Brents Legacy.

Statue anyone?

akagreengull wrote:

Statue anyone?

Perhaps the statue of Jimmy and the Cornish Janner, holding hands could play in the back four instead of Edwards and Grant.

Without the benefit of years passing it is hard to be objective about a Chairman's reignand evaluate a legacy. The truth is emotion and all sort of other things get in the way during the hurly burly of anybody's tenure.

However I think one word will dominate: disappointment. Brent has let us down and/or failed in so many ways that it will swamp the relief and gratitude that he set out with.

I can hear the tutting from here. What about "he saved us - without James Brent there'd be no Argyle" etc. Well we don't really know for sure that that is necessarily the case. Maybe only Brent could have saved us and maybe there would be no Argyle. Maybe.

Squandered. There's another word. Squandered.

Rarely can a club have been so grateful to acquire a new owner and all the right noises were made at the off. I'm sure we remember it all just as well as he does. Openness and transparency. A new type of ownership model. Supporters at the heart of the club and the club at the heart of the community and so on. All good. Who could fail to be impressed?

All of it squandered. Brent didn't ever want supporters, in general, involved. He wanted control. He couldn't control AFT so he chopped of its head (Chris Webb) and set up the Gasboard. He couldn't control that so he disbanded it.

Whether Brent is actively behind the incessant, lengthy Pasoti campaign against AFT is neither here nor there. It is perpetrated in his name, for his interests, by his friends, by people he invited into the Directors' Box week after week. He could have put a stop to it any time he liked. He never did.

Brent's wider relationship with the media is also an interesting one. He has emasculated the Herald which is shit scared of being cherry-pickered and ignored the BBC so far as TV is concerned but has also "Directors Boxed" Sparksy. There ends any journalistic scrutiny at all.

And all the while there was one half-arsed building scheme after another: Oldway, The Civic Centre, HHP1, HHP2, the new grandstand, the refurbed grandstand. Never any delivery on anything. Never even a start. Lots of time, money and emotion sucked in to one Walter Mitty scheme after another.

And all the while parcel this bit up, sell it off, re-value that, get planning permission here, re-evaluate again... All of it seemingly profitable on asset sheets and so on but none of it tangible or real.

Every now and then some sort of crisis and liquidation resulting in a rather worryingly long list of failed corporate ventures.

But back to Argyle. Brent will leave with the HHP land partially gone compared to his arrival. Good for him but bad for the club.

The Mayflower terrace remains derelict, empty and unused. Hard to pin this one on Brent because it was that way before he arrived. The Grandstand was evolved from being new and free to being smaller and costing the club £6.5m (and counting) and we're roughly 6 months in since building could have started and next to nothing has been done. Approaching Home Park these days is like approaching some sort of slum.

And the team... Somehow our experienced and successful manager when given an enhanced budget has managed to create the worst team we have seen since... Well since about when Brent arrived. Carey, the team's talisman, is bereft of confidence, we have a bright prospect in goal and his confidence is being ground down week by week and we quite simply cannot even begin to defend properly.

It looks like the 7 years of Brent will be remembered for one promotion, losing at Wembley, the two worst league finishes in our history and wo of the most humiliating cup upsets in our history at Dorchester and Stourbridge all topped by a likely relegation.

If, as seems inevitable, we are relegated this season Brent's most significant achievement will have been to recalibrate our expectations; where once we dreamed of CCC-level, and better, football we now are simply glad to be in the 4th division.

And it did not need to be like this. It could all have been so very different and all Brent had to do was honour his words from the outset.

He didn't though. He made his choices.

The words that will define Brent are " disappointment" and "squandered". Not great, is it?

The legacy lives on.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Without the benefit of years passing it is hard to be objective about a Chairman's reignand evaluate a legacy. The truth is emotion and all sort of other things get in the way during the hurly burly of anybody's tenure.

However I think one word will dominate: disappointment. Brent has let us down and/or failed in so many ways that it will swamp the relief and gratitude that he set out with.

I can hear the tutting from here. What about "he saved us - without James Brent there'd be no Argyle" etc. Well we don't really know for sure that that is necessarily the case. Maybe only Brent could have saved us and maybe there would be no Argyle. Maybe.

Squandered. There's another word. Squandered.

Rarely can a club have been so grateful to acquire a new owner and all the right noises were made at the off. I'm sure we remember it all just as well as he does. Openness and transparency. A new type of ownership model. Supporters at the heart of the club and the club at the heart of the community and so on. All good. Who could fail to be impressed?

