we are going down brent are you bothered?

You've stood by and let fletcher make us worse than last season, or is it more cost effective to run a blue square club and you don't give a fvck?

Now it's going to get interesting, let's see how big a fan Brent is then.

GOB wrote:

Now it's going to get interesting, let's see how big a fan Brent is then.

we will soon find out if he really gets it.

I reckon he'll put Wotton in there, he'll be cheap.

GOB wrote:

I reckon he'll put Wotton in there, he'll be cheap.

give the job to big al rabbit

You're not going down. It should be clear to all of you that the Reluctant Bidder is no fool - however I say he's no fool for different reasons than the adoring disciples of the Brentite cult.

I'd be pretty sure that he who Gets It and Is A Fan will do just enough to keep his commercial plans from being derailed by any pesky natives leaving the reservation and posing awkward questions that should have already been asked.

Just look at how everything to do with The Reluctant Bidder's bid miraculously fell into place - it was like seeing a set of playing cards chucked in the air and landing in the shape of a house. Even if you believe that was a complete accident (and personally i wouldn't count the Reluctant Bidder out of the byzantine web of curious connections and muddy waters that seems to have surrounded everything PAFC in recent years) do you really think he would do anything to jeopardise the green and golden egg-laying goose that has fallen at his feet?

The question I would ask is what is his actual plan, beyond the Brentite shibboleth that "you must spend within your means". As someone who loathes the Manchester City/Chelsea model - for political and other reasons - and who is a thousand billion percent behind the Trust ownership model (and thinks you were nuts not to at least make an attempt at it) I would be the last person to suggest that a club should spend recklessly. However from the outside it looks like you have the worst of both worlds. You have neither a rich man willing to put his hand in his pocket for HIS property deal/club, or a Trust model of trying to live within your means as a true FANS' club (instead of the ersatz fan involvement on the table at PAFC) or even the rare position (IMO) of a private owner who is a genuine fan trying his best, but who simply doesn't have the funds to do much more than keep the club afloat.

Instead you have a rich private owner who pretends to be a genuine fan, but who doesn't seem to be prepared to do much more than keep HIS property deal/club afloat, while dreaming up ways to reinvest the potential profits looming on the horizon. In the process he seems to have entrenched his position as the Messiah, succesfully kidding everyone that he gives a t*ss about what the FANS want, by virtue of among other things co-opting an (unelected) fans' representative (a Trade Unionist who seems to have done a passable impression of Joe Gormley in conveniently forgetting the distinction between representing the masses and representing the bosses) throwing around enticing tidbits about "sustainable Championship club" and whatnot and making cute remarks about the PL, which he must know is likely to be a pipe-dream given the probable future shape of top-flight football in Europe.

Unless the Reluctant Bidder has been lying on his CV and never actually held a senior position in one of the largest financial services organisations in the world, or he was somehow the only one who never got an astronomical salary or bonus; or that that he told a fib when he claimed to head of a wealthy investment group, then you have to wonder what is really going on here.

You really have to admire the man. He effectively trousers 1.5 million from the Council Tax payers of Plymouth, when PCC were at one point adamant they wouldn't get involved financially - and when of all the bidders he was presumably by far the one most able to afford to buy the ground; then he pays off the heroic PAFC staff over FIVE years, when the combined total owed to them is a sum he probably wouldn't get out of bed for (and then sacks a few workers for good measure). Finally he employs a manager on the cheap with few, if any credentials for the post - a manager who also just happens to be one of the few totally inexperienced candidates (along perhaps with Larrieu) who the fans would remotely accept otherwise, given the critical importance of the role in PAFC's current predicament. Don't get me wrong - I have to admit I admire Fletcher as a person and a player, despite his choice of club . He may even become a good manager in the fullness of time, but not now and not for a club in your position. You really can't afford to muck about.

I've been one of the strongest and most unwavering supporters of Tisdale since day one, but despite his age he already had a number of extraordinarily successful years as a coach. Admittedly that wasn't at a particularly high level, but at least he had some kind of record to make it worth a punt. If he had come to us with no record to speak of anywhere at all, in the febrile managerial merry go-round of our slide towards the Vauxhall Conference, I would have wondered what the f**k the board was doing.

