Board rebuild first...

[WarksRobin]

I said on another thread that they need to appoint a couple of non-executive directors to add some balance to decision making

[beaverface]

10 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

The problem is that outside of the top premiership clubs who make money football clubs aren't comparable to other PLCs with vast numbers of shareholders and independent board members because they are hugely loss making and rely upon a single large shareholder putting ?£10m a year in, or whatever, to keep them solvent.

If I owned a club and it was personally financing it to that degree then I wouldn't be giving other board members the power to overrule me.

The ideal is probably a Scott Davison type Chairman bringing in, as he did, wealthy individuals as shareholders and directors to fund the club and make decisions collectively.

SL has said he is open to new investors coming in so maybe that will happen and SL will take the Scott Davison role, until then he's paying for everything so he's going to make the decisions.

I would do that, anyone would do that.

Can't really disagree with any of that. 

I suppose ultimately it all boils down to the trust that SL has with JL to run the club in the best possible way. At this juncture, it's very much looking like someone else could do a better job, but saying that, when SL had other CEO's running the club he had his fingers burnt - so I suspect there are trust issues there.

[Major Isewater]

7 hours ago, Clutton Caveman said:

No decent manager will work under the current set up.

Pearson did for quite a while before it went chest up. 

[exAtyeoMax]

1 hour ago, Major Isewater said:

Pearson did for quite a while before it went chest up. 

When did Richard Gould leave? Phil Alexander left just before Nige, didn't he?

So not long

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, exAtyeoMax said:

When did Richard Gould leave? Phil Alexander left just before Nige, didn't he?

So not long

Jan 2023.  Used that January as a handover to PA.  PA went in Sept, Nige Oct.

[Superjack]

7 hours ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

I agree Dave, I think the issue here is Manning is not the right fit nor is he up to the task. 

That's two issues.

Not wrong though.

[Superjack]

2 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

Pearson did for quite a while before it went chest up. 

Yes. 

And others will take heed.

A **** up of far reaching, calamitous proportions.

[Galley is our king]

26 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Jan 2023.  Used that January as a handover to PA.  PA went in Sept, Nige Oct.

No doubt the first one went so the other could be sacked.

PA "The club is in good hands with Nige".

PA "Pearson is football royalty"

 

[redsquirrel]

 

7 hours ago, beaverface said:

Can't really disagree with any of that. 

I suppose ultimately it all boils down to the trust that SL has with JL to run the club in the best possible way. At this juncture, it's very much looking like someone else could do a better job, but saying that, when SL had other CEO's running the club he had his fingers burnt - so I suspect there are trust issues there.

 i dont for one minute believe SL wants the club going in the direction it is.  i sincerely hope hes told his son he doesnt want to step in again but if he does have to,it wont be good for him and tinnion,or something along those lines. i dont see how they can change it tho without at least one of them falling on their sword and i dont think it will be jonboy, it would be his lagacy to lose one day. as for manning,we all know hes crap but maybe he might be better if he wasnt being told what to do

[Clutton Caveman]

22 hours ago, BrizzleRed said:

The conundrum is, what are the chances of this shower actually identifying, or even wanting that right manager, let alone convincing them to come here under the current regime?

It feels like we’re in a real catch 22 situation right now and the only way it appears that can be broken is if the man at the top decides to finally sell up.

Can you imagine the job advertisement

Wanted Championship Level Head Coach

No experience or track record needed

Must be prepared to work with almost no budget and to sell any player that can attract a fee over £3 million. Must never disagree with the Director or Sport or the owners son and must take 100% of the flack when things go wrong. 

Must be prepared to accept that what ever squad you get is "play off ready" and must not ask for a decent striker because Arsenal manage without one. 

Must be a master of bulls**t and deflection and must accept that after failing at BCFC you will probably only get a job in League 1 or 2 or Scotland. This should not be a concern because you are probably best at that level anyway.

Must be able to talk about promotion whilst keeping a straight face and most importantly must not give a s**t what the fans think.

[ExiledAjax]

16 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Jan 2023.  Used that January as a handover to PA.  PA went in Sept, Nige Oct.

Sometimes I struggle to believe that it's only 13.5 months since Gould left.

[SecretSam]

On 18/03/2024 at 10:28, Moulin Rougier said:

The value of the work Richard Gould did is becoming increasingly evident day by day! Dam his love of cricket!

And to think there were plenty on here who said he was a terrible appointment, because he didn't know about football. 