All of it squandered. Brent didn't ever want supporters, in general, involved. He wanted control. He couldn't control AFT so he chopped of its head (Chris Webb) and set up the Gasboard. He couldn't control that so he disbanded it.

Whether Brent is actively behind the incessant, lengthy Pasoti campaign against AFT is neither here nor there. It is perpetrated in his name, for his interests, by his friends, by people he invited into the Directors' Box week after week. He could have put a stop to it any time he liked. He never did.

Brent's wider relationship with the media is also an interesting one. He has emasculated the Herald which is shit scared of being cherry-pickered and ignored the BBC so far as TV is concerned but has also "Directors Boxed" Sparksy. There ends any journalistic scrutiny at all.

And all the while there was one half-arsed building scheme after another: Oldway, The Civic Centre, HHP1, HHP2, the new grandstand, the refurbed grandstand. Never any delivery on anything. Never even a start. Lots of time, money and emotion sucked in to one Walter Mitty scheme after another.

And all the while parcel this bit up, sell it off, re-value that, get planning permission here, re-evaluate again... All of it seemingly profitable on asset sheets and so on but none of it tangible or real.

Every now and then some sort of crisis and liquidation resulting in a rather worryingly long list of failed corporate ventures.

But back to Argyle. Brent will leave with the HHP land partially gone compared to his arrival. Good for him but bad for the club.

The Mayflower terrace remains derelict, empty and unused. Hard to pin this one on Brent because it was that way before he arrived. The Grandstand was evolved from being new and free to being smaller and costing the club £6.5m (and counting) and we're roughly 6 months in since building could have started and next to nothing has been done. Approaching Home Park these days is like approaching some sort of slum.

And the team... Somehow our experienced and successful manager when given an enhanced budget has managed to create the worst team we have seen since... Well since about when Brent arrived. Carey, the team's talisman, is bereft of confidence, we have a bright prospect in goal and his confidence is being ground down week by week and we quite simply cannot even begin to defend properly.

It looks like the 7 years of Brent will be remembered for one promotion, losing at Wembley, the two worst league finishes in our history and wo of the most humiliating cup upsets in our history at Dorchester and Stourbridge all topped by a likely relegation.

If, as seems inevitable, we are relegated this season Brent's most significant achievement will have been to recalibrate our expectations; where once we dreamed of CCC-level, and better, football we now are simply glad to be in the 4th division.

And it did not need to be like this. It could all have been so very different and all Brent had to do was honour his words from the outset.

He didn't though. He made his choices.

The words that will define Brent are " disappointment" and "squandered". Not great, is it?

Really good post Franny, pretty much sums up whats gone on over the last seven years.
Did'nt one of his fans claim that Brents greatest achievement was to lower expectations lol.

That post just numbs you as a fan - all so obvious when laid out simply. 7 wasted years!!

Indeed great post SFD....

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Brent is a 21st century businessman and manipulator

He's out Trumped Trump in manipulating the truth to make himself look good and has done well for himself without spending his own money-his buyout of PAFC and the ground for his own benefit is actually a masterclass in buying without spending, that the Glazers would be proud of. He was very astute in that rather than get into a bidding war to buy PAFC (which he only wanted for the access it provided to development sites) he pandered to the ego of a couple of people of limited intelligence so that they, rather than he, did the dirty work in putting off other bidders and garnering public support.

As for what he has done for the football club? It's hard to tell really (which suits him) isn't it? Given the attendances, Cup runs Wembley and player sales that have happened during his tenure and the "desperate needed" loans from PCC, does anyone really know if or how much money he has taken out of the club, either directly or as part of his terms for selling to SH?

I think his legacy is that after 7 year of being owned by a supposedly successful businessman, is that the recent rumour about the club being in financial trouble again, is not totally unbelievable.

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Punchdrunk that is a nasty and completely unnecessary post against fellow Argyle fans.

Sending a Solicitors letter to the wrong Argyle fan is nasty and completely unnecessary

nikkk wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Neal that is a nasty and completely unnecessary post against fellow Argyle fans.

I will tell you what is nasty and unnessesary.

Creating a 27 page full of bullshit and conjectiture as to the misuse of season tickets.
PASOTI misuse season tickets every other game and yet nothing gets said.
Profiteering on selling RBL charity badges.
Sending solicitors letters to the wrong adress.
Sending white feathers to cancer victims (yes your mate)


I could go on and on Nickkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

nikkk wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Neal that is a nasty and completely unnecessary post against fellow Argyle fans.

