The Office (UK): Ipswich Town edition

[Southend Blue]

Should apologise for one of our fans coming on to your message board and showing an edge of disrespect.      I don't want to see rival fans fighting, it kind of makes it awkward for others who come on with good intentions and being courteous.         I don't suck up to anyone, but been here long enough to see this is a good forum with fun debate and good people.      Unfortunately we, or I, can't be responsible for others words or actions.        

We know what the problem is, it's by and large down to one individual.      I'm going to overlook Mark Ashton for now, he seems to cause problems between sets of fans, but you would have seen McKenna has extended his contract for another four years.      I don't think he'll see out that exact amount of time with us but it's good news indeed.        At the back of my mind and doubtless some others was McKenna just a one season / 18 month wonder - can he hope to replicate that same success in a higher league - but after nearly 20 years of absolute rubbish and severe underachievement - a succession of failed inept managers - we now have something to get excited about.  

Will we get promoted a second time ?     I don't think so, some fans with us seem to be eyeing up a finish that in truth is outside the realms of reality but I say this - We'll give it a go and see where it takes us.      Any Town fans coming on, try to play nice.   

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, 1960maaan said:

But everyone here enjoyed all the new players coming in, until we realised the mess he was making.

Not all of us!

@Dom1969

as you know I post on TWTD.

so far, two years into his tenure of Portman Road you’ve seen one set of accounts.

you lost £12.645m.  You finished outside the playoffs in that season.  Your CEO told you in’s and outs were net zero.  He lied.

That Ioss was bigger than any other in the past 10 years…I couldn’t be arsed to go back further.

A couple of your posters on TWTD understand the accounts and FFP (I’ve educated a few more on your behalf on your forum as some thought Arizona Firefighters Pension Fund could just buy promotion - FFP in the Championship doesn’t work like it does in Lg1) and expect similar losses again for your season just gone…and that’s with good revenue increase…probably higher again.

Your wage bill will continue to go up, your “other costs” will also, and although you’ll increase commercial revenues you’re already near max attendances, so you can’t sweat that mi h more.  Your amortisation will grow as you pay more in transfer fees too.  Most of your players will’ve had promotion bonuses (another cost, luckily  excluded from FFP), but also promotion wage increases in their contracts (not excluded from FFP).

These are the signs.

When you hear a bloke tell you that this summers transfers will make you net neutral over the time he’s been here, you can take that at face value, or you can sense-check it.  1) you haven’t produced accounts for 22/23 yet, nor 2) does he know how much it’s gonna cost to get the squad prepped for this coming season.  Season 22/23’s transfer activity shows a net spend (I hate its use) of £5m more than you brought in.  Even in amortised  costs he’s still creating a deficit.

So he’s already lied once about being net zero.  Unless you aren’t gonna spend any money this summer and in fact are gonna sell your way to net neutral, he’s lying again.

Lap it up.  Laugh at bitter / jealous little old Bristol City. 

Some on here did the same when we were selling Flint, Bryan, Reid, Kodjia etc…then Kelly, Webster (your man), and Brownhill.  You haven’t even had to sell the family silver yet and deficits are being created.

Next time he does a fans forum, just ask him to qualify how all he calculates his net neutral.  He’s bullshitting you.

What you do on the pitch is largely irrelevant to me, what he does to a decent club like yours off the pitch does.

I cared what Mel Morris did to Derby.  I stopped caring when the Dumb Derby fans (not all) were loving it, thinking Mel had everyone on strings.

I cared what Steve Dale did to Bury.  They didn’t make it!

I’ve seen how this bloke operated at 3 clubs.

Maybe Ipswich are 4th time lucky for him.

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, Southend Blue said:

Should apologise for one of our fans coming on to your message board and showing an edge of disrespect.      I don't want to see rival fans fighting, it kind of makes it awkward for others who come on with good intentions and being courteous.         I don't suck up to anyone, but been here long enough to see this is a good forum with fun debate and good people.      Unfortunately we, or I, can't be responsible for others words or actions.        

We know what the problem is, it's by and large down to one individual.      I'm going to overlook Mark Ashton for now, he seems to cause problems between sets of fans, but you would have seen McKenna has extended his contract for another four years.      I don't think he'll see out that exact amount of time with us but it's good news indeed.        At the back of my mind and doubtless some others was McKenna just a one season / 18 month wonder - can he hope to replicate that same success in a higher league - but after nearly 20 years of absolute rubbish and severe underachievement - a succession of failed inept managers - we now have something to get excited about.  

Will we get promoted a second time ?     I don't think so, some fans with us seem to be eyeing up a finish that in truth is outside the realms of reality but I say this - We'll give it a go and see where it takes us.      Any Town fans coming on, try to play nice.   

No need to apologise.

