But, then again, I'm still baffled by the decision to let Ball go.

Trig - re: Orsi. Personally, I think we'd have been better off taking our transfer budget this season and used it keep Tilley and Neufville. The impact of Tilley since January would go some way to back this up and we are really still playing with the rest of the play-off team otherwise (apart from Harbottle and Goodman* not being with us now and Seddon with us now)

I’m assuming the player jumping is called Jake…?

However I am still seeking accountability for the way the boards and ESG and secretariat behaved over the last two elections and one incident further back. I’m not going to give a running commentary on these things but interesting to know that two regulatory bodies will soon be investigating rather than just seeing the trust to report on itself and say that everything was done properly and well.

It is interesting that Iain Macnay, who probably has the most experience on the boards of building and running a business, was telling us years ago that we needed more external investment. He got lots of grief, including from me, but maybe he did know what he was talking about.

I don’t think I’ll be standing for election again this year - I think the board will use the new constitution to stop me being a member for a start and, tbh, I think Elvis has left the building in terms of being able to run the trust/club better now. Any improvements I might have sought to fight tooth and nail to make up against the quicksand of the current boards would be too little too late.

Orsi has at least now scored a goal for Crawley

and you have the fantasy £400,000, which we cannot be told about even though we are owners. It is no way to run a business.

Nick - the DTB got sidetracked with personal grievances which resulted in Rule 10, and that saw business minded people resign from the Board in protest, and never suitably replaced.

We didn’t make anywhere near the amount of money we expected from the Orsi deal.

Oddly, I think that we are pretty well run on a micro level (matchday operations, selling tickets etc), but quite badly run at the strategic level, where the DTB in particular have been way too slow to react to the looming financial disaster that we have been able to see for the last few years, and seem to have now left it too late to have an orderly transition from trust ownership to whatever comes next.

Good Times article, and sensible stuff from Ivor, as always, but nothing that we didn't know. WJ - that stuff from Michele at the meeting was technically correct, but irrelevant, as it was basically looking back to the period when we had a lot of big transfer sales (AAH, Rudoni etc) and saying that we didn't make a loss over that period. That is correct, but would only be relevant now if that level of transfer income was sustainable, which it isn't, as shown by the fact that it hasn't been repeated last year or this.

We are well run, the trust board think it, the club board think it. Some fans might not think it;-)

WJ - Schrodinger's Budget, I guess.

Hold on Nick - didn't Michele tell us how wonderful everything was a few weeks back as we had made a profit over the last 3 seasons? Is someone telling porkies/massaging the figures/pulling the wool over our eyes?

Mick said at the meeting that our finances have been precarious for years, it's just that we had an Assal or a Rudoni to cover for it. As much as I dislike Birmingham and Wrexham, they are not in themselves to blame for our situation.

CW - no Mandy is still around. Just has other duties. Often on front desk match day wise.

Disappointed with Ivor for not plugging his forthcoming book. :o)

Before the Orient game someone was having an argument with the ticket office girl in the club shop, not always an easy job

Danielle (Ticket Office) - if you are looking in. Thank you for the wonderfully quick and helpful processing of our STs this morning.

Big team and ground Eastbourne bough looks like there get relegated next week we only went there for a frendly a couple of years ago

Agree with all points being made below *except* for OI’s point about a paywall - I had no such wall and have definitely not got a Times subscription.

Lurker - "we’d be outperforming funding to make the play offs". From memory, that's exactly what we did when we got promoted (although our budget towards the end of that season was a lot higher than the mid-table one bandied about. In a way, our rise to the EFL was as much being in the right place at the right time, and we were insulated from the realities of football finance.

OI I’d say because it’s from Ivor. Realistic and measured.

REPD exactly. Once the money went mental you need any ownership model to include lots of disposable money or a willingness to absorb debt. Or just fall behind. In the conference national we’d be outperforming funding to make the play offs.