Steve Evans given 6 game stadium ban

Are scotland losing yet

feck off we're holding our own at the moment, with two hours to kick-off so levein's bringing on a couple of extra defenders

Greenjock wrote:

feck off we're holding our own at the moment, with two hours to kick-off so levein's bringing on a couple of extra defenders

Nice to get the thread back on topic.

jabba the gut ecfc wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I am sure that fans at Argyle are choosing to ignore the fact that the FA had to re-write the rule book to allow Brent to buy our club, he is now using money from the club to pay off the costs off said purchase. He has then used money the council gave him for selling the ground to add to his pension fund. The club now has no assets and the speccy banker is much richer. He is also using fans buying pasties and auctioning shirts to pay off his debt's as well. We have been saddled with an in-experienced manager who will keep the fans away with negative tactic's whilst he learns his trade and we flounder in the lower reaches of the lowest division in the land, but hey it's ok we hold the moral high ground? WTF?

A fellow Grecian who's in the know about these sorts of things, tells me that your council put in more than we received from the Manchester United tie that got us out of the sh*t. Bit of a result for the Reluctant Bidder if true.

I was reading your much-loved sister forum the other day and nearly fell off my chair when someone wrote in praise of the Reluctant Bidder that, "He Doesn't Do Failure". Now apart from the, "Where Have I Heard This Before" aspect of that particular gem, wasn't the Reluctant Bidder global head of some branch or other of CitiCorp - the same CitiCorp who received the biggest US Government TARP bailout of all, shortly after he left? I seem to recall a not inconsiderable degree of US public fury over this, given the massive bonuses Citicorp paid it's chief executives over many years (presumably the Reluctant Bidder trousered his fair share) and the other shenanigans it was involved in, such as thieving money from current accounts. Granted, the Reluctant Bidder may or may not have been privy to any of this, but it speaks of a certain culture within the organisation of which he was an extremely senior official.

Of course it's hardly news that financial institutions were exposed as having been involved in some pretty amoral thievery, graft and greed, over a considerable period of time. In fact Senior executives of financial institutions were generally regarded as scum of the earth at the exact same time one of their number, in the form of the Reluctant Bidder, rode valiantly into town just in time to save you from the burden of all that development land. I'm sure the resounding cheers of, "For He's A Jolly Good Former Senior Chief Executive Of A Financial Institution That Nearly Went Bust" made the prospect of all the filthy lucre to be made pale into insignificance.

On the other hand, at least you have the bits of a club the Reluctant Bidder is happy for you to have. And I suppose the cherry on top is the ersatz form of fan involvement barely worthy of the name, that the Reluctant Bidder is so keen to foster to keep the natives from becoming too restless, while he does the bare minimum on the footballing side, such as keeping in post a manager who seems to be there by default. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of admiration for Fletcher both as a player and a person - and he may one day become a good manager - but at the moment he seems to be the cheap option and out of his depth.

I don't know - maybe all this cynicism is most unfair. After all, the Reluctant Bidder gets it; he's got the bug; he's a real fan. The fact that this kind of cheap rhetoric is identical to the sort of palliative BS any shyster parliamentary candidate with an eye on the main chance routinely spouts whenever they're parachuted into a far away constituency of which they know little and care less come election time is entirely co-incidental. Is it also a coincidence that "Pasty" is an anagram of "Patsy"? Perhaps Ginsters should make those too.

Personally, if St. Tony Of Cascarino hadn't come to the rescue, I would have taken reformation as AFC Exeter in Step 7 with fan-ownership every day of the week and twice on Sunday while making the most of the ride back, rather than saving the legal entity called Exeter City FC at any costs under a scenario like yours. But maybe I and those of you who think like me will be proved wrong. Who knows?

I believe he was head of estates at Citibank,who may or may not be the same organisation to which you refer.Citibank was certainly a company with which Mr Ridsdale had "connections" although apparently not at the same time as our leader.

swampy wrote:

How can you be so sure about that Sam? Bryan Robson, Roy Keane and many others have had huge budgets and no success at many clubs. Evans did get those teams up and it is very early days at Rotherham still.

