The red red robins have been sent bob bob bobbin down the road!


ILKESTON Town Football Club has been compulsorily wound up over its £50,000 tax debts after a top High Court official described the company as "plainly insolvent".

OMG this is bad, bad news for what is clearly a town in decline.What will happen next, can they reform under a different company name as with many businesses that go bust??

Thats a real shame for the Derbyshire club, i played for them in the mid nineties Kenny Burns was our captain and it was a very good club.

The trouble was it was bank rolled by a local businessmen called Paul Millership , and when he died a few years ago i suspected the club would find it a little difficult to stand on their own two feet.

Great shame hope they perform the great escape

Maybe the FA can explain why Man Utd are allowed to get £X00 million in debt and left alone to spend £8m on a 20 year old who no one has heard of, yet Ilkeston get a winding up order for half of Wayne Rooney's weekly salary?

Maybe HMRC can explain why they bankrupt a little club like Ilkeston over peanuts but don't do the same to Prem and League clubs who wriggle out of paying far larger sums for months and even years.

It's our money and I'd prefer HMRC to pursue the big fish first and with equal severity.

to be fair I am amazed that local clubs like Forest and Derby can't rally round and help Ilson out. We took Pringle from them 12 months ago and had a look at Amari Morgan Smith this summer and yet nothing seems to be being done to help.

I will be ashamed of the Rams if they pick up Smith for free having baulked at having to pay what could have been a life saving fee only a month or so ago.

I agree Loughie the debt is £50K which is not a great deal to the larger clubs in the region, surely the scum and us could find some way of helping.
I have no idea how much the fee was for Smith but surely if we thought he was worth a chance then could have paid it. Think we will look bad if we now get him as a free agent

I think they're continuing to play whilst they appeal... So still time for someone to step in and help, I echo the comments made above, I think Derby County should step in and help, it is probably less than a months wages for one of our top earners, plus Ilkeston town seem to have been a decent local asset to our club recently.

I am guessing though, that in the dog eat dog world we live in today, there is just as much chance that we are waiting in hope that they go bust so we can have a sniff at their players for free.

Someone on one ofthe Ilson Town forums pointed out that they could probably raise the £50,000 but they'd only be putting things off. After their rich backer died they were always going to get into trouble.

I think the cunning plan is to wait for Ilkeston to go under and then pick up Smith without having to pay a fee . If this was the case i could never forgive Derby , as a nominal fee could keep the Robins afloat and give them tme to sort themselves out .

uncleram wrote:I think the cunning plan is to wait for Ilkeston to go under and then pick up Smith without having to pay a fee . If this was the case i could never forgive Derby , as a nominal fee could keep the Robins afloat and give them tme to sort themselves out .

I admire the sentiments, mate, but would our "nominal fee" have been enough?

They mentioned £20k expected in the next fortnight for the sale of a player, which I'm presuming they offered to the tax man, plus a further grand a month. Seemingly, the tax man was having none of it. Added to the fact that some so called expert or other described the club as "plainly insolvent".

These debts don't happen overnight, and they have probably been in debt to the tax man for a year or so at the very least. Instead of the debt being managed, I'm guessing it has got progressively worse, for the tax man to take this stance now. They give you enough opportunity to try to sort things out. So my thinking is this "nominal fee" from DCFC may have helped, but for how long? Obviously that is all pure guess work on my part, and it all depends on the size of the nominal fee, too.

As others have said, they were always likely to struggle following the death of Mr Millership.
As for the 'not so secret millionaire' who took over, I will keep any comments to myself!


It's a sad day, there's no denying that, but nobody should be feeling guilty for not 'chipping in'. They are a business, as are DCFC, whether we like that term or not.

If something similar happened to Liverpool and/or Untidy, the streets would be overflowing with rejoicing fans of other clubs. The fact that the bigger clubs "seem to get away with it" is of course, a whole new topic!!