There were plans to cut costs that needed to be implemented at the end of the 2006 season at the latest.

These plans were never put in place, because Vaughan said that he would cover those debts. He never did, yet continued to spend more. By the time he left, the club had accrued even more debts. The VAT is the worst debt you can have, any businessman will tell you that, as they are utterly ruthless. The situation had gone beyond salvation by simply cutting player costs.

The board members who were left had the choice of putting the club in Admin the day after Vaughan left or, as Steve Fox put it.

This would not have been the position had SV put the previous Chairman’s plans into action.


Let me just sum up the difference between my knowledge of the situation and your halfd spin.

The only chance left to save the club and pay it’s creditors, once SV walked out, was to continue with what had been put in place by SV in the hope of elevation to SL - especially as the licence era was approaching. It wasn’t recklessness or stupidity, it made perfect sense under the circumstances they were left in. This situation was caused by Stephen Vaughan and cutting player wages had become irrelevant.

It has been pointed out to you by a Leyther last year that your own club was in a similar position at the time. It paid off for them, but not for Widnes.

For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t compare SV to LS. One is a crook imo, and the other was just a nut job on a vendetta.

No, apparently the trick is to avoid having any opinions of your own, while sniping at people that do.

If you want to excuse the people who left you without a team or club to support the Monday after the Grand Final, that's your prerogative. It's your club.

But that doesn't mean a) the RFL are somehow at fault, b) Crusaders are somehow at fault or c) people who feel less inclined to think the other directors had no culpability for screwing you Widnes fans are somehow on an anti Widnes crusade..

And if you want to console yourself with some Leyther's frankly ludicrous claim that Cas gambled everything on winning at Headingley and would have gone into administration themselves, then that's your peroragative as well. But it's a fantasy - we didn't and we wouldn't have. Win or lose at Headingley, we would have submitted a strong bid in July 2008.

Quote: LeythIg "No, apparently the trick is to avoid having any opinions of your own, while sniping at people that do.'" search.php?author_id=1357&sr=posts all my posts going back to 2005. If you're that curious, knock yourself out edit: actually it's not all of them, just those that haven't been pruned from the database

Quote: LeythIg "No, apparently the trick is to avoid having any opinions of your own, while sniping at people that do.'" search.php?author_id=1357&sr=posts all my posts going back to 2005. If you're that curious, knock yourself out edit: actually it's not all of them, just those that haven't been pruned from the database

I think maybe what you are not taking into consideration is that had the carousel fraud never taken place, the club may not have gone into adminstration. There was at least one board member who didn't want to place the club into adminstration. He wanted to appeal the tax bill from the fraud and if successful he thought the club could have continued.

You are trying to say that the only reason why Widnes went into adminstration was because we gambled our future on players that we couldn't afford. Surely you can see the difference there. i.e. version 1 the club went into adminstration because of a tax bill, or version 2 the club went into administration because we brought in players we couldn't afford.

Also you think there should be blame attatched to the remaining directors, but once Mr Vaughan said "thats me I'm out" What could the club do? contracts had been signed, we couldn't have just not paid the players. Even if the remaining directors would have found £500,000 to pay off the tax fraud, all they would have been doing is paying off Mr Vaughan's debt and Mr Vaughan would have still been the major shareholder. As we saw at Gateshead the other year, one bloke owned the club, but it was someone else who was pumping in all the money - quite rightly, after a while he must have thought whats the point when I don't even own the club. Maybe if the remaining directors would have been the actual owners then they may have made more of an effort to save the club from administration.

As a final note, I think its unfair to blame the remaining directors for not being able to carry on when Vaughan stepped down. At any club where there is one major money man, what can the club do if the money man abruptly says mid-season that he's not going to put in a penny more? You say the other directors allowed Vaughan to let the club get in a mess, but what exactly could they do? At the time it was Vaughan's club and he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. IMO prior to Vaughan stepping down April/May 2007, there was no warning that the directors were all of a sudden going to be asked to start being the major financers (if thats the right phrase) of the club. I was under the impression that there are several RL clubs, probably even more soccer clubs (Chelsea and Man City to name but 2) that are or have been reliant on cash input from one major investor. Widnes expecting Vaughan to pay for the squad he had built was hardly a unique situation.


All in all I think the whole situation was a mess - tax fraud, expensive full-time team, an owner who refused to put in any money, but expected others to keep the club going whilst he stood back. To blame it all on squad recruitment is unfair IMO. Anyways this is all by the by when talking about the next round of licences, but I think it is only fair that people don't give false accounts of what went on at Widnes in 2007.

Fellow Widnes fans you should realise by now that tb and his virtual chums do not care for facts provided by others if they do not conform to their own version of our club's history. You can debate this all you like but he will continue to turn a blind eye to everything you say because in his eyes, there is only one reason why we went into administration and that is through the board buying players we couldn't afford and gambling our club's future on winning the GF. If it is a more convenient and palatable version of events for him to digest, then let him carry on with his merry little fantasy.

You mean gambling on the future and FAILING big time wasn't the reason
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