Fletch

Greenjock wrote:

"I get far more people writing to me saying don't blink and give in to others who are hankering for a change in the management team, we have a great manager who will go far and please support him"

Yours sincerely,

Farl Clethcer
Wis Crebb
Nan Iewell
Mrs F J Fletcher

Many a true word said in jest mate.

I read someone defending him on Pasoti saying we've lost in the first round of the cup for about six years and Fletcher hasn't been here that long.

No he's only been here for 4 of those defeats so that's ok then

Greenjock wrote:

"I get far more people writing to me saying don't blink and give in to others who are hankering for a change in the management team, we have a great manager who will go far and please support him"

Yours sincerely,

Farl Clethcer
Wis Crebb
Nan Iewell
Mrs F J Fletcher

Dear Mr Brent,

I also hope that you decide to show even more patience than a saint in Carl Fletcher, as he first impressed me more than a year ago due to his low wages obvious managerial talent.

Yours sharkishly

Mr R Pidsdale

Dear James Brent,

I just wanted to write to you to say what a great job Carl Fletcher is doing at Argyle. I hope you are thinking of offering him a longer contract.

Yours pissingmyself,

Mr T Pisdale

Hi Jameshy Boy,

I shee that shome people are shuggeshting you shack Carl Fletcher. Pleashe, pleashe, pleashe don't. Have a shpliff and relax man, he'sh my favourite League 2 manager for shore.

Edgar.

Forget sacking Fletcher, Brent was on BBC Radio this morning praising him!

Two words, cheapest and option and anyway, Newell can't pay a higher wage.

Mind you the old vote of confidence, followed by a 3 games to sort it out followed by a sacking, I live in hope.

So James gets all these supportive visionaries writing to him, does he?

Anyone know a difinitive address for contacting him? Y'know, an address that he'll actually read, not some random email addy that'll go right to the spam folder.

If anyone can be arsed to find one ( i really can't) then I think ATD, en masse, as a group of forward thinking individuals, should write to Mr Brent to show him what the real word on the street is.

F*cking rank amateurs, from top to bottom at Home Park these days.

James Brent
Home Park
Plymouth
?

Or we could deliver it personally so he could look into our eyes.

Iggy wrote:

Mind you the old vote of confidence, followed by a 3 games to sort it out followed by a sacking, I live in hope.

We can only hope as you suggest.....

I think we are going to need more post boxes.

Fletcher is useless i've said that from day one, but that arrogant useless selfish wanker hurihane should be fined two weeks wages and sacked, sent off three times and booked god knows how many in sixty games! sack fletcher along with that talentless tw@t,

knecht wrote:

James Brent
Home Park
Plymouth
?

Mr J Brent.
The Building Site,
Home Park.
Plymouth.

Ps........Please park your lorries,Diggers + other Equipment out of site of the peasants....thank you.

VillageGreen wrote:

This was posted on PASOTI STASI :-


Plymouth Argyle owner James Brent has backed manager Carl Fletcher after the club's shock FA Cup loss against non-league Dorchester Town.
Argyle, who played for 82 minutes with 10 men, lost 1-0 at the Avenue to go six seasons without an FA Cup victory.

"We've had absolutely no discussions," Brent said when asked by BBC Devon if he had considered changing manager.

"We've said we'll back Carl to achieve success and that is very much the plan we're following."

"The reaction to losing is typically to look at changing the management set-up and I've got no doubt some fans will be looking for a change," Brent said.

"But I get many more people writing to me saying 'don't blink and give in to others who are hankering for a change in the management team, we have a great manager who will go far and please support him'.

"I think I get more criticism for the short nature of Carl's contract than for the fact that he's on a contract."

So there we have it in black and white

Well that's it then. The pasoti headbangers are writing en mass to the non-investing banker and telling him our dogshit 'manager' must stay no matter how mind blowingly shit we are. With 'fans' like these who needs enemies? These idiots won't be happy untill there's 1,000 at home to Ebbsfleet. I give up. There is no hope.

Brent doesn't mean any of that bollocks. He's just goading the increasing number of fans asking for change.
No normal football club owner would say all that about someone as inept as Fletcher. When it starts hitting him in the pocket he might do something, after all money appears to be all he is interested in.

brent is not fit to own PAFC. The club is most definately IN THE WRONG HANDS!!!!

