CliftonCliff

I judge them on what they do. It's rarely worth listening to what they say.

Yes, and something he's cut out for and is good atm as well - and that isn't meant to be a jibe, either. He might actually be a lot happier - and I dare say so would many of us.

Exactly this. Not too intellectually challenging to distinguish between those two positions, is it? Some people will choose to willfully misunderstand or conflate the two in order to provoke an argument. It's tiresome.

Remind you of anything? Bit like national politics, really. Bunch of slimy, mendacious, self-serving people who take the credit for everything and the blame for absolutely nothing, are never accountable and who somehow survive and even prosper despite being incompetent at much of what they do. Said elsewhere when the debate was still raging that I had in the past sprung to Lansdown's defence, but my perceptions of the ownership have been irreversibly changed by this woeful episode and I will never trust them again. In fact, my relationship with the club is probably at its lowest ebb since I started going to games regularly at the age of 14 (I'm 76), and I don't think I'll feel better about that until this regime is history.

Well, I started this thread about 8.30 this morning and by 1.30pm it looks as though it's done and dusted, if the Liam Manning thread can be believed. There's certainly a very high level of conviction that he's the man. Pretty much confirms everything I said at the outset. It would have taken something pretty spectacular to excite me and convince me that this puts us in a better position than the one we were in just over a week ago, but I will keep an open mind and wish the bloke all the best. He's a promising young coach and has clearly done very good work at Oxford but he's untried at this level, so we'll see.

Can understand you finding it repetitious and getting tired of it, but with respect, there's a simple solution - stop reading it.

Not of that calibre, there aren’t. There’s a reason he was headhunted for the most important job in English cricket and is now running the sport in this country. It was a huge loss. I suspect it was his skilful mediation between Lansdown and Pearson that helped prolong the latter’s tenure. I wish to God he was still here, or even someone with half his ability. As it currently stands, we have nobody in an equivalent role, which is a big part of the reason people who know about these things keep pointing out the total lack of any proper corporate governance. We can never know for sure, but I agree with those who have said that last week’s events might well not have happened had Gould still been in post.

Well, at this stage that would require that the last man standing, Fleming, is still in employment, which according to the ITK mob, he isn’t.

Well said and fair comment. I can remember the Alan who? reaction, as well. I guess you never know.

Well, thanks for all the responses, guys. It’s affirming in one way, at least. Either I’m not just a cynical, miserable old git, or if I am, I’m in good company. For the sake of clarity, there are limits on my negativity. I will not in any sense be against the new guy - well, not unless it’s bloody Warnock or something equally horrific. I’m still a supporter, have been for over 60 years, and I’ll want them to do well. I think all I was trying to say is that in order to justify the massive upheaval and the almost arbitrary sacking of four very good people, you have to be be able to say that, as a direct result of those actions, the club in the coming weeks is in a better place than it was the week before last. I’m going to need a lot of convincing.

Assuming the last things I read here last night are correct and today’s the day we find out the nature of the Lansdown’s latest master stroke, I woke this morning feeling oddly indifferent about what’s to come. I say “oddly”, because along with many others I have been animatedly engaged, online and in person with friends, in hot debate about the week’s events. In short, these things mattered to me, a lot. So, it seems in one way strange to discover that as we wait to be told the identity of our new head coach, I find a large part of me all of a sudden doesn’t really care. I think this is partly because I fully expect to be underwhelmed by the announcement: it would be typical of all things BCFC if the drama of the last eight days was a prelude to the appointment of someone as inspiring as, say, Gary Rowett, or rather, since we know it’s highly unlikely to be him, someone of a similarly mediocre calibre. But even if it should turn out that we are pleasantly surprised, I suspect the feeling will still be somewhat hollow, because if we can take one lesson from what’s happened, it’s that the core problem facing the club is not who we appoint to HC or manager, his assistants or the head of the medical department, and that whatever changes are implemented today may well make very little difference to the club’s trajectory. We already had, in the opinion of many, a more than adequate team in charge and I cannot convince myself that sacking the whole lot of them and installing replacements is going to impact much in the long run on the dysfunctional manner in which the club is run. I sincerely hope I’m proven wrong in this. It sounds negative and depressing, I know, but I also think it’s a not unrealistic appraisal. Am I alone in feeling quite flat about the impending news, rather than excited?

This is spot on. I remarked on another thread earlier in the week that SL really has painted himself into a corner with the way he’s structured this interconnected nest of companies. if it was just BCFC he wanted out of, it’s impossible to sell as a stand alone entity. It’s long ceased to be an independent football club and, crucially, no longer has the security that comes with owning your own stadium. It cannot now be extricated from this convoluted corporate network and the only way to dispose of it is to flog the entire group together, which - surprise, surprise - nobody wants to buy. To use the most apt sporting metaphor, it’s a spectacular own goal. The growing desperation that lies behind the current situation is reflected in the increasingly erratic decision making, culminating in this week’s self-defeating and destructive behaviour. It’s a thoroughly demoralising and alarming time to be a supporter and it’s very difficult to see at the moment how a positive outcome can be achieved.

Harsh as it is, and perhaps needs to be, I do accept there's a lot of common sense in that, but there is also a counter-argument about throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater that applies particularly to Rennie's departure. It means the whole culture-defining network of relationships that NP carefully assembled has been dismantled. It seems wantonly destructive and I can't see how it serves the best interests of the football club. Hell hath no fury like a bruised ego. it would appear.

Yeah, pity he wasn't a better footballer.

OMG, that conjures up some truly gruesome possibilities!

That’s a big part of what’s made many of us so angry. We haven’t just lost a very good manager, but Rennie, Euelle, and very probably Fleming as well, in due course. Bloody madness.

If you want a quintessential English name that we can all remember and pronounce, you should go for Smith. Might not go down well from a football standpoint, but then when did we ever base managerial appointments on trivialities like that? You beat me to it.

Well said. Have posted elsewhere that we could do worse. This is not a Tinnion/Millen/Holden scenario. He would be the surviving embodiment of the culture that NP instilled. If you think trying to maintain some continuity with that is an important consideration, then there is logic to it, and he has a lot of respect and goodwill, partly through his close association with Nige, but also in his own right. Not to be dismissed out of hand, but would he want it, having been a witness to this week’s car crash?

We’ll take that as a No, then, shall we? Next topic?

Yep, you’re right, thought that, too. Pretty rapid for such big blokes.

O Level German (Failed) was 60 years ago, so I could be wrong, but as the e comes before the I, would it not be lie-berk-naysht? (Not that I think it’s something we’re going to need to know.)

Said the same to my mates at the time. Bloody huge guys, some of them. Terrified me, and I was in Row 8!

Which one? Since neither one of them has a clue where they’re headed, it could have been either. (Actually, on second thoughts, I think we can safely conclude it was neither. If the Lansdowns were driving, they’d have been up Shit Creek*, not Bournemouth.) *Without a paddle, naturally.

Ah, I see. Sorry, bit slow on the uptake there. Thanks for clarifying. Makes sense.

Sorry, what?