Match Thread Home v Northampton Sat 20th Nov @3.00pm

The Athletic spent a day with him, that was his summing up
Some good sound bites in there
“I do believe we are arriving back at a point where the complaints are about players or the design of the kit,” adds Sparks with a wry smile, “rather than whether the club is financially broken, the stadium is a dump or who is in the boardroom.”
“There have been sleepless nights,” admits Sparks. “Genuinely the first was when we had to let Stuart, an icon of Bradford City, go. It was at that moment, probably around 5am and I’m thinking about what needed to be done, I realised the difference between being at the top and two notches down from the top.”

 

Funnily enough it is the clubs who's supporters did nothing and allowed their clubs to to be run by bad owners who have suffered with some ending in non league

 

If he genuinely believes that it is worrying he is so far out of touch ,with the supporters,

 

Can you name an instance where fans have actually stopped a club going down the toilet?

Wigan
Derby
Reading
Macclesfield
Bury
Wimbledon

Southend were protesting months before non league and is still a basket case of a club.

i love this idea that “fan power” is a thing but its none existent. last thing a club needs is a boycott. How is it supposed to continue if it gets no cash in?

 

What a load of old bollocks.

 

Exactly what I thought too.

 

The club is a bit of an oil tanker but it didn't take that much stopping last time we managed to go from play offs to last pretty quick if memory serves correctly

 

Guess if we are an oil tanker, then we must be the Torre Canyon. Showing my age there.

 

Admittedly there were far more things in play that just supporters' actions, but protests and boycotts did play a part in the regime change at Blackpool, and lower down the leagues, Hereford Utd (which led to the phoenix club Hereford FC).

Though we can be dissatisfied with things as they stand, we are nowhere near the states those clubs were in.

RCB

 

Blackpool only changed hands because the convicted rapist had to sell the club when the courts ruled he illegally stripped the club in 2010. He owed £31M.

There is very little fans can do and in most cases harms the club more than anything. Such as at oldham, it is a really sorry state but throwing tennis balls on the pitch does nothing for 1) attracting footballers 2) having a winning mindset.

To me it boils down to the current state of entitlement and a now or never mentality.

personally I just enjoy going to city and if it makes me a happy clapper or whatever so be it. I pay to go to city not to pay for decent football. If i did id just be another plastic fan.

Rant over!

 

'Save the club' from what, though?

The club is running fine as far as any of us can tell, the club is in no peril, there is no jeopardy, the club is being run in a self-sufficient manner, does the club really need saving?

I know people are unhappy that the club isn't receiving serious investment either on the pitch or off it, but it hardly needs 'saving' - we're not on a cliff edge, it's just that some people choose to feel that way because they're not satisfied. Dissatisfaction and danger are worlds apart, whether we like it or not.

I'm absolutely an advocate of a quality DoF, I think people opposing the idea are frankly crazy, I just can't understand where they're coming from at all - I've never heard a convincing argument that it's all just fine long term to let manager's manage and then jump aboard the merry go round of players and coaches, because that is what has disillusioned people, not the fact that Rupp isn't spending quarter of a million pounds on a top quality lower league striker.

There is absolutely no reason this club cannot succeed within it's means IF it chose to actually try to maximise it's potential and increase it's chances of doing well by having a figurehead that plans well in advance and helps run the club in a coherent manner. Which, I don't give a damn what anyone says, is STILL NOT happening.

All this 'In Adams We Trust' stuff is literally a three year plan at best and beyond that, back to spinning the wheel and scrapping around in the dirt for an identity and culture within the club. Sparks has proven beyond question that he is not capable of planning long term, nor should he necessarily be tasked with that. He's a young CEO, not a footballing expert, let him do his job and let someone else do the very, very necessary job of actually BEING that football expert.

We don't need saving, we need organising and running properly.

 

Which isn't going to happen under Rupp an owner not interested and I doubt that cares.

A CEO thats a novice

And other dancers.

IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!! The club is a mess.

I agree with you fully on the DOF. This Adams we trust to run our club is laughable. It's a joke but he is allowed because of Rupp & Sparks but it highlights they don't know what they are doing. Not a chance they will get a DOF in. Adams would beat them. They are scared of Adams already.

 

I actually agree with you that we won't get a DOF in. I also agree that we definitely won't get one in while Adams is at the club.

Look, I get it, Parkinson did it, he was the master of all he surveyed, but even that backfired on us when he left.

We don't have a Geoffrey Richmond insisting on running things a certain way, no matter who the coach is, no matter who's managing or playing for the club. We don't even have a Mark Lawn with strong opinions ready to rock the apple cart by ousting club legend Peter Jackson when it was clear we'd dug ourselves into a pit. I don't care one bit that Ryan is capable of making 'big decisions', which usually just mean he's had to undo something he's just recently done, we don't have leadership but that would be easily fixed with a very good DoF.

Once Adams leaves this club, it needs to be priority number one.

 

Whilst i do agree having a good DoF is a fantastic idea, the amount of money required to build a recruitment team would be millions of pounds. Really a team is needed rather than just one man. Like brentford or norwich. Even Barnsley has a really good footballing department.

Really thats pinned on the wish-list till we get into the championship imo.

 

Why would it cost millions of pounds? Nothing in League Two costs millions of pounds, you just create an equivalent, no?

 

Like "we're increasing Season Ticket prices so we can have a promotion level budget".

 

Charlton, Blackpool and Bolton have been the most recent examples of fans successfully getting rid of the dry rot in the boardroom.

 

Interesting quote from Derek Adams in the Yorkshire Post:

"Where you sit at this moment in time in the league table means nothing,” he insisted. “One team out of the top seven (this time in 2020) got promoted last season, that was Cheltenham Town.

“Where you sit now is irrelevant, it’s where you sit after the 46th game. Newport County had 36 points at this stage of the season and didn’t get promoted. Forest Green were in the top seven last season and probably the season before - didn’t get promoted. It doesn’t matter a jot where you’re at at this moment in time.”

Discuss