620: Kings of Anglia: Lifting the lid on the Farage fiasco, what we know and why we spoke out

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0:38hello friends and welcome to what i'm sure for a lot of you is a long-awaited and much anticipated kings of anger if you can podcast proudly sponsored by molecular uk i'm mark heath joining me today is a dr stewart watson we're going to be talking about serious things today so you've got the two old men doing it alex and ross on well-earned well-deserved days of having co-of-the-ladies game at Portman Road over the weekend. And friends, yes, it comes as no surprise to you, just a pre-warning here, that we are going to be tackling the Nigel Farage fiasco at length, in depth, as I know a lot of you want us to do because I've had lots of messages about it.

1:15But first of all, Stu, how are you? Are you enjoying a quiet international break?

1:20Stuart Watson:Yeah, so much for things just calming down before this hectic run-in ahead for Ipswich Town. um let's just get straight into it shall we what a few days it's been it has extraordinary um well then friends as i say we're going to talk about it today um hopefully the reason that a lot of you like this podcast listen to this podcast is because we're always honest with you we'll always try and take you behind the scenes with us uh and we'll always kind of tell you what we what we know and in this case maybe as importantly what we don't know um so that's very much going to be the theme of the show today we're going to go through everything as it's happened and tell you what our understanding is at each part of it uh and i think it's important that um we don't sit on the fence um because there's been a lot of fence sitting out there um and speculation around that i will tell you straight from the start i think this has been an absolute car crash for its which town um i don't think they could have handled it any worse at any stage from the initial pitches coming out to the initial very tame statement which totally missed the point all the way up to the non-apology really from Mark Ashton which kind of asked more questions than answered yeah I think speaking bluntly they should be ashamed of the way they've handled this whole thing and there's lots of questions still out there which you know clearly we'll talk about as we get going.

2:52Stu, I think it's important that people hear from you as well because clearly I've written a lot about this, as I should do as head of football. That kind of falls to me on these occasions to be the voice. But people, I guess, haven't necessarily heard from you. So what do you make of it all?

3:08Stuart Watson:Concur with everything that you've just said. An absolutely colossal own goal at the worst possible time as well. one week on from Mark Ashton's usual cry for unity and togetherness from the fan base becomes this absolute story of division. Was it a couple of days on from the foundation fixture and everything that represents a few days prior to the women's fixture as well? there's elements of this that disappoint me more than others to be honest and actually meeting Nigel Farage and reform is probably towards the very bottom of the list of things that I'm disappointed with I've got no problem with football clubs engaging with all ends of the political spectrum I think it's you know it makes sense you have to build alliances for now for the future but yeah everything else that has followed in terms of the way that showed itself um imagery wise uh and and the cover-up essentially is the bit that's left me from a professional viewpoint deeply disappointed and and pretty peed off to be honest yeah okay let's get into it i think the best way to do it is probably sort of chronologically and we'll take you kind of through the story as it evolved what we understood at the time what we since have come to understand and as I said what we still don't really know and what we'd like to to to find out bluntly because there's still a lot of questions around it um so Stuart I was actually off I'll take you back to this time last week um maybe a bit earlier actually I think it was Tuesday last week I was uh I was in Portsmouth about to look at some old boats on the historic dockyard very nice it was too but before I went off to do that Ross dropped a picture of Nigel Farage into the group chat holding the Farage 10 shirt clearly at Portman Road and my initial reaction was that's got to be fake there's no way that you know they would allow that to happen of course turned out it's very much real and then that set you off sort of digging trying to find out as with other people what exactly was going on.

5:28So what was your initial understanding and how did you go about that on that kind of first morning that this started to break and the lines started to get out?

5:38Stuart Watson:Yeah, rewind slightly. I think the first sniff of this story was Sunday night or Monday night. Forgive me, I can't remember, but it was a social media post from Reform saying, Ipswich Town or Portman Road, here we come, with some generic imagery. obviously you know we're aware at that stage that reform are on a bit of a Suffolk tour they've got the the political rally at Trinity Park on the Monday night so you're thinking well they're in the area they're going to Ipswich Town as part of that but at that stage there's not massively kind of alarm bells ringing because as I say I think there'll be people that were vehemently against Stipswich Town working with reform in any way, shape or form.

