jagsfan81

I left the Board nearly 4 years ago and have no knowledge of the current position.I have not seen the Annual Return you mention.Agreements were made and assurances given regarding future development and all of this is recorded in Board Minutes at the time.Allan Cowan.

The level of bank debt was due to the SPL requirement to build the North Stand to give us 10,000 seats which at that time was needed to secure entry to the Premier League.Apart from the reduction in debt following the sale to Firhill Developments the level of Partick Thistle's debt has not changed much as an examination of the statutory accounts will show.Regular payments have been made to the Bank of Scotland over the years and these continue to be made.

Firhill Developments is a private limited company and shares are not available to the general public.I am not a shareholder in that company myself but my impression is that those who do hold shares would be delighted to get their money back or even part of it as there is not a short or even medium term prospect of any return on their investment.It really was a good deal for Partick Thistle which left us with the strongest balance sheet for many years. Re Partick Thistle, the only real way to exercise power is to own shares which is why we set up the Jagstrust following Save the Jags. The Jagstrust had lost its way by 2009 and that is why I supported the suggestion from other Board members that we do not invite a representative from them to sit on the Board.However this was only to be a temporary step pending further discussion and my personal view is that there ought to be a fans rep on the board . Anything else is just a talking shop and window dressing.

You are wrong.The share structure of Firhill Developments has various classes of shares which have different voting rights.This protects the interest of Partick Thistle in continuing to use Firhill as a football stadium and prevents development which does not have the backing of the shareholders of Partick Thistle.On the question of conflicts of interest,the current Board presented a proposal in 2011 to shareholders which would change the rules over directors' conflicts of interest allowing them,and not shareholders, to decide what constituted a conflict. Along with a number of other shareholders I opposed this change and we were slaughtered for this by many who post on this forum.We voted the proposal down but the Board were so keen to effect this change that they re-presented it and threatened to resign if it was not carried - as it eventually was. Allan Cowan

I see that someone is selling brand new copies of Robert's classic book "Red & Yellow Forever" for £8.99 on Ebay under heading " Partick Thistle book".Might be worth purchasing early as they're sure to go quickly.