As an aside, I'm also wondering why, if the Reluctant Bidder truly does "get it" and if he really is such a fan, he didn't sort out all that Green Taverners' business. After all, as I understand it, the (unelected) Trust subscription money, which was obtained from the members for one stated purpose, was given to the Green Taverners for the completely different purpose of emergency club expenditure - an act which was never sanctioned by said members. I was under the impression that in the grand scheme of things the sum in question was only the thin end of five figures - probably not far off what the Reluctant Bidder clears in a week. Given that the money went on propping up PAFC until he could ride into town and save HIS property deal/club I wonder why he apparently wasn't enough of a fan and didn't get it sufficiently clearly to stick his hand in his pocket and reimburse the Trust as a gesture to show his support for fan involvement.

As Lewis Caroll once wrote - "curiouser and curiouser".

GET OUT OF MY CLUB BRENT AND TAKE YOUR CHIMPANZEE 'MANAGER' WITH YOU. Sorry that's an insult to chimpanzees everywhere.

Jabba's spot on.

Thanks for taking the time Jabba.

If only the Herald or some other news agency had the balls to print it !

If one of us tells us the way it is we aren't proper fans , jealous or internet freaks.

This, coming from a City fan , should be picked up somewhere............. maybe Rotg ?

Good post Jabba nothing much to argue with there, I wonder how long a post like that would last on the farm?

Tringreen wrote:

Thanks for taking the time Jabba.

If only the Herald or some other news agency had the balls to print it !

If one of us tells us the way it is we aren't proper fans , jealous or internet freaks.

This, coming from a City fan , should be picked up somewhere............. maybe Rotg ?

I'm afraid I can't make claims to any special insight. Lots of City fans can see what is probably going on. I often have conversations where fellow Grecians are genuinely perplexed at the supine attitude of many of your fellow greens - not in a gloating sense, but in the "WTF are they doing?" sense.

To a certain extent I can understand that attitude in the context of events - they were desperate for any form of salvation and are now understandably desperate to believe that Daddy is going to kiss it better. Unfortunately desperate people are often easy marks.

The one thing I can't understand - and the thing which should have been a red flag to all the fanbase, regardless of which faction they belonged to - was the involvement of the odious Riddler. I've spoken to one or two of those who were (elected) prime movers in establishing our Trust and battling to save ECFC and they are adamant that, whether or not they can understand the emotional reasons for some of the misguided decisions their (unelected) counterparts have made - and even if they can see how they might have made similar decisions in an identical scenario - under no circumstances whatsoever would they have sanctioned the Riddler being allowed anywhere near ECFC, even if that meant reformation as AFC Exeter City or somesuch.

How anyone could swallow the horse manure about his transfer dealings and so on "saving" the club is a complete mystery to me. I'm no salesman, but I'd back myself to sell a new Audi for the price of an ancient Mondeo every day of the week and twice on Sunday. How could the situation be so time-critical that he couldn't at the very least ring around his supposedly huge list of contacts to give someone a nod and a wink that such-and-such a player is about to be snapped up by a rival on the cheap, if they don't put in a better offer? Or could it be the case that, in reality, many club officials and managers trust him about as much as the majority of the football world - bar that faction of the PAFC fanbase who, incredibly, swallowed tall story and half-truth, after tall story and half-truth, even when these tall stories and half-truths were comprehensively exposed as utter b*ll*cks for all the world to see.

I'm not going over this old material for the sake of it, but to wonder why Brent was so partial to the Riddler AFTER the club had supposedly been saved. Would a man like Brent not make sure that he knew all there was to know about someone he was considering working or doing business with? After all the Riddler's record is hardly buried in the confidential files of MI5. You have to to wonder what the extent and nature of their known past contact really was.

Isn't there a saying along the lines of, "judge a man by the company he keeps?"

You answered yourself within this quote jabba
"To a certain extent I can understand that attitude in the context of events - they were desperate for any form of salvation and are now understandably desperate to believe that Daddy is going to kiss it better. Unfortunately desperate people are often easy marks"
You see most fans believed it had been kissed better and out of that desperation the last few years caused they wanted believe any crap spoken that came out of any loose orifice. It's taken and continues to take time and evidence in form of crap football being served up to make your average janner realise that all is not well and that we needed a bandage but reached out for a plaster.

