Brent forming board?

According to the Herald Peter Jones and David Wheeler (the Dean of Business and Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Plymouth) are candidates.

"Herald Sport also understands Brent has approached business contacts from further afield."

Brent told Herald Sport: "We are talking to people who we think could be good directors. It's about getting five people to slot together, like a jigsaw puzzle."

Brent will address supporters at an open meeting before Argyle's home game against Burton Albion on Saturday, January 14.

He is expected to present a proposal which will see the club engage more fully with fans than ever before.

However, it could also be an opportunity for Brent to officially unveil his board of directors.

The meeting will start at 10.30am, at a venue still to be confirmed.

Brent admitted he hopes to make an announcement about the new board of directors "sooner rather than later" but has not put a time on it.


Brent's Board

Whilst I am a great fan of having the requisite skills on a board (I've banged on enough about the co-opting onto the Trust board), it would be nice if there was a bit of genuine enthusiasm for Argo involved. I guess PJ will be a shoe in for that reason alone.

I don't really care who gets on the board, like most things it is only relevant if the stuff on the pitch remains shite.

Interesting to see David Wheeler in the mix at a time when he helps to introduce sweeping and devastating changes at the Uni that will have a huge impact on the City from what I'm led to believe, watch this space.

He'll also be handy for when Brent builds the student accommodation hotel.

I think PJ may have his work cut out if he expects the club to be focused on football as he was under Stapes leadership. I think eyes will be focused elsewhere, hopefully football will figure in the lineup somewhere.

It would be nice for someone completely new in my opinion. Peter Jones has good intentions yes... but i think it would be nice to start this fresh start with exactly that

Thought you might have thrown your hat in the ring to mentor Fletcher Dane.

dane_b wrote:

It would be nice for someone completely new in my opinion. Peter Jones has good intentions yes... but i think it would be nice to start this fresh start with exactly that

I disagree. Say what you like about Ridsdale (and i've said my piece on the tw@t) he was experienced, grubby and questionable experience but experience nonetheless. With a fledgling manager and a fledgling owner the one commodity we need in these appointments is experience, experience in business we've got with the owner, experience in running a football club however we're completely devoid of.

It's got to be a football club management appointment for the day to day running. While I don't see PJ as being a day to day man his experience as a sounding board to the CEO would be vital. CEO wise we need a Dunford or similarly experienced pair of hands. Without people who can identify when a football club is pointed in the right direction, and more crucially when it's not, our present inexperienced set-up could make mistakes. Even small mistakes in our position could prove hugely costly, it's a massive six months we face so to rule someone out who was synonymous with Argyle success would be foolhardy IMHO.

This has always been the trouble with this club, they always want someone known to the club, more of the parrochial small town giggling mentality.
The truth is there are lots of people out there in the football village, unemployed, and with the experience required... there are also plenty of managers out there too, but that didn't stop them passing on that particular post under the dead man's shoes method.

Given our recent past, I assume Peter Jones is needed for some sort of temporary trusted known quantity and that is understandable, but please, let's not have Dunford back again. He didn't exactly cover himself in glory in the latter days of Stapleton in the chair.

My biggest concern however, is the mention of the new University geezer. What on earth does he know about football ? Being a fan with a keen eye for what's going down in the park, I hope this is not a sign that Brent (under early Ridsdalian advice ) wants to do something very similar to what Heaney/Ridsdale were trying on with student accomodation. Why else would someone like Brent want a University administrator ? sounds fishy that, and one to watch.

penzancepirate wrote:

please, let's not have Dunford back again. He didn't exactly cover himself in glory in the latter days of Stapleton in the chair.

What did he do ?

