Keith Todd v Paul S

knecht wrote:

Greenskin wrote:

knecht wrote:

.........
As for Ebanks-Blake ... signing a reserve player for £2/300,000 and agreeing to a sell-on at £1.5 million seems a good deal to me.

Yes it was,from an accountants view point.Begs the question whether in some minds Argyle were an ambitious football league club or an outlet of Mrs Thatcher's grocery shop.

I agree (though to use St Margaret in your argument is a low dirty blow). But we've been told by Damon - and I think it was common knowledge previously - that SEB wouldn't sign the initial contract unless that clause was in it.

But that doesn't mean the club couldn't have TRIED to renegotiate before that clause was activated. Bottom line is argyle are small time, another example is when they loaned marcel siep to blackpool and he not only played against us but scored as well.

only Argyle

Ha good point

I find the whole saga - from the moment Argyle were promoted to the Championship under Bobby Williamson to where the club lies now, at the very bottom of the entire league system, odds on to lose its league status - an absolutely epic tale of staggering ineptitude, breathtaking greed, back-stabbing and deceit by practically every past and present shareholder and director of the club during that time - a group of supposedly savvy and successful businessmen.

It continues to this day and it's feckin shameful.

Stapleton's book should be entitled -

Plymouth Argyle - My Part in its Downfall

Mike Searle wrote:

I find the whole saga - from the moment Argyle were promoted to the Championship under Bobby Williamson to where the club lies now, at the very bottom of the entire league system, odds on to lose its league status - an absolutely epic tale of staggering ineptitude, breathtaking greed, back-stabbing and deceit by practically every past and present shareholder and director of the club during that time - a group of supposedly savvy and successful businessmen.

It continues to this day and it's feckin shameful.

This.

paul stapleton has gone

move on

Mike Searle wrote:

I find the whole saga - from the moment Argyle were promoted to the Championship under Bobby Williamson to where the club lies now, at the very bottom of the entire league system, odds on to lose its league status - an absolutely epic tale of staggering ineptitude, breathtaking greed, back-stabbing and deceit by practically every past and present shareholder and director of the club during that time - a group of supposedly savvy and successful businessmen.

It continues to this day and it's feckin shameful.

Agree with every word.


The lies, deceit and underhand games are worse than ever now though.

Angry of Mayfair wrote:

paul stapleton has gone

move on

He has - but the apologists and revisionists haven't.

Nobody held Stapleton at gunpoint and forced him to sign agreements.

He could've held firm and refused.

Releasing his number on pasoti and the hate campaign were ridiculous though.

His number is on the wall of the devonshire H + R club.

He plays in the Tennis Ladder league up there. Its not hard to get hold of. I rang him up one night and asked him when he was gonna sack Bobby Williamson.

He knows my Dad through football so once i explained who i was he was happy to have a chat about it with me.

Unleash the dogs woof woof

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I always find it amusing reading this post, even Peter Jones pops up under his own name for a minute

Mike Searle wrote:

Angry of Mayfair wrote:

paul stapleton has gone

move on

He has - but the apologists and revisionists haven't.

They can try and re write history all they like but the fact remains he stayed in the job too long and His ego and refusal to seek alternative investors/owners hurt the club in the long run.

Yea Man wrote:

Unleash the dogs woof woof

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I always find it amusing reading this post, even Peter Jones pops up under his own name for a minute

Cringe worthy

Damon.Lenszner wrote:

GOB wrote:

I would be quite interested to hear Damon's take on these past issues, not that it means much but it would be interesting to know.

The big thing for me that really sticks in my throat was that Stapes went ahead and purchased HP leaving the club wide open for the type of vultures that we see today, he was warned about it and that makes it unforgivable in my book.

Isn't it all ironic though considering that Stape's strongest critic of the purchase of HP was Jones, yet now Jones has become the vulture. Tis a funny old world.

Firstly the statement for the defence in the 'shouldn't have bought the Freehold' case.

Tudor stood on the balcony and stated 'we will build a stadium fit for our champions'. Almost immediately his cabinet colleagues grabbed him and made it quite clear that the City had no money for re-building the Grandstand. If the Club wanted to push on and build a new Grandstand the only way it was going to happen was by the Club raising the finance to do it. Two choices - 1. the grandstand remained with the ground in council ownership or 2. The club purchased the ground and started to look at raising the finance to rebuild it.

With hand on heart I can say that at no time during my tenure on the Board was there any talk between the Board members of personal gain from the freehold purchase. It was being done with best intentions for the Club. In hindsight I accept that those questioning the purchase in the longer term were correct. Having said that in more recent times the ONLY thing that has attracted potential buyers post administration is the face that we actually owned land that was a valuable asset.

