Off-field Issues: Winding-up petition/Chairman/CEO/finances

[Fevrover]

5 minutes ago, roversspud said:

As I understand it, there had to be an AGM before Paddy can be ratified as the new chairman. 

Well it's time this was sorted out. 

[David Shepherd]

55 minutes ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

No one person owns the Club. It is sort of 'fan owned' in that we have A shareholders (1 share each) who have to approve such as selling land, and should# be voting for (I think) 3 board memebers. There are also B shareholders who should# vote for (again I think) 3 board members. Anyone can buy as many B shares as they like and ST holders could (not sure about now) buy an A share. The 2 biggest B share holders are MC (ca71k*) and Probiz (30k).

This structure was put in place when the club moved from a members' to a Ltd entity to prevent a single person (or group) gaining access to primarily the club's land assets.

#can't remember when the last vote (or AGM) was held

* this is significantly above 50% of the total

Is that structure preventing investment?

I know if I had the brass, there's no way I'd put it in without having complete control of the business.

*I probably fantasise about winning the euromillions and doing just that a bit too much.

[David Shepherd]

22 minutes ago, roversspud said:

As I understand it, there had to be an AGM before Paddy can be ratified as the new chairman. 

Sounds about right.

It's him not even being a director that puzzles me. That doesn't need an AGM as far as I know. He also doesn't appear to own any shares, which again is very puzzling.

[Fevrover]

8 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

Sounds about right.

It's him not even being a director that puzzles me. That doesn't need an AGM as far as I know. He also doesn't appear to own any shares, which again is very puzzling.

Yet Paddy has spent thousands of pounds but is being held back.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

24 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

Sounds about right.

It's him not even being a director that puzzles me. That doesn't need an AGM as far as I know. He also doesn't appear to own any shares, which again is very puzzling.

Board members should be elected at an AGM but that hasn't prevented previous appointments. Strange events with the shares: 40k transferred to him in January but was then reversed as a 'mistake' in July.....

[Normy_Rover]

I’ve heard that Paddy has resigned… watch this space

[Fevrover]

32 minutes ago, Normy_Rover said:

I’ve heard that Paddy has resigned… watch this space

Wouldn't blame him.

[wasginger]

8 hours ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

No one person owns the Club. It is sort of 'fan owned' in that we have A shareholders (1 share each) who have to approve such as selling land, and should# be voting for (I think) 3 board memebers. There are also B shareholders who should# vote for (again I think) 3 board members. Anyone can buy as many B shares as they like and ST holders could (not sure about now) buy an A share. The 2 biggest B share holders are MC (ca71k*) and Probiz (30k).

This structure was put in place when the club moved from a members' to a Ltd entity to prevent a single person (or group) gaining access to primarily the club's land assets.

#can't remember when the last vote (or AGM) was held

* this is significantly above 50% of the total

Thank you for your answer.

[Monkeymagic22]

Paddy seemed like a decent bloke. I’d have him as the owner rather than Campbell. 

[Michael Bates]

9 hours ago, roversspud said:

As I understand it, there had to be an AGM before Paddy can be ratified as the new chairman. 

As I understand it, he'd still have to be chairman to be ratified as the chairman...

[Fevrover]

1 hour ago, Monkeymagic22 said:

Paddy seemed like a decent bloke. I’d have him as the owner rather than Campbell. 

He is and loves the club,spent thousands but can only do so much ------

[fev regardless]

The shareholders are the owners of the club (A & B shares)Sadly one person can buy a relatively low number of shares priced at £1 per share . Consequently if a future share issue was made for a sum of £30k(the price of a nice new car) i could probably take over running of the club on a day to day basis . Depending on my philosophy on the path the  club should follow it may not be percived  by many as being in the best interest of the club.Especially when no details are ever presented to the other shareholders for what are now obvious reasons.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

10 hours ago, fev regardless said:

The shareholders are the owners of the club (A & B shares)Sadly one person can buy a relatively low number of shares priced at £1 per share . Consequently if a future share issue was made for a sum of £30k(the price of a nice new car) i could probably take over running of the club on a day to day basis . Depending on my philosophy on the path the  club should follow it may not be percived  by many as being in the best interest of the club.Especially when no details are ever presented to the other shareholders for what are now obvious reasons.

There are 122349 B shares issued. To buy a majority and take over the day to day running you would need £1223490 to buy 'new' shares or £611750 to buy them from existing shareholders. In both cases a touch more than £30k.....

[fev regardless]

Well i managed to glean information from you that the club has nevet provided to me for which i am grateful  .i am surprised at the numbers and await the meeting with an even greater concern

[Gooleboy]

9 minutes ago, fev regardless said:

Well i managed to glean information from you that the club has nevet provided to me for which i am grateful  .i am surprised at the numbers and await the meeting with an even greater concern

Will there even be a meeting? Anyone know when it is even likely to take place?