As for McKenna, he looks a good manager.  I watched his contract interview this morning, I see honesty and humility.  I see clarity in what he’s trying to do.  I’ve listened to several others from him, he was a very good recruit.

Like all supporter groups there are good and bad.

One of your TWTD posters said today he couldn’t name one Bristol City player, and yet we are obsessive because we know yours.  I think that says more about their football knowledge than anything.  Another said not one Bristol City player would get in Ipswich’s eleven.  Those are the bad examples.  But there are others who seem to have a bit more realism (like your manager) about what a step up the Champ is.

[fgrsimon]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

No need to apologise.

As for McKenna, he looks a good manager.  I watched his contract interview this morning, I see honesty and humility.  I see clarity in what he’s trying to do.  I’ve listened to several others from him, he was a very good recruit.

Like all supporter groups there are good and bad.

One of your TWTD posters said today he couldn’t name one Bristol City player, and yet we are obsessive because we know yours.  I think that says more about their football knowledge than anything.  Another said not one Bristol City player would get in Ipswich’s eleven.  Those are the bad examples.  But there are others who seem to have a bit more realism (like your manager) about what a step up the Champ is.

Before reading this thread I could only name 1 Ipswich player - Wes Burns, he couldn't get in our team when he was here and certainly wouldn't today either.

Edited June 18, 2023 by fgrsimon

[Taz]

12 hours ago, Dom1969 said:

Ipswich fan here. Feel like I need to say in peace as you have a 70 page hate thread about us, which is really weird. Is this the same Bristol City that have bounced around divisions 2,3 and 4 forever? You make Norwich City look like Man City on the honours front. 

The Ashton obsession is strange. A little worrying in some cases for you guys. He turned you from league one nobodies into championship nobodies. And your awful ground got a little better. I don’t understand the hate. Tell me otherwise.

Anyway we think he’s cool. We love his little beard and his well fitted white shirts almost as much as the fact he appointed McKenna and changed the entire ethos around the club. 

See you next season for a cider. If you want to burn some sage at Portman Road to destroy the memory of Ashton then we’d be grateful if you don’t throw the embers on our brand new pitch. 

I stopped reading after this, as factually it's incorrect.

I don't think I'm on my own when I say that nobodies really bothered by Ipswich. Ashton however is a sleezy little stain on the human race, that virtually ruined our club. How long has he been with you? Well that's how long it's taken to get us on some kind of financial level after getting rid of his overpaid contracts.

Yes he was answerable to someone above him, and yes he had somehow managed to pull the wool over his eyes by largely "being left alone to run things". Sound familiar? More fool our board for buying into the nonsense and bullshit. At least now he's somewhere away from here, and we're in a better place all over - financially, behind the scenes, medically, pretty much at every level.

In McKenna I think you've got a great coach, and think he will do well at this level. Have to admit that I don't know much about your squad, other than the fact that you have a lot of filler (we had that as well, they were called clubs in the bag), but if you leave that slimeball alone with a big bag of money for too long, then it won't be there for very long. He likes to spend it like monopoly money.

As for being championship nobodies, yeah I'll take that. Means we've been here for a while, and whilst we'd all like better, at least we're stable. How long have you been down in league 1? If you think it's going to be easy coming back up, then you may be in for a very large shock.

Finally, how many clubs have a 70 odd page thread on their forum about an ex ceo? Most clubs probably don't even know who their ceo is, or wouldn't recognise them if they bumped into them down the street. Therein lies the issue. We were warned about him from supporters from Watford and West Brom, and a few immediately started digging and became very dubious. You guys get warned and it's all head in the sand, which is fine, but don't say you weren't warned when it goes wrong, and/or the money starts running out.

It's no coincidence that he jumped ship at a time when the purse strings were being tightened, and the screw was turning on him. I guarantee you, that if you lose a few games in a row then you won't hear a word from him, however the second you get a win, then it will be all "we/me/I".

The thing is your club was being ran so poorly for so many years (yes that cap also fits us) that you seem happy to have a bit if money and someone who is very, very good at using clichés and buzzwords (I'll give him that, he is good).

Enjoy next season. I personally don't care where you finish.

[JChits_ITFC]

6 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Not all of us!

@Dom1969

as you know I post on TWTD.

so far, two years into his tenure of Portman Road you’ve seen one set of accounts.

you lost £12.645m.  You finished outside the playoffs in that season.  Your CEO told you in’s and outs were net zero.  He lied.

That Ioss was bigger than any other in the past 10 years…I couldn’t be arsed to go back further.

A couple of your posters on TWTD understand the accounts and FFP (I’ve educated a few more on your behalf on your forum as some thought Arizona Firefighters Pension Fund could just buy promotion - FFP in the Championship doesn’t work like it does in Lg1) and expect similar losses again for your season just gone…and that’s with good revenue increase…probably higher again.