A strange analogy, given that Robson and Roy Keane are hardly regarded as the twenty-first century's answer to Brian Clough. In any case both of them have had sucess after a fashion. Moreover there's a difference between having a huge budget and a budget that obliterates the competition, as Evans had for at least the season he got promoted from the Conference.

As someone pointed out, when Evans hasn't had cash behind him, whether legal or illegal, he's hardly pulled up any trees. We came up against Evans a number of times in non-league and his sides were hardly world-beaters. As far as I recall we never lost to him and beat him most of the time in the three or four seasons we came up against his sides. I'm clearly biased, but IMO Tis' achievements in his career so far blow Evans out of the water all things being equal.

Evans' success, such as it is, is hardly the point anyway - the man is pond life and would be pond-life even if he hadn't done anything illegal. His cheerleaders should bear in mind that his cheating didn't just unfairly help Boston - it unfairly hurt honest clubs and supporters. Careers turn on make-or-break moments; who knows where some of the clubs and players who lost out because of Evans' ill-gotten success might have been today if it hadn't been for the fat cheat's immorality?

Unfortunately this seems to be the state of football today - any immorality or amorality is justified, as long as the club wins football games. A human rights-abusing dictatorship buy a club that wins the Premier League with dirty money and everyone's in raptures; a Russian oligarch with an extremely unpleasant stench around the way he acquired his wealth buys a club that wins the Champions League and no-one asks any questions. As Harry Redknapp correctly pointed out, if Adolf Hitler was alive today and promised to fund a football club to win the Champions League, most of the fanbase would cheer him to the rafters.

Welcome to the People's Game.

Greenskin wrote:

jabba the gut ecfc wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I am sure that fans at Argyle are choosing to ignore the fact that the FA had to re-write the rule book to allow Brent to buy our club, he is now using money from the club to pay off the costs off said purchase. He has then used money the council gave him for selling the ground to add to his pension fund. The club now has no assets and the speccy banker is much richer. He is also using fans buying pasties and auctioning shirts to pay off his debt's as well. We have been saddled with an in-experienced manager who will keep the fans away with negative tactic's whilst he learns his trade and we flounder in the lower reaches of the lowest division in the land, but hey it's ok we hold the moral high ground? WTF?

A fellow Grecian who's in the know about these sorts of things, tells me that your council put in more than we received from the Manchester United tie that got us out of the sh*t. Bit of a result for the Reluctant Bidder if true.

I was reading your much-loved sister forum the other day and nearly fell off my chair when someone wrote in praise of the Reluctant Bidder that, "He Doesn't Do Failure". Now apart from the, "Where Have I Heard This Before" aspect of that particular gem, wasn't the Reluctant Bidder global head of some branch or other of CitiCorp - the same CitiCorp who received the biggest US Government TARP bailout of all, shortly after he left? I seem to recall a not inconsiderable degree of US public fury over this, given the massive bonuses Citicorp paid it's chief executives over many years (presumably the Reluctant Bidder trousered his fair share) and the other shenanigans it was involved in, such as thieving money from current accounts. Granted, the Reluctant Bidder may or may not have been privy to any of this, but it speaks of a certain culture within the organisation of which he was an extremely senior official.

Of course it's hardly news that financial institutions were exposed as having been involved in some pretty amoral thievery, graft and greed, over a considerable period of time. In fact Senior executives of financial institutions were generally regarded as scum of the earth at the exact same time one of their number, in the form of the Reluctant Bidder, rode valiantly into town just in time to save you from the burden of all that development land. I'm sure the resounding cheers of, "For He's A Jolly Good Former Senior Chief Executive Of A Financial Institution That Nearly Went Bust" made the prospect of all the filthy lucre to be made pale into insignificance.