It's more what he didn't do .... just as with Stapleton and Wrathall apparently according to themselves. The whole demise of our club didn't just happen in the 18 months of the NWO, the malaise was there for years previous to their arrival.
He was the man charged with responsibility with running the club.... he would have been overseeing budgets Much of his advice will have been taken on board and put into practice by the Directors.
On top of that, he oversaw the biggest relative decline in attendances I can remember at the club. Much of that was due to his insistence that 'POTD prices should rise to what the market could take' . Not only was that wrong, but out of order. And as for his public demeanour, let's just say he wasn't the best communicator.

penzancepirate wrote:

It's more what he didn't do .... just as with Stapleton and Wrathall apparently according to themselves. The whole demise of our club didn't just happen in the 18 months of the NWO, the malaise was there for years previous to their arrival.
He was the man charged with responsibility with running the club.... he would have been overseeing budgets Much of his advice will have been taken on board and put into practice by the Directors.
On top of that, he oversaw the biggest relative decline in attendances I can remember at the club. Much of that was due to his insistence that 'POTD prices should rise to what the market could take' . Not only was that wrong, but out of order. And as for his public demeanour, let's just say he wasn't the best communicator.

I reckon you have the wrong end of the stick here.

Dunford certainly was in charge of implementing policy but he wasn't in charge of setting it.

And his advisory role was probably just that. Advisory. In your heart of hearts can you imagine Stapleton taking advice from an underling? I know I can't. Not unless it coincided with what he thought anyway.

I don't believe that the old board would ever delegate something as integral to the business model as price setting to one of the workers. No way.

I'd also say that the decline in attendances had more to do with the steady decline in results we saw under Williamson followed by the dour football Pulis dished up. By the time we got quite good under Holloway all momentum, in terms of good attendances, had been been lost. Using pricing policy as an excuse doesn't wash at all. Often those who make one excuse not to go soon find another excuse once the original one has been addressed. "It's too expensive" is a cop out. It can rarely be cheap enough to satisfy that complaint. Until the big occasion comes along.

SFD, I agree with quite a bit of your post there, I don't recall Dunford being anything other than an employee either. A quiet and experienced diplomat. There are others in football Penz I agree, but we've got six months to save league status, we need the set-up to hit the ground running. People who know the peculiar fan mentality down here and can operate at a footballing and geographical outpost might just have a head start, someone whose settled in Plymouth would obviously be ideal.

If I would make one small observation though, more an extension of your point, it's that ticket price was indeed just an excuse. But there was absolutely NO excuse to fail to go to Home Park under Holloway. Great players, playing great football and riding high in one of the greatest leagues in world football. We've done it to death already but it's still as valid a point as ever, the failure of the fans to come out and support that great WINNING team contributed directly to what followed, given what we've got now that failure nowadays seems even more ridiculous than it did then - THERE WAS NO EXCUSE.

Dunford would do just fine, pricing had nothing to do with it. How many of us would baulk at paying those prices for very good CCC football now?.

X Isle wrote:

But there was absolutely NO excuse to fail to go to Home Park under Holloway. Great players, playing great football and riding high in one of the greatest leagues in world football.

Without wishing to rehash the old argument all over again, I have to say football is not an act of going to school and doing something else on a Saturday an act of truancy to be punished. Superfans with little other interests other than football need to get real. While price may not influence their decision to attend football matches, it certainly affects the majority of people in the majority of their decisions.

No one is blaming the shop floor workers at Argyle, but I refuse to accept that the top managers of the day like Dunford and Sturrock had nothing to do with the demise. Owners and directors take notice of what these people say and advise. That is simply my opinion.
One of the few decisions of the NWO I agreed with was the reduction from £20 to £15 in the Mayflower, which I believe went a long way to holding back the alarming drop in attendances, which have dropped off a cliff since that price reduction was reversed.

Don't hold with the truancy analagy, you wouldn't bunk off a school that good. If Argyle under Holloway were a school it would be one with a Macdonalds for a canteen, complimentary cigarette breaks every half hour and a daily session of state funded heavy petting with the neighbouring girls school.

But yes, we've done that. I too rue the demise of the Mayflower, I trust JB will listen where the NWO didn't and retain a sit anywhere discounted section for all the 'floaters' who drift in and drift out from time to time.

