Chris Hargreaves

Some interesting observations in amongst the responses there, misrepresentations and some suggestions even that people know my mind better than I do . I happen to have a while so i'll, again, explain my precise position of things. It's never changed, neither will it ever do so.

For the record there's no contradiction or change in my opinions on the apathy that exists. No Greenskin, you didn't imagine that not so long ago I understood why people were turned off by Argyle, I still do. The leap you've all made though is that changes anything. Whether one now understands, even empathises with the reasons behind it in a way that one didn't before.........doesn't alter the fact it exists.

For the record on Stapleton, lest misrepresentations persist there too. When I was supporting him, he was doing the right things (IMHO not IYHO), he was doing the slowly slowly catchy monkey thing. People knocked him for that, people wanted him to push the boat out. He lost your support quicker than mine because he wouldn't overspend beyond the means of the notoriously fickle crowd numbers, he then lost mine when he then did.

You might not agree with the philosophy of not wishing to overstretch and my undying support for it, you didn't then and it's a battle i'll clearly be fighting with you now and in the future too, but please respect the consistency of my position on it without agreeing because I can acknowledge and respect your counter position without agreeing with it. Nothing has changed and i'll remain convinced that's the correct course now and in the future.

So no PD, just because I backed Stapleton and he turned out to ruin the club does NOT mean if I support James Brent he'll automatically end up being the ruin of the club, I expect him to be made of stronger stuff. Stapleton DID ruin our club but not by failing to spend, he did it by eventual overspending. Had he tailored the cloth to suit the impending apathy wave (gates were inexcusably low for some games, the warnings were there) we'd have dropped back from being CCC competitive, hell we'd probably have been relegated to league 1 a season or two earlier. But we'd have regrouped, free from massive debts and at least trod water there.

By overspending to chase fans that would've walked away in droves anyway what transpired is that we came down with eight figure debts and rising. THAT'S why were where we are now, the fall was uncontrolled not in any way managable . James Brent I hope won't allow that to happen, he'll be stronger than Stapleton was and won't throw good money after bad. I have never had the same problems many have in supporting a stable, honest if ultimatley limited football team, I don't feel compeled to chase an unattainable dream at any costs and damn the consequences.

We both blame Stapleton now for what happened, it's ONLY the tipping point that's at issue, the point he abandoned the sustainable 'slowly catchy monkey' model. You blame him for having it, I blame him for ultimately abandoning it. It's a chicken or egg thing, you say it was his failure to invest that caused gates to dwindle and the whole thing to unravel, I say it was his failure to anticipate those gates would dwindle but invested all the same. Whichever came first the end product is the same - we got an egg laying chicken so what does it matter?.

We can but agree to disagree. Debate away but please respect differences of opinion without trying to shout them down, point fingers and misrepresent. This observation will hurt, and it pains me to have to point it out, but that's actually a PASOTI heirachy trait .

This site is better than that.

Smiffy.............. Peter Jones has said it............. Brent has said it...............When we get to the 2nd tier, the club cannot sustain a challenge without financial help.

At Championship level, competing with clubs with parachute payments, developed fanbases etc., Argyle cannot compete without extra investment. We don't have a 20 k fanbase because we have always bottled it and never got the top flight T shirt.The city/region has no memories of glory days.

Stapleton and his supporters were either stupid enough to think it could be done organically, and/ or selfish enough to not want to share or hand over their holding and potential goldmine. One way or another Stapleton was intent upon become very wealthy and still having his finger in the Argyle pie. His ego had been massaged by all the success and the glory of going to places like Newcastle as Chairman. He didn't want to give it up.

X Isle wrote:

Some interesting observations in amongst the responses there, misrepresentations and some suggestions even that people know my mind better than I do . I happen to have a while so i'll, again, explain my precise position of things. It's never changed, neither will it ever do so.

For the record there's no contradiction or change in my opinions on the apathy that exists. No Greenskin, you didn't imagine that not so long ago I understood why people were turned off by Argyle, I still do. The leap you've all made though is that changes anything. Whether one now understands, even empathises with the reasons behind it in a way that one didn't before.........doesn't alter the fact it exists.

For the record on Stapleton, lest misrepresentations persist there too. When I was supporting him, he was doing the right things (IMHO not IYHO), he was doing the slowly slowly catchy monkey thing. People knocked him for that, people wanted him to push the boat out. He lost your support quicker than mine because he wouldn't overspend beyond the means of the notoriously fickle crowd numbers, he then lost mine when he then did.

You might not agree with the philosophy of not wishing to overstretch and my undying support for it, you didn't then and it's a battle i'll clearly be fighting with you now and in the future too, but please respect the consistency of my position on it without agreeing because I can acknowledge and respect your counter position without agreeing with it. Nothing has changed and i'll remain convinced that's the correct course now and in the future.

So no PD, just because I backed Stapleton and he turned out to ruin the club does NOT mean if I support James Brent he'll automatically end up being the ruin of the club, I expect him to be made of stronger stuff. Stapleton DID ruin our club but not by failing to spend, he did it by eventual overspending. Had he tailored the cloth to suit the impending apathy wave (gates were inexcusably low for some games, the warnings were there) we'd have dropped back from being CCC competitive, hell we'd probably have been relegated to league 1 a season or two earlier. But we'd have regrouped, free from massive debts and at least trod water there.

