chinapig

Certainly those who claim there has been no improvement under Pearson seem to have forgotten how bad it was then. The days when we would cheer ironically if we had a shot at all. Dean is indeed a good human but should never have been handed the poisoned chalice as he just didn't have the experience and authority to handle it. That was not his fault. Of course Ashton wouldn't have wanted an experienced manager who might push back, a rookie who could be exploited and blamed was more his thing.

Derby argued that they would have been fine without Covid, trying to avoid admitting that the underlying problem was their reckless financial strategy, and were rightly given short shrift. Most clubs will not breach FFP despite Covid so the claim doesn't stand up. Our strategy was also reckless (Nigel called it bonkers), gambling that we would sign or develop a steady stream of players to sell on for big money and that the market would continue to inflate. If I was the EFL I'd be telling Steve that a man with his expertise ought to have known that markets can go down as well as up so he should not have doubled the wage bill but built in some resilience.

The question is whether this month's government* is committed to the fan led review. I know nothing about the new Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan but at best I suspect it will be a very low priority, especially when the Premier League starts lobbying her. *another one may be along shortly.?

Thanks for this. Depressingly, Parry was quoted last week as saying that there are no current negotiations over parachute payments. In the absence of an independent regulator I doubt anything will change.

I expressed surprise at some of the signings they made in League 1 so soon after Admin, Whatmough for instance, who could not have been cheap wages wise. Can't say I'm shocked at this news then.

For the cricket fans on this thread: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/23/cricket-is-a-national-asset-richard-gould-appointed-as-new-ecb-ceo Richard Gould has been named as the new chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board in a sign that the governing body is trying to rebuild bridges with the counties after the divisive Tom Harrison era. The former Somerset and Surrey chief executive has been an outspoken critic of the Hundred in the past, and while he will doubtless strike a more conciliatory tone at the ECB his appointment increases the likelihood that changes will ultimately be made to the franchise competition. Gould will begin his new role in January. The son of the former Wales football manager Bobby, he is working in football as chief executive at Bristol City but remains highly respected within the county game after his 16 years at Somerset and Surrey. Unlike Harrison, who was hired for his marketing expertise and brought in from the media conglomerate IMG with the brief of shaking up the English game, Gould’s focus will be on seeking compromise at what promises to be a turbulent and delicate period for English cricket. The ongoing row over the men’s domestic schedule, with counties reacting strongly to the reduction in cricket proposed by Andrew Strauss’s high-performance review, is one immediate area of concern. It was also telling that the ECB media release highlighted Gould’s record on inclusion, as it seeks to heal the rifts and injustices exposed by the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal. While at Surrey, Gould was instrumental in launching the ACE programme, the much-lauded initiative to increase young Black participation in cricket. There is a certain irony in the fact that in Gould and the new chair, Richard Thompson, the top two roles at the ECB are now being occupied by two of its biggest critics. Surrey and the ECB once enjoyed a fractious relationship, with the former chair Colin Graves even threatening to strip the Oval of international fixtures in retaliation for its opposition to the Hundred. While the competition is safe until at least 2028 because of broadcast commitments, Gould and Thompson may eventually decide to shorten its exclusive window in the calendar, or even sell it to private investors.

You reckon there'll be some time lost to rain on the first two days then??

I agree with everything you say but sadly the ECB doesn't.

It's an innovative way of marketing crisps as far as I can tell.

There's not the slightest chance of that, The Hundred has been further cemented in place by Strauss's High Performance (yes, the dreaded phrase again) Review. So Gould will now be expected to big it up. I can see a future in which The Hundred franchises are sold off, probably to IPL owners (as per South Africa's T20 competition). Possibly 50 over cricket will disappear as well. Thereafter, a County Championship that is effectively a Premier League for the bigger Counties (Surrey, Lancashire and so on). Smaller Counties will either be driven out of business or forced to amalgamate (Glos/Somerset, Leics/Derbyshire for instance). Maybe even Test cricket confined to England, Australia and India. South Africa are half way to pulling out already and West Indies cricket is in a poor state. Thompson and Gould will preside over the early stages of a revolution that will make cricket unrecognisable, if lucrative for some. Not least the ECB Board, who are fond of awarding themselves big bonuses to reward their genius.

Listen to his recent interview on The Athletic Football podcast. He is dead set against any meaningful reform of football finance, which in theory should put him at odds with SL. His bottom line was that club owners should be allowed to spend as much as they want, mentioning SL as an example. Which of course has worked so well before. Oh, hang on ....

And he will shortly be paid enough to be able to say how great it is, much like his former boss at Surrey, soon to be his new boss at the ECB.

It is but don't tell the rest of them or they'll all want some.?

Being CEO of Surrey is like being CEO of Man Utd. Being CEO of Bristol City is like being CEO of ..... Bristol City.? He was also at Somerset for 5 years of course so cricket has been the bulk of his career after leaving the Army.

He was at Surrey CCC for 10 years so yes.

Well, he let Ashton set things up at Ipswich while simultaneously screwing us up. He must be the only owner to effectively pay somebody to work for another club.

He was but so was Thompson and he was biddable. Gould's past views won't make any difference.

And Thompson is his mate from their Surrey days. I fear the worst.

Perhaps he wasn't prepared to give Jorge Mendes his cut of the deal.

He certainly went public about how unhappy he was with his treatment and it was reported that he arranged his own operation in the end. I began to wonder whether the specialist in Solihull he kept being sent to was another member of the Ashton entourage! ?

Ring - Face - Space.

Indeed, it took years to create the disaster area he inherited so it's likely to take as long to fix it. Seems logical to me.

Media darlings on the grounds that they used to be good decades ago.

Kieran Maguire covers this in today's Price of Football podcast. The bottom line is that the value of your investment will almost certainly go down, quite possibly to zero. Yet according to Maguire both the PL and the FA are looking at more schemes like these. I sincerely hope our club will not be going in this direction.

Thanks for posting this latest example of the lengths football clubs will go to out of greed, including tempting their fans to sign up to scams. It wasn't so long ago that Man City signed up to (and were forced to withdraw from) a deal with a crypto company when it was pointed out to them that the company had no online presence at all, so this is not a one off. Even without carrying out due diligence it's obvious nobody should touch this latest scam with a barge pole on the grounds that if it looks too good to be true it is. Love the game, hate the business.