Would standing be allowed in a re-opened Mayflower?

Under Holloway it as completely out of the question for me to miss any home match. If for any reason I couldn't go, which was hardly ever, I got VERY annoyed! I even went away. It's up to brent to make me feel like that again.

dream board should have Freathy on board he sees things for what they are like a shaman

Attendances didn't rise under Holloway because he left in early November. Had he given it a couple more months and we kept the squad that January, i'd have been amazed if we didn't average 17k post Christmas.

Mock Cuncher wrote:

Attendances didn't rise under Holloway because he left in early November. Had he given it a couple more months and we kept the squad that January, i'd have been amazed if we didn't average 17k post Christmas.

Ah man, it still hurts to think about the 'if we're there or thereabouts in January we'll go for it' quote.

While not the best, it was the most 'interesting' season I have ever witnessed at Home Park.

Although we had a very good bunch of players, and two classic man mountains up front, the dream double strike force that the likes of Wigan had previously, the football was not as entertaining as Holloway tried to make out. It was also our away form that had got us up into the play off places, I don't think we won any of our first 4 home games.

Holloway's leaving was sooooo symptomatic of a club that had lost it's ethic, it's identity, it's togetherness, the sort of togetherness that would have kept the likes of Holloway, Norris and SEB at the club when it really mattered ... at the business end of the season when other suitors came a calling. In today's modern football you have a season, maybe a second season to mature and strike it good before your assets are picked off.

Holloway managed it at Blackpool when he was able to keep the so obviuosly gifted Charlie Adam long enough to take them up. That club and group bond wasn't strong enough down here to have a go properly at the second half of the season. The reason must rest at the door of Stapleton and Wrathall who were determined to put the club's money into the property aspect rather than the playing side ... THE action that cocked everything up, THE action that blew the myth of a united FOOTBALL club.
Fans felt the hemorage as much as everyone else. I remember my brother, a confirmed POTD regular, buying a season ticket at the start of that season for the first time, as we could feel something was brewing in the club. It was just as noticeable as the decay felt when the Holloway and Norris thing blew up, that the time had already passed before it had even happened. Most fans, the sort that hugely increase attendances, aren't stupid. They know what's going down, and they will react accordingly. Nothing to do with fickle, just reacting to a club that had decided to go down the property bubble path and had seen it's best players toodle off for a bigger pay day AND a club more interested in getting success... very important to a young footballer like SEB.

Freathy wrote:

Under Holloway it as completely out of the question for me to miss any home match. If for any reason I couldn't go, which was hardly ever, I got VERY annoyed! I even went away. It's up to brent to make me feel like that again.

I guess that's where we differ Freathy. Maybe it's down to being an exile in a football restrictive job but I want to go to every game, be it at home to Accrington at the bottom of league 2 or away to Arsenal in the Cup. The ONLY EVER exception to that was when we were being force fed AFC Heaney/Ridsdale, a moral objection but never a sh1t football objection.

I don't need the cart to be put before the horse, I believe firmly the fans (horse) should be pulling the cart (club) behind them. It's not up to James Brent to tempt me away from my sofa.

X Isle wrote:

Maybe it's down to being an exile in a football restrictive job but I want to go to every game, be it at home to Accrington at the bottom of league 2 or away to Arsenal in the Cup.

You certainly wouldn't have that view if you had to have put up with the bilge that has been served up at Home Park this last 3 years. Over a long period of time, the worst in history in my opinion, and that includes Kemp.
Of course your tint is an exile view, it's football and clotted cream down here don't ya know, can't get enough, me
.
And yes, it is up to James Brent and Carl Fletcher to put on a show... or perhaps I should just set up a direct debit to every failing business in the South West. It's amazing how many people come out with the loyal football fan thing, but when it comes down to them personally, they always have an excuse .... reserved occupation and all that.... armchair attendees demanding everyone else should sit through a freezing afternoon of torpour.

