*not meant as a rant, more a criticism of current behind the scenes management*
The trouble is, simply, we are not moving in the direction in which we are capable of moving.
I don't know about you, but I still believe in the 'sleeping giant'. This is a city with a large catchment area, proud history, it has the ability to attract large away followings due to its setting, it has a proud football club, yes, however in terms of statistics and positioning, the club doesn't have a proud history. We have always sat in the lower league's and we have never gone ahead and attempted to achieve our full potential on a sustainable basis.
The football club has not been run correctly for a very long time, our best chance of breaking in to the premier league was under Holloway, a time in which we were overspending, we were only paying attention to boosting our playing budget, we had little interest in boosting crowds, and obviously, this ludicrousness came back to give us a good firm bite. BUT this overspending wasn't the end of it, we then decided to employ Paul Sturrock, a poor decision, but then we made an even worse decision!
In my opinion, the real crash point, the decision at which everything went wrong, the decision which kick-started our downfall was the decision to appoint Paul Mariner, an incapable manager who we persisted with all the way to an eventual relegation at the hands of Newcastle United (look how far we've fallen now). Mariner was clearly never going to keep us up, but our pathetic board were not able to notice that fact.
Appointing Peter Reid was a good decision, if the club didn't have the hidden financial turmoil. By the time Peter Reid was allowed to attempt to stamp his ideas on the club, it was too late and our problems were now being revealed, and as we know, the rest is history.
BUT, surely now, after surviving the shambles off the last few years, we have a footing which should enable us to finally kick start our future on a sustainable basis. Hmm, there's a catch,we don't have anybody who knows anything about football behind the scenes.
Now, I remember a few weeks ago GreenSam made a post Pasoti stating something along the lines off "we have potential but fletcher is just holding us back", I am going to have to kindly disagree. I believe Fletcher is ready to try and drive us on to a brighter future, and the good football we are currently seeing (apart from today's match) stems from Fletcher's hope to get us back to where we belong. Sam, I personally believe James Brent is the man holding us back.
I call them lies (the 'big budget' and the 'top 5 budget' and the 'promotion push' nonsense spouted by James Brent in pre season in order to boost season ticket sales) however maybe James simply doesn't have the knowledge. A while back on pasoti in a thread called "mentor for JB" Chris Webb stated that Brent was offered a mentor when he took over at the club however he didn't accept that help, I truly wish he had.
At the end of the day, we have a hotel man running the club, with a board of no experience and no chief executive I believe? We have a footing to push on, but we don't have a board prepared to push on. The reason 'dis-order' and 'protest' haven't descended on Home Park yet is because the supporters who 'bigged' up the 'magic triple' of Brent, Fletcher and RO don't want to be proved wrong, and no matter how poorly we do they will continue saying "we are still building".
Under Brent and the current board, our direction seems to be an eternity of middle table league 2 form, which will slowly wear down the crowds when people start to realise promotion most certainly isn't on the horrizon.
We aren't going anywhere under the current direction.
Debate!
CB
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Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:53 pm