BRENT OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having read jb's comments, I admire his loyalty but its the loyalty of us fans that helped the club survive, ok Brent brought in his millions (snigger) but we are the ones who kept it alive while he made up his mind.

Perhaps we need to start a campaign similar to the ones the trust were so good at I fend of some of the people when the club was dying. Perhaps now is the time for fans to email JB in a friendly manner telling him how WE feel, afterall without us as fans he won't have a club to build on its land!

Bert Large wrote:

Brent doesn't mean any of that bollocks. He's just goading the increasing number of fans asking for change.
No normal football club owner would say all that about someone as inept as Fletcher. When it starts hitting him in the pocket he might do something, after all money appears to be all he is interested in.

That's the heart of the matter isn't it.

As long as enough people trudge through the turnstiles Brent won't give a shit.

If it gets to only two or three thousand (ie the average attendance for most clubs at this level) deluded souls willing to put their hands in their pockets, Brent'll get an attack of the vapours like Stapleton did post Holloway and be DESPERATE to cut his loses and run.

I think every true fan should stay away until Brent goes.

Grovehill wrote:

Bert Large wrote:

Brent doesn't mean any of that bollocks. He's just goading the increasing number of fans asking for change.
No normal football club owner would say all that about someone as inept as Fletcher. When it starts hitting him in the pocket he might do something, after all money appears to be all he is interested in.

That's the heart of the matter isn't it.

As long as enough people trudge through the turnstiles Brent won't give a shit.

If it gets to only two or three thousand (ie the average attendance for most clubs at this level) deluded souls willing to put their hands in their pockets, Brent'll get an attack of the vapours like Stapleton did post Holloway and be DESPERATE to cut his loses and run.

I think every true fan should stay away until Brent goes.

With respect I don't think it's for anyone to decide what true fans ought to do, be that stay away or whatever. Isn't that just the "you're not a proper fan" line in reverse? Aside from anything else, if EVERYONE decided not to go until Brent went, the club wouldn't be able to meet the bills. I think it's good that people can act independently. Some people choose to go and some don't, surely that's fair enough both ways. All this is based on the premise that the Brent regime will be bad for the club on the whole, something which I think the evidence for is sketchy at best.

Sam, brents a bean counter and the teams shite, the evidence for that was at dorchester, and our league position which is pathetic.

It matters not what you call them everyone has there push point for not going anymore or not purchasing a season ticket anymore or scaling back there Argyle watching. For every fan counting how consecutive games they been too there are 10 more wondering what's the point of getting up to Home Park for the next home game.

I think there was a Brent bounce in crowd numbers and season tickets on the promise of better things to come. If that doesn't materialse this season with a push for the playoffs at least or genuine improvements in play, tactics, results or personnel how many will fall for the same line next year.

Already it would be interesting to know how many White memberships are being renewed or how pay on the day hold up in the next few games.

Funnily the JPT might be a saving grace if we can do something in it. We all love a cup run after all. However nothing would disguise it's a competition for crap teams. So we could be crowned the best of the worse.

Brents whole business plan for Argyle relies on bums on seats and by his own admission the club has failed to meet it's target in this regard already and that was before the effects of this weekends debacle.

Spot On Dougie. I read somewhere that JB said that even 6300 at home was short of a break even.

I reckon close to 5000 on Wednesday. He won't put up with that for long surely?

Fletcher out chants and banners in the Demport soon?

Cerbera wrote:

Spot On Dougie. I read somewhere that JB said that even 6300 at home was short of a break even.

I reckon close to 5000 on Wednesday. He won't put up with that for long surely?

Fletcher out chants and banners in the Demport soon?

They make these Figures up like when Stapleton claimed that we needed 16,000 to break even back in the glory days.The thing is this. Brent will not spend a penny on this club, he'd rather see us liquidated. What he is doing to us is nothing short of scandalous. Mark my words we are heading for administration again!

Sufferedsince68 wrote:

Sam, brents a bean counter and the teams shite, the evidence for that was at dorchester, and our league position which is pathetic.

The team's shite yeah, and I think it's most probably right to say that Brent is mainly in it for the money. The claim that he's fallen in love with the game may be true but I think to an extent that's almost neither here or there. If it was a choice purely between Argyle and his wallet, I'd need a lot more convincing before betting against his wallet winning. Argyle is, until there's evidence otherwise, a business venture for him and not a philanthropic one or one of pleasure, ala Crawley's owners. And let me make it clear, I don't think that can of healthy, semi-detached scepticism should be discouraged. It should be encouraged. Similarly though, I don't think there's any real compelling evidence that he's especially bad for the club either. I think the jury's well and truly out but I don't think he should shoulder as much blame for this season's on pitch failure as is being attributed to him.