[Andrew Vause]

There seems to be a vacancy at the club as we type. 

[Fevrover]

52 minutes ago, Andrew Vause said:

There seems to be a vacancy at the club as we type. 

Don't keep us in suspense.

[jamescolin]

What the heck is happening. Has Paddy resigned ?  What is the definite current position?

[Featherstonerovers2000]

3 hours ago, Andrew Vause said:

There seems to be a vacancy at the club as we type. 

Can’t drop a bomb like this and not say who

[Rarefrith]

Told PH has gone from a few different sources. 

[The Phantom Horseman]

On 19/09/2025 at 21:19, John Davidson said:

Mate, it's a legitimate story. I'm not delighting in it. 

The same legitimate stories which have been reported at Salford, at Toronto, and elsewhere.

I'm not the one not paying taxes, or players. It isn't my fault.

Here's my take on this for what it's worth.

When it's a legitimate news story, fine. I think most of us would get that, and I think most of us Fev fans feel uncomfortable, to say the least, about some of the very things you have written about. I'm not saying we should bury our heads in the sand or ignore bad news. 

The issue for me is that the ONLY way a club like us can be deemed worthy of a legitimate news story is if it's bad news. When that happens, we suddenly become newsworthy, the rest of the time we are completely invisible. Same probably applies to other lower-league clubs too.

I'll give you some examples. Just over ten years ago, there was a news story that could potentially have transcended the pocket-sized world of rugby league. A RL club from a population of around 15k - yes, Featherstone - was responsible for a remarkable story that caused a transformation to their ground. A number of volunteers  (colloquially known as the Stand Gang) dismantled some dormant stands from the  defunct Scarborough football club, transported them piece by piece 70+ miles to Featherstone, and rebuilt them as two new stands, transforming the ground.

Many of the guys who contributed to this were pensioners, they were basically Fev fans with specific tradesmen's skills who volunteered their labour for their local community club. This could have been a story that created a movie or a TV series, but it really didn't get the attention in the media it deserved, presumably because, hey, Fev were a second tier club.

Meanwhile, the two clubs closest to Fev, both of whom were in SL, were repeatedly flouting the minimum standards guidelines for grounds, and yet this received very little media attention - it was only with the arrival of IMG and actual accountability for grounds (up to a point!) that the media showed any interest.

Then let's look at funding for Championship clubs. About seven or eight years ago, there seemed to be a realisation that some of the Championship clubs were just as capable on and off the field as a few of the lower-performing SL clubs, but the broadcast money was helping the existing SL clubs maintain the status quo. There was a brief attempt to balance this, and at one stage from memory the clubs that finished in the top 2 of the Championship were getting £700k plus (almost half of what the SL clubs were getting at the time I think) to give the more ambitious Championship clubs a chance of closing the gap.

But what has happened over the last few years is that the funding for non-SL clubs has been decimated, almost in the literal sense of the word. I don't know what the exact figure Championship clubs receive, because nobody in the RL media seems interested in finding out and writing a story about it, but in percentage terms they have suffered massive decreases in relation to the decreases SL clubs have suffered. Sure, perhaps the tail shouldn't wag the dog, but it's received next to no attention in the RL media.

Fev will, I suspect from reading the tea-leaves, be getting some more attention from people in the RL media in the coming days. 

But here's what I'd ask John and other journalists, if they're going to write about us:

Can you point us to, say, your match reviews of Featherstone games this season, or some features on the players?

Who do you think have been the standout players at the club this season?

What do you think of our tactical approach this season? For instance, the story about how the coaching staff chose to rejig the line-up in an almost unheard of situation where a team has lost all its half backs and all its hookers might be a fascinating one for anyone who looked into it.

If the answer to that is, Fev are a second-tier club and aren't interesting enough to our readers to cover, that's fine. But you then need to understand why it might become annoying to fans to find that we're suddenly interesting and "saleable" to cover - in other words, you can make money out of writing about the club - when there is bad news.

 

 

 

[Reddwarf]

A very well written piece I have said for years fev only get mentioned when there is bad news coming out of the club . There is always the brief mention on certain matters , but that is always out classed by negative news . I have no idea what is happening at my club but I hope it gets sorted soon and let’s see when positive news is reported . 

[FevForev]

I’m a lifelong Fev fan and watch any rugby whenever I can. I’ll never ever give up on them but it’s hard to keep the enthusiasm up while everything off the field seems such an uncertain mess.

I know that’s the life of any fan of a lower league RL team but that’s been the case for years now and I never felt like this before. The ground and amenities are worse than ever, just awful.
 