Your wage bill will continue to go up, your “other costs” will also, and although you’ll increase commercial revenues you’re already near max attendances, so you can’t sweat that mi h more.  Your amortisation will grow as you pay more in transfer fees too.  Most of your players will’ve had promotion bonuses (another cost, luckily  excluded from FFP), but also promotion wage increases in their contracts (not excluded from FFP).

These are the signs.

When you hear a bloke tell you that this summers transfers will make you net neutral over the time he’s been here, you can take that at face value, or you can sense-check it.  1) you haven’t produced accounts for 22/23 yet, nor 2) does he know how much it’s gonna cost to get the squad prepped for this coming season.  Season 22/23’s transfer activity shows a net spend (I hate its use) of £5m more than you brought in.  Even in amortised  costs he’s still creating a deficit.

So he’s already lied once about being net zero.  Unless you aren’t gonna spend any money this summer and in fact are gonna sell your way to net neutral, he’s lying again.

Lap it up.  Laugh at bitter / jealous little old Bristol City. 

Some on here did the same when we were selling Flint, Bryan, Reid, Kodjia etc…then Kelly, Webster (your man), and Brownhill.  You haven’t even had to sell the family silver yet and deficits are being created.

Next time he does a fans forum, just ask him to qualify how all he calculates his net neutral.  He’s bullshitting you.

What you do on the pitch is largely irrelevant to me, what he does to a decent club like yours off the pitch does.

I cared what Mel Morris did to Derby.  I stopped caring when the Dumb Derby fans (not all) were loving it, thinking Mel had everyone on strings.

I cared what Steve Dale did to Bury.  They didn’t make it!

I’ve seen how this bloke operated at 3 clubs.

Maybe Ipswich are 4th time lucky for him.

In fairness, there has been alot of money spent on the off field as well as the squad. You're able to spend more in L1 as you've mentioned so some of this was certainly building a better side capable of competing in the championship and then having the ability to add to it. 

The stark reality of all this is that our owners are obviously prepared to invest and lose these sums of cash as without doing so, they have absolutely no chance to cash in/profit unless we win promotion which is ultimately their aim. 

Out of curiosity, are you like this towards your owner as well? Are you not trying to hound him out for allowing this to happen to your club? Why did he allow Ashton a complete free reign to do as he pleased? Surely he knew what was happening? 

[Port Said Red]

1 hour ago, JChits_ITFC said:

In fairness, there has been alot of money spent on the off field as well as the squad. You're able to spend more in L1 as you've mentioned so some of this was certainly building a better side capable of competing in the championship and then having the ability to add to it. 

The stark reality of all this is that our owners are obviously prepared to invest and lose these sums of cash as without doing so, they have absolutely no chance to cash in/profit unless we win promotion which is ultimately their aim. 

Out of curiosity, are you like this towards your owner as well? Are you not trying to hound him out for allowing this to happen to your club? Why did he allow Ashton a complete free reign to do as he pleased? Surely he knew what was happening? 

There are a bunch on here that are disappointed with the people that Lansdown has put in charge in recent years, especially Ashton. He (not Ashton) has built us a superb stadium and training facilities though, with more development to come around the ground. 

My own thought on why Ashton was given free reign for so long is that there was a long period where it looked like it was working, the cup run, the hype around the club, run to the top of the table etc. It must have been easy for Ashton to claim that just a little bit longer and a little bit more money and we will reach the promise land. But then COVID came, and the house of straw burned down around him. 

There were some that were warning us of how this could go all the way through his tenure, and to be honest I was probably as guilty as anyone when it came to being swept up in all the excitement at it's height. After years of mediocrity it was fun being the darlings of the media and having the big boys in town for a period. 

Then it was like that hangover you wake up to after your best ever New Year's Eve party and having your parents saying "I told you so" as you're trying to clean up the mess.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Port Said Red

[Gol]

1 hour ago, JChits_ITFC said:

In fairness, there has been alot of money spent on the off field as well as the squad. You're able to spend more in L1 as you've mentioned so some of this was certainly building a better side capable of competing in the championship and then having the ability to add to it. 

The stark reality of all this is that our owners are obviously prepared to invest and lose these sums of cash as without doing so, they have absolutely no chance to cash in/profit unless we win promotion which is ultimately their aim. 

Out of curiosity, are you like this towards your owner as well? Are you not trying to hound him out for allowing this to happen to your club? Why did he allow Ashton a complete free reign to do as he pleased? Surely he knew what was happening? 

Our owner has been with the club for nearly 25 years he has rebuilt the stadium and a state of the art training facility. He has spent a lot of money on the club (hundreds of millions) but generally on the footballing side has made a lot of errors in judgement. He is currently looking for external investors which is how Ashton came into contact with your owners
 

He admitted his failures and that in part as well as moving to guernsey where why he got in ‘a footballing man’ in ashton to oversee the football operation.

