BBC Radio Leeds Fans 'Forum' 7th Feb 6-7pm

So let’s make up ridiculous nonsense to make a point ?

 

Lol

 

But this is precisely the problem that we find ourselves in, Park. The club is owned by an absentee businessman with no interest in football, who was conned into buying it by an incompetent narcissist. The club is run, day to day, by a commercial sales manager with no expertise in football matters.

Every successful football club I’ve ever heard of has people in senior positions with passion for the game of football, knowledge of how to put together a successful team with actual football expertise and, crucially, ambition to see the club continually improve on the pitch, gain promotions, win trophies etc - ie, the very reason why football clubs exist and fans pay to watch them.

I didn’t listen to the Radio Leeds ‘forum’ programme. But the clips, quotes and explanations I’ve seen on here fill me with despair. I’m sure there are people on here who’d put me in the ‘happy clapper’ category, because I try not to jump onto so called worst case scenarios or conspiracy theories. But this is worse than either of those. We have our CEO actually telling us that his brief is to keep the club in existence, in the EFL. Nothing more. That is truly shocking. The disconnect between why fans go to watch this club and the attitudes of those running it can surely never have been greater.

As one of those fans, it makes me wonder, ‘what is the point?’ I’ve never felt more dispirited with the club. Even during the two admins there was a sense that the club was fighting. This just sounds like they’ve given up, if they ever cared in the first place. What’s the point of the club’s existence if it’s just happy to tread water in the middle/lower reaches of L2. It feels like the club has been gutted of any last vestiges of its soul and is simply existing, zombie like, until… what?

 

Not sure I agree there Dennis. I think the clear statement that Sparks thinks he is doing a great job as long as he keeps us in business in the EFL was an unexpected revelation. I think that most of us were starting to doubt whether he has the ability to take the club upwards. But to hear him say that he’s basically happy with how things are, and he’s fulfilling his brief simply by keeping us solvent, was mind-blowing to me. What’s the point of a club that has no ambition to do better? How must Alexander have felt, listening to that?

 

But you haven’t answered my question.
Would we continue to play at VP in the NL?
If your answer is no because we can’t afford it, then where else locally that would meet EFL criteria?

 

The ridiculous notion is that we would ever drop into the National League. Aint gonna happen so not worth discussing

 

With the current level of supporter discontent, adopting your suggestion would be a massive gamble and, IMHO, a terrible one. Look around at home games - there are huge swathes of existing ST holders not bothering to turn up for games that they’ve already paid for. And we’ve just been told by our esteemed CEO that the current limit of the club’s ambition is to stay in L2 and stay solvent. So we can safely rule out a big marketing campaign promising an increased player budget and a real push for promotion next season.

Unless GA can wave a magic wand and give us a storming run to the playoffs in the remainder of this season (which seems highly unlikely) it’s a racing certainty that next years ST sales will be well down, even at existing prices. Raising them by 50% will likely see sales fall off a cliff.

 

Well I beg to differ if this crazy idea of boycotting games and not renewing ST’s is actioned by enough people.
We’re 18th in league 2 with the very capable squad we have now. What if those players leave because budgets are lowered.
It’s naive to say we can never go down.

 

Great post and sums up my feelings

 

So supporters not going is going to make us a NL team have you not seen the table of late and that’s with them attending where not too far off now and with the way we are dropping down the league we will be there for the 25/26 season but you just carry on collecting your points and I did ask about playing in Harrogate and Halifax still waiting for the reply on that

 

We all feel the same but letting the club die from non attendance is not what anyone wants

 

If fans stop going we have less money and Rupp has already confirmed via Sparks that he won’t put more in.
So join the dots and work out where we’ll be if budgets are lowered because fans stop coming

 

I wish I had your confidence. Football is littered with examples of teams that were ‘too good to go down’ being relegated. I’m still in disbelief that that the West Ham team featuring Jermaine Defoe, Paulo Di Canio, David James, Tomas Repka, Joe Cole, Frederic Kanoute, Michael Carrick and Trevor Sinclair were relegated from the PL in 2003. And the squad we had under Hopkin and then Bowyer in 2019 should never have gone down. It happens.
I’m sure we’d have gone out of the league under Peter Jackson had PP not been brought in to steady, and then turn round, the ship.
We’re clearly struggling to recruit decent managers and we must be becoming less and less attractive to decent players, given the obvious disconnect between fan expectations and the competence of the club. If ST sales plummet and the budget goes down, I’m by no means certain that we are safe from dropping out of the league in the next few seasons.

 

Why should we pay for a poor product which could be improved if the owner isn’t bothered at the end of the day it comes down the line and going by what your spouting if you went for a meal and it was shite you’d keep going every week just in case they went out of business?
I think the answer to that would be a big no don’t you ?

 

I don’t give any shits about a restaurant going bust but I do care about this club

 

So that’s a no then

 

Let the idiots keep believing we can never go down

 

Of course I wouldn’t go back to the restaurant I don’t care about and wouldn’t care if it went bust.
But boycotting Bradford city is potentially lowering the playing budget, meaning bargain basement shit players and ultimately relegation from the league. I care very much about that and never ever want to see it in my lifetime.