Like Nool sending a white feather to an argyle fan dying of Cancer? did'nt hear you speak out about that Fes Man.

Punchdrunk wrote:

nikkk wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Neal that is a nasty and completely unnecessary post against fellow Argyle fans.

I will tell you what is nasty and unnessesary.

Creating a 27 page full of bullshit and conjectiture as to the misuse of season tickets.
PASOTI misuse season tickets every other game and yet nothing gets said.
Profiteering on selling RBL charity badges.
Sending solicitors letters to the wrong adress.
Sending white feathers to cancer victims (yes your mate)


I could go on and on Nickkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Nool hiding in the Atd Bushes sends along sad Dikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk his messanger boy!

nikkk wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Neal that is a nasty and completely unnecessary post against fellow Argyle fans.

You are part of the problem, not the solution.
"Your sponsorship" turned into a debacle. How dare you start the nasty and unnecessary routine on here. In Punchy, you're talking to a fellow argyle fan.

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

nikkk wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Neal that is a nasty and completely unnecessary post against fellow Argyle fans.

I will tell you what is nasty and unnessesary.

Creating a 27 page full of bullshit and conjectiture as to the misuse of season tickets.
PASOTI misuse season tickets every other game and yet nothing gets said.
Profiteering on selling RBL charity badges.
Sending solicitors letters to the wrong adress.
Sending white feathers to cancer victims (yes your mate)


I could go on and on Nickkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Nool hiding in the Atd Bushes sends along sad Dikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk his messanger boy!

Hiding like pissyflaps hid behind his wife on Saturday.

Grovehill wrote:

Brent is a 21st century businessman and manipulator

He's out Trumped Trump in manipulating the truth to make himself look good and has done well for himself without spending his own money-his buyout of PAFC and the ground for his own benefit is actually a masterclass in buying without spending, that the Glazers would be proud of. He was very astute in that rather than get into a bidding war to buy PAFC (which he only wanted for the access it provided to development sites) he pandered to the ego of a couple of people of limited intelligence so that they, rather than he, did the dirty work in putting off other bidders and garnering public support.

As for what he has done for the football club? It's hard to tell really (which suits him) isn't it? Given the attendances, Cup runs Wembley and player sales that have happened during his tenure and the "desperate needed" loans from PCC, does anyone really know if or how much money he has taken out of the club, either directly or as part of his terms for selling to SH?

I think his legacy is that after 7 year of being owned by a supposedly successful businessman, is that the recent rumour about the club being in financial trouble again, is not totally unbelievable.

Excellent summary of the last seven years of wasted opportunities under the fantasists tenure. The point about Brent and other bidders is bang on.

"he pandered to the ego of a couple of people of limited intelligence so that they, rather than he, did the dirty work in putting off other bidders and garnering public support."
I remember him saying a couple of years ago I think in an interview that at the time of his reluctant bid there had been other interested parties, and after he had acquired the club there continued to be interest in buying the club.
Agree he has turned persuading others to follow him and spend and work for him is a masterclass even recently saying he will use "family money" for an ice rink.
Shyster extroadanaire.

Martyn Starnes knew exactly what he was doing when he jumped ship as well
He knew the meltdown was imminent on and off the pitch

Punchdrunk wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Can somebody somehow relay this to the farmyard animals on PASOTI. I know they are in a state of permanent denial but it would be worth a shout.

Most of them are Senior Toady types, happy with the occasional pat on the head and a choclate biscuit, they love being crap and Village.

The senior greens.

A load of ageing, dribbling selfish prats happy to sacrifice the long term potential of the club just to live in their comfort zone for the few years they have left at the expense of gaining potential generations upon generations of future supporters.

Selfish selfish bastards.

I'm almost done with this club.

Its a bit like Old people who voted for Brexit.

harvetheslayer wrote:

Martyn Starnes knew exactly what he was doing when he jumped ship as well
He knew the meltdown was imminent on and off the pitch

he was part of it one of the biggest believers in shit contracts and low wages there is.

Great posts by SFD and Grovehill.

Says it all for me.

Angry wrote:

harvetheslayer wrote:

Martyn Starnes knew exactly what he was doing when he jumped ship as well
He knew the meltdown was imminent on and off the pitch

he was part of it one of the biggest believers in shit contracts and low wages there is

Talking of Starnes is he and Bent still running that ticketing agency from Home Park. What rent does he pay the club for the facility
Perhaps the AFT could ask