New owner confirmed…

Just out of interest, why shouldn't his sons get to be mascots one game? As young lads they probably will have loved to be involved with "dad's work" the real city fans as you call them have every single other game to be mascots etc. As for duffens "****" all being done in the dark, do you have proof he did anything or is it all just the usual someone said xyz so must be true!

I doubt he's whiter then White, but I also doubt he's no worse then the vast majority of football chairman and businessman.

 

Expect Mr Bob to go on a tirade about racism.

 

I hope you're not seriously suggesting that Duffen is on the same level as the Allams?

 

They're obviously pals.

 

Duffen is far from the dream ticket but in the absence of anyone else i would take it just to bring some change to the club. Some of us remember the more dubious side of the Duffen era (six figure yacht bills on the club, girl from the Premier Club, tours of nightspots with Browny...). It has got so bad that i would welcome even him.

 

I wouldn't welcome him back

 

“At least with the Allams...” isn’t a phrase I feel comfortable with

 

Really hope its true but we've been here many times before and its like groundhog day, still cant see those two bellends wanting to actually sell up. Duffen might've been a bit dodgy but that period he was here brought so much joy and something none of us thought would actually happen. He never told us to die when we want either! We need something to bring the feel good factor back and them leaving would do exactly that, atm this club has no soul.

 

I don't agree with this at all. At present we are in danger of the club dying a slow death, with the grinning one happy to let it happen. I agree that duffen will look after himself, why not. A happy chairman could well be a happy club. I'd take that right now

 

Ok thanks for replying.

 

Duffen would certainly bring ambition for starters, something that is sadly lacking at the moment so that alone gets us moving in the right direction. He's definitely a 'peoples person' which is poles apart from our current owners. I happened to be staying in the Hyatt when we played in Bejing, and City, West Ham and Spurs were all there. Duffen had all his family there, but always had time to talk, along with Browny and Horton. Great days, and 'IF' he returns hopefully he's learnt from what he may have done wrong, comes back stronger, and should in theory be able to hit the ground running.

 

It still leaves the question, why was he being taken to court in the first place.

 

Alot of the time due to a greedy lawyer pushing in that direction with £££ signs in his eyes. Or them hoping the threat of legal action and going to court etc will force the other party into a "settlement" and again seeing £££ signs

 

No idea, but as Howden says it’s not unusual as lawyers push for it

 

Lots of really good posts on here in the past 24 hours, both in favour of Duffen's return and against. This one probably gets the closest to my way of thinking. Would Paul Duffen be my ideal choice of a new owner should it happen? Probably not. Did he do a lot of good things in his time at the club? Undoubtedly so. We can only hope that, as City1904 says, he has learnt a number of lessons should he be about to return. We've been here before, to an extent, and there are lessons for us all to learn. The joy at Needler/Fish finally going meant that we perhaps turned a blind eye to some pretty shoddy things being done by the Lloyd regime at first. We then repeated that mistake again with Hinchliffe/Buchanan (partly thanks to Tom Belton unwittingly creating a smokescreen). Whoever comes in will get a prolonged honeymoon period purely because their surname isn't Allam. So while my opinion is shaped by what we have at the moment, I like to think that I/we will be a bit wiser with regards to what comes next.

 

Nick Thompson explained at a 2014 HCSS meeting with the club that the Allams were going for Bartlett 100% and didn't really have a problem with Duffen. Doesn't explain it fully, I get that, but he was clear that he ownership didn't have a big problem with him. I suspect that the Allams also figured that bringing Duffen closer to the club would irk AP a bit too, given their falling out at the time. That is purely speculation on my part, however.

 

My worry is yes there are buyers out there. But ehab won't want to go. I think he may be just stringing his dad along about selling.

 

That's not right surely. We signed Marney for about half a million in 2006, Elliot and Dudfield for over £200k in the early noughties. All three were our record signings at different times since Swan.

 

For the record, I wouldn't stand in the way of a Duffen consortium if they wanted to sign a deal today. But I'd certainly be crossing my fingers and toes.

A clean slate would be the ideal, but if it means the Allams would be gone...

 

It's not true at all that with the Allams everything is there for all to see. For every name change or concessions scandal in the public eye, they're up to something else in the background. There's loads of nasty stuff they do that they somehow manage to keep quiet.