What’s always puzzled me, as an outsider looking in, is the relationship between the likes of ronnie and les with McGowan.
And that manxaccie is the million dollar question the answer to which would explain everything that goes on at that club on and off the field.
Here's what i know from perusing Companies House. The ultimate holding and controlling company of both the stadium and the football club is Edencrest. Way back in 2003 when the debt was threatening to bring the whole lot tumbling down the then Directors of Edencrest offloaded the football club and all the debt onto Ronnie and Les. Ronnie ended up with 90%+ plus of the shares in the Club for the famous £1 coin but he and les had no stake in edencrest so had no stake in the stadium.
No thats the first puzzle. Why take on all that debt without at least a stake in the stadium. My theory is that Ronnie/Les were promised a share in edencrest and thus the stadium down the line if they got rid of the debt. So they do that which is quite a feat and however we might disagree with Ronnie about onfield matters, whose manager etc., Accies fans will always owe him and Les a huge debt for this.
Eventually ronnie and les became directors and shareholders in edencrest about the time Watson passed away. In return Ronnie put all the shares of the club into the ownership of edencrest. There were then 4 directors of that company Ronnie, les, mcgowan and walter hamilton. They all held equal shares. Walter has since resigned as a director and disappeared leaving the remaining 3. The breakdown of the shareholders now is a follows. 90 shares in the name of mcgowan, 90 shares in the name of ronnie’s family and 30 shares in the name of Les.
Now Ronnie and Les have 120 shares to mcgowans 90 and are joined at the hip so why doesnt ronnie say to colin mcgowan step back from any operational control of the stadium/club focus on the panto and we will appoint a full time CEO who not only has an interest in football and the business of football but an aptitude. Overnight that club would be transformed IMO because the way I see it McGowan is the problem in terms of focusing the clubs off the field activites in a way that fails embrace the fans. However it would need a company lawyer to look at edencrest and how its set up to understand why ronnie doesnt flex his muscles and that aint going to happen.