Hopefully the close season has more positives than negatives.

But, and I am giving no details based on previous advice here of how it ends up badly written in the media, but I know of serious financial issues directly from certain players and I can only suspect that will come out soon.

[John Davidson]

18 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Here's my take on this for what it's worth.

When it's a legitimate news story, fine. I think most of us would get that, and I think most of us Fev fans feel uncomfortable, to say the least, about some of the very things you have written about. I'm not saying we should bury our heads in the sand or ignore bad news. 

The issue for me is that the ONLY way a club like us can be deemed worthy of a legitimate news story is if it's bad news. When that happens, we suddenly become newsworthy, the rest of the time we are completely invisible. Same probably applies to other lower-league clubs too.

I'll give you some examples. Just over ten years ago, there was a news story that could potentially have transcended the pocket-sized world of rugby league. A RL club from a population of around 15k - yes, Featherstone - was responsible for a remarkable story that caused a transformation to their ground. A number of volunteers  (colloquially known as the Stand Gang) dismantled some dormant stands from the  defunct Scarborough football club, transported them piece by piece 70+ miles to Featherstone, and rebuilt them as two new stands, transforming the ground.

Many of the guys who contributed to this were pensioners, they were basically Fev fans with specific tradesmen's skills who volunteered their labour for their local community club. This could have been a story that created a movie or a TV series, but it really didn't get the attention in the media it deserved, presumably because, hey, Fev were a second tier club.

Meanwhile, the two clubs closest to Fev, both of whom were in SL, were repeatedly flouting the minimum standards guidelines for grounds, and yet this received very little media attention - it was only with the arrival of IMG and actual accountability for grounds (up to a point!) that the media showed any interest.

Then let's look at funding for Championship clubs. About seven or eight years ago, there seemed to be a realisation that some of the Championship clubs were just as capable on and off the field as a few of the lower-performing SL clubs, but the broadcast money was helping the existing SL clubs maintain the status quo. There was a brief attempt to balance this, and at one stage from memory the clubs that finished in the top 2 of the Championship were getting £700k plus (almost half of what the SL clubs were getting at the time I think) to give the more ambitious Championship clubs a chance of closing the gap.

But what has happened over the last few years is that the funding for non-SL clubs has been decimated, almost in the literal sense of the word. I don't know what the exact figure Championship clubs receive, because nobody in the RL media seems interested in finding out and writing a story about it, but in percentage terms they have suffered massive decreases in relation to the decreases SL clubs have suffered. Sure, perhaps the tail shouldn't wag the dog, but it's received next to no attention in the RL media.

Fev will, I suspect from reading the tea-leaves, be getting some more attention from people in the RL media in the coming days. 

But here's what I'd ask John and other journalists, if they're going to write about us:

Can you point us to, say, your match reviews of Featherstone games this season, or some features on the players?

Who do you think have been the standout players at the club this season?

What do you think of our tactical approach this season? For instance, the story about how the coaching staff chose to rejig the line-up in an almost unheard of situation where a team has lost all its half backs and all its hookers might be a fascinating one for anyone who looked into it.

If the answer to that is, Fev are a second-tier club and aren't interesting enough to our readers to cover, that's fine. But you then need to understand why it might become annoying to fans to find that we're suddenly interesting and "saleable" to cover - in other words, you can make money out of writing about the club - when there is bad news.

 

 

 

Hi Phantom Horseman, good post there and lots of salient points.

Lots to cover there, but firstly I can't speak for all media, merely myself. And as a part-time freelance journalist, you are usually restricted to what the media outlet you are working for wants, and what they find interesting. With my Patreon site I try to break news and do original stories, so I steer clear of a lot of the standard, regurgitated content from eslewhere and mundane stuff.

The long and the short of it is that there is limited interest in the Championship and League 1. Almost zero from national media and little from trade media and other sources. It is hard enough get any national media in the Uk interest in any rugby league story, be that Super League or international, let alone anything below that. The second point is the majority of Championship and League 1 clubs are hopeless at engaging with the media. Most don't employ press officers, or hold regular press conferences. I've tried to do stories on several over the past few years and usually are faced with a brick wall, or ignored. York are one exception, and there are others. Oldham, for example. But the majority neglect or ignore that part.

Personally, I have written numerous times about the leadership of the RFL, the governance of the sport, the coup at the top and other issues at the RFL, because this affects the whole sport and funding problems affect all clubs at all levels. I believe one of the key problems also is the way the RFL neglects the promotion and marketing of the Championship and League 1, little effort is put into pushing these competitions to the wider public.

Edited September 22 by John Davidson

[Rooney's Ears]

Fev face new winding up order - rugbyleaguehub.com

 

I hope this does not happen, such a shame. Can the club pull things around?