League one relegation teams

Of the 4 coming down, only MK IMO will be top 7 material next season, and even they may not be unless they get Tisdale as rumoured.
 
Oldham, Northampton, MK Dons and Bury.
Northampton and MK Dons are less than an hour for me.
 
All 4 teams should be challenging to get back into L1 unless they are forced to sell several key players.

Looking forward to visiting all 4 grounds next season- particularly MK's legendary padded seats!

Bury and Oldham have clearly had difficulties financially in the last 2 years (Oldham players and staff were not paid last October). Oldham has issued season tickets for next season at a reduced rate.

Mk Dons have a chap called Winkelman who has been backing them for years so don't appear to have an issue next season.

Northampton Town have the missing "£10 million loan" from the council still hanging over them but other than that, not too sure where they sit on a monthly basis.

Would much prefer an afternoon at Boundary Park than Kenilworth road any day.

Only 10 weeks until the next season starts
 
We are compiling the usual season preview which gives a lot of detail regarding each club, its manager, the players, summer transfers, the club's financial position, and any other on- or off-field topics that may affect their season. Bookmakers' odds are given, together with the official Vital Lincoln City forecast (i.e. mine) of their prospects for the season.

Will be published on here around the turn of August, or whenever Julian manages to publish it (lots of work for him too).
 
Joint second favourites with Bury and Mansfield.
No odds on Exeter yet.
 
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Bury are the perennial bucket-shakers (not called the shakers for nowt). Always pleading poverty then overspending to get promotion before getting into difficulty and being relegated. Rinse and repeat.
 
StrangelyBrown said:
All 4 teams should be challenging to get back into L1 unless they are forced to sell several key players.

Looking forward to visiting all 4 grounds next season- particularly MK's legendary padded seats!

Bury and Oldham have clearly had difficulties financially in the last 2 years (Oldham players and staff were not paid last October). Oldham has issued season tickets for next season at a reduced rate.

Mk Dons have a chap called Winkelman who has been backing them for years so don't appear to have an issue next season.

Northampton Town have the missing "£10 million loan" from the council still hanging over them but other than that, not too sure where they sit on a monthly basis.

Would much prefer an afternoon at Boundary Park than Kenilworth road any day.

Only 10 weeks until the next season starts
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Be very interesting if the bankrupt Northamptonshire council call their debt in.
Meant for the new stand, most of it went on players to get them promoted.
Another lot who lurch from one financial to the next it would appear.
 
Davidimp said:
Be very interesting if the bankrupt Northamptonshire council call their debt in. Meant for the new stand, most of it went on players to get them promoted.
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It would appear not to be the case. Northants Council have so far spent in excess of a million pounds trying to track down what happened to its money. It would appear to have gone to a development company who then went bust. Very interesting. I am currently trying to work out what has been going on there for the season preview...
 
The loan to Northampton was from Northampton Borough Council, not the County Council. At the the moment though they have been put up for sale as the current owner has lost patience trying to deal with the Borough Council. The loan is still subject to police enquiries which means you won't be able to find a lot of meaningful info and as you said the Borough Council has spent over a million trying to get the money back (no success yet) and caused some resignations etc. Every few months another story appears in the local paper which suggests something will happen soon but never seems to.
It's pretty messy, from what I remember the company building the East Stand extension (what the loan was for) went bust during the building, former owners of the football club I think had either assets or profits from a house sale seized. I think there were combinations of Councillors (or MP's), club owners, lawyers and the building company that had links with each other.

I don't really see how the football club have got away with this so far, if I was lent money from my bank and then I lost my job with no way of paying it back, the bank wouldn't go after my old employer for the money they go after me.
 
Davidimp said:
Be very interesting if the bankrupt Northamptonshire council call their debt in.
Meant for the new stand, most of it went on players to get them promoted.
Another lot who lurch from one financial to the next it would appear.
Click to expand...
I don't think the club is in or has been in the last few years a bad state financially, reports are saying they should be 'competitive' next season.
 
I'm surprised that Northampton's case hasn't attracted the attention of the EU. They have been pretty hot on any clubs getting an unfair advantage through "state aid", which is in effect any money provided by taxpayers which benefits one club to the exclusion of others.

There were cases in both Spain and Holland about this and one, relating to favourable loans to Valencia, led to a 20 million euro fine.

I would have thought the EU would want to know why an apparently viable commercial business has not paid any of the loan back.
 
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