A Note From the Unauthorised Website: Analysing King Ken’s ‘Notes’ - Part 2

In Part 1, we read how Ken Anderson’s prolific ‘Note’ making on the Bolton Wanderers website began with a festive message and snowballed. Now, with promotion edging closer, it all begins to heat up.

Getting into this...

March and April saw Ken go ‘Note’ mad, posting EIGHT in both months. March saw him commemorate the one-year anniversary of his and Dean Holdworth’s takeover, celebrating a victory over Fleetwood, a bit of a Latin lesson, hosting Anthony Joshua and the Estonian football team, and celebrating the creative prowess of Filipe Morais.

While April saw a rallying call to fans and praise for the undefeated Ladies team, celebrating a late win over Southend followed just two days later by a look ahead to a big game against Scunthorpe and celebrating Parkinson and Morais winning monthly awards, then a pointless review of a defeat in said Scunthorpe match, then similar review of a defeat to Oldham, and a motivational blurb with three games remaining in the season.

A final post of the month looked ahead to a big final game of the season against Peterborough United, which interestingly, if you look at the URL, was his 11th drafted post of the month.

Summer serenity

Ken obviously posted a ‘Note’ in early May celebrating our promotion and the hard work ahead in the summer, and an update on finances that began: “It is important to remember that the prices have been held at the same level as our last time in the Sky Bet Championship in 2015/16 with a small increase to reflect inflation.” Right, so prices weren’t held then?

That was followed up by some stuff about the winding-up petition and a whinge about the Supporters’ Trust, which is obviously common-place activity for a Chairman.

June was understandably quiet with some updates on new contracts then celebrating the signing of Adam Le Fondre. Then in July he used his ‘Note’ as an opportunity to publicly whinge about BlueMarble and Dean Holdsworth, to promise players would be paid - well done - to have a go at Dean Moxey for comments he made on social media about the club not paying him - how dare he? - and the first emergence of the troublesome Asset of Community Value (ACV).

Getting hot under the collar

This season began with Ken’s programme notes ahead of the season opener against Leeds followed by an analytical review of the match which, at the time, was unusual. Moving into September he welcomed new signing Craig Noone and revealed the club tried to bring Chung-Yong Lee back to the club during the transfer window, while also discussing the acquisition of Sports Shield’s shareholding from the liquidator.

Now Ken’s ‘Notes’ begin to get a little angsty. He begins a ‘Note’ in late September lamenting a “frustrating few weeks” on the pitch, which clearly got the better of him as he went on to lambast Daniel Izza, chairman of the club’s Supporters’ Trust, stating “I have already expressed my views on this matter and won't be commenting any further at this time” then proceeded to give his views on the matter.

That was followed by a ‘Note’ telling fans not to get frustrated by the team’s ineptitude following the 3-0 home defeat to Brentford. This included the following quote: “That said, the players are fully aware of the fact that not only did they let themselves, the manager and his team down, but far more importantly, they let you - the supporters – down” - which was probably a little bit extreme, and quite a lot unnecessary.

Ken ramps it up further

This month has seen the ‘Notes’ rise to new levels again. They began with a ‘Note’ praising the team’s performance against Aston Villa despite a narrow defeat, then turning his rage upon people choosing to use historical, factual statistics. Ken harped on: “I don't know if you are like myself, but l find it very uninteresting when the media constantly harp on about historical match statistics, which in my opinion are irrelevant, other than they are a fact of history, but actually have no relevance of what is or isn't going to happen on the pitch.”

No, I’m not like you Ken. I think it was actually very interesting and extremely relevant that the team broke a club record for most consecutive games without scoring a goal - which I’ll remind you stretched to eight matches.

He then used a ‘Note’ focusing on the merits of some of our younger players going off on international duty as a platform to have yet another dig at the Supporters’ Trust. Classy. Then, just two days later, he used his ‘Note’ to have a sly dig at friend of the site Marc Iles at the Bolton News, who wrote an article about the club being for sale - which I’m pretty sure everyone knows it is.

Is it really necessary for a Chairman to write an article publicly suggesting that he’s pissed off with journalists? If a journalist receives such a story through a source - reminder, the club isn’t their only source and they don’t have to immediately trust everything the club tells them - it’s their duty to write it, regardless of whether Ken wants them to or not. And does this really need clarifying? It’s pretty clear that if he got a good offer for the club, he would sell.

Then, came a very interesting ‘Note.’ Remember what Ken said earlier about “historical match statistics being irrelevant?” Well feast your eyes on this badboy:

Oh Kenneth. On a positive note, we scored a goal (no wait, TWO!) and won a match. Hurrah. He then wrote a ‘Note’ congratulating the team for “the best performance and team effort since I have been at the club” for the victory over Sheffield Wednesday. This was probably fair enough, but he then went on to claim the club is “having talks with agents about top players in the Premier League and Championship who are not getting regular games.” Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere could use some game time...

The latest iteration to the ‘Note’ process is laughable. Ken seems to have allowed this position of power to get to his head, and gave us a thrilling analysis of the Championship including, get this, statistics! I thought they were irrelevant Ken? Oh well, I’m sure you’ll be enthused to learn that:

Another twist

The aftermath of Ken’s transparency yesterday resulted in the club releasing the following statement:

“Unfortunately, the transparent position the Chairman has adopted has allowed constant speculation on social media as well as the local and national press. Much of this speculation has been completely unfounded and without any substance but unfortunately, despite much of the negativity aimed personally at the Chairman, it is impossible to fend off this conjecture especially when a small number of people have agendas that are not in the best interests of our football club.

“However, to bring closure to this extremely unhelpful situation the Chairman has today confirmed that any ongoing discussions with investors will be terminated with immediate effect and that no further expressions of interest will be entertained for the foreseeable future.”

Just because the press (or us, but we’re unauthorised remember) writes about potential investors or the club being for sale does not constitute “agendas that are not in the best interest of our football club.” We, and I know for sure the local press that go to watch the team week-in, week-out, absolutely have the club’s best interests at heart - furthermore, we have done long before Ken Anderson arrived, and will do long after he moves on.

More to the point, is seeming to have an open dialogue with the fans then using this stance to publicly put down supporter groups really in the club’s best interest? Or is a continued failure to get the club out of a transfer embargo and not giving the fans clear information about the financial situation really in the club’s best interest? And is it really in the club’s interest for the chairman’s son to take to social media to publicly slag off journalists and block anyone that dares to disagree with him?

Don’t take this the wrong way, I’d much rather have club owners that are willing to give us a glimpse inside the club than the wall of silence we had from their predecessors, and I’m happy that he wants to communicate with us. But do we really need our Chairman penning constant ‘Notes’ to offer us tactical analysis and childishly sideline anyone who doesn’t take his or the club’s word for gospel?