Come Clean Please Brendon Batson!

When I shivered on the Brummie Road End many moons ago, little did I think that three of my blue and white-striped heroes - yes, "The Three Degrees" - would, one day, be the subject of a ghastly, cartoonish, statue plonked in West Brom's shopping centre. Had I been told the saga of Mr Jim Cadman's involvement in this absurdity I would have condemned it as improbable fiction.....

I have written many blogs on Sunny Jim and his hideous scheme but in summary:

1   Cadman has portrayed himself as some sort of altruistic "fundraiser" - erecting statues of sports and other "celebrities" throughout the land in association with a sculptor called Graham Ibbeson. Make no mistake this pair are in business together and do this to make money.

2   This blog has listed the host of failed companies in which Cadman has been involved. At one point I put up the accounts for Ibbeson's two companies which did not make happy reading either. Cadman has left many creditors nursing losses including HMRC and cash-strapped local councils from Barnet to Blackburn.

Cadman is an oleaginous salesman of the old school. He finds a schtick to promote his statue projects. He always tries to get the deceased's family involved/exploit them (take your pick) to tug at the heartstrings of gullible donors (eg Laurie Cunningham's son in the the case of the "Three Degrees Statue").

Jim knows that football supporters are particularly one-eyed when it comes to their team and particularly credulous when he spins his schemes to promote "their" club (eg Leeds United cold-shouldered his Don Revie Statue scheme but fan pressure forced the Club to actually provide a small site for it outside Elland Road.)

(One who was not so gullible was former Baggies Chairman Jeremy Peace who wanted nothing to do with greaser Jim and refused to have the pathetic statue anywhere near The Hawthorns! Take note Baggies fans...)

Cadman also knows that the world of top-flight football is awash with money and he wants some of it. Further the issue of racism in footie is currently - and quite rightly - "in vogue" with more shed loads of cash available if people "press the right buttons." Thus "whiter-than-white" Jim suddenly became an unlikely champion of black footballers trying to make money from not one but TWO statues - for our own "Three Degrees" and one for the first black footballer, Arthur Wharton, in Rotherham. (By yet another amazing Sandwell coincidence the Labour Leader of deeply corrupt Sandwell Council, Steve "The Milkman" Eling, works for that other Labour basket case, er, Rotherham Council.)

It is incredible to me in this day and age that a person like Cadman can simply ask the general public to give him money for a PRIVATE business project without any formal prospectus, no checks whatsover whether he is telling the truth and complete unaccountability for the monies received. The money is NOT being paid into one of his companies* and there is no trust or other charity administering the donations. Does he pay tax on these receipts? Where is the money held (or is it used in Jim's many other business ventures until it is needed?) How much has he raised and how much has he spent on his grand "dinners" etc? (I was contacted by someone who donated items belonging to a very well-known football figure for a raffle and who was very concerned what had happened to them).

Sunny Jim kicked this all off with a grand event in Birmingham Town Hall no less, hosted by Frank Skinner. A source close to Skinner says he was paid his full - large - fee for this event although his management company has refused to say how much he actually scored. Cadman has promised (for what that is worth) that "profits" from various events would go into the the statue "fund" (whatever that is) but how much did he rake in and how much did he have to pay out (to hire Birmingham Town Hall and The Hawthorns to name but two expensive venues). How did HE calculate these secret "profits"?

Don't get me wrong fellow Baggies fans. If you want to pay a businessman to provide an awful private statue then so what? It's a free country (at least outside the Hermit Kingdom of Sadders!) Do as you please. But even then there must surely be some sort of accountability for how that money is spent?

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A short interlude for all real football fans reading this. Sandwell Council are giving the local Warley League a very hard time. Cllr Eling and his supposedly "socialist" cronies (notably Cllr Paul Moore) are also destroying the football pitches and vital open land at Londonderry Fields (check out "Save Londonderry Lane Playing Fields" on Facebook) at a time when child obesity is rampant in the sh*thole Borough and every bit of green space should be cherished and nurtured. Even worse, Moore especially, is hell bent on forcing through a bent deal with a property developer to destroy the  huge 19ha greenfield site at Lion Farm, Oldbury, by M5 J2. The Warley League have 11 grass pitches there and Eling wants to build a shopping centre over them. Local football isn't just about the Baggies. Support real-life grassroots football and green space for kids to play folks instead of nostalgia w*nkfest statues.....!)

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So, private money for a private business project if folk are daft enough to want to enrich Cadman is ok BUT....

