[The Only Way Is Up]

3. I was involved in discussions with a prominent member of a Thai Premier League club in the Autumn of 2017, with a view to his possible involvement at WAFC as a benefactor or sponsor. My correspondence to Spencer Harris was ignored, and after several weeks had elapsed, I made contact again with the Trust. Quite a while later, I received an offensive email from Peter Jones, questioning my loyalty to the fans ownership model by discussing the potential involvement with the Thai man, but asking to know if the Thai's interest remained. As such a long time had elapsed since my first email was sent, I advised PJ that the Thai had assumed (correctly it seemed) that the WST did not wish to pursue his interest, and there was no further correspondence on the subject until I read a FB post by Richard Ulrich in his capacity then as a WST Board member. I wrote to him as follows on 24 April 2018:

Hi Richard,

It saddens me that there is an element amongst football fans that relishes in distributing malicious information about individuals, players, teams, clubs and their officers. I’m sure that as lifelong supporters of Wrexham AFC we are both perplexed that anyone calling him (or her) self a fan can deliberately propagate or spread such information about the team that they claim to support.

Whilst it might be the case that some of them are repeating nonsense that they may have heard elsewhere, or have deliberately manipulated stories they’ve picked up from friends and the media, others do from time to time dream up items which they proclaim to be the truth in order to destabilise the status quo. Included within the latter group are those who have been told facts that they subsequently misrepresent in order to perpetuate their outpourings. Many may lack the intelligence to retain information and understanding about the complex activities within their club. As a consequence, it is quite dangerous to attempt to correct their outbursts without adding more fuel to their accusations, and I feel that the club and the Trust does well not to respond to every criticism that is made of them.

I read an item on social media recently where someone representing the club turned defence of the Target 10K initiative into a quite aggressive argument against the fans expected to co-operate with that initiative. The article appears to have been withdrawn now, but I was astonished at the tone of its author who seemed to have forgotten that the customer is king. The gist of it was a misunderstanding by some fans that the club hoped for a 10k attendance at the Fylde game brought about by an ambiguously worded announcement of the scheme. Other fans interpreted the content as an attempt to create a Red Wall by filling the lower section of the stand with some 3,000 fans, increasing the capacity of the ground to 10,000 as a result. Many others believed that despite the truly incredible collapse of our promotion challenge in recent weeks, the club still expected fans to respond by filling the ground – something that reactionary fans felt was taking the presumed arrogance of Wrexham’s senior management to new heights.

Your post in the Wrexham AFC fans chat on Facebook has been refreshing to read as a non-confrontational response to the above and similarly contentious issues. There was however one area in which the explanation you gave is at odds with reality, and it involved me. I had spoken with a prominent Thai football club official about investment in overseas clubs. He has quite extensive experience and connections with the Bundesliga as well as his involvement with a senior club in Thailand. At the conclusion of our conversation, he expressed an interest in discovering any ways that a legitimate link could be forged with Wrexham. He had been made aware of the Fans’ Ownership model, and saw opportunities that could benefit his interests in football as well as Wrexham’s, more along the lines of investment in sponsorship rather than any kind of acquisition. Because of that, I emailed Spencer with bare details, but the email wasn’t acknowledged. I wrote again after a few weeks had passed, addressing that email to the Secretary instead. Some time later, I received a quite unpleasant email back from Pete Jones accusing me of turning my back on the Trust’s principles of fans’ ownership – despite my 100% conviction that it is the only way forward for the club. Why else would I have been instrumental in the forming of the Trust in the first place. In my (polite) reply to him I pointed that out, and in response to his enquiry about any ongoing interest from the Thai man explained that as many weeks had now passed since I had first written to Spencer without the slightest interest being shown from the club or the trust until Pete’s half-hearted and very late response, that the Thai had –rightly or wrongly – assumed that any potential relationship between the parties was at an end, and that he had subsequently moved on. There was no further reply from either the club or the Trust.

Months later, an anonymous poster on Red Passion had somehow heard about the Thai interest, but made allegations about several people including myself. Another Red Passion contributor (whose identity the anonymous poster has adopted) has involved the UK Police as a consequence. Unbelievably, it has been claimed that the person concerned is a Wrexham AFC employee.

Here is an extract from his post:

From the alias "Neil Cooke" on Facebook:

Just been reading a thread on Red Poison about how the WST Board have turned down investment again apparently. I know the story behind this I was talking someone who had the inside in Thailand over Christmas. The man posting this crap is based in Thailand and he was on the piss with some Thai hotel owner who is laundering money via football clubs in Thailand and lower league German teams. The Thai based Wrexham 'fan' was trying to impress this gangster by saying he had influence and wanted to act as a go between. The Trust were approached and saw through this, but were threatened by this 'fan' that he would go public if they didn't get involved. They stood up to him.

The writer of that piece, whoever he (or she) is has included something within the post that he couldn’t possibly know about had he not been discussing the matter with someone with access to the correspondence or who is close to Peter, Spencer, or other parties privy to the correspondence between us.

As you can imagine, I wasn’t best pleased at the attitude demonstrated by Peter and the earlier message ignored by Spencer (some would argue reasonably that the eventual response was a strong indicator that the Trust and/or the Club really isn’t open to discussion about external investment – a frequently voiced complaint about the organisations from a number of fans. I have continued to defend the Trust’s position against such claims despite the negative reaction that I received from them. ) When I first became aware of the libellous nature of the allegations made by “Neil Cooke” I disregarded it as the work of a self-seeking crank. There has however been some further activity by that person, with the message regarding the Thai connection being repeated during the last week or two. One Red Passion poster claims to have received a threatening visit from him or someone purporting to be him. As previously stated, the Police are now involved.

The purpose of writing to you today is to correct that part of your post to the Facebook page referred to earlier, in which you wrote:

"THE CLUB HAS TURNED DOWN INVESTMENT"

"We have had two enquiries about investing in the club since we took over in 2011, one was from an Italian group and another was from an investor in Thailand. We spoke to both of these groups and offered to set up meetings to explore these offers further but we never heard anything back from them. The board cannot turn down any offer of investment as we are legally obliged to put this to the membership (owners) and it would be for them to decide and vote on the matter, not us."

I feel that now would be an appropriate time to withdraw your claim that you never heard anything back, and to correct your statement in the light of the correct information that you now have.

I also feel that in view of the claim that “Neil Cooke” works for the club, that the post made by him needs to be investigated within the club in order to avoid further incidences that msy be damaging to the clu or the Trust or both.

You are welcome to call me on the following UK phone number that I can access here in Thailand: xxxxx xxxxxx. Rates are for normal National calls.

It may be that the eventual outcome of any legal proceedings taken against the impostor “Neil Cooke” could include the claim that he works for the club, and it could also throw up evidence regarding the contents of my correspondence with the Trust that disagrees with your own statement. You must not regard that as an implied threat: far from it, in fact. I wish to ensure that the nonsense “false news” emanating from fans who really should know better if they really have the interest of their club at heart is stopped to avoid further negative claims arising from such “false news.”


Yet again, there was no reply received to that message.