The first premise I struggle with is the assertion that someone who's in it for the money is bad for the club. I asked Brent straight out in the Pasoti Q&A if his purchase of the car park land would make him neglect the team. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting him to hold his hands up and say "damn you got me" but I was interested to see if he'd dodge the question. As it turned out, he give an answer that I was pretty impressed with. He said that he and his wife own 84% of Plymouth Argyle and 82.5% of the surrounding land so essentially it was not at all in his own interests to be biased against the improvement of the club- I can't argue with that. Yes, it's probably about money first and foremost for him. Don't deny it until there's hard evidence to the contrary. But I don't see it as certain that his desire to make a profit means the club will automatically stagnate. Think how much money he could make if he passes it over when we're in the Championship.

The second criticism leveled at him that I struggle with is that he doesn't invest. What do fans really want from him when asking for investment. Working loosely on the premise that people want him to give us money to sign a better striker, how would this work. Should he give us the money and treat it as a philanthropic gesture? You're looking for pretty high standards if that's what you think. The only two boards of directors in this league like that are Fleetwood and Rotherham- wealthy owners dishing out money to spend. 2 clubs out of 24 are very much the exception, not the norm. Some people will say Barnet due to their exuberant recent acquisitions but Edgar Davids and Collins John look very suspect compared to the rest of their signings. Davids lived locally and stated he was looking for a path into management, John who was also London based I guess would have taken any port in a storm to re-ignite his career after years of injury strife. Should Brent loan us the money? As we saw when Kagami and Mastpoint lent us money, that's a very high risk strategy and can easily backfire if the investment doesn't come off and the lender calls in his loans. Nonetheless perhaps some such risks are worth taking if the potential reward is really worth it, if it's a reward which would be non existent if not for taking the risk of borrowing money. I really don't think that's the case either though. Gillingham and Port Vale are essentially excersising self-sustainability just the same as we are. I know it's viewed as a bit of a dirty word on here due to its connotations with failure but it's true. Self-sustainability doesn't have to be crap if it's entrusted with the right manager. Just ask Martin Allen, Micky Adams, or indeed Martin Ling all of whom are better managers than Carl Fletcher.

Another thing James Brent has said that I agree with is that we could get up to the Championship without significant team investment. Our whole history has been on average a fluctuation between the high end of the third tier and the bottom end of the second tier, and we've got that far without directors "investing" into the team in any big way. Ok, Dan McCauley did invest a bit into the playing side by all accounts but the mood around the club during his reign was, by every account so rotten it never turned into much productivity. The 2001-2004 Stapleton/Jones led board, as did many historical boards before them, proved that PAFC can get to the right end of L1 (never mind L2) without big investments. So I don't buy it at all that Brent needs to invest more. The trouble is he's just entrusted things with a manager making a royal hash of it.

The third thing I'm struggling with is the idea that he knows nothing about football. I don't actually think it's too far off, but I'd put the cat amongst the pigeons a little and suggest he knows about as much as us about football, but a lot more about business. If I (as someone who watches football but knows little of the interior workings and has no prior experience working in football) says " I think Fletcher ought to get the sack" that's an opinion that many feel ought to be carried into policy. But when someone says (and there are plenty of people who think this way) say "I think Fletcher should be given time, that's also a valid opinion that many people think ought to be carried into policy. I suppose what I'm really saying is, no he's not a football expert but neither are we, and most of us are all confident enough in our opinions. He's got about as much experience as any one of us really but we're all confident we could do a lot better.

The third point is more ponderous food for thought than any kind of constructive point. The first two points though are really what I base the core of my argument around. It IS possible for Brent to make money out of us whilst the team does well, is IS possible to do well without investing into the playing side this season. Where I think he's made a big mistake is not replacing Carl Fletcher after a parade of inadequate results- but I also think he's correct to say it takes more guts to stick with Fletcher than sack him. Just look at the flack he's getting for doing the former. I think that not sacking Fletcher is a mistake, but that it's also just that, a mistake. Just as I humbly feel the Argyle fans who would keep Fletcher are also making a mistake. He could be guilty of a mistake without it meaning he holds no regard for the improvement of PAFC, the football club.