Takeover Talk

No prizes for guessing the hot topic being discussed this week by the Killie fans. Ever since the club's badly organised 'open' meeting two weeks ago there have been several stories indicating new investors are waiting in the background. Everything came to a head last Friday when Killie were the top story on the BBC Scotland evening news revealing a takeover bid by local company Klin Investments.

Marie Macklin is the Managing Director and the media certainly loved the 'Karen Brady' type angle - it was the best publicity we've had for a while, we never even made the top slot on the news when we won the cup in '97! Klin are looking to invest £2.1m in Killie and amongst other things are keen to have a fans representative on the board, probably via the

newly launched Supporters' Trust. B&H were asked to give a few comments from the fans' perspective but there's no truth that we are now getting our own TV show, Two Fat Laddies.

A youth academy for the club is also high on their agenda. Marie said: "Naturally I'm very disappointed with what has happened with the Youth Academy but never say never, things change all the time. I think that for Scottish football there is only one way forward and that is for clubs to rear their own talent and bring the stars of the future up through the ranks. I would be happy for the money we are going to put in to be spent positively, setting up a Youth Academy for Killie. Only the brave and the faithful win in this game, and I want the brave and the faithful to play for my team, and that's who I want to wear our shirts. I'll take a long hard look at Youth development at Kilmarnock because I want us to be producing the new David Beckhams and players of his calibre. "

Around the same time former chairman Bill Costley was throwing his hat in the ring with stories circulated via papers and local radio where he expressed an interest in returning to Rugby Park. At this stage it's hard to know his real position however the club have denied any discussions and with no firm offer from Costley we'll leave it at that for the time being, we will however attempt to chase him up and see what the score is.

The club issued a statement on Friday afternoon confirming a bid from Klin had been made, however, it had been rejected as they felt it 'undervalued' the club. We were told at the 'open' meeting that the club was technically insolvent so can the club explain how that can be undervalued? It's surely in Killie's best interests to allow fresh investment into the club and the only stumbling block appears to be how much Jamie Moffat wants for his shares.

We'd hope that this can be resolved quickly and without fuss as it would be sad to see all the sterling work by the Moffat family undone. Of course there may be other reasons for the bid being rejected and the club needs to keep the fans in the picture. There is huge local interest in this story and the fans should be kept fully informed of any developments. The club were keen to promote openness at their meeting - now is the time to deliver the promises.

Hippo 27 on Sale

Hippo 27 hits the Theatre of Pies this weekend and includes interviews with Klin Managing Director Marie Macklin and Killie legend Iain 'Cowboy' McCulloch. Many thanks to all who buy, distribute and sponsor the fanzine and remember we're always keen to receive fan's articles.

Trust Launch A Success

Last Friday saw the launch of the Supporters' Trust and the evening was a great success for all concerned. The interim committee were wondering how many fans would actually turn up on the night but there was no need for any worries. The Park Suite was bursting at the seams as Killie fans from all over the country wanted to hear how the Trust can have a big say in the club's future. Speakers on the night were Cathy Jamieson - Justice Minister for Scotland, Stevie Lockhart - interim chairperson of the Killie Trust and James Proctor - Scottish case worker for Supporters Direct. Dylan Kerr was due to speak as well but he never turned up as he was in America!

The three speakers with the help of a PowerPoint presentation explained the way a Trust works and most importantly how the Killie Trust can play an active role in how the club is run. Several questions were asked from the floor and at the end of the evening everyone had the opportunity to actually join the Trust. So far there are nearly 300 members and have proxy votes worth over 47,500. Huge thanks to everyone who came along and made the night a fantastic success; we'll be keeping you up to date with all Killie Trust issues.

Get Well Soon Ronnie

We were sad to hear that former Killie star Ronnie Sheed had suffered a heart attack whilst on a visit to Arran last weekend. He was airlifted to Crosshouse Hospital and is in a stable condition. Ronnie spent eight years at Rugby Park (1969-1977) and was a skilful, hard working midfielder who always gave his all. Ronnie currently works with South Ayrshire Council where he works in the Environment, Land and Property Department. Get well soon mate - you're needed back at work to spread the good name of Killie in the south of the county.

Glasgow Killie Quiz Night

The Glasgow Killie Supporters' Club are having another of their popular Quiz Nights on Wednesday 3rd September. Dave Townsley, the club chairman, said: "The kick off will be at 7.30pm in the Pot Still pub in Hope Street, Glasgow as per usual. There will also be a great raffle and cash prizes for the quiz. We always get a few members of other Killie supporters clubs traveling through and everyone is welcome."

Hackers!

Last week when every computer in the country was being infected by the latest virus doing the rounds, killiefc.com decided to go one better and get hacked by some snotty nosed spotty computer geek from the good old U.S. of A. The actual website itself is pretty secure as it is hosted by the same company who hosts the FBI's websites, but the software that our forums were based on had several security flaws which, given the correct instructions, were quite easy to break into. We never bothered much about it before, let's face it, what had anyone to gain by hacking a Killie fans website? But it seems that we were the victims of a random act of vandalism by someone who did it, simply because they could!

There wasn't so much damage done that the situation was not retrievable, but we lost control for several hours and we'd like to thank one of our members, Allan McDougall, for pulling a flanker in our hour of need and getting us access so that we could flush the hacker out. It took a long time to get back to near normality but we have now upgraded the software so that it is a lot securer than before, so hopefully no more hack attacks! By the way, NEVER open attachments in e-mails unless you were expecting something from someone, especially files ending in .exe or .pif, just delete them straight away. Better safe than sorry.

Read the B&H column in the Kilmarnock Standard every week