Andrew Ellis's QPR Takeover Effort & Terry Fenwick

[QPR Report]

News Of The World

Load of Cobblers
NORTHAMPTON FANS BEMUSED BY MAN AT HEART OF RANGERS TAKEOVER

Ellis bid for Gers is major cause for concern
Ibrox chiefs can't afford to get decision over sale of the club wrong.

By Alan Carson, 14/03/2010

RANGERS fans have been told to be wary of the tycoon trying to buy the Ibrox club - following his "shambolic" stint at Northampton Town.

Property developer Andrew Ellis ran the Cobblers for just eight weeks after a takeover in 2002.

But the 41-year-old sparked FURY among supporters by ditching the team's popular manager before quitting for "business reasons".

Jeremy Casey, sports editor of the Northampton Chronicle, fumed: "When he came in he was saying all the right things. But within eight weeks he'd left the club - and it was a pretty shambolic eight weeks.

"There was a link with Paul Gascoigne and talk of moving to Milton Keynes. Everything he promised wasn't delivered. How much he knew about what it takes to make a stable football club, I'm not sure. Anyone who remembers that time and hears that this same man is now going to try to run a massive club like Rangers will be amazed."

A year before he fronted the £500,000 Northampton deal, Ellis was involved with a failed bid to buy control of QPR for £9million.

The businessman had been a director of the Loftus Road club, where his dad Peter was once chairman, but the proposal proved unpopular.


Justin Pieris, vice chairman of supporters' trust QPR1st at the time, said: "We had discussions with Ellis but the sticking point was the consortium's proposal to move the club to a site at Heathrow. There was a negative reaction to it from fans."

It's thought Ellis, above, hopes to bring Rangers supporters on side in a bid to boost his attempted takeover of the debt-ridden Glasgow side.

He and his consortium are remaining tight-lipped on the venture as they try to convince an independent committee of the Rangers board their plans are feasible.

But associates revealed he is likely to break cover shortly and unveil his blueprint to supporters.

A source said: "The time isn't right for Andrew to discuss proposals. But he is keen to make contact with fans at the earliest opportunity."

Rangers confirmed last week that majority shareholder Sir David Murray had begun discussions to sell his stake in the side.

The Rangers Supporters Trust said they were keen to meet with Ellis and added: "We welcome any moves to take Rangers forward."

www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/scottish/scottish_news/754950/Northampton-fans-bemused-by-man-at-heart-of-Rangers-takeover-bid.html

[QPR Report]

Paul Forsyth: Andrew Ellis

TERRY Fenwick offers an insight into Rangers' prospective new owner and their tough times together at Northampton

TERRY FENWICK, the former England full-back, doesn't care to be reminded of his time at Northampton Town. His brief spell there in early 2003 is remembered in some quarters as one of the worst managerial stints in history. After only 49 days and seven matches in charge, his team had accumulated just two points, leaving his employers with little option but to give him the boot. No wonder they called the local fanzine What a Load of Cobblers.

By the time Fenwick was shown the door, the man who appointed him, Andrew Ellis, was gone as well. Despite fronting a takeover that saved Northampton from administration less than three months earlier, his decision to appoint Fenwick, whom he knew from his days at Queens Park Rangers, had been a disaster. Needless to say, neither of the two men are recalled with any affection at Sixfields Stadium.

The whole sorry episode has been cited in the last few days as evidence that Ellis, the man now leading a bid to buy Rangers, should not be trusted. The Northampton debacle has been lumped in with an earlier plan to move QPR to a site near Heathrow Airport as proof that he cannot possibly be in it for football reasons. With a track record like that, he must, critics insist, be intending to sell off Murray Park for housing.

Fenwick begs to differ. A former QPR player, he often returned to Loftus Road in the mid-1990s, when Ellis's father, Peter, was chairman, and Andrew was involved at boardroom level. He got to know them personally, as well as professionally, and insists that the public face of RFC Holdings (Guernsey) is nothing for Rangers supporters to be afraid of. "He is a football man at heart," says Fenwick. "He will want to see Rangers up there, and if he's got people behind him with the finances to restore what is already a fabulous club, I can assure you that everything will be done with the right intentions. I have a very high regard for Andrew and his family. They will want things to go well on the pitch."

The problem is that Ellis is almost certainly not the key figure. He is, by all accounts, a decent enough bloke who doesn't just watch football, he plays it, but he is not filthy rich. The Knightsbridge property developer will be comfortable enough, but if sources in Northampton are to be believed, this is no sugar daddy riding to Rangers' rescue. "He is a man of substance, but a club like Glasgow Rangers is a massive step for him, and a lot will depend on who is financing it behind the scenes," says Fenwick.