 

He has been criticised by our fan base for his part in the Ashton debacle. But having to cover such large losses incurred by Ashton have meant he’s changed the structure of the club so 1 man does not wield as much power as Ashton did.
 

Ashton’s replacement Richard Gould was the polar opposite to Ashton and done well to clear a lot of the mess created before becoming CEO of ECB (basically the top man in Cricket) our new CEO was Crystal Palaces CEO for 20+ years. 

[One Team]

23 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Do you know what, I think it’s re-entering the place I work in some departments….of course they aren’t called “departments” any more.  A breed of ex-consultants have come into senior positions and the waffle is filtering down.

But I just smile and invoice!

You have a point there Fevs, whilst people spot it a mile off these days it still prevails in the corporate world. It’s like a game where people try and introduce analogous words or phrases to situations to make themselves think they sound informed; when in reality most people want straight talking.  

[1960maaan]

1 hour ago, JChits_ITFC said:

In fairness, there has been alot of money spent on the off field as well as the squad. You're able to spend more in L1 as you've mentioned so some of this was certainly building a better side capable of competing in the championship and then having the ability to add to it. 

The stark reality of all this is that our owners are obviously prepared to invest and lose these sums of cash as without doing so, they have absolutely no chance to cash in/profit unless we win promotion which is ultimately their aim. 

Out of curiosity, are you like this towards your owner as well? Are you not trying to hound him out for allowing this to happen to your club? Why did he allow Ashton a complete free reign to do as he pleased? Surely he knew what was happening? 

@Port Said Red covered a lot of it, but I would add , Lansdown had been criticised for not being a football man. I think he saw Ashton as that link, one of Lansdowns great plusses turned into a major flaw, he was very loyal to friends and Lee Johnson & Mark Ashton were/are that. Add that we come up with good money sales all looked well until you realise it wasn't sustainable . Johnson should have been sacked at least a year before, Ashton must have seen how unpopular he was and the Ipswich offer would have been a dream get out. 

There had been questions about MA from day 1, I try to give people the benefit and gave Ashton the same curtesy . The bluff & Corporate speak, the constant buzzwords and the "me & I" when doing well started to grate . That he vanished during the periods of record breaking losses started to wave a red flag too. TBF LJ did shoulder blame for signings ( around 65 in 5 years) , saying he had final say. But seeing so many players come in and disappear on loan, to the ressies or just disappear makes you wonder.
If it works, then you will enjoy the ride and he will Crown himself King with the Managers and Owners playing a small part. If it starts to go wrong, I think your owners will see the problems much earlier than Steve did. 

8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Not all of us!

Sorry David, that was a generalisation , there were of course some smarty pants who saw potential problems 

[Olé]

8 hours ago, Southend Blue said:

kind of makes it awkward for others who come on with good intentions and being courteous

Thank you - you have always been courteous and understand there is no malice beyond the self promotion of Mark Ashton. The idea we don't like Ipswich Town is proven to be wrong. The last time we hosted you we literally gave Stefan Marinovic his only ever game for us to try and keep you up. https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/111268177/all-whites-goalkeeper-stefan-marinovic-endures-shaky-bristol-city-debut

[JChits_ITFC]

39 minutes ago, Gol said:

Our owner has been with the club for nearly 25 years he has rebuilt the stadium and a state of the art training facility. He has spent a lot of money on the club (hundreds of millions) but generally on the footballing side has made a lot of errors in judgement. He is currently looking for external investors which is how Ashton came into contact with your owners
 

He admitted his failures and that in part as well as moving to guernsey where why he got in ‘a footballing man’ in ashton to oversee the football operation.

 

He has been criticised by our fan base for his part in the Ashton debacle. But having to cover such large losses incurred by Ashton have meant he’s changed the structure of the club so 1 man does not wield as much power as Ashton did.
 

Ashton’s replacement Richard Gould was the polar opposite to Ashton and done well to clear a lot of the mess created before becoming CEO of ECB (basically the top man in Cricket) our new CEO was Crystal Palaces CEO for 20+ years. 

So why was he covering losses then? You'd assume that he was the one that signed off all these losses originally? If he's taking credit for the stadium and training ground etc, then why does he not take full blame for agreeing to spend money you clearly couldn't afford? 

It doesn't really add up does it? 

[One Team]

9 minutes ago, Olé said:

Thank you - you have always been courteous and understand there is no malice beyond the self promotion of Mark Ashton. The idea we don't like Ipswich Town is proven to be wrong. The last time we hosted you we literally gave Stefan Marinovic his only ever game for us to try and keep you up. https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/111268177/all-whites-goalkeeper-stefan-marinovic-endures-shaky-bristol-city-debut

Indeed @Olé it’s Mark Ashton we don’t like, not Ipswich Town FC itself. 