Janner means yokel.

We're so bloody village it is embarrassing.

Bleddy hell Jabba, that took me back to the 'heady days' when them Gargs looked destined for the pit of despair. All I would ask is whether you really believe ECFC would be under it's current"ownership" model if there had been a viable property deal in the offing at the time ?

The "Reluctant Bidder" was the only game in town, Brenda Gullible used up all the available time on frou frou bids and was never prepared to entertain the obviously weak arsed Trust effort which would never have resulted in his bill getting paid. Like you I doubt the boney fides of any of the Suits involved in the deal, they all had a slice of the pie while many of the more deserving souls are still being shafted, that was ever the way with Suitage.

The question of whether JB is "bothered" is open to conjecture, I can think of no clubs in the current League set up which return a profit from footballing matters, in theory a 'big club' with good support might do better with the reduced wages in non league, but once you strip the TV largesse out of the budget I am by no means certain even a shrewd operator like JB could turn a wedge.

Best guess ? He is bothered, but only in so far as he can make his money from the development then move the toxic portion of the deal on to someone with more money than sense, as to whether he or any of his coterie possess the necessary nous to achieve that, well as always, time will tell.

Like others, I think JB knows exactly what he's doing, but it doesn't unfortunately involve running a successful football club. It's instructive how quickly Ridsdale moved on once Brent got full control. Ridsdale obviously realised quickly that the gravy train was coming to a halt once Brent was in charge, and so he took the first 'out' he could.

I don't think Brent wants us relegated. He just wants to run us as a L2 club on the minimum money possible. That's why Fletcher won't be sacked unless it really looks like we might get relegated. Brent's plan is presumably to do whatever development work he needs so he can generate a profit, and then flog what remains of the club to whoever he can. That's why the Trust have been offered a share at an overinflated price but with no associated power. He's no fussed about someone else having a share of the club as long as he can still get his development stuff done. He probably suspects (rightly) that fans groups are more likely to be mugs enough to buy the club at the highest price.

Brent is a businessman who is only interested in making profit. Few ever make any money out of football clubs, and I doubt very much that Brent is going to invest anything in Argyle on the off chance that it'll lead to a profit. The football club is just the inconvenient 'ugly sister' to the development opportunity, which is what he is really interested in.

which is why the non-investing hotel builder MUST be driven out. PAFC is in the wrong hands.

It makes me laugh when they say last season fletcher kept us up, hereford and macclesfield both went on 20 game runs when they didn't win they both commited suicide! i dont see two teams as shite as them this season.

I'm sure Fletcher could manage 20 games without a win, he's well on the way, but lets hope he does'nt get the chance.

Flat_Track_Bully wrote:

It's instructive how quickly Ridsdale moved on once Brent got full control.

Shirley a good thing Bully, with Monkey Heed and The Riddler on the books the cash flow would have been DoA.

I just don't get the constant Freathyism, nobody with any money wanted the gig and the amateur hour Trust wallers would have left you with a totally unworkable CVA, the Unwilling Bidder got you a deal which was the best available, the lack of any grasp of the realities of an administration is palpable.

Tizzy, you sound like Guilfoyle with your spin. There's always another buyer for football clubs the size of Argyle as a going concern. Brent was almost certainly always the buyer ... just a matter of how the price was settled and who was going to pay for the administration, AKA the Ridsdale/Guilfoyle double act ... Brent certainly said he wasn't going to pay for it.... so the employees did in effect.
And we are yet to see how workable this solution is. The employee debt is just part of the deal.

The only way to hit a guy who is purely money motivated is in the pocket.

In my opinion the best thing anyone who has the best interests of the club at heart should stop putting money in his pocket.



As an aside, am I the only one who's surprised by the total lack of critisism of this guy in the media?

Lord Tisdale wrote:

Flat_Track_Bully wrote:

It's instructive how quickly Ridsdale moved on once Brent got full control.

Shirley a good thing Bully, with Monkey Heed and The Riddler on the books the cash flow would have been DoA.

I just don't get the constant Freathyism, nobody with any money wanted the gig and the amateur hour Trust wallers would have left you with a totally unworkable CVA, the Unwilling Bidder got you a deal which was the best available, the lack of any grasp of the realities of an administration is palpable.