By overspending to chase fans that would've walked away in droves anyway what transpired is that we came down with eight figure debts and rising. THAT'S why were where we are now, the fall was uncontrolled not in any way managable . James Brent I hope won't allow that to happen, he'll be stronger than Stapleton was and won't throw good money after bad. I have never had the same problems many have in supporting a stable, honest if ultimatley limited football team, I don't feel compeled to chase an unattainable dream at any costs and damn the consequences.

We both blame Stapleton now for what happened, it's ONLY the tipping point that's at issue, the point he abandoned the sustainable 'slowly catchy monkey' model. You blame him for having it, I blame him for ultimately abandoning it. It's a chicken or egg thing, you say it was his failure to invest that caused gates to dwindle and the whole thing to unravel, I say it was his failure to anticipate those gates would dwindle but invested all the same. Whichever came first the end product is the same - we got an egg laying chicken so what does it matter?.

We can but agree to disagree. Debate away but please respect differences of opinion without trying to shout them down, point fingers and misrepresent. This observation will hurt, and it pains me to have to point it out, but that's actually a PASOTI heirachy trait .

This site is better than that.

Actually,Stapes didn't lose my support and respect for the reasons that you mention above.Certainly i harboured doubts about his [and the rest of the board] ability to push the club any further but my contempt and dislike for him came when he began to make bizarre public statements,tantamount to lying,about "going fot it" and "Paul can keep everybody if he wants to",words which i'm sure you will agree were far from fulfilled by subsequent actions.

Its a very interesting question,this issue of how to go about progressing the club.It seems to me that if your method was followed strictly,ie the pound in,pound out model,Argyle would never have achieved any success in it's entire history. Take for example the 1974/75 and 1985/86 promotion seasons.Given the fact that Waiters and Smith had spent considerable amounts of money in assembling their squads,Argyle simply had to be losing money by the shedload in the period from the start of the season until xmas.Both seasons started very slowly and gates were low,only crescendoing after christmas.Are you saying that the correct action to have been taken at the halfway point in those seasons would have been to sell players in order to balance the books and jeopardise the club's chances of making progress? Or to bring a more up to date possible scenario into the equation,lets look at what could happen next season.Mr Brent is very prudent and sets a breakeven attendance figure of 6000,which i would say is a very reasonable one.However,Argyle start slowly and gates only average 5500 in the period until xmas.If you were in Mr Brent's position,what action would you take to cover the deficit inevitaby incurrred? Simplistic scenario,i realise that, but the question is not loaded,i'm genuinely interested to see what you think should be done.

Your so called slowly slowly catchy monkey theory is a load of rubbish. Anyone that has done anything in football has seized the momentum. Hull, swansea and Blackpool have proved it, complete garbage because what happens isthat the fanbase eventually switches off when they see the club is reverting to type.

For the record Stapleton sold all our best players to fatten up the books to encourage people to buy into the club for top whack. The short term cash boost was offset by the ridiculous wages he was handing out.

He was out to get rich and the consequences bedamned.

In addition, if managers, coaches and players are catching the eye, as ours were in 2007, the vultures circle overhead and pick them off. The much maligned TC started the ball rolling when he reputedly trebled his wages by moving to Cardiff, who were the devils incarnate according to the farm. At least they really went for it. Just a shame they had a manager who couldn't seem to cope under pressure, in Dave Jones.

Greenskin. Honestly?, I'd trade the playing staff for cheaper options or whittle some numbers to reduce the impending losses. Wouldn't be popular but 'Meh', neither was the Tsunami of grief that followed the £18,000,000 debt that came from starting down the overspend path.

It's simply this, I don't care for boom/bust at all. It's what has historically caused the cynicism and apathy to exist, it causes gnarly old cynics (correctly I'll hasten to add) to predict "it'll all end in tears" whenever we're on the up and the very same to say "told you so" on the way down, they've seen it all before and they're spot on.

The way we move forward with zero investment?, you find another Luggy, a shrewd lower league gem spotter, a wheeler and a dealer. Southend had no players and a whole heap of financial problems early last season, he's stabilised and created what will undoubtedly be yet another break even promotion.

The way we 'push on' from subsequent promotion?. We find another Tony Pulis, a shrewd middle league task master, a spotter of horses for courses and a stripper away of unnecessary squad expenditure, a ruthlessly efficient results grinder.

What we don't do is have the wrong type of manager for the wrong conditions and throw money at him, what we don't do is put the cart before the horse and spend lavishly gambling on that alone tempting said cynics and apathetics to come in droves. They'll come to support a winning team. That winning team doesn't need to be created from overspending, that winning team can be created from what you've got, they'll come nonetheless.

Hope that answers your question, i've never pretended to feel any different about that throughout my life as a football supporter. And PD don't get so cross about it, you disagree, I get that. That's your choice, this is mine, it's how I run my household finances and i've done pretty from it so it's how i'd like my football team run too.

Yes JB has said he'll sell the club on in the Championship, that's as far as he takes us. Good on him for that. It's at that point though i'll be all over the new incumbents like a dose of nappy rash not to take us back to 'bust' again. Having been built up prudently and sensibly I won't want to see it get f*cked up again. You'll all presumably be delighted at the cash being spent, fine, it'll be like old times .

For now though i'm happy as Larry(O) to see prudence at the helm again, manage the boom and you'll control the bust. Geddon JB.