[slartibartfast]

51 minutes ago, Gol said:

Our owner has been with the club for nearly 25 years he has rebuilt the stadium and a state of the art training facility. He has spent a lot of money on the club (hundreds of millions) but generally on the footballing side has made a lot of errors in judgement. He is currently looking for external investors which is how Ashton came into contact with your owners
 

He admitted his failures and that in part as well as moving to guernsey where why he got in ‘a footballing man’ in ashton to oversee the football operation.

 

He has been criticised by our fan base for his part in the Ashton debacle. But having to cover such large losses incurred by Ashton have meant he’s changed the structure of the club so 1 man does not wield as much power as Ashton did.
 

Ashton’s replacement Richard Gould was the polar opposite to Ashton and done well to clear a lot of the mess created before becoming CEO of ECB (basically the top man in Cricket) our new CEO was Crystal Palaces CEO for 20+ years. 

Mark Ashton..................the Liz Truss of Bristol City !

[Port Said Red]

20 minutes ago, slartibartfast said:

Mark Ashton..................the Liz Truss of Bristol City !

 

[Dr Balls]

27 minutes ago, slartibartfast said:

Mark Ashton..................the Liz Truss of Bristol City !

Isn’t Liz Truss a plastic Norwich fan, given her constituency is in Norfolk? That alone should have Ipswich fans worried about Ashton!

[Olé]

8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

What you do on the pitch is largely irrelevant to me, what he does to a decent club like yours off the pitch does.

I cared what Mel Morris did to Derby.  I stopped caring when the Dumb Derby fans (not all) were loving it, thinking Mel had everyone on strings.

I cared what Steve Dale did to Bury.  They didn’t make it!

Amen Dave. Fantastic summary.

One of the things that makes questioning of our Mark Ashton "hate" all the more odd is the fact that 99.9% of the discussion on him on OTIB (and your response is a great example) deal only in the well known facts and provable history and actually swerve all the repeated innuendo that "explain" his way of operating. We're actually pretty tame. If we were really obsessed we'd take Ipswich chat back into questionable legal territory.

• We don't talk about why he pours money into players from the same agents over and over again
• We don't talk about related private companies that he is involved in or commission back channels
• We don't talk about incidents at the club requiring non disclosure and confidentiality agreements
• We don't care as much as we should that he courted Ipswich's US investors while working for us

Bloke has gone from earning £450k a year as CEO of a Championship club to earning over £900k a year as CEO of what was a League One club. As always it's about maximising his own income most of all. 

There's a perfect football analogy for him. He's a "route one" businessman. Arrive, massively inflate the output of the organisation (spend more, do more, without much balance or control). Fans all get excited. Inflating what the club spends and what it trades enables him to take a larger salary as a cut of this output (and any other benefits that come his way in doing so). But ultimately someone has to pay for all this excess, and while he's around that means selling all the assets (based on his scattergun transfer record not usually assets of his own making!). But after he's gone (and made a fortune) it means the club requiring one almighty reset.

When fans believe - and let's be honest we did once, and @Dom1969 is doing the same now - everyone always says what a great speaker he is. There's a reason why he does all this endless PR that no other normal football club CEO does (no seriously, they really don't and that's part of the fun of this thread). The racket above ONLY works by being right there in plain sight, grinning away, selling the storyline, giving people a vision to justify pumping endless cash into and then right back out of the club from investors. He's had incredibly little success doing this other than his income. If we're obsessed it's only that he keeps getting away with it.

[Olé]

3 hours ago, JChits_ITFC said:

Out of curiosity, are you like this towards your owner as well? Are you not trying to hound him out for allowing this to happen to your club? Why did he allow Ashton a complete free reign to do as he pleased? Surely he knew what was happening? 

Great post and great question. As should now be obvious, Mark can be highly convincing to all those around him. It's too easy to call him a BS salesman because he's more measured than that and took in our VERY successful owner and kept him close and made him feel involved and can clearly articulate a narrative to explain the increasing levels of expenditure and trading. He's somewhat convincing as a businessman. 

One of the oddities of Mark Ashton is there's a frustrated failed footballer in there somewhere more so than actual proven businessman. He was a reserve goalkeeper who never really played. (No slight, he's done more than I can even dream of), but it means he's been playing out his career vicariously through an administrator/leadership role instead. Highly visible, highly audible, literally seeking the clichéd fame and fortune.

The trouble is his only style of "play" is to go direct. Spend a lot of money, drive a change agenda, ratchet up the club. There's nothing wrong with most of this except for one crucial thing. He's not very good at it. It's a volume not value gig for him, throw enough shit at the wall. It occurred to me this is where his attempt to be the football hero he wished he was diverges. Footballers can't hide. But Mark the CEO does and will.

