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Dear Roger,

As you know we are respectively the chairman and deputy chairman of NCFC's Associate Directors Group which is a team of local businessmen and supporters who collectively own approximately 5pc of the equity in NCFC plus substantial sums in the preference shares. Please note the views in this letter are our own.

Over the past five years we have met with you and Neil Doncaster on a number of occasions to see how the skills of our group can be utilised for the greater good of the NCFC family.

Sadly, our advice has been dismissed the majority of the time.

Perhaps our only success has been the introduction and financing of the Employee of the Year Awards for non-footballing colleagues at the club, an event you have now decided to abandon.

You are aware that we have been dissatisfied with the executive management of the club for a number of years, culminating in our preparation of a financial analysis of the situation and strategic options open to us in December 2007.

To the board's continuing shame you categorically refused to meet your own shareholders to discuss the proposals; proposals that were developed with the sole aim of improving the situation.

We now know that you believed we were in concert with Peter Cullum as you were then in negotiations with him in complete secrecy.

Ironically, no member of our group knows this man and it was only through logic and financial analysis that we concluded that some ?25m needed to be invested, a similar sum to that calculated by Mr Cullum's advisors.

We are acutely conscious that all the directors love the club and have taken decisions that they felt were the correct ones at the time.

However, good intent is not the only skill required to manage an enterprise: skill, leadership, vision and empathy with all stakeholders are essential.

The board does not have these attributes.

The mistakes during your stewardship are legion and well documented in correspondence and internet postings throughout the county and beyond.

Suffice to say we are now in the third tier of English football, our financial situation is dire, we

do not have a team, the loyal supporters are distressed but we do have the best ground in the third division.

Under your chairmanship and Neil Doncaster's executive leadership the quality of our product has deteriorated every year since 2004, losses have continued to mount and debt piled up.

The only honourable course open to you both is to resign forthwith without compensation, the board to search for a new chief executive, appoint a new chairman from the local business community and work with the current majority shareholders to get us out of this mess.

For the avoidance of doubt, neither of us seeks to join the board.

Unfortunately, we do not expect you to listen to our arguments alone and therefore we will be consulting with various stakeholder groups to ensure that we create a sufficient groundswell of public opinion that will be resolute, indefatigable and irresistible.

We must end this uncertainty now.

For this reason we have made this letter public.

Posted By: Ben on July 2nd 2009 at 17:13:37

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