Episode 3 of The Womble Coefficient podcast is now out. Available on Spotify ([Link] and Apple ([Link] I thought it was a good discussion but see what you think!

Keefy49 I’m amazed that Merton Council seem to have stealthily got away with their latest idiotic scheme to take up all the paving stones from our pavements and replace them with tarmac. Tarmac pavements look like shit when they are new, so imagine how they will look once they have been dug up then patched by the utility companies. Taking up and replacing a slab on a sand bed makes accessing services relatively easy compared to having to dig up tarmac. Be interesting to see if they implement this scheme in Wimbledon Village

I'm quite happy for one of leds,biggles and the other extreme fans owned clan to take over as president and pay a big lump every season towards debts.😂

Alan - agreed, if you go down El Presidente model they would need actual control of most of the inner workings.

OI - Ah ok got it. If someone is willing to put £1.3m+ a year on the line for us, they should be given meaningful amounts of control and probably a reasonably long term (5 years?) so they can actually do things. That is clearly the trade off for the Trust/Fans Ownership: You get temporary control and all the trappings of club presidency in return for capital at risk and/or investment. I thought you meant trying to apply candidate slates/parties more directly to our current set-up.

Saveloy, the whole good or bad DTB'er is dependent on the candidates ability to stay strong and face down some of the nonsense that comes from within. El Presidente would need to be given the reigns to remove unelected blocking forces as part of the gig...

Sav - yes. I'm sure someone can provide the exact details but it seems you elect the President and he/she gets to choose most/all of the rest of the Board (partly at least in advance). It does make accountability much clearer and I can see why a President with his own money at stake would demand real authority.

Shame Newport IW couldn't sort their shit out, another fan owned club could have been a good day out but the new ground isn't going to be up and running on time [Link]

Jardim at has left Newport.

OI - do you mean sort of mini political parties within the candidates? I'm personally keen on something like that. I find it very challenging to unpick who is a good DTBer and who is not. Collective responsibility effectively hides almost all responsibility. Even tracing whether people have done the things they said they would in their manifestos is hard. Being able to ascribe success or failure more clearly to a specific alliance/group would make my voting choices easier and I think increase responsibility and democratic accountability. Not sure it would be that easy in practice given we have a third of the board leaving every year under the current processes.

Barca also have slates of candidates for election so that people are pulling in the same direction. There are upsides and downsides to that. In favour stuff happens quicker and with less fuss, against you can get a board doing bad stuff with little to obstruct them. On the whole I'm against but can't deny it often works at Barcelona - till it doesn't. Thoughts?

RE Barcelona as an example of 'fans ownership'. In some ways it's not a bad model to look at to ease off the fans-ownership stabilisers. The President can only get elected if they can personally guarantee 15% of the annual turnover (i.e. if they make losses, El Presidente gets his/her chequebook out). Effectively creating a sugar-daddy subsidy of a nominally fans-owned club. I'm sure the enshriners wouldn't go for it, but sooner or later we will need to change something (by force or design, I hope we go for design).

Woking again maybe?

All those psf's with K's.

On a completey different subject Merton have started marking out hundreds parking bays for all those idiots riding ev hire bikes. Of course they will ignored by the riders while reducing parking spaces available to residents. Meanwhile the chief of Merton council takes home a near 200k pay packet and our council tax continues to rise to pay for these vanity projects

We can’t even dream of success, Keefy. That’s the sad thing about keeping the fan-owned stabilisers on. Some even worry we can’t afford promotion to L1!

Met Police must be at the top of our pre season friendly list, as usual. :-)

We beat Luton to get into the football league. They have climbed up and down the ladder much like us all those years ago. Good luck to them. Bet their supporters enjoyed the roller coaster. Not been inspired by our journey during the same period. Cannot see us aspiring to any better than div 2 or maybe occasional stab at division one.

It’s an extremely tall order, for sure, but it’s not impossible for us to be an elite top flight club winning trophies as we once did. If Brentford can be a Premier League club, why can’t we?

We have as much chance of getting as big as Barcelona as any of the professional non-fans owned clubs with similar size following to us; virtually impossible.

How do we get as big as Barcelona while keeping the stabilisers on, Leddy?

Just imagine how much more successful this club would be if they took off the stabilisers: [Link]

Good stuff, Postie, as long as you remember fan ownership is an amateur means to a professional end. Not the end in itself. Be wary of bedwetters afraid to take off the stabilisers.

Ooh, that’s scathing, Still Not Dead Kite.

Hereford maybe?