6:25Stuart Watson:But I would still think a lot of people would think if that had been an under the radar meeting, that, yes, we met with them, we had a chat, we thought it'd be worthwhile, we wouldn't be having these conversations that we're having now. The story really then starts to blow up, as you say, on Tuesday morning, when the full extent of that meeting becomes apparent with the, you know, the imagery that we've now seen with Nigel Farage in all areas of Portman Road, in the dressing room, in the media room, pitch side, holding up the Farage 10 shirt, surrounded by Farage 10 shirts, recording a party political broadcast essentially from pitch side, referencing Kieran McKenna's job, et cetera, et cetera.

7:09That's when this all starts to blow up because, yeah, well, I mean,

7:18Stuart Watson:what does that say to you when you see those imagery and that video? What does that suggest? I mean, the problem is, as I've written, that you have, it implies whatever the attention agreement was, seeing stuff like that implies endorsement. It implies support, doesn't it, for a political party. And I think that there's two elements to this. One is, it's impossible to get away from the fact, it's Nigel Farage. He is, wherever you think of him and he you know the record shows that he's a tremendously effective politician and knows exactly what he's doing in terms of um promoting his agenda self-promotion etc etc so there is certainly the farage part of this which you know in terms of this happening there isn't a more divisive politician that this could happen with um and i said there's obviously chats out there with simon jordan saying it's only because it's for us this is blown up um and to a certain extent I kind of agree with that.

8:16However, I do also think that had this been Keir Starmer or Zach Polanski or Ed Davey, it's still problematic because you're still effectively allowing your football club, which has all sorts of fans from all sorts of backgrounds to be used for political gain, for political grandstanding. And then that implies support and endorsement, et cetera, of various policies. So even if this wasn't Farage, I still think there would be rightly a backlash about it because for me football is there to unite and the game picks off at three o 'clock everyone's under the one flag everyone comes from all different sorts of backgrounds all different sorts of belief you're at portman road you support it's rich town that's all that matters politics whatever your affiliation is divisive and therefore this whoever it was would divide fans and that's exactly what's happened um so that's for me the kind of two key areas of it yes it's Farage yes it's probably more of an issue because it's him but regardless politics and football should not be mixed you should never have your football club being allowed to be used for political gain in this way um so yeah so you start digging into it Stu um and we get the initial kind of version of the story again you know try to take people behind the scenes and

9:37Stuart Watson:what we understood can you talk a little bit about that yeah I can I think I'll park this bit I think it's worth coming back to some of the whataboutery about this in a minute when people talk about Keir Starmer being at Arsenal games and Labour using football grounds to kind of launch their campaigns previously we'll come back to that in a minute I think there's some there's some differences to highlight but to go back to Tuesday morning obviously the imagery comes out one of the first phone calls is to Ipswich Town Football Club and the comms team there you know how has this come about is there something you want to say didn't want to provide an on the record statement which I could see already at that very early stage before the storm had started to brew what direction of travel this was going to go in My advice was, I'm not trying to back you into a corner, but I think you should put out a statement.

10:37Stuart Watson:It was met fairly robustly that, no, we're not going to be pushed into releasing a statement here. But the off-the-record steer, and normally when we do a kind of we understand, you don't reveal where that's come from. That could come from all manner of places. It's not always from the football club. It could come from anywhere. It's just protecting anonymity of sources. But on this occasion, we have to reveal that it comes from the club because that same steer went out to every media organisation that contacted them that morning, local and national, and that was essentially that they'd been duped, that Reform had booked a private tour, not used their name of Reform or Nigel Farage.

11:24Stuart Watson:It only became apparent to them quite late on in the day who it was that had booked this tour at that stage they felt they couldn't really cancel it because there could be a backlash if they did that so they went ahead with the tour um the shirts were purchased by reform themselves and not gifted by the club so that was the kind of steer that is something you know i tried to get to contact reform at that stage they were out and about campaigning wasn't able to kind of get hold of them um so at that stage that that was the information that that we put out there as as many others did so you basically did a story and you're saying this is how you know it's happened this is how it's um it's come to pass that we've got this imagery these these pictures that everyone's talking about and i as i say i was off um but i was still getting a lot of messages about it on social media um and i'm sure you were the same stew so that story i think goes out about midday doesn't it and then again you have to correct me if i'm wrong because i wasn't around actually in the office but um then more more details start coming out don't they as the afternoon goes on as to um the uh the facts of of of the whole thing um is that correct yeah i think it's then after after the kind of social media noise builds and the debate and the division builds over the course of the day um people saying ipswich need to explain themselves um i believe it's the athletic uh putting a bit of pressure on ipswich town to say look our understanding is actually this wasn't this there was some more formal involvement from you as a club with with this meeting are you sure you still don't want to say anything and that leads to Ipswich releasing their first statement Tuesday about tea time wasn't it?