There is no doubt he pushes clubs "forward" and that is a positive thing and owners appreciate it. But he does not do so sustainably and ultimately it's about maximising his own income and exposure (compared to say a company founder or owner who takes on risk and puts success before personal income). His own reward is his only constant. All the PR is a vehicle for that which is why he quickly goes missing when it's going badly. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, JChits_ITFC said:

So why was he covering losses then? You'd assume that he was the one that signed off all these losses originally? If he's taking credit for the stadium and training ground etc, then why does he not take full blame for agreeing to spend money you clearly couldn't afford? 

It doesn't really add up does it? 

The Championship is a money pit so I'm not fully sure what point you're trying to make with this. The FFP loss is the big factor here.

Yeah SL took his eye off the ball, or got carried away. Perhaps a mix of the 2.

Training Ground and stadium yeah he has been putting the infrastructure in place. Bit like Brighton did. Academy is vastly improved too.

Covid didn't help but we certainly cannot blame that for our woes, to an extent but the wage bill, indeed the increasing wage bill and amortisation were underpinned by a profit on disposal of players which is mad when you think about.

Because of Ashton and terrible oversight of him by SL, we have just had 18 months to 2 years of austerity. We've narrowly avoided damaging FFP sanctions. Lee Johnson and his constant churn of players didn't help either.

We owe a significant debt of gratitude to Gould and Pearson.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[Gol]

1 hour ago, JChits_ITFC said:

So why was he covering losses then? You'd assume that he was the one that signed off all these losses originally? If he's taking credit for the stadium and training ground etc, then why does he not take full blame for agreeing to spend money you clearly couldn't afford? 

It doesn't really add up does it? 

He did sign them off and is covering them. He has been a generous owner which is to be commended but  there are lots of threads on here criticising him  and his involvement or lack thereof in footballing matters.

he admitted that he left footballing matters to Ashton and let him have too much power whilst blame should be apportioned to him (and has been), most should go to the person who caused the mess

the fact he is a bristol born billionaire gives him a certain amount of slack with some of our fanbase imo the ones who want him out know he’s looking for an external investor so are satisfied with that.

with regards to losses 99% of clubs lose money and spend what they cannot afford (you lost 12 million on your last accounts up from the previous year) so you can’t really beat him up for that.
 

All our debt is owed to him and not external creditors. With all the horror stories you see with clubs like wigan, derby, bury its a case of be careful of what you wish for and why people are happy for him to take his time finding the right investor

 

flipping it around why did you guys put up with Marcus Evans for so long? Also if he were to buy another club wouldn't some of your fans warn that club ls fan what he was like? Wouldn’t some fans keep an eye on what was happening at said club and talk about it?

[Davefevs]

4 hours ago, JChits_ITFC said:

Out of curiosity, are you like this towards your owner as well? Are you not trying to hound him out for allowing this to happen to your club? Why did he allow Ashton a complete free reign to do as he pleased? Surely he knew what was happening? 

To summarise my stance on Steve Lansdown is - thanks for the investment, but no thanks for certain ways he’s run the club.

To go deeper….

The first thing you need to realise is that Ashton came in initially as Consultant in 2012-ish, changed recruitment (people, processes and systems)…and we got relegated.  Now I can’t say he was responsible for that, but the squad become full over average overpaid players.

To hear that he came back in Dec 2015 (officially appointed after he’d sacked Steve Cotterill in early 2016) sent shivers through some fans bones.  Lansdown brought him back to do the dirty deed.  Cotts had thrown Ashton’s processes and system in the bin and had an ally in Keith Burt who he knew at Forest to build the best recruitment we’d seen since Alan Dicks.

So why did SL bring back MA?

Because he’d started to take a back seat with his move to Guernsey, had put his son Jon into place, but aided by the astute Keith Dawe - a long-term friend and successful businessman to be Jon’s guide.  Keith became ill, Jon clearly wasn’t able to step-up so SL brought MA in.  The smarmy Brummie was looking for an exit at Oxford (With his of West Brom mentor Mike O’Leary!), where’d “done a Watford” and would “do a Bristol City” too!

SL was out of reach, Jon out of his depth.  Absolutely perfect breeding ground for MA to grow his perceived self-importance.  The removal of Keith Burt, the self-promotion from COO, to CEO.  The promotion of Luke Werhun (brother-in-law or cousin or whatever) from secretary to head of operations.  Werhun hasn’t had a job in his life without being under Ashton.  Jon not smart enough to see what was going on.  Hugely disappointing that SL the Accountant couldn’t see what was going on.

So yes! I’m hugely critical of Steve Lansdown.

I don’t blame Ashton entirely either.

