Consortium to buy Melchester Rovers?

Well okay, Rovers are probably the ONLY club that hadn't (until now) been linked to a takeover bid by the consortium headed by Imraan Ladak and Paul Gascoigne if you were to believe all the current plethora of articles written by every sports hack up and down the country that is trying to help sell their own newspapers.

Granted, all the speculation is probably not helped by the amount of time the legal departments of both parties find it necessary to spend making sure every minute detail is thoroughly analyzed and researched. However, to be fair this isn't exactly a car or a house that we're talking about, and although the supporters understandably see it first and foremost as 'our' football club, in reality it's also a business.

Due credit to Mr Ladak for attempting to address the supporters' concerns as and when they are raised as to the future of the club in terms of full-time status, new ground, restructured management and coaching positions, etc. Although I suspect he wasn't quite prepared for the possibility of having to devote so much of his time to squash all the rumours of his supposed impending purchase of more clubs than even Tommy Docherty has managed.

Message boards are wonderful things, they keep the supporters up-to-date with the latest news, results, transfers and other events surrounding their beloved football club. They also provide an open forum for debate, reminiscing about the past and speculating about the future. However, they also are a great place for 'other clubs' jokers to wind fans up about their club, people with an axe to grind spouting blatantly untrue rumours to stir up trouble and an open invitation for the occasional idiot to post something pertaining to an illegal act with a particular woolly animal, before they sit back down to watch the cartoons again.

Judging by the animosity of some posters, you'd have thought Mr Ladak had proposed a name change and a merger with one of our bitter rivals (oh wait, nevermind, that was already tried several years ago) instead of the open and professional manner so far displayed by the consortium figurehead. Now what about Paul Gascoigne I hear you cry, when's he going to show up at the club?

Well I reckon he's already shown excellent judgement by staying out of it until it's all done and dusted, and no matter how much his press office deny the rumours that are consistenly proffered by those same sports hacks that invent the news and then try to make it come true, people will continue to speculate, it's human nature and it arguably makes our lives more interesting.

The reality of the matter is this, we'll just have to wait and see what happens and when the announcement of the outcome of both parties legal-eagles eventually comes, only then will we know if our beloved club has a new owner. As for the speculation in the meantime, I expect that will naturally continue unabated. By the way, did anyone see Mr Ladak going into the newsagents supposedly to buy a newspaper the other day .. I'd like to be first to break the news ... Consortium buys W.H.Smiths!