[SecretSam]

On 18/03/2024 at 11:29, Mattredrobin said:

Not sure you can suggest that the lansdowns heart is not in the right place, Steve Lansdown has provided so much for this club we should be massively grateful.

It's his judgement that's the issue, the fact that his heart seems to have taken over from the head in the decision making process

[SecretSam]

On 18/03/2024 at 12:53, Shauntaylor85 said:

I agree Dave, I think the issue here is Manning is not the right fit nor is he up to the task. 

No, I think it's much, much bigger than that

[BrizzleRed]

10 minutes ago, Clutton Caveman said:

Can you imagine the job advertisement

Wanted Championship Level Head Coach

No experience or track record needed

Must be prepared to work with almost no budget and to sell any player that can attract a fee over £3 million. Must never disagree with the Director or Sport or the owners son and must take 100% of the flack when things go wrong. 

Must be prepared to accept that what ever squad you get is "play off ready" and must not ask for a decent striker because Arsenal manage without one. 

Must be a master of bulls**t and deflection and must accept that after failing at BCFC you will probably only get a job in League 1 or 2 or Scotland. This should not be a concern because you are probably best at that level anyway.

Must be able to talk about promotion whilst keeping a straight face and most importantly must not give a s**t what the fans think.

So right.
 It’s ridiculous isn’t it and I don’t believe it would be possible for this club to be more shambolically run.  

It amazes me that there are still fans supporting Lansdown, after the shitshow he’s turned us into.  Why the **** is he still here, if he cares so little about our club?

[BrizzleRed]

13 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Sometimes I struggle to believe that it's only 13.5 months since Gould left.

How the hell can we have gone so far backwards, in so little time?!

Every time we appear to be making some form of progress, (under Cotterill and Pearson as examples), it gets soundly stamped on and we revert to type.

[Mattredrobin]

23 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

It's his judgement that's the issue, the fact that his heart seems to have taken over from the head in the decision making process

Oh yes completely agree about his judgement. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

On 18/03/2024 at 13:11, Eddie Hitler said:

If I owned a club and it was personally financing it to that degree then I wouldn't be giving other board members the power to overrule me.

That's a symptom of having owners who are not present in this country.

We basically have people at this club who act as if it is their club and do as they please because they want to be the one who wants to take credit from the man at the top. 

The club is rotten from the core. 

The politics that go on at Bristol City/Bristol Sport would put the Conservative party to shame. 

The club is very bizarre and that's as much as I'm willing to say on that.

 

[Robbored]

On 18/03/2024 at 10:16, Davefevs said:

I still think a manager could perform in spite of what’s above him…and actually influence those above to change / educate them.  But appreciate it might need an ally or at least someone with an open mind in there too.

Nige tried that Dave and look what happened to him.

[Davefevs]

Hmmmmm!

 

[W-S-M Seagull]

18 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

How the hell can we have gone so far backwards, in so little time?!

Every time we appear to be making some form of progress, (under Cotterill and Pearson as examples), it gets soundly stamped on and we revert to type.

That's what happens when you have a lack of leadership. Things turn to shit pretty quickly. 

Remember having supply teachers at school? It would always be chaos. 

That's what has happened here, our club has been left in the hands of incompetent people and because of that everything is turning shit.

[W-S-M Seagull]

4 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Nige tried that Dave and look what happened to him.

People often sat SL is uncomfortable with being challenged. That may be so but I'm not sure I entirely agree.

In my opinion it was actually the people like Tinnion etc etc that felt threatened by Nige. Hence moves were made to get Nige out of the club. 

It's the people between the owner and the manager that you need to look at in my opinion. They know they are incompetent so will do all they can to protect their position and their livelihood. 

[SecretSam]

6 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

People often sat SL is uncomfortable with being challenged. That may be so but I'm not sure I entirely agree.

In my opinion it was actually the people like Tinnion etc etc that felt threatened by Nige. Hence moves were made to get Nige out of the club. 

It's the people between the owner and the manager that you need to look at in my opinion. They know they are incompetent so will do all they can to protect their position and their livelihood. 

I very much doubt SL is uncomfortable with being challenged; the mark of a good leader is that you appoint good people and listen to their advice. You don't have to like it. @Davefevs posting of what Radcliffe says sums it up - get good people in place. We had that with Gould, for example. But he was always going to leave for the ECB job.

[BrizzleRed]

2 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

That's what happens when you have a lack of leadership. Things turn to shit pretty quickly. 

Remember having supply teachers at school? It would always be chaos. 