Along with SL and Lee Johnson there was collective blame, but that still makes him a slimy shit.  It makes SL naive.

2 hours ago, JChits_ITFC said:

So why was he covering losses then? You'd assume that he was the one that signed off all these losses originally? If he's taking credit for the stadium and training ground etc, then why does he not take full blame for agreeing to spend money you clearly couldn't afford? 

It doesn't really add up does it? 

Because I feel there’s a bit of 1) a philanthropist in him 2) a bit of guilt for not paying his UK taxes.  So he wants to give a bit back to the City of Bristol.  He also wanted to give his son (only child) something to inherit.  It’s as simple as that.  Unfortunately Jon doesn’t want it, hence why now Steve is looking for investment and looking to rein-in how much he needs to pump in each year.

(edit - corrected by View From The Dolman - thx)

1 hour ago, Olé said:

Amen Dave. Fantastic summary.

One of the things that makes questioning of our Mark Ashton "hate" all the more odd is the fact that 99.9% of the discussion on him on OTIB (and your response is a great example) deal only in the well known facts and provable history and actually swerve all the repeated innuendo that "explain" his way of operating. We're actually pretty tame. If we were really obsessed we'd take Ipswich chat back into questionable legal territory.

• We don't talk about why he pours money into players from the same agents over and over again
• We don't talk about related private companies that he is involved in or commission back channels
• We don't talk about incidents at the club requiring non disclosure and confidentiality agreements
• We don't care as much as we should that he courted Ipswich's US investors while working for us

Bloke has gone from earning £450k a year as CEO of a Championship club to earning over £900k a year as CEO of what was a League One club. As always it's about maximising his own income most of all. 

There's a perfect football analogy for him. He's a "route one" businessman. Arrive, massively inflate the output of the organisation (spend more, do more, without much balance or control). Fans all get excited. Inflating what the club spends and what it trades enables him to take a larger salary as a cut of this output (and any other benefits that come his way in doing so). But ultimately someone has to pay for all this excess, and while he's around that means selling all the assets (based on his scattergun transfer record not usually assets of his own making!). But after he's gone (and made a fortune) it means the club requiring one almighty reset.

When fans believe - and let's be honest we did once, and @Dom1969 is doing the same now - everyone always says what a great speaker he is. There's a reason why he does all this endless PR that no other normal football club CEO does (no seriously, they really don't and that's part of the fun of this thread). The racket above ONLY works by being right there in plain sight, grinning away, selling the storyline, giving people a vision to justify pumping endless cash into and then right back out of the club from investors. He's had incredibly little success doing this other than his income. If we're obsessed it's only that he keeps getting away with it.

Poetic Ole.  I didn’t want to go into the “other stuff” the percents of the percents of the transfer supply chain,

@JChits_ITFC - go and look at the increase in Agent fees paid by Ipswich circa £850k.  It’s there on the EFL website.  If you want I’ve extracted it into a spreadsheet, you can see you are paying vast sums, out of kilter for Lg1.  Only Derby paid more (circa £1m).  Nobody in Lg1 got near half of your amount.

1 hour ago, Olé said:

One of the oddities of Mark Ashton is there's a frustrated failed footballer in there somewhere more so than actual proven businessman. He was a reserve goalkeeper who never really played. (No slight, he's done more than I can even dream of), but it means he's been playing out his career vicariously through an administrator/leadership role instead. Highly visible, highly audible, literally seeking the clichéd fame and fortune.

You may have seen my tweet yesterday, summarised by two hashtags:

#wannabe

#nevergonnabe

A desperation to be seen as a “footballer” amongst footballers.  The two times I’ve been in his company he is so out of place, trying to tag into football conversation groups between players and fans and quickly realising he’s out of place, before moving onto another group, repeat.  It’s all a bit sad in a way.  He’ll throw in the “did I tell you about when I played against Real Madrid, Sam Allardyce said I’m a better CEO than goalkeeper”…and players and fans tumbleweed drifts across the room.  Now some may think that’s unfair.  Well, when Marina Dolman joins the same group, everyone stops, fully respecting her, and she joins in seamlessly.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Davefevs

[View from the Dolman]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

... He also wanted to give his son (only child) something to inherit... 

That's not true - Jon isn't the only child, there's also daughter Amy. 

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, View from the Dolman said:

That's not true - Jon isn't the only child, there's also daughter Amy. 

Really…I did not know that…I stand corrected.  Thanks.

[LondonBristolian]

2 hours ago, JChits_ITFC said:

So why was he covering losses then? You'd assume that he was the one that signed off all these losses originally? If he's taking credit for the stadium and training ground etc, then why does he not take full blame for agreeing to spend money you clearly couldn't afford? 

It doesn't really add up does it? 