With regard to the Sir Roy, Todd events I have been told by PS and TW that they, together with RD were totally sidelined by Todd. The story is that Todd approached Kagami with a deal that basically said - I will bring to ARgyle the former Chairman of Manchester United if you sign over the voting rights of your shares to me. Kagami is not a football fan and probably the only team he has ever heard of outside of Japan is Manchester United so did the deal. Thus for a minority shareholding Todd held over 50% over the voting rights. AT this point he turned to PS, TW and RD and said that he was in charge now, that they should sit back and leave the running of the club to him. Their input was no longer welcome. I can also confirm Dan Thomas statement. The staff were instructed to only speak to Todd and never copy any of the local directors in. Todd was in sole charge. Todd brought this club to its knees.

Did the locals do enough to fight, to speak out against Todd, to publicise what was going on? No, they didn't. Should they have resigned? Probably. But they were denied access to the books and were kept totally out of the loop. Is there a potential for Todd to be disqualified as a Director for his behaviour? I would say so but he's a big shot and the powers that be only do that to the little guys who can't afford the legal fees to fight them (bit too close to home that one!)

The Akos sale happened after I left but whilst I was on Board there were many occassions that Ollie would complain about various aspects of Akos's game. I spoke to Akos a couple of weeks ago. He is a genuine guy with a real love for this City. I am sure it wasn't his decision to leave, but I am just as sure that the Board didn't sell him without the Manager's OK.

I left the Board in August 2007. We were a top half Championship Club. We made a tiny, manageable loss (£300k) that year after a profit the year before. We had a strong balance sheet. It still cuts through me that a contributory factor to our demise may have been the decision to purchase the freehold, a decision I was part of and agreed with. I apologise to all fans if that decision has played a part in our fall. But it was a decision made in the best interests of the Club, not for individual financial gain, however short sighted we may have been.

Thanks for that insight Damon.

I don't think the Akos situation is/was pivotal. His value as a player was always ethereal and Holloway was trying to balance the books to hopefully receive funding for a promotion push ?

Dane. wrote:

Greenskin wrote:

knecht wrote:

I used to defend Paul Stapleton on pasoti - not because I had any inside information but because the dogs of war were after blood and that's never attractive and never a side I want to be on. I also used to suggest that the real villains were Todd & Gardner. When PS did his interview for the local radio he intimated that more information would come out at some later time. I hope he writes his book - after getting cast-iron advice from his lawyers. It just seemed so obvious to me.

Damon appears to be answering questions fully and openly and when he doesn't know the answer he simply says "don't know". He has also said that mistakes were made. If anyone has never made a mistake then they have never stepped outside their comfort zone and actually tried anything! Unless anyone is going to say he is lying then it must at least be conceded that he is telling the truth as he knows it. He certainly should have more information than anyone else on here.

As for Nosey being on here to provoke a reaction .... I think that is true. But there's nothing wrong with that is there? He's simply forcefully putting a contrary view and appears to have some inside information. ATD could do with strongly held contrary views otherwise it gets too cosy.

As for Ebanks-Blake ... signing a reserve player for £2/300,000 and agreeing to a sell-on at £1.5 million seems a good deal to me.

Yes it was,from an accountants view point.Begs the question whether in some minds Argyle were an ambitious football league club or an outlet of Mrs Thatcher's grocery shop.

Exactly my point greenskin.

To me argyle lost the top goalscorer in the league. Could they have found a suitable replacement for the 1.5 mil we got for him?

Not a chance!!!!!! The club should have Maneuvered its self into a better position, so that when we sell a player we can re-invest and buy better to keep the team moving forward.

But argyle loved rolling over and having its belly tickled.

Great business on the balance sheets, but a day out at wembley or queuing for a season ticket for a season in the premier league was what fans would have remembered more

When SEB left for £1.5 million that was enough to get a replacement capable of scoring the same amount of goals. Whether the whole amount was made available or even if the whole amount was paid at once or in instalments is something else.

I don't mind the selling so much if it is the player who wants away and they have you by the balls, as long as the money is spent on replacing them. I might be wrong timewise but Argyle spent money on Fallon and Maclean, not totalling anywhere near £1.5 million, which is the crime here. In fact add together the fees for SEB, Akos, Norris and Gosling and it's somewehere in the region of £4 million. How much of that was spent on replacing them? Two influential midfielders and two young promising players who went to the Premier League. That's my big gripe, the quality of replacements who were signed for free or on the cheap.