13:17Stuart Watson:Five o 'clock which was as you said earlier still didn't really delve into the detail of how it came about, it was just a statement of we've always engaged with all members of the political spectrum but the club remains apolitical and will continue to be so. The Athletic then publishes their story to say we understand that it was a senior member of uh ipswich town that reached out to reform yeah so the statement itself stew what did you make of that because for me it totally totally missed the point um a having said that or having been led to believe that there was no kind of official involvement it makes reference to hosting um you know political parties political figures uh and then it says we're apolitical well you can't say apolitical after you've allowed the football club to be used by a political party to promote themselves um so again another error i would say from from it switch town what did you make of it yeah agreed again um as i said right at the very start i've got no problem with the general idea that football clubs as major institutions within towns and counties should engage with with various members of government either serving or potentially coming into government.

14:43Stuart Watson:And the reality is reform may well take Ipswich further down the line and Ipswich Town need to engage with their local MPs when they're looking at expanding the stadium and acquiring new ground and doing all those sort of things. No problem with that. Personally, I think I would have had the foresight to think maybe do this outside of a football season do it in the off season do it on the quiet don't you know don't allow yourself to be piggybacked by um by this which is what happened um but it's again i go back to it there's a difference between meeting with reform and nigel farage and allowing him free reign of your stadium to hold up your shirt with your badge your livery with theirs farage 10 that image in itself basically says we're backing ipswich town badge right next to farage 10 says ipswich town are backing this man to become the next prime minister they can say apolitical as much as they want um that imagery is everywhere now and not many people nationally internationally will have got beyond that initial imagery that is the bit that will stick with people now and um that's the bit that they got wrong they may or may not have not known the level of campaigning that was planned within their stadium but they had the opportunity to to shut it down um and they didn't yeah as again as i've written it at best it's extraordinarily naive extraordinarily naive to invite or to have Nigel Farage in the stadium to see what was happening, the pictures being taken, the video being shot and not to see what was going to happen and what that might lead to.

16:31And at worst, it kind of implies complicity, doesn't it? So yeah, again, an issue there. And of course, in those pictures, you've got all the sponsors behind him, you know, they're associated with that picture as well. How they feel about that, we don't know. another thing we don't know but interesting to to find out or to know um maybe further down the line um so that's five o 'clock tuesday stewie that statement comes out um i don't think much else happens then other than you know clearly more of an outcry uh until i get back to work on thursday um and then i you know i feel like we we need to to say something about it um for the reasons we've just talked about you know the the fact that the club had been used for a political gain um and i felt it was very very naive um so i wrote what i wrote uh called for an apology which i think is you know i felt would be the right thing to do um so yeah that happens i write that uh and then we get some some more detail i think uh that very i think i went out about 11 a.m on Thursday morning.

17:40Then we got some more detail from The Athletic who have been, you know, doing some good journalism around this with some more claims about things that we understood to be the case that weren't the case, i.e., you know, Mark Ashton and Luke Warhun hosting Farage for lunch, then gifting him six of those Farage 10 shirts, him being invited by a associate of Mark Ashton um and there've been quite a lot of people really upset about it at the club um so yeah well in terms of your thoughts on this obviously we spoke about me me writing something um we discussed it you read it before it went live uh clearly it's important to me that you know we have these conversations as a you know someone like yourself who's um got some serious credibility with covering the club What did you make of all of that on the Thursday?

18:41Stuart Watson:Yeah, you're right to highlight good journalism. It's Dan Sheldon at The Athletic who's kind of led the way with that in terms of uncovering some untruths, some lies, essentially. And this is the bit that sticks in the craw most for me. We work very hard to have good day-to-day diplomatic relationships with the club. We've been there, you know, a long time. And it's a different relationship that we have to the Nationals have, obviously, because they can dip in and dip out with things like this. And, you know, we're the ones going forwards that still need to maintain a relationship. That is not to say when the time comes, we always talk about our role is to be critical friends of the football club.