On the other hand, at least you have the bits of a club the Reluctant Bidder is happy for you to have. And I suppose the cherry on top is the ersatz form of fan involvement barely worthy of the name, that the Reluctant Bidder is so keen to foster to keep the natives from becoming too restless, while he does the bare minimum on the footballing side, such as keeping in post a manager who seems to be there by default. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of admiration for Fletcher both as a player and a person - and he may one day become a good manager - but at the moment he seems to be the cheap option and out of his depth.

I don't know - maybe all this cynicism is most unfair. After all, the Reluctant Bidder gets it; he's got the bug; he's a real fan. The fact that this kind of cheap rhetoric is identical to the sort of palliative BS any shyster parliamentary candidate with an eye on the main chance routinely spouts whenever they're parachuted into a far away constituency of which they know little and care less come election time is entirely co-incidental. Is it also a coincidence that "Pasty" is an anagram of "Patsy"? Perhaps Ginsters should make those too.

Personally, if St. Tony Of Cascarino hadn't come to the rescue, I would have taken reformation as AFC Exeter in Step 7 with fan-ownership every day of the week and twice on Sunday while making the most of the ride back, rather than saving the legal entity called Exeter City FC at any costs under a scenario like yours. But maybe I and those of you who think like me will be proved wrong. Who knows?

I believe he was head of estates at Citibank,who may or may not be the same organisation to which you refer.Citibank was certainly a company with which Mr Ridsdale had "connections" although apparently not at the same time as our leader.

Sorry, my mistake, I meant to say CitiGROUP. Citibank is a part of this I believe.

swampy wrote:

How can you be so sure about that Sam? Bryan Robson, Roy Keane and many others have had huge budgets and no success at many clubs. Evans did get those teams up and it is very early days at Rotherham still. Fletcher has one of the top half dozen budgets in league 2 this year so are you saying if we finish below 6th he has been a failure? I agree Evans is a total toss pot and wouldn't want him near my club.

I certainly wouldn't say that it's been a great season, or would I say that managerially he was a "class act" or a winner. The way Steve Evans is hyped by some neutral fans on here or Twitter it was like he's done something really special. I can't see that he has. Steve didn't get either of those sides up until after a good few attempts. Did worse than his budget in League 2.

I'm not saying he's a terrible manager, but he's nothing special. I don't think he's the kind of difference maker who can easily take an average team to the next level.

I totally agree he is nothing special Sam, I was merely saying having the biggest budget doesn't guarantee success as shown by the examples of Robson and Keane but it doesn't half help, and still has to be used correctly to get the end result. Evans did manage that at Crawley, he didn't do a Robson or a Keane with it. My question to you though was, how can you say"Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did at Crawley last season"? You have no basis to make such a sweeping statement.

swampy wrote:

I totally agree he is nothing special Sam, I was merely saying having the biggest budget doesn't guarantee success as shown by the examples of Robson and Keane but it doesn't half help, and still has to be used correctly to get the end result. Evans did manage that at Crawley, he didn't do a Robson or a Keane with it. My question to you though was, how can you say"Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did at Crawley last season"? You have no basis to make such a sweeping statement.

I can't see when Robson or Keane have ever failed with quite as big a budget as Evans though. Keane and Robson came mid table in the Championship with Sheffield United and Ipswich. They probably had decent budget but I'd be surprised if they were top of the league. The former for example went on to go down, the latter has been bobbing about mid table ever since. The likes of Leciester, Leeds and the clubs still getting their parachute payments will have had higher budgets I think. I certainly wouldn't say either of those two clubs were the Crawley of the Championship.

I honestly think that if you're given by far the biggest budget in the Conference (as Evans was) then any manager is bound to get them up eventually. I think Fletch at the very least could have equalled his acheivment of promotion at the 4th/5th time of asking. Similar to Evans time at Boston.

We may have to agree to differ here, but I'd be surprised if anyone had failed to get them up sooner or later.