This blog has shown that bent Sandwell Council (when "money-man" Eling was statutory Deputy Leader) took planning gain monies for new developments (including New Square in West Brom) which were intended to improve local infrastructure for local people and lumped them into a slush fund to spend on anything they fancied and without having to make detailed public disclosure of their self-promoting vanity projects. Thus Eling and Co agreed to donate £30,000 of OUR money secretly to Cadman! I broke this story long ago following a Freedom of Information request.

Please remember that after 44 years of Labour dictatorship in Sandwell the pisspoor Borough is at or near the bottom of every deprivation league table going. Its Children's Services department was so bad a Tory government had to intervene to stop them doing anymore damage to vulnerable kids. In the football world Sandwell would have long since been relegated to non-league status. I suppose £30k is just pocket-money for Brendon Batson but Sandwell people NEED that money and it should be paid back NOW! Still, better for Labour to glorify in a crap statue than try and stop children being raped and buggered.....eh?

Sandwell Council are unable or unwilling to account for the whereabouts of OUR £30k. I will ask one more time: "where's the f*cking money and the accounts Cadman?"

Eling and other failing Labour councillors also pulled another stunt. Even though the statue is brown bronze and meant to represent three black footballers (though in my opinion the pictures of it seem to portray our handsome heroes as gurning simpletons) they sprayed three black men, er, gold to pretend to be the statue! This apparent racism was paid for from public money looted by Sandwell Labour from an Arts Council grant to the Sandwell Arts Festival!

We all know that the bent Council has a propaganda machine costing us taxpayers over half a million pounds a year and the local equivalent of "Pravda" also doing their bidding ie. "The Express and Star" aka "The Wolvo C*cksuckers". The "Star" have been incessant cheerleaders for this crazed project without once asking how much money Cadman has had off folk nor where he has secretly spent it.

Thus on 28th July the C*cksuckers breathlessly announced that the "final £38,000" for the ugly thing had been found. How was this £38,000 calculated? The statue is said to cost £220,000 (way more, incidentally that many other Cadman statue projects). Where are the invoices to show this? If £38,000 was needed that means Cadman had allegedly raised £220,000 - £38,000 = £182,000. But Sunny Jim has had large expenses eg Frank Skinner, Birmingham Town Hall, hire of The Hawthorns etc PLUS his "cut". So how much as he raised to get the net figure of £182,000? One million? Half a million? Tell us Cadman! (And why wasn't Eling asking to see the accounts before he and his mates agreed to hand over £30k of public money to a private businessman?) If all is above board Jim I give me the details and I will publish them on here for all to see!

According to the C*cksuckers the balance is being made up by The Professional Footballers' Association - itself an organisation not immune from controversy. The PFA is an incredibly rich charity run by Gordon Taylor. Last year its income was a stonking £27 million!!!! (Let's hope some of that eventually gets used to save the Warley League - see above).

BUT despite its wealth and alleged arrogance the PFA is still a registered charity. Is it a valid use of the charity's funds to give money to a private business enterprise run secretively by Cadman without sight of the accounts for what has gone on so far? I duly wrote to the PFA on 26th July, 2018 but they failed to reply:

"Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018, 12:12
Subject: Three Degrees Statue, West Bromwich
To: <info@thepfa.co.uk>


It is being reported that you have given a substantial donation to the above.

I write the Sandwell Skidder blog about local matters and have written extensively about the proposed statue. 

Can you please state:

1 The amount of your donation; and
2  Whether you saw Jim Cadman's accounts for this project before you agreed your donation. 

Thanks. 

Julian Saunders

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS"

The Trustees of the PFA Charity need to step up to the penalty spot here and tell us why their donation is within the terms of the trust deed of the charity and what the financial position of the whole project actually is. Happily, and not mentioned by the C*cksuckers, there is one Trustee who is uniquely positioned to tell us the truth about what has actually gone on with Sunny Jim and this statue over several years. Yes, from the list of the PFA's trustees on the Charities Commission website, step forward Mr Brendon Batson MBE.....!!!!

* The latest accounts for Jim's latest company, Cornerstone Marketing Limited, are in abbreviated form but show net current assets at a tiny £739!

POSTSCRIPT

The Chief Executive of bent Sandwell Council, Jan Britton, is STILL deliberately following the Twitter troll account! My account is back up @SandwellSkidder.

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

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Post:  Jules Saunders, 11 Chelworth Road, Birmingham B38 0BG.