19:27Stuart Watson:You know, you have your friends in your life and you're willing them, you want them to do well and to enjoy successes. But equally, sometimes you have to pull a mate to a side and say, not sure you're making the right decisions here or you've messed up a little bit and a bit of an intervention. And that is kind of the role that we've had to play here.

19:52Stuart Watson:Yeah, that's the bit that's angered me the most, really, is the attempt to kind of cover up. And I think that speaks to maybe a little bit of arrogance that maybe has come, that people involved in the club of maybe it's been very much success from Game Changer taking over onwards, hasn't it? bar the sort of the blip of the Premier League season, a feeling that kind of everything you touch turns to gold and maybe a little bit of humility has been lost along the way and a feeling that you get what you want and you can treat people a certain way. And if there's anything to learn from this, it's a little bit of humility to creep back in and to remind yourself of all the messaging that came out from the initial Game Changer takeover, that transparency to a point, you can't tell everything, you can't show your hand all of the time but be as transparent as pot as you possibly can um yeah there's a phrase in politics isn't there that the cover-up gets you in the end and that's kind of what's happened here i think yeah and as i wrote in that in that piece you know mark ashton has done a lot a lot of really good things at it's which town and every time we've spoken to him he generally has used the line we will make mistakes uh as far as i was aware and you might put me wrong on this, Stu, put me right on this rather.

21:18He's never actually identified any single mistake that he's made.

21:23Stuart Watson:And hence, if I'm being fair, I mean, we talked to him about the Premier League and recruitment and how looking back, the lesson they've learned from that is to a different profile of player that they need to sign. But again, there was caveats as to why they weren't able to get that and things like that. But I take your point in general. yes um there has been a lot a lot of that um certainly now when we fast forward to the eventual apology um again two words two m words in there mistruths and mistakes and there's no acknowledgement of what either are yeah um before we get to that just again i suppose just by way of making the point um i've had hundreds this is not an exaggeration i've had hundreds of messages from people saying thank you for writing it that needed to be said um well done etc i've equally had hundreds of messages that are far less pleasant um i've never had so many messages from people with flags for example in their in their bio and the word patriot who have said some some deeply unpleasant things to me about um my mom and dad should have used birth control wet wipes uh bed wetter cuck all that kind of stuff which is fine if you think that's acceptable as a human being to do that, good for you.

22:43But it just demonstrates just how divisive this whole thing is. And it is also worth pointing out that a lot of those messages, the unpleasant messages I've had, are from people who aren't Ipswich Town fans. You look at who they are and they're Man United fans, they're Birmingham fans, you know. They're from across the spectrum with skin in the game, I guess, on one side of this debate. And unfortunately, that's where we are. It's divided people right down the line. So there we go.

23:11Stuart Watson:Just to complete the timeline then, I think Thursday you published, you know, you and I liaised about the off the back of the latest athletic article about sort of questions that still remain unanswered. We put together seven that could have been a lot longer in terms of can you clarify exactly what went, what happened? Because at this stage, Ipswich give the athletic a statement that says there's mistruths in your version of events. well if you're going to do that you need to you need to clarify what they are to be very vague about that is is not good enough um you know we gave the club fair chance to respond to those you put the questions across in the morning we said look we'll give you till four o 'clock today if you want to provide an answer to them if you don't no problem but we're going to publish this as an open letter we didn't get a response the questions went out um we still haven't had the answers to those questions and then eventually on Friday night we get the three odd minute video from from Mark Ashton looking down the ends apologizing repeatedly for any distress and harm and hurt etc that he's caused that the fan base but I go back to it what are the mistakes we need to learn we need to feel that you we understand that you know what the mistakes were are you sorry because you just got caught or are you sorry because the way the whole thing came about are you sorry for the way you handled it subsequently and what are these mistruths if you're so aggrieved that there are mistruths being told please clear them up um so still i know we're at a stage now where people go you've got a responsibility to know when to leave it when to draw a line under it not to sort of revel in it which trust me we don't want to um but it has left a sour it still leaves a sour taste in the mouth and I don't think it's going to go away for a little while yes it'll all get parked at some stage and everyone will get back to uniting hopefully behind the football team that they love but I think this you know people's memories aren't are going to stay with this for a little while unfortunately yeah just just in terms of the kind of behind the scenes stuff then before we get to the apology so um clearly we can't stand up the athletic report you know they they have sources in the club whatever but we don't have those same sources but I wasn't we weren't just gonna report you know other stuff that's been reported it's too important so I said let's ask you know let's give the club the chance to set the record straight by asking these questions they can respond what's true what's not and yeah contacted the club sent them across had no acknowledgement no response whatsoever so those went out and then we got the we got the apology which is it was a fairly pathetic apology wasn't it Stu as you've already said you know kind of ask more questions than answered I'm sorry if you were offended was very much the kind of vibe of it wasn't it and so now we're here with still a lot of questions unanswered and as in terms of where we go next you um you know i from what i understand the club aren't going to be answering our questions mark ashton is not going to be as he should be subjecting himself to any kind of independent external scrutiny i.e speak to us about it um he won't be doing that which is disappointing because he should do um and of course now we've got a game to build up to on monday and we've got a press conference Stu where Kieran McKenna is going to be asked questions.

