Steve Watts

I'm just shocked we've got 18 pages on Jon Lansdowns interview with Joe Simms?  I mean, I like the guy, but I really don't think Joe's qualified enough to manage in the Championship.....

1 hour ago, Ghost Rider said:

Well, then, what qualifications do we have to criticise JL? What qualifications do we possess in managing a football club or making medical judgments? Here we are, criticising him with less knowledge and qualifications than he has.

I think most of us possess just as many qualifications in managing a football club, making medical judgments or even being a football club chairman as Jon does...  But that bar is very very low!

1 hour ago, GlastonburyRed said:

Two hopes, and Bob's dead.

Hi Jerry, 

With regards your answer regarding finding a venue for the forum, is there a reason it can't be held in the Lansdown Suite?  I've a feeling given the events of the past week, it'll be a popular one.  Hiring out a venue when the ground has state of the art conferencing suites seems an unnecessary outlay doesn't it? 

Cheers, Steve

22 hours ago, Matty C said:

Can we not have different opinions without telling people to **** off? I think it is clear the majority of fans think this is a mistake, but there will always be people who disagree, which is okay isn't it?

For the record, I own my own business and I would not appreciate one of my staff (no matter how popular or good they are) questioning the way I run my business and I suspect this is what the Lansdowns really have problems with. 

I personally think that the club is in a much healthier position because of Nige and wish him all the very best

I'm going to make an assumption that the business you own is in a field you know well.  That's the difference. SL built a business from scratch and used the funds generated from scratch to buy something in a field he didn't know well.  If my assumption is right, your business ownership lends more similarity to Hargreaves Lansdown.  I wouldn't expect an employee of HL to be telling SL how to invest any more than one of your employees to question you.

I'm just surprised that on a protest thread we've managed to get to page 8 without anyone saying "I will booo-urns"!  That in itself should tell a story about how angry people are!

38 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

I'm with you there

I guess we can hope for a similar outcome as when Southampton sacked Nigel Adkins, many thought it strange at the time but turned out well. TBF Southampton did seem a well run Club so there's a difference there.

Hmmm he was involved with Gloucester during their most successful spell ever, and they still managed to lose money. Thought it was a dubious appointment at the time. Should , in hindsight, been a good appointment in as much as he replaced SL as Chairman. Lansdown should have stepped away and let the people he employed run things. 

Sadly he can't help himself, that and bad choices of who he put into high places has made it a shambles.

Sadly he did do that for a while when he appointed the King of the Snake Oil Salesmen as CEO in 2016.

This particular bit I have a (very) small degree of sympathy with SL.  He appointed what appeared to be  a football man, acknowledging that his decision making on football related matters wasn't up to scratch.  Unfortunately for all his smooth talk and schmoozing when SL was present, he leaves and SL discovers that we've racked up more than he thought.  Won't be the last person to be sold on the patter of someone else's pitch.

Sadly, since Snake Oil left, the decisions have continued to be baffling.  The last good decision he signed off on was extending NP's contract from the initial "to the end of the season" appointment.

For me, this is possibly the worst decision the club have made since they phoned David Moyes and told him not to fly back from America to interview for the job as we'd given it to Tony Pulls. Genuinely don't think we've made as bad a call as today since then. 

Any advances on the Moyes/Pulis call?

2 hours ago, Coupon said:

Dave, on one of the other threads you mentioned a few things about Tinnion, his promotion and his yearning to have more academy players, etc. I have nothing but a cynical suspicion and no grounds to back it up, however what if his obsession with getting more from the academy led to him and his decision not to spend the Scott money and not SL in the first place? As Technical Director surely he would be in a strong place of influence. As said I have no axe to grind and am not mischief making, just providing another angle to consider.

It would certainly be a strange move to try and undermine a manager who has probably given more academy products a chance in the first team than possibly any other manager in 20 plus years if your ambition is to see academy products in the first team.

2 hours ago, One Team said:

Rename the stand when he’s gone? Too strong perhaps but I, like many of you, are bloody furious this evening. 

I would 100% back this. There have been many apologists for the Lansdowns over the years, myself included. But this decision today will be the draw that breaks the camels back for many of those apologists. It certainly is for me.

2 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

Not sure how you could get confused. It doesn.t look anything like Springfield Park.

Those look like some mighty fine floodlights they have there.....

11 hours ago, Cidre Monita said:

Why apologise for the publication? Would it be more acceptable coming from the Guardian? 

Because after navigating to their website you have to do a google search for midget donkey porn to make your search history look less embarrassing.

On 15/10/2023 at 17:25, pongo88 said:

What a disappointment for Chelmsford and Whitby. They probably hoped to get a tie against a league team with a good ground and, instead, they’re away at conference standard embarrassment. After this experience they will wonder what’s special about league football 

It's not that good....

14 hours ago, 1960maaan said:

Yeah, yeah. City have 10,000 for a home game, but the gAss managed a creditable 1-1 with Pucklechurch 

Why do they have a member of the Village People on their badge, young man?

I went through trying to name them before scrolling down to name and number.  I managed to get more than half right, so I don't think it's terrible overall.  Cam Pring, Jason Knight, Harry Cornick and Andi Weimann I got easily enough, but Tommy Conway and Sammy Bell are dreadful.  Especially given the career they may have ahead of them.  Definitely not going to be one to look back on.