You're right, of course. Ultimately Steve Lansdown has to take responsibility for spending money we couldn't afford and I think most people who post on here have got a pretty balanced view of his strengths and his mistakes. There is no doubt that poor decision-making and has landed the club in a worse financial shape than should have happened and there is a fair chance that an owner who put the investment Lansdown did without the mistakes might find themselves owning a Premier League team by now. Furthermore, it's never really been clear whether Lansdown fully acknowledges quite how messy things had got by the time Richard Gould took over, or whether Ashton would still be in a job had he not moved to Ipswich of his own accord.

However we also recognise that - mistakes or not - he HAS put the investment in and has always tried to do the best for the club. If I recall correctly, Ipswich are one of the countless clubs who've had fingers burned in the past by owners who sweep in and make decisions that appear to be far more related to their own financial gain than the benefit of the club, and obviously there are countless clubs who've sadly seen catastrophic damage as a result. Lansdown is imperfect and there's a lot many of us wish he had done differently but I think most of us also recognise there's a lot that could have gone much worse. Ultimately it comes down to the Aesop's fable of the frogs who prayed to God for a King and were provided with a log and told to worship that. When they wanted something more dynamic, God sent them a water snake instead which ate the frogs. Some Bristol City fans would quite happily welcome someone other than Lansdown taking over. But there's also got to be a realisation we don't know whether whoever we got instead would make us much better or much worse. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by LondonBristolian

[View from the Dolman]

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Really…I did not know that…I stand corrected.  Thanks.

She's clearly not as involved in the family empire and appears to be off doing her thing although she is a director of Tuli Safari Botswana Ltd under her married name.

She did also get a trip to the palace for Steve's CBE as per the Bristol Sport website: https://www.bristol-sport.co.uk/news/steve-lansdown-receives-cbe-at-buckingham-palace/

[Davefevs]

5 minutes ago, View from the Dolman said:

She's clearly not as involved in the family empire and appears to be off doing her thing although she is a director of Tuli Safari Botswana Ltd under her married name.

She did also get a trip to the palace for Steve's CBE as per the Bristol Sport website: https://www.bristol-sport.co.uk/news/steve-lansdown-receives-cbe-at-buckingham-palace/

Ah, maybe I did know having seen that pic…old age setting in!

[Port Said Red]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Ah, maybe I did know having seen that pic…old age setting in!

Chip off the old block isn't she?

[PHILINFRANCE]

8 hours ago, View from the Dolman said:

She's clearly not as involved in the family empire and appears to be off doing her thing although she is a director of Tuli Safari Botswana Ltd under her married name.

She did also get a trip to the palace for Steve's CBE as per the Bristol Sport website: https://www.bristol-sport.co.uk/news/steve-lansdown-receives-cbe-at-buckingham-palace/

I don't recall seeing that photo before, but it is somewhat unfortunate, perhaps disrespectful even, that Steve's son has hand in his pocket on such a commemorative occasion. 

[Lydered]

3 hours ago, PHILINFRANCE said:

I don't recall seeing that photo before, but it is somewhat unfortunate, perhaps disrespectful even, that Steve's son has hand in his pocket on such a commemorative occasion. 

Really? We may not agree with some of his decision making, ie on kit designs. But to bash him for that on a photo from 5.5 years ago because you haven't seen it before now, is a bit much. I'm sure it didn't ruin Steve's day

[Unan]

On 17/06/2023 at 10:20, Davefevs said:

Do you know what, I think it’s re-entering the place I work in some departments….of course they aren’t called “departments” any more.  A breed of ex-consultants have come into senior positions and the waffle is filtering down.

But I just smile and invoice!

People try to protect their knowledge by basically saying, “Well, I understand this term and that term and what this term means.” But the reality is, most people don’t actually know what these things mean underneath. I find this very common in accounting. A lot of business people don’t know accounting, and even a lot of accountants will have fancy words for things. But when you dig underneath, they don’t really understand the principle of what’s going on below it. And if you just understand the principles, and even if you don’t understand the words, you will have an advantage in, for example, negotiating deals, because you will understand underneath how the pieces are actually moving on the board, as opposed to what they’re called.

And I think the Feynman example is, his dad would take him for walks and they would see birds. And his dad would say, “This bird is such and such a warbler,” but that doesn’t tell you anything about the bird; that tells you about humans.

And humans gave that bird that name. Really the bird, it likes to stand on one leg at this point and it likes to pick lice in its feathers, doing this, and it likes to eat these kinds of things. And it flies this way for that reason and that these are its predators and these are its prey. So, I mean, those are the kinds of things that really give you understanding. Who cares what the bird is called? The name of the bird is irrelevant. In professional life, this happens a lot, which is jargon.

So you always want to strive for understanding, not for memorization. You should be able to re-articulate it five different ways in every language that you know. Otherwise, you don’t really understand it.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Marcus Aurelius