GreenSam wrote:

swampy wrote:

I totally agree he is nothing special Sam, I was merely saying having the biggest budget doesn't guarantee success as shown by the examples of Robson and Keane but it doesn't half help, and still has to be used correctly to get the end result. Evans did manage that at Crawley, he didn't do a Robson or a Keane with it. My question to you though was, how can you say"Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did at Crawley last season"? You have no basis to make such a sweeping statement.

I can't see when Robson or Keane have ever failed with quite as big a budget as Evans though. Keane and Robson came mid table in the Championship with Sheffield United and Ipswich. They probably had decent budget but I'd be surprised if they were top of the league. The former for example went on to go down, the latter has been bobbing about mid table ever since. The likes of Leciester, Leeds and the clubs still getting their parachute payments will have had higher budgets I think. I certainly wouldn't say either of those two clubs were the Crawley of the Championship.

I honestly think that if you're given by far the biggest budget in the Conference (as Evans was) then any manager is bound to get them up eventually. I think Fletch at the very least could have equalled his acheivment of promotion at the 4th/5th time of asking. Similar to Evans time at Boston.

We may have to agree to differ here, but I'd be surprised if anyone had failed to get them up sooner or later.

Absolutely.

I say again, look at Evans record against us in the Conference. I can't recall him ever beating us and Crawley were by no means world beaters in any sense at that time. Evans without big transfer budgets is nothing special. I think Fletcher is possibly not ready to be a league manager at a big club in its division (as much as I hate to admit that) but I'd back him to do a job with the kind of silly money Evans had to get Crawley up.

I don't really see how you can compare the two anyway. Fletcher is a novice and Evans is a complete arse. There is absolutely no way I would want Evans anywhere near my club even if he was the greatest manager since sliced bread. The man seems devoid of any morals in any sense of that word. He certainly lacks any charm and definately isn't one you could describe as loveable. I would take anyone as a manager before him even Luggy Mk 3. How, after all the financial shinanigans and previous indiscretions he has been able to continue in football at all is a mystery to me.

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

I don't really see how you can compare the two anyway. Fletcher is a novice and Evans is a complete arse. There is absolutely no way I would want Evans anywhere near my club even if he was the greatest manager since sliced bread. The man seems devoid of any morals in any sense of that word. He certainly lacks any charm and definately isn't one you could describe as loveable. I would take anyone as a manager before him even Luggy Mk 3. How, after all the financial shinanigans and previous indiscretions he has been able to continue in football at all is a mystery to me.

And this is exactly the point. Does decency and integrity not count for anything in today's game? (silly question.) I wouldn't choose to have Fletcher at City - not particularly becasue of his status as a Green hero, but because I don't think he's ready. However I'd have him over Evans any day, even if Evans guaranteed the PL, regardless of Fletcher's Green past Fletcher comes across as an admirable human being - I'm sorry, but even Evans' mother probably struggles to apply those words to him. It's not just the usual football knockabout stuff - Evans IS a barsteward. Judging by the youtube video even his own ex-players think so.

jabba the gut ecfc wrote:

Evans without big transfer budgets is nothing special.

Most of the vitriol aimed at Steve Evans emanates from his roly poly appearance and apparent use of eye liner. A nasty, unscrupulous piece of work prepared to use rule bending, intimidation and bullying to the nth degree and constantly these days assisted by his pet chimp Paul Raynor, another piece of pond life whom most Torquay United fans would willingly testify against. Jesus anyone who manages to incur death threats from that sleepy hollow by the sea must have really done their heads in and he certainly took the threat seriously enough to absent himself from a couple of Plainmoor games with Cambridge United as a consequence.

Raynor learned his evil ways from another Dark Disciple ~ John Beck*, who currently manages Kettering Town where the chairman is yet another prat of the highest order; the former owner of Weymouth FC George Rolls. It was Rolls who when giving the Cambridge United job to Martin Ling (he was chairman of that club at the time) simoultaneously gave it also to Liam Daish (who tendered his resignation to Ebbsfleet to take it) and Alan Lewer. Just why Rolls did this is anybody's guess but when Ling learned of his malpractice he resigned the Cambridge job afte just nine days and only returned when Rolls was removed from the club's board by the other directors.