When Ellis tried to take over QPR in 2003, the co-investors he claimed to have behind him failed to produce the £5 million that was needed to avert administration. And in Northampton last week, they could scarcely believe their ears when it emerged that Ellis was willing to address Rangers' debts of £31m. It cost only £500,000 to take over their club before he split with his consortium partners, David and Tony Cardoza.

Fenwick insists that they, rather than Ellis, were the reason for the project's failure. "Tony Cardoza and his son had no idea about football," says their former manager. "They were developers, not at all football-orientated, and they are still, to this day, squabbling and trying to get a development off the ground. The club is still in decline. Andrew was very much against what was going on. The Cardozas were strictly about business and development so that was him out the door. Andrew was only ever a football man."

This, it should be said, does not tally with the consensus among Northampton's support. While David and Tony Cardoza, now chairman and director respectively, had their motives questioned at first, they have grown to love the club, into which they are thought to have ploughed about £7m. They have balanced the books, and by all accounts, are willing to give the fans a voice.

Most concede that the money-making scheme they are still "squabbling" over could be to the club's benefit. Having taken over the lease of the stadium from Northampton Borough Council – a manoeuvre that cost them only £1 and saved the local authority £500,000 every year in running costs – their plan is to develop a retail park on some of the land, with a proportion of the profits to be reinvested in the club. The council has yet to sanction the proposal.

This had also been Ellis's plan, but his part in it was short-lived. Although he claimed, when he quit the club, that he could not devote the necessary time to running Northampton, other factors seem to have been at work. There were rumours of a row between Ellis and the Cardozas, whose daily meetings in the nearby TGI Fridays were noted by fans. The Cardozas were thought to be frustrated that Ellis was in the spotlight, when it was they who were putting up the money. Ellis was, but no longer is, married to David Cardoza's sister.

The irony is that another council-related development plan has been suggested as a possible incentive in the takeover of Rangers. Less than two years ago, the club were in discussions with Glasgow City Council, which agreed in principle to sell them land in the nearby Hinshelwood area. The talk was of a multi-million pound hotel and retail complex that could lead to the redevelopment of Ibrox Stadium.

Mere mention of "property developer" induces panic among football's traditionalists, but if an Ellis-led takeover enabled Rangers to explore options such as these, would it be such a bad thing? Ellis is repeatedly accused of threatening QPR's future with his plans to relocate the club, but he was doing no more and no less than a string of other owners have done down the years. Even now, it is accepted that if the London club is ever to regain its status in the upper reaches of the Premier League, it will have to move out of Loftus Road, which is restricted to a capacity of 19,000.

Fenwick, who now coaches in Trinidad, played there for seven years in the 1980s. "Everyone who has ever been involved with QPR has considered the possibility of moving," he says. "The people there now are thinking along the same lines. It's a tidy little ground, but it's in the middle of a housing development, and it's simply not big enough. It doesn't bring in enough revenue to support a Premier League club. That's why they have been slipping down the divisions."

Ask regulars at Loftus Road what they think of the Ellis family, and the response is neither positive nor negative. Their heart was in the right place, but ultimately, they were not major players. Peter, who still attends QPR games on a regular basis, became chairman of the club in the mid-1990s when Richard Thompson, a thoroughly unpopular owner, decided to remain out of the spotlight. Andrew, regarded as a media-savvy front man, tried to take over the club in 2001, but turned out to be only as powerful as the money behind him ... which was not very. There, and at Northampton, the problem was not so much Ellis's ideas as his execution of them.

This, then, is where we stand as the group considering a takeover of Scotland's champions-elect enters into a period of due diligence, during which they will consider the club's finances in detail. Assuming it is all not some Rangers-driven wheeze to boost season-ticket sales, Ellis must have something that appeals to the club – if not money, then the strategy that can provide it – but if he is being manipulated by the wrong men, it will count for nothing.


scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/sport/Paul-Forsyth-Andrew-Ellis-uncovered.6150348.jp

[desorchid]

Mar 14, 2010 0:15:54 GMT QPR Report said:

Paul Forsyth: Andrew Ellis

Even now, it is accepted that if the London club is ever to regain its status in the upper reaches of the Premier League, it will have to move out of Loftus Road, which is restricted to a capacity of 19,000.

But, y'know, we can ignore that and roar Rangers on to the top flight in the shoebox. Anyway, after a few pints i might wake up in Narnia. FFS.