it's owners. One such example of this behavior is very clear in that it has been made clear to the trust that the final paperwork for the recent agreement for the land would include assurances regarding the completion of our stand.
On 1st April it was made clear to Andy Roberts , the Chairman of the trust board via a letter that the only paperwork thus far was a heads of terms, and that the club are working with the council to ensure the completion of the East Stand.
On 4th April 2022 the Chronicle published an article stating "Please be assured on this point, the completion of the stand is part of the offer forwarded by CDNL". Both club and Council have made it clear that the final contract will contain assurances.
On July 28th the trust released a statement, with the following quote from Andy Roberts "Given that the deal the owners have on the table with the council in no way guarantees the East Stand being completed, nor does it provide for any ongoing investment benefit for our football club." - this is a clear misrepresentation of the situation and a clear attempt to create worry with the fans.
On October 5th the trust released another statement that included "NTFC and CDNL are not one and the same.". CDNL is wholly owned by NTFC, we beleive this is another misrepresentation of facts by the trust board in an attempt to sway fans opinion in their favor.
Various board members also frequently post misleading information, or post things out of context on social media and message forums, in the hope that people won't do full research and to try and manipulate fans into thinking something that isn't true.
Making significant decisions without consulting members & Against the sentiment of fans.
It is clear from online sentiment, polls, social media posts that a vast majority of fans did not want the trust to invoke the ACV, however the board made the decision to do this anyway. The club holds a significant lease on the land, the process the trust started was very clearly a pointless one.
Many members reported that they were never asked about this, and only a small number of the total membership actually voted.
More recently it has been reported that the trust has made a rival bid to try and buy the land, this was done without consulting the member base and there has been no satisfactory explanation from the trust about why they did this and how this helps the club or how this action will help finish the East Stand.
General Interference
We understand the trust exists to question the actions taken by the club, however with the current trust this has over-stepped into general interference in all matters.
Advisors to the board have been in contact with rival land bidder Cilldara. A clear conflict of interest.
The trust board, specifically Andy Roberts has also without clear evidence communicated to the council to create fear about the current ownership, including on 12th September 2018 stating that they believe the current owners will not fund the club beyond mid October of that year, clearly 4 years later there was no evidence of this - because it wasn't true.
Board members have made various suggestions to fans on social media and message forums that the club and council are corrupt, again in order to create fear within the fan base.
Lack of communication and Transparency
The board have often accused the club of a lack of transparency, however, despite all of the above occurring recently the Trust has remained silent, there has been no communication to fans about their recent land bid, there has been no response to the clubs open forum, there has been no response to the fans expressing their dissatisfaction with the trust.
Summary
It is truly sad that the trust has become such an untrustworthy and unsavory organisation, this petition is not because anyone is anti trust, A supporters trust should be an incredible thing for a club's fans to have - but this one is not, these people want to own our football club - given their behavior, we can't think of many people we'd less like to have controlling our football club. It's time for change. #NotMyTrust
Why A Petition?
Currently the only way to effect the trust is to hand over money to become a trust member, this petition is to allow fans to show disagreement in how the trust is running things and to demonstrate that the trust do not represent our fan base anymore.
What we hope to achieve
The trust board is elected by the trust members, and as such is self governed. We hope that this petition will demonstrate the opinions of the wider fan base and put pressure on the trust to change, it's our opinion that the entirety of the trust board has made their positions untenable and we hope to see the full resignation of the current board and the removal of all current advisors.
Who is behind this
Despite the Trust Boards attempts to discredit everyone, the simple fact is that all 550 people who have signed this petition are behind it, including over 100 of their own members. That said, details of the people who are now willing to step forward and stand in a Trust election are detailed here.
You can contact us at this mail address if you would like to get involved and help.
Disclaimer : This website is not associated with the club, or the trust. Your details will only be used for communication relating to this petition and only the minimum details required will be shared with the trust to indicate the validity of the signatures. Once the data is no longer required, all data will be purged.