There are quite a number of "characters" in pro' football who are not all that they publicly allow to be seen. Evans acquired the Boston and Crawley jobs through investing substantial sums of money into those clubs. I don't know how he financed his buying of the Boston manager's job but at Crawley it was with his father in law Steve Duly's (a Crawley director at the time) financial backing.

Former Sunday League manager and second hand car salesman Garry Hill did the same at Weymouth and AFC Hornchurch. Now Hill (currently managing Woking) has a reasonable track record as a manager but he didn't get into the game with any legitimate qualifications or experience behind him.

Has the accusation that Evans exposed himself to a female member of Bradford City's staff been dealt with yet or was that the "gender abuse" that was referred to in his six game ban?

* Don't ever accept a cup of tea at one of Beck's clubs if you are offered one by the way. The strange aroma of "lemon" emanating from the contents of the tea pots delivered to the away dressing rooms at Cambridge and Histon was suspected to be urine ~ strange that there should be a managerial connection to the two instances!

GreenSam wrote:

swampy wrote:

I totally agree he is nothing special Sam, I was merely saying having the biggest budget doesn't guarantee success as shown by the examples of Robson and Keane but it doesn't half help, and still has to be used correctly to get the end result. Evans did manage that at Crawley, he didn't do a Robson or a Keane with it. My question to you though was, how can you say"Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did at Crawley last season"? You have no basis to make such a sweeping statement.

I can't see when Robson or Keane have ever failed with quite as big a budget as Evans though. Keane and Robson came mid table in the Championship with Sheffield United and Ipswich. They probably had decent budget but I'd be surprised if they were top of the league. The former for example went on to go down, the latter has been bobbing about mid table ever since. The likes of Leciester, Leeds and the clubs still getting their parachute payments will have had higher budgets I think. I certainly wouldn't say either of those two clubs were the Crawley of the Championship.

I honestly think that if you're given by far the biggest budget in the Conference (as Evans was) then any manager is bound to get them up eventually. I think Fletch at the very least could have equalled his acheivment of promotion at the 4th/5th time of asking. Similar to Evans time at Boston.

We may have to agree to differ here, but I'd be surprised if anyone had failed to get them up sooner or later.

Sam, the question which you have cleverly avoided like a good politician was "How could you say Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did LAST season, and on what would you base such a sweeping statement?" I just don't see how you can say with such certainty that if Fletcher had had the same budget as Evans last year he would easily have taken us to the top of the league that's all. I still think Evans is an odious character, I agree his record is nothing special all things taken into account and wouldn't want him anywhere near our club.

Iggy wrote:

I am sure that fans at Argyle are choosing to ignore the fact that the FA had to re-write the rule book to allow Brent to buy our club, he is now using money from the club to pay off the costs off said purchase. He has then used money the council gave him for selling the ground to add to his pension fund. The club now has no assets and the speccy banker is much richer. He is also using fans buying pasties and auctioning shirts to pay off his debt's as well. We have been saddled with an in-experienced manager who will keep the fans away with negative tactic's whilst he learns his trade and we flounder in the lower reaches of the lowest division in the land, but hey it's ok we hold the moral high ground? WTF?

Wrong, the money from PCC went towards the cva and other debts.

Mrrapson wrote:

Iggy wrote:

I am sure that fans at Argyle are choosing to ignore the fact that the FA had to re-write the rule book to allow Brent to buy our club, he is now using money from the club to pay off the costs off said purchase. He has then used money the council gave him for selling the ground to add to his pension fund. The club now has no assets and the speccy banker is much richer. He is also using fans buying pasties and auctioning shirts to pay off his debt's as well. We have been saddled with an in-experienced manager who will keep the fans away with negative tactic's whilst he learns his trade and we flounder in the lower reaches of the lowest division in the land, but hey it's ok we hold the moral high ground? WTF?

Wrong, the money from PCC went towards the cva and other debts.