4 hours ago, Lewisdabaron said:

Millwall the family club will never change.

Shame the fa dont seem to take the same stance with Celtic’s vile chants, banners, pyro & flares etc… why not?

Well probably because they have no jurisdiction in a club playing in a different country's league...... Just a guess though.....

1 hour ago, phantom said:

Interesting to read, I haven't been aware of mass booing for many years

You will always get the odd idiot at a game, but nothing like it used to be

I guess all will be revealed in a few hours, as tonight's silence etc will certainly being stirring emotions from some

Depends on the definition of "mass" in this context.  If it's loud enough to be picked up on TV then that's probably more than "the odd idiot".

Just smacks a little of double standards is all to complain about it being done to us.  "They were louder" is the flimiest of excuses imo.

16 minutes ago, Open End Numb Legs said:

Fairly straight forward from my point of view - their players deserve to qualify. The fans who booed our national anthem recently and hate everything English do not.

England fans have booed opponents National Anthems for donkeys years.  Does that mean we don't ever deserve to qualify?

16 hours ago, AG City said:

Nigella

@Rudolf Hucker has already had her...

25 minutes ago, PHILINFRANCE said:

I always used to feel the same about Ipswich, especially when they were being managed by the late, great Bobby Robson.

It is unfortunate that, like so many on here, my feelings have changed due to some irrational dislike for one of their senior personnel, late of this Parish.

I'm not sure any dislike of said people can be classified as irrational!

As for the video, yes...very powerful indeed. 

On 06/10/2023 at 18:32, CodeRed said:

Very true,  Simon Jordan summed up SL in one off the cuff remark when Jim White - trying to wind him up about SL & Jordan not getting along - said " Steve Lansdown's much wealthier than you" 

Jordan "yeah he is very wealthy......but he still can't get his club into the Premier League"

Whatever your view on Jordan he promised when he bought Palace he get into the PL within 5 years and he did it in 4. 

He did indeed do it in 4...but they were then relegated the following season and in Administration a few seasons after that, twice avoiding relegation to League 1 by a small margin.  I'm not sure he's really the poster boy on how to achieve it..

4 hours ago, 22A said:

OK Rovers; I've found a stadium that may be suited to your needs. It's not too far from the Mem, down at Eastville. Looks a bit ramshackle, but you're used to that.

It all makes sense now! They're trying to recreate the 48 part stadium design of Eastvile.

9 minutes ago, Lewisdabaron said:

You still say the term “coloured” ????

I'd say that's a generational thing, but at least the anti-racist sentiment is there. 

I've always found the notion of colour kinda strange anyway.  I don't look at Ephraim Yeboah and see the colour black and neither do I look at Sammy Bell and see the colour white.  They're just both different shades of brown!  The fact that black and white (and yellow & red) was a social construct by "whites" to assert superiority of white skinned people over black/non white skinned people makes it somewhat strange that we still use the terms black & white considering its history.   It's a great thing that this is no longer the majority view in the world, but considering much of the world is trying to rid itself of its historic ties to racism it's mildly ironic that such an archaic term remains.

I was a child of the 80's and so grew up with the term coloured being preferred because black was seen as offensive because of the context it was used in - "You black bastard" and all that.  Over the years that viewpoint has swapped over and a lot of people who were adults in that era probably haven't adjusted or see anything wrong with it.

Interestingly, and maybe confusingly for some, the term "person of colour" is still used without being frowned upon, and is actually considered by some to be a more positive alternative to BAME (source The Law Society June '23).  With terminology changing all the time it's inevitable that people will fall foul .

16 minutes ago, phantom said:

The other point, is how big the allocations were for the grounds these clubs have played

This is probably more relevant stat.  Percentage of allocation sold would probably add a little more context (though I realise that away support allocation may differ from opponent to opponent.)

On 28/09/2023 at 14:53, Silvio Dante said:

It’s a long time ago when we were punching it out with them at the top of league one and they had Keogh/Sharp up top.

However, what’s coming out of Scunnie currently is wild. We’ll all be aware of their charitable status of playing the youth team against Rovers in their last league game - they then went straight through the national league and are in NLN. Multiple signings made, generally players too good for that level. But then, things started to take a turn.

A chap called David Hilton took charge earlier this year. The Athletic, earlier this month, published an investigation into Hilton and uncovered he had served time for fraud. Hilton then issued via the club a long and fairly ranty statement.

So far, so dodgy owner.

Earlier this week, Scunthorpe began banning fans who had criticised the club/Hilton on social media. This didn’t go down well and Hilton’s response when it was pointed out was..interesting…

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the "There to stupid" bit of that message!

11 hours ago, Davefevs said:

By 2052 the atmosphere / noise in the ground is so quiet, Downsy no longer needs a sound system.

To be honest we don't need Downsy to have a sound system now....switching off the mic would be a massive start!

8 minutes ago, Cidre Monita said:

But you read it. A bit of tongue in cheek fun my friend. I sincerely apologise my next post will be focused on more important things, as per your guidance. Keep an eye out for my agenda based threads on the Ukraine war, government corruption and child poverty in India. 

Yeah......you forgot to switch accounts with this reply....  Which makes your original post even more confusing?  Why set up a second account just to vomit on the keyboard?!?

His brother Drew (the other ***** in the photo) was gloating about it as well.  I've a feeling he may be changing his phone number.....