That's what has happened here, our club has been left in the hands of incompetent people and because of that everything is turning shit.

What baffles me is, even if it turns out that Hargreaves was the real brains behind Hargreaves Lansdown, SL can’t be daft.  He must see his investment turning to shit under his idiot son, so why is he sitting back and letting it happen?

I can’t think what the benefit is for him hanging on to the club, but I do wonder if there may be some benefits we aren’t aware of, or why bother?

We all speculate that he’s priced the club so high he can’t sell, but its value is only going one way at the moment.  A good business man would realise that, drop the price, cut the losses and get out now.  

He clearly doesn’t love the club, so he is either a piss poor businessman and football club owner, or he has some other reason for hanging on, when he shows no interest in improving matters and is actually strangling the life out of the club and totally alienating the fanbase.

[Eddie Hitler]

20 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

That's a symptom of having owners who are not present in this country.

We basically have people at this club who act as if it is their club and do as they please because they want to be the one who wants to take credit from the man at the top. 

The club is rotten from the core. 

The politics that go on at Bristol City/Bristol Sport would put the Conservative party to shame. 

The club is very bizarre and that's as much as I'm willing to say on that.

 

 

That is though the position of most non-Premiership and quite a few Premiership clubs though.

I know that Exeter is owned by a fans trust so I wondered what their finances were looking like.

Not bad at all is the answer.  Clubs don't have to be run at a stonking loss if they are well run.

 

Columns are the latest accounts, to 30 June 2022 and then 2021:

Profit (no debt interest!)

Balance sheet:

[Eddie Hitler]

6 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

What baffles me is, even if it turns out that Hargreaves was the real brains behind Hargreaves Lansdown, SL can’t be daft.

 

They clearly made a good team.

I have noted that I find SL to be ridiculously stubborn but if you're stubborn over the right things then that's a good thing.

Here his stubborness manifests himself in denying the obvious because the fans are calling for it and he refuses to back down, e.g. LJ being retained well past his sell by date.

[SecretSam]

50 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

What baffles me is, even if it turns out that Hargreaves was the real brains behind Hargreaves Lansdown, SL can’t be daft.  He must see his investment turning to shit under his idiot son, so why is he sitting back and letting it happen?

Because it's ultimately likely to be his son's money in the end, anyway. 

[Davefevs]

43 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

That is though the position of most non-Premiership and quite a few Premiership clubs though.

I know that Exeter is owned by a fans trust so I wondered what their finances were looking like.

Not bad at all is the answer.  Clubs don't have to be run at a stonking loss if they are well run.

 

Columns are the latest accounts, to 30 June 2022 and then 2021:

Profit (no debt interest!)

Balance sheet:

I agree with the sentiments.

I think it was @ollywhyte who said Plymouth owner was realising that being wonderfully run in Lg1 becomes a different kettle of fish / financial burden in the Championship.

[Eddie Hitler]

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I agree with the sentiments.

I think it was @ollywhyte who said Plymouth owner was realising that being wonderfully run in Lg1 becomes a different kettle of fish / financial burden in the Championship.

 

Simon Hallett, well intentioned chap. He was allowed to buy a stake by Martin Brent to make sure that he looked like a reasonable person to be owner and after a year or so Brent sold him the rest of the shares.

Brent was almost a reluctant owner who took over when Plymouth was in one of its regular going bust phases with the promise to return it to financial stability which he absolutely did and had them turning a small profit.

Hallett also looked sensible and did the right things but then promotion to the Championship happened and all the costs went up, then he realised that he was rich enough to underwrite a league 1 club, but not a championship club for which realistically you need to have in the hundreds of millions.

[fisherrich]

1 hour ago, BrizzleRed said:

What baffles me is, even if it turns out that Hargreaves was the real brains behind Hargreaves Lansdown, SL can’t be daft.  He must see his investment turning to shit under his idiot son, so why is he sitting back and letting it happen?

I can’t think what the benefit is for him hanging on to the club, but I do wonder if there may be some benefits we aren’t aware of, or why bother?

We all speculate that he’s priced the club so high he can’t sell, but its value is only going one way at the moment.  A good business man would realise that, drop the price, cut the losses and get out now.  

He clearly doesn’t love the club, so he is either a piss poor businessman and football club owner, or he has some other reason for hanging on, when he shows no interest in improving matters and is actually strangling the life out of the club and totally alienating the fanbase.

Maybe there is some deal/takeover being discussed currently. Anyone with the finger on the pulse would be acting. Fingers crossed hopefully.