The main purpose of this posting is to correct the inaccuracies that have appeared predominantly on this site but also also in the media .

I will begin by stating that whilst i am disillusioned at the moment with the falling attendances (which is now severely impacting on the clubs cash-flow) it is not in my character to give up on anything, so despite postings and rumours to the contrary, I will state for the record that myself and my wife are here to stay.

Now onto the clubs finances and player signings which are two hot topics intrinsically linked.

As I eluded to previously, the club is suffering from the loss of gate Revenue due to poor attendances and this has a knock on effect on the monies we are allowed to spend on player wages due to the "Salary Cost Management Protocol" introduced this season. I know many of you will retort by saying our average attendance is not much lower than last season but that figure is camouflaged by the fact that we give away each week no less than 500 tickets to the school of the week every home game and in some cases this could be as many as 1000. There are mechanisms that would allow us to spend more on players salaries and that is via new capital being put into the club. To-date since my tenure began, a total of £12 million has been invested in this football club and the vast majority of that has gone in via share capital. On a personal level i am not prepared to increase that sum and the only way i will inject further monies into the club is in the form of loans and if i am being totally honest I am not motivated to even do that currently because i am not being supported by you the fan base.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that this football club has the 6th highest wage bill in our division (this is fact and not fiction), so no one can accuse the Board of not backing the manager or indeed having ambition.

Unfortunately, the only way we are able to bring in new players to this football club is if we offload current squad members. However, before that can happen we have to claw back a £70k overspend, otherwise come the end of the season we will face penalties/sanctions imposed upon us by the Football league.

I hope this clarifies the situation and puts an end to the doom and gloom mongers that frequent this and other social media sites.

i can speak for many others when i say we feel alot better when things are explained to us, thank you !

A sound clear statement, Chairman. No room for waffling or ambiguity, you have told it like it is.
Well done. You judged this to perfection after the semi-hysteria on this board last night.

No one can ever accuse you of not backing the manager.The problem is that the manager you have backed is churning out teams which play the most mind numbing football of recent times.To be frank its awful and that is what driving people away.People can quote the away record but on average we probably take around 400 fans what about the other 5,000 who don't watch us away and have seen us lose 6 home games by New Years day plus going out of all the cups at home.On top of all this we see the best striker leave the club with no obvious sign of anyone to take his place that is why people are upset.Really its a good job that the next home game is against a well supported club because without them the gate would be even lower than the ones before.The Oldham Orient and Bury games will see a true reflection of peoples feelings attendence wise .

Awaits Pie Eyed 150 and his well thought out response.

Sadly, the falling gates must be put down to a number of issues, one being the state of the economy, times are hard for alot of people. I know through my work how some people are struggling. Thankfully I am not in that position and purchased a season ticket. Having said that attending matches is important and dare I say, a habit, so I would attend come what may.

I appreciate the post Ray and hopefully it may calm some folk down,

here we go again moaning about the gates i think i keep my money in my pocket if you cant show me entertainment i will find it elsewhere!!

It is reality. Where would you rather be, like Portsmouth?

Be thankful (and I am) that the club is owned and managed by people as honest and open as Ray and PP.

Thank you Ray.

That's all I want to hear, Christmas has arrived two weeks later than normal, worth the wait tho, cheers.

Thanks for than Ray. We all support you.

Ray do you feel the gates are down because of the Boring football Curle is paying. Or do you feel its the prices?

It's not all bad news Ray mate, I won a 46" flat screen at the weekend and I didn't have to use the NFFC credit card either.

Don't be such a prat, thats CURLE not ray, ray backed him to sign a striker and curle decided the donkey all ray was doing was backing the managers choice.

Fully respect you Mr Trew for all you done and coming on here tonight. But do your comments mean contray to reports in NEP no new striker is arriving? Also at some point someone will ask about Keith Curle and his position.

What, you mean like trolling on message boards for example?

he the one who owns the club, we going have to put up with this donkey for another season and half what a waste of wage, it get me sooo mad who scout these players they need sacking because they clearly dont know what they are doing!! £50 plus (to get in and drinks) every other weekend is no right it's day light robbery!

I'm scared more now than ever, looks like Hughes and Judge will be leaving without a replacement.

Ray...cant we get rid of the sh!te and use our youth?

Ray, Thank you for coming on this board and telling us where we are at.

If we have to cut our cloth accordingly then so be it, the failure of owners in the past to do this is what got us into a mess. It takes bigger balls to do this than to get us into a mess all over again.

I'm sure that those on here - that are giving out all the grief - have some spare cash they can approach you about investing? I guess they can contact you using the numbers on the official site?

Now there is no confusion of where we stand.

- Will be in my usual seat next home game supporting Notts County.

You jammy sod...

the gate will keep falling till ray / a owner show us entertainment. you dont have to spend big to do that just have a good scout network clearly we got a crap one! matt did crap at Bradford and doing a crap job for us till this changes we heading back to league 2

There are plenty of '10p millionaires' on here who like to pretend they have all the answers; as long as somebody else is coughing up for it.

As a fan I'm very glad you are committed to the future of this football club and I trust you will continue to make the hard decisions that some idiots on these boards regard as entirely trivial.

Thank you.