26:45He's going to be the one that ends up facing the questions.

26:49Stuart Watson:Always feel sorry for managers in this scenario that they are always the ones that are front and centre of asking questions that really shouldn't be coming at the manager's door in this situation but nevertheless, given it's been reported by the Athletic that it's been a topic of conversation within the Ipswich Town dressing room, that It might affect the atmosphere. Who knows if people will vote with their feet, if there'll be how it will affect the atmosphere on Easter Monday against Birmingham. You could have people from both sides of the argument wanting to make their feelings known. From a football perspective, Kieran McKenna will need to be asked about that.

27:30Stuart Watson:I'm sure he'll flat bat it, but we'll see what he has to say. um what other areas of this is there to to explore um i mentioned it earlier the kind of the what aboutery of well hang on a minute um you've had jack abbott serving labour mp for ipswich recently filming a video outside of portman road talking about how you know hopefully ipswich town get promoted um tom hunt former conservative mp for ipswich was a was a regular at Ipswich and quite often visited the club and engaged with the club. I think there's a difference there that they're serving MPs for the town at the time. Jack Abbott's filmed that off his own back outside the ground, but it's the imagery.

28:16Stuart Watson:Again, it's holding up the shirts. It's having the name and number on the back. It's all that sort of, you know, the fake signing picture in the media room in itself is very performative, isn't it? And it gives off certain vibes. yes there have been moments where football and politics have clashed over the years Tony Blair big Newcastle fan of course if you remember holding up the shirt and Keir Starmer at Arsenal and there's been a lot of debate around that over time and people have pointed out that Keir Starmer went to Bristol Rovers and Gillingham and had it wasn't his name but slogans and numbers on the back of shirts and things like that where was your outcry when that happened?

28:58Stuart Watson:People will say, well, there probably was an outcry from the people involved with those football clubs at that time. But it was an Ipswich town, so we weren't involved in that debate at that moment in time. So I feel like that's a little bit of missing the point when people try and throw other examples into the mix on this occasion. Yeah, I think as well, as you've already said, Stu, people are getting you know vexed and aerated about oh well they can they can have whatever they want there and that's true like if you look at it um that you know all the other stuff that's around it nigel farage is a democratically elected mp he's mp for clacton uh and we know there's a lot of which town fans in clacton carl fuller our columnist you know he lives in clacton um so absolutely makes sense if they want to talk to him you know whatever they want to say to him the polls suggest that reform are going to do really well in, in the general elections and it does very, very well could be the next prime minister.

29:54That's absolutely fine, but don't then allow the club to be used for his political gain. It is really the issue in the same way as it would be for, for any other political party. So I guess the only, the only other thing kind of to mention series is the, the unanswered questions, which I was just going to, I was just going to bring up because clearly of the seven questions, We know the answer to one because Ashton apologised.

30:20Stuart Watson:I can probably put a bit more flesh on the bone with some because I've obviously then spent the last few days. I think certain elements of the story being out there has opened up some more conversations for me with people off the record, but I can probably confirm certain elements. Shall I just list the questions and then you can say. So obviously question one, initially briefed at Reform's visit to Portman Road with neither official nor as a result of an invitation. rather that they booked a stadium tour privately online and the club was unaware who had made the booking. Was that true? We still don't know.

30:54Yeah, it'd been reported that Nigel Farage was invited. Well, hang on.

