Red Exile

It was a depressing listen. 'Hoping for the best' - I thought. As for Lansdown - I'm not sure why anyone would invest in football if it wasn't for the glory. The idea of a financially sustainable Championship football club is almost laughable. We don't have to speculate on the health of a 71 year old billionaire to appreciate that 20 years of investment - the best years of his billionaire life - have delivered precious little glory....a cup win in the lesser cup (followed by a defeat), some lower league promotions (to compensate for relegations) a solitary play-off 15 years ago (which we lost). His media recognition is at best the occasional local radio interview...the promotion of a golf venture in Guernsey is hardly 'hold the front page'. If he's known for anything its stupendous investment in one of the most mediocre under-achieving British football clubs...but with a nice ground. Other than as a legacy project for his unimpressive son I'm not sure why he bothers - from that interview you'd have to assume that he appears to be thinking the same.

Excellent post, and I'm certainly not a 'disciple'. The missing bit for me is communication. If that is the strategy let's hear someone at the top shout about it...very happy for them to take the credit when it pays dividends. All along in the Lansdown years the missing piece has seemed to me to be taking the fan base on the journey. With very rare exceptions - think Cotts and the recruitment in the summer of 2014 - when there has been a tale spun - think '5 pillars' or Mark Ashton's offerings - there have been too many gaps in the narrative, gaps that can easily be filled by speculation and conspiracy theory. I know that OTIB can descend into daftness at times but the people I know in the real world who post on here are all thoughtful, intelligent and well respected in their professional lives. Having worked in the media all my life I don't think any of this is all that hard to deliver, but it requires engagement with supporters beyond amusing social media posts and post match interviews, engagement which treats them like intelligent stakeholders with a contribution to make.

A really fine away win. Excellent performance.

On that basis to watch the club stream across the season - currently £170? - would cost 46 x what? £30? I'm not sure there would be many takers for a Robins TV subscription at that price. I'm not sure that increasing the revenue is the club's challenge at the moment. It's the investment of the revenue we have.

Good for him. Good luck!

...beautifully put.

Speaking for myself it wasn't the 'splurge' that was hated under the previous characters but the pointlessness... ...EDIT: beaten to it by @Lew-T

I'm sure you are correct, but that lack of ambition has a far longer pedigree. My in laws support Hull - two stints in the Prem and a cup final.

He's had 20 plus years to make his riches count. I don't spend a day travelling to the Gate and back to admire a stand. I'd happily have had the worst ground in the Prem.

I think we all would be wary, but the reality of professional sport is that it's about ambition. SL has thrown a blanket of unambitious mediocrity over the club for years.

Thing is - the STs are sold, and counted in the attendances regardless of who turns up. Its not the first time I've bought a ST in the Lansdown regime only to think a few weeks into the season that the optimistic prospectus on which it was sold was all smoke and mirrors!

TC was invited onto the Board, was he not - different times, the club was run by people with the same passion as the fans on the terraces. We were all in it together. I've seen little evidence of that in recent times.

Amen!

...worrying, and in itself a completely incompetent way to run a football club.

You wouldn't be alone!

I know his admirers will point to the new stands and training ground, but folk don't go to football matches to admire the architecture or upholstery. Bottom line is that no one compelled Steve Lansdown to buy the whole club - make it his club - run it unimpressively for two decades, lose millions, win next to nothing, tack on a rugby club and basketball club (basketball!!), hand it over to his unimpressive son, disappear into tax exile... Its a high profile entertainment business, the Lansdowns appear to have no flair for either publicity or entertainment. Sad times - yet again.

I understood from the Twitter intro to the clip that the full interview was about his new golf venture. This was the City related question. Could be wrong of course!

Well I imagine most OTIB users do just that, taxes pay for things like school and hospitals... ..but hey, lets not derail this!

Made some dangerous crosses - but nothing special. Glad we signed Roberts!

Get in! Played well. Tough match. Impressed with our control in possession. Not something I’d often say! That is a fine away win.

Let's hope so!

I'm not convinced he's that interested. He's simply speaking words but saying nothing. So I agree, not worth over-analysing. Frankly I don't think there has ever been anything that might be graced with the term 'strategy'. All over the place in his managerial appointments. But for supporters in the here and now it seems reasonable to ask when exactly 'when the time is right' might be? He's had a couple of decades. Listen to him - are we steadily building, in which case are we selling our best players to invest in more? Or have we already got 'the makings of a promotion winning side'? We're, as ever, left guessing. He was only showing his face to launch a golf project on Guernsey.

Riddled with contradictions for me. I mean which is it: 'we've got to bide our time' - 'we can't compete with the parachute payments' - 'if we can sell players for £25m every year we're building that nest egg up to be able to compete in the longer term' all of which suggests its a long haul, steady building or: Luton went up with 'far less talent than we've got in our squad' - 'with the squad of players we've got we've got a great chance of competing at the top end of the table - maybe we'll strike lucky - that's the way we've got to look at it' - 'we've got the makings of a promotion winning side if we can get that little bit of luck and that consistency' which suggests over to you Pearson, if we don't go up its your fault. Good to hear something from him I guess but hardly inspirational!

This - in a nutshell. But you'll get nowhere arguing with those who bought into him. I think @Silvio Dante hits the nail on the head. I note that 'Lee David Brent Johnson' remains his name on Wikipedia.

The passion of the LJ glee club was barely comprehensible when he was still here - when it was, I guess, conceivable that he'd turn out to be the messiah they wanted him to be. It's completely inexplicable now. I liked him as a player. Couldn't understand why he got the manager job, the wrong man at the wrong time - the only possible explanation was his closeness to the Lansdowns. He failed to deliver what we were told was his objective. He's never won a promotion with any side. Couldn't get Sunderland out of League One! He will lurk as a presence on this forum because his tenure was so consequential - blew our chances of promotion for a generation, and soured the relationship with the owner through the latter's obsession with being proved right in appointing him in the first place.