Greenjock wrote:

Dane. wrote:

Greenskin wrote:

knecht wrote:

I used to defend Paul Stapleton on pasoti - not because I had any inside information but because the dogs of war were after blood and that's never attractive and never a side I want to be on. I also used to suggest that the real villains were Todd & Gardner. When PS did his interview for the local radio he intimated that more information would come out at some later time. I hope he writes his book - after getting cast-iron advice from his lawyers. It just seemed so obvious to me.

Damon appears to be answering questions fully and openly and when he doesn't know the answer he simply says "don't know". He has also said that mistakes were made. If anyone has never made a mistake then they have never stepped outside their comfort zone and actually tried anything! Unless anyone is going to say he is lying then it must at least be conceded that he is telling the truth as he knows it. He certainly should have more information than anyone else on here.

As for Nosey being on here to provoke a reaction .... I think that is true. But there's nothing wrong with that is there? He's simply forcefully putting a contrary view and appears to have some inside information. ATD could do with strongly held contrary views otherwise it gets too cosy.

As for Ebanks-Blake ... signing a reserve player for £2/300,000 and agreeing to a sell-on at £1.5 million seems a good deal to me.

Yes it was,from an accountants view point.Begs the question whether in some minds Argyle were an ambitious football league club or an outlet of Mrs Thatcher's grocery shop.

Exactly my point greenskin.

To me argyle lost the top goalscorer in the league. Could they have found a suitable replacement for the 1.5 mil we got for him?

Not a chance!!!!!! The club should have Maneuvered its self into a better position, so that when we sell a player we can re-invest and buy better to keep the team moving forward.

But argyle loved rolling over and having its belly tickled.

Great business on the balance sheets, but a day out at wembley or queuing for a season ticket for a season in the premier league was what fans would have remembered more

When SEB left for £1.5 million that was enough to get a replacement capable of scoring the same amount of goals. Whether the whole amount was made available or even if the whole amount was paid at once or in instalments is something else.

I don't mind the selling so much if it is the player who wants away and they have you by the balls, as long as the money is spent on replacing them. I might be wrong timewise but Argyle spent money on Fallon and Maclean, not totalling anywhere near £1.5 million, which is the crime here. In fact add together the fees for SEB, Akos, Norris and Gosling and it's somewehere in the region of £4 million. How much of that was spent on replacing them? Two influential midfielders and two young promising players who went to the Premier League. That's my big gripe, the quality of replacements who were signed for free or on the cheap.

Exactly Jock - Stapleton prefered to show a £million profit in the books to lure the Japanese

I also rrefuse to believe that all of the debt that took us into administration came about only under Keith tood and sir roy whatsername watch.

In fact it started before them with the fire sales of the top talent for plymouth prices and bringing very cheap replacements.

Yea Man wrote:

Nobody held Stapleton at gunpoint and forced him to sign agreements.

He could've held firm and refused.

Releasing his number on pasoti and the hate campaign were ridiculous though.

Nasty, vitriolic and a disgrace. Is it common knowledge who released it? I genuinely have no clue

Noseyparker wrote:

Yea Man wrote:

Nobody held Stapleton at gunpoint and forced him to sign agreements.

He could've held firm and refused.

Releasing his number on pasoti and the hate campaign were ridiculous though.

Nasty, vitriolic and a disgrace. Is it common knowledge who released it? I genuinely have no clue

need you ask take a guess it wont take you long.

I don't know, honestly. Like u said I could guess I suppose!

Enjoy the ride ! I'll never hear a bad word said about that man and his lovely family !

Janner mafia rules ok.

No class. No style. No understanding. None of them.

Dane. wrote:

knecht wrote:

Greenskin wrote:

knecht wrote:

.........
As for Ebanks-Blake ... signing a reserve player for £2/300,000 and agreeing to a sell-on at £1.5 million seems a good deal to me.

Yes it was,from an accountants view point.Begs the question whether in some minds Argyle were an ambitious football league club or an outlet of Mrs Thatcher's grocery shop.

I agree (though to use St Margaret in your argument is a low dirty blow). But we've been told by Damon - and I think it was common knowledge previously - that SEB wouldn't sign the initial contract unless that clause was in it.

But that doesn't mean the club couldn't have TRIED to renegotiate before that clause was activated. Bottom line is argyle are small time, another example is when they loaned marcel siep to blackpool and he not only played against us but scored as well.

only Argyle

have to say i agree, the club is & always will be small time.

Angry of Mayfair wrote:

and a daughter who liked first team players

Genuine question. Do you have daughter(s)?

Noseyparker wrote:

Angry of Mayfair wrote:

and a daughter who liked first team players

Genuine question. Do you have daughter(s)?

Angry didn't make the original post, he's just quoting what it said before it was removed by a mod.

not condoning the comment at all, but it goes to show how high feelings are still running and will continue to run while the slow death of this club carries on.