A couple of us attended the hearing this morning. Was one other Salford fan there and a female journo, assumed to be from the MEN. Made a few scribbles as the hearing went along:
The petition from SG has now been withdrawn. The only squabble with SG/Salford now seems to be over costs which are still live. Impression seems to be that Salford are going to try and get them back later on in the proceedings. S.G. served a schedule for costs, but it was unsigned and non-serviceable apparently.
Patten and Anderson have now been substituted onto the petition, however. None of the costs were mentioned out loud and we couldn't get close enough to the emails being passed around.
The barrister for Salford, a Miss Darcy, tried to get Patten and Anderson fobbed off on a technicality, due to not putting in their notice on a certain form in compliance with some rule (rule 4.9, if I remember rightly...) but the judge wasn’t having any of it, there’s no stipulation that the form is required, apparently. Would’ve just meant the players could bring their own petition against the club, but good old Miss Darcy did a sterling job on that front. There was a couple of other minor technicalities, Anderson’s home address not being on the notice, for instance, but the judge thought it daft to block it on those grounds.
Patten goes on now as the main name on the petition as he’s owed more, I assume Anderson will be on as a secondary name.
The whole HMRC issue seems to still be hanging around, however, with no real mention of it other than stating that they wished to join the petition but had no representation there this morning. Seemed very, very strange, but who knows what’s going on there. Seems they won't be on it as things stand.
Petition now to be amended, re-served and re-advertised. Next hearing is on the 7th of January. And my final scribble just says “costs reserved.”