One of the reasons why "nobody with any money wanted the gig" may well have been the fact that Guilfoyle publicly stated that "Ridsdale and his henchman [Hinchcliffe?] had already done the work" in establishing the preferred bidder and there was no need to market the club.That was the reality of our administration and some of us had no dfficulty in grasping it. TBH,you and the other guy do come across as rather smug and holier than thou about the fact that your club is trust run and attributing your current undeniable superiority to that.Fair enough, you are doing better than Argyle [as are 87 other FL league clubs],but it doesn't mean either that Plymouth Argyle should be run in that fashion or that not being trust run neccessarily precludes being successful both in financial and playing terms.Are Gillingham,Tranmere or anyone else currently enjoying a good spell trust run? And getting down to brass tacks,where did being trust run get you when you were in the third tier? Back to the fourth tier within two seasons after not having the wherewithal to keep your best players and sustain the level or build on it. If you'll forgive me for saying so,most Argyle fans [bearing in mind that the vast majority of our history has been spent in the upper levels of the third tier or lower mid table in the second],would want better than that and ultimately reasonably major investment will be needed to achieve that goal.That is what Freathy is getting at and what he was getting at in 2005,when it was clear that Stapleton and co could not maintain the progress made since 2001 and would ultimately regress the club.Apparently Mr Brent has stated that Argyle have a playing budget double that of Exeter's-it will be interesting to see the respective club accounts next year to establish the full accuracy of this-if true,then he obviously recognises the need for investment and our current problems would seem to be more management related.If untue,then we are in even deeper trouble than now and it would become ever more obvious as to the real intentions of Mr Brent,who will no doubt be reluctant to sever his interest in the club until his development plans have been fully implemented.We shall see.

BTW-i had a look through your club accounts a while back and there was a liability of £802k,apparently a loan form ECFC supporters club.Who provided the monney for that-seems rather a lot for your average punter to raise.

Highwayman wrote:

You answered yourself within this quote jabba

jabba wrote:

To a certain extent I can understand that attitude in the context of events - they were desperate for any form of salvation and are now understandably desperate to believe that Daddy is going to kiss it better. Unfortunately desperate people are often easy marksp

You see most fans believed it had been kissed better and out of that desperation the last few years caused they wanted believe any crap spoken that came out of any loose orifice. It's taken and continues to take time and evidence in form of crap football being served up to make your average janner realise that all is not well and that we needed a bandage but reached out for a plaster.

Cracking post, Jabba. The only thing to add, though, is that the process of sidelining (read bullying, basically) any educated wanker who might put up a reasoned objection to any of what was going on started something like two months before we even went into administration. Either this was a coincidence or there's a few people out there who can see into the future.

Grovehill wrote:

The only way to hit a guy who is purely money motivated is in the pocket.

In my opinion the best thing anyone who has the best interests of the club at heart should stop putting money in his pocket.



As an aside, am I the only one who's surprised by the total lack of critisism of this guy in the media?

This is exactly what it will take although I really don't think that anyone will hurt if the club is hit financially, Brent will just reduce expenditure, ie further redundancies, selling of players etc.

There will need to be an outcry opposing his development plans and it has to resist the "I won't be building you a new stand then" kind of talk that we'll be getting from the Newell's and Webb's and other Brent ambassadors and it also needs to be hit home hard to PCC.

GOB wrote:

Grovehill wrote:

The only way to hit a guy who is purely money motivated is in the pocket.

In my opinion the best thing anyone who has the best interests of the club at heart should stop putting money in his pocket.



As an aside, am I the only one who's surprised by the total lack of critisism of this guy in the media?

This is exactly what it will take although I really don't think that anyone will hurt if the club is hit financially, Brent will just reduce expenditure, ie further redundancies, selling of players etc.

There will need to be an outcry opposing his development plans and it has to resist the "I won't be building you a new stand then" kind of talk that we'll be getting from the Newell's and Webb's and other Brent ambassadors and it also needs to be hit home hard to PCC.

Ha Ha. That's a good one GOB. When your star striker's a free transfer from the fire brigade, and you can't even beat Dorchester, "transfer income" is just a pipe dream