X Isle wrote:

Freathy wrote:

Under Holloway it as completely out of the question for me to miss any home match. If for any reason I couldn't go, which was hardly ever, I got VERY annoyed! I even went away. It's up to brent to make me feel like that again.

I guess that's where we differ Freathy. Maybe it's down to being an exile in a football restrictive job but I want to go to every game, be it at home to Accrington at the bottom of league 2 or away to Arsenal in the Cup. The ONLY EVER exception to that was when we were being force fed AFC Heaney/Ridsdale, a moral objection but never a sh1t football objection.

I don't need the cart to be put before the horse, I believe firmly the fans (horse) should be pulling the cart (club) behind them. It's not up to James Brent to tempt me away from my sofa.

Problem is Smiffy,when the fans have been pulling the cart before [on frequent occasions in Argyle's history,most recently the 16400 average in 2004/5].feck all has happened from the drivers seat to convince them that its worth staying in the harness.I'll ask you a simple question-do you accept that,for a long period in the respective histories of the clubs,Argyle got bigger attendances than Southampton,Norwich,Coventry,Reading,Palace,QPR,Ipswich and Swansea?

Greenskin wrote:

X Isle wrote:

Freathy wrote:

Under Holloway it as completely out of the question for me to miss any home match. If for any reason I couldn't go, which was hardly ever, I got VERY annoyed! I even went away. It's up to brent to make me feel like that again.

I guess that's where we differ Freathy. Maybe it's down to being an exile in a football restrictive job but I want to go to every game, be it at home to Accrington at the bottom of league 2 or away to Arsenal in the Cup. The ONLY EVER exception to that was when we were being force fed AFC Heaney/Ridsdale, a moral objection but never a sh1t football objection.

I don't need the cart to be put before the horse, I believe firmly the fans (horse) should be pulling the cart (club) behind them. It's not up to James Brent to tempt me away from my sofa.

Problem is Smiffy,when the fans have been pulling the cart before [on frequent occasions in Argyle's history,most recently the 16400 average in 2004/5].feck all has happened from the drivers seat to convince them that its worth staying in the harness.I'll ask you a simple question-do you accept that,for a long period in the respective histories of the clubs,Argyle got bigger attendances than Southampton,Norwich,Coventry,Reading,Palace,QPR,Ipswich and Swansea?

Give it up Greenie. Avivas just don't get it. It's far easier patting eachother on the back, enjoying parochial mediocrity, blaming the stay away plasic janners and glorifying in the mahoosive Green Army turnout at Hayes n Yeading.
Little old Plimuff punching above its weight in the second tier? ......... my arse !

I see some people are still intent on rewriting history during the Ollie era.

Great football?. Some great results for sure, away from home. At the end of Ollies first season I can remember John L***d starting a thread asking for people's top 8 matches for the season. The only home game that got a regular mention was the 3-3 with Cardiff, almost everybody who replied named at least 6 away games. Famous away victories were often followed by tired performances at home, the hoofball strategy up to our 2 tired 'not the tallest' forwards. Very rarely was the football memorable and the result was more than often disappointing.

On to the second season, we never strengthened from the first. We signed Timar and Halmosi on full contract terms but other loanees returned to their parent clubs. Capaldi had already been released (which IMO signalled the end of an era as we knew it) and Connolly (unofficially) called it his last season. Throw in the property 1st mantra and the wantaway Norris 'I wont celebrate when I score' issue, there was just very little to entice the stay-aways back to Home Park. The Buzsaky nonsense was the final nail.

As for discussions around the unmentionable 'C' word being done to death, not surprisingly I disagree. As I recall, any attempt at reasoned debate was stifled. Anyone daring to suggest 'football 1st' would be met with the over-exaggerated 'look at Cardiff, look at Leeds'. Eventually it would end in greens v browns and parking spaces. So sad parking spaces are still topical today!