Well yes, but the Reluctant Bidder was saved from having to put his hand in his pocket for that amount, so in a sense it was a de facto grant, which allowed him to take control of the remaning assets with (presumably) less risk.

swampy wrote:

GreenSam wrote:

swampy wrote:

I totally agree he is nothing special Sam, I was merely saying having the biggest budget doesn't guarantee success as shown by the examples of Robson and Keane but it doesn't half help, and still has to be used correctly to get the end result. Evans did manage that at Crawley, he didn't do a Robson or a Keane with it. My question to you though was, how can you say"Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did at Crawley last season"? You have no basis to make such a sweeping statement.

I can't see when Robson or Keane have ever failed with quite as big a budget as Evans though. Keane and Robson came mid table in the Championship with Sheffield United and Ipswich. They probably had decent budget but I'd be surprised if they were top of the league. The former for example went on to go down, the latter has been bobbing about mid table ever since. The likes of Leciester, Leeds and the clubs still getting their parachute payments will have had higher budgets I think. I certainly wouldn't say either of those two clubs were the Crawley of the Championship.

I honestly think that if you're given by far the biggest budget in the Conference (as Evans was) then any manager is bound to get them up eventually. I think Fletch at the very least could have equalled his acheivment of promotion at the 4th/5th time of asking. Similar to Evans time at Boston.

We may have to agree to differ here, but I'd be surprised if anyone had failed to get them up sooner or later.

Sam, the question which you have cleverly avoided like a good politician was "How could you say Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did LAST season, and on what would you base such a sweeping statement?" I just don't see how you can say with such certainty that if Fletcher had had the same budget as Evans last year he would easily have taken us to the top of the league that's all. I still think Evans is an odious character, I agree his record is nothing special all things taken into account and wouldn't want him anywhere near our club.

Wasn't a deliberate avoidance.

I'm saying I think ANYONE most probably could have done the same. You'd have to be a complete and utter non-manager with no knowledge of football whatsoever to fail to get a team up on at least your 4th bite of the cherry with the ability to pay much more than anyone else in the league. The sheer ability to entice players that no-one else in the league could meant I think near enough any professional manager could have got Crawley up in the time Evans had.

Some on here may see Fletcher as that but I don't. Whatever people think of him, if he was was as absolutely hapless as people made out, I don't personally feel he would have kept us up with an 18 game handicap. I know this is a cliche, but he did build what was looking to be a mid table side towards the tail end of last season. I'm not using this as a "Fletcher is great" argument but I'm saying at the very minimum Fletcher would have enough about him to do what Evans did. We may disagree on my premise as to just how much money is a guarantee of success for professional managers but I guess that bit is just differing opinions for you.

Maybe my nan couldn't have got Crawley up (to use a silly example) but I think Carl Fletcher could have done. If not on his first go, then on his 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th,

I also don't buy the line that Fletch has no contacts to sign players. I don't think you can be an international captain as recently as 3 years ago, have played in the Premier League 5 years ago (in an FA Cup final no less too) and not have contacts in the game.

Sam, you are obviously a very intelligent young man and that is not meant patronisingly. Can I therefore ask for the 3rd time and please read the question carefully this time,"On what basis can you say Carl Fletcher could EASILY have done what Evans did LAST season. I am not asking about the 3 or 4 seasons it took him to get Crawley into the football league, the question was in response to you're assertation that Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did LAST season.

swampy wrote:

Sam, you are obviously a very intelligent young man and that is not meant patronisingly. Can I therefore ask for the 3rd time and please read the question carefully this time,"On what basis can you say Carl Fletcher could EASILY have done what Evans did LAST season. I am not asking about the 3 or 4 seasons it took him to get Crawley into the football league, the question was in response to you're assertation that Fletcher could easily have done what Evans did LAST season.

Right fair enough. I can't be certain he could have done and it was hasty to say he could. Can we call that one a draw

My generosity knows no bounds. As you are a gentleman and a scholar then yes.