30:58Stuart Watson:The answer to question one, and this was revealed by the BBC, that James Pearce, who's sort of a club consultant, was brought in when the new American owners came in, was the person to kind of extend the invite. Basically, hey, we've seen you're in the area. want to come in for a chat so um that's that's the answer to that one that's question two as well been reported that Nigel Farage was invited to visit Portman Road by an associate of Mark Ashton is that correct and if so who was it so the BBC have reported it was James Pearce yeah and I understand that to be correct okay uh three were the club's owners made aware of a forms visit in advance which is obviously something we've no idea about my understanding is no it was news to them when the pictures came out the same as it was to others.

31:46Stuart Watson:I know there is now a sort of a conspiracy theory of American owners, Farage and Trump aligned. Is there a bit of a deeper spider's web at play here? My understanding is absolutely not. And the owners, to a man, not impressed at all about how this came about and how it's been handled. and there was an emergency board meeting I believe to kind of discuss it all over the last little while so I think I can kind of put that to bed in terms of it being some sort of deeper thing with the ownership. Yeah question four did Mark Ashton and Luke Worhan entertain Nigel Farage for lunch as reported? Question five the club initially claimed that Farage the lunch sorry the lunch different versions of events um some within the club will have you believe that it was a brief half an hour and a couple of packets of crisps consumed um others externally say it will be a bit more than that but certainly there was a kind of a lunch of sorts certainly a gathering of sorts yeah uh question five about the shirts obviously club originally claiming that was bought and paid for by reform since been reported the club printed six for rs10 shirts and gifted them to him for free correct version of events is true so obviously you're saying the second one yeah well the club the club aren't saying they're refusing to answer this but this is this is based on i think pretty good well-sourced conversations that i've subsequently had so if they're not going to answer it i'll i'll give the knowledge that i have so And then just finally, six, did reform inform you of their intention to capture proportional content at the ground and was permission granted, which seems quite a key part of the whole thing?

33:34Stuart Watson:That I don't know. That's quite a key part of things. But that I don't know what conversations were had at what stage about if we come, can we record this? And do you mind if we go off and do this now? Who accompanied them? How long? How much free reign at the stadium they were given? That part I don't know.

33:59and then obviously question seven was is actually going to apologize to the supporters who were upset by it and he and he since has it to a fashion um so here we are then stew um the end of a difficult period difficult as well i think i should stress that for us to write things like this and to say things like this is difficult you know we obviously are supportive of the club We've celebrated everything the club's achieved and very much want to back them, see them do well, clearly. But as you said, times like these, we have to hold the club to account and we have to ask difficult questions. And I suppose where we are now, as you've maybe alluded to already, is that whatever the truth of it and whatever the club's intention, however naive they were, we come to a situation where there's pictures and video out there there are memes being spread across social media which imply that ipswich town have a certain affiliation if you like um those things aren't going to go away quickly no and i think you know it shouldn't have come a surprise that that you could

35:11Stuart Watson:potentially have been used in this way and used is the word and and again that's highlighted at the weekend with Reform using AI to transform Lewis Cobbold's excellent artwork for the front of the women's programme into the Farage picture, which, you know, does raise a bit of a wry smile, but equally it's not funny, is it? Because it's, you know, again, it's the club's, it's not the publicity that the club needs nationally. The perception externally of the club will have changed. You know, if you'd have said to people before, what is Ipswich Town, people would talk about Robson and Ramsey and a family club and certain values and all of that now.

35:53Stuart Watson:And now, in some quarters, those that won't have immersed themselves deeply into this story, and they won't unless you're of an Ipswich Town persuasion, will get thrown at them, sort of reform FC. And some people will delight in that, some people won't. and that's fine. But what's not fine is this division, this wedge amongst the fan base, this infighting that is going to linger for a little while now. Unfortunately, I'm sure time will be a healer, but at the moment, it's not been great, is it? No, and I suppose the other thing that people say, how about your relationship with the club? Kelly, when we do these things, as we've done in the past with, for example, Paul Lambert, when we called for him to go, we run a risk there of souring the relationship between ourselves and the club I hope we've proven multiple times now and long term listeners of this pod will know that when the time is right we will speak up and ultimately we will always put our audience Ipswich Town supporters ahead of our any kind of cosy relationship at the club and that really puts my back up when I see that and I've still seen it this week in some quarters saying, oh, well, we need an independent voice to speak for us.