Rupp & Sparks Out?

He’s ruining the club

 

there is no way any money we get for Young would translate into signings, why would it we are heading for mid table and Rupp didn’t find a January transfer window when we sat on the edge of the Autos in L1

We will get the usual balance the books scenario we are sustainable etc I don’t pay to watch safe I pay to watch 100% on and off the pitch -

 

criminal

 

I set at the ground just thinking we really are all a set of mugs.

 

I’ve thought that for months if not years , I wouldn’t put Sparkes in charge of a shopping trolley never mind a football club

 

If Young goes (bad attitude or not), then one things for sure, we are a selling club to be destined in the basement division whilst Rupp and Sparks are still here. Both are conmen with zero ambition, one things for sure though, as long as Sparks and Rupp are here I and many others won't be purchasing another season ticket.

 

The buck stops at the top but when did we last have any first team saleable assets ?? I am struggling to think of many first team players that have left us and stepped up a division in the last 5 years, they are extremely few and far between.

We are signing L2 bog standard players or unproven players or injury prone players (Walker/ Pattison/Oliver) and you reap what you sow. Even this years loans have been a flop. Last time we had a decent loan he ended up getting poached by Plymouth.

We signed a championship midfielder in Smallwood and he looked a bang average player for us from day 1, no doubt on some huge money for a L2 player. Cook has been a good player but on a 3 year deal at what cost to other areas of the squad.

Our recruitment year on year is frankly, abysmal.

 

I read a post a few days ago, might have been on this thread, arguing which clubs are bigger than us. Someone said that we are bigger than Wigan. Well, I'm watching them go toe to toe with Man Utd live on ITV right now. Decent atmosphere and the pitch doesn't look like a kids playground. I bet they wish they were as big as us!

 

I’ve been one of the more vocal ones on here around the shameful in my opinion running of this club. It’s really interesting to see the differing opinions on what’s our downfall.

For me the club has been mismanaged for so long now, the administration should have brought an end to the club and i feel horrendous saying this but maybe that would have been for the better to truly reform and start again.

unfortunately we’ve never been able to start again the ground swallows so much money it’s not allowed the club to invest in the structure. Ultimately all the money goes into keeping the lights on.

Then we had the sell season tickets as cheap as possible strategy which is fine, but again only generates so much. You need top end quality to play for this club it’s a goldfish bowl, we won’t get that on our budget through tickets alone in a ultra competitive league.

Then it’s the fans, some petrified of change and believe we should respect our standings as a lower league club versus fans who want us to push and be better regardless of what our history says. That toxic disposition creates division and no doubt the social media narrative around this fuels decision making at the club.

Lastly the custodians - Rhodes and Lawn had a golden goose opportunity to finally sort the structure out after 2013 season and the global exposure. However if reports are to believed we were skint come the Jan hence Wells been flogged . These were people who were playing at being football owners but didn’t have a pot to piss in.

Edin less said the better … Stefan has the means but clearly isn’t interested and that rot that set in after admin 2 has caused so much damage that the foundation that are needed now require major surgery.

People to drive that change are not Rupp and Sparks. We will continue to underperform and i genuinely worry for the future. This mess is multifaceted and it needs a clean broom…
Hope it comes before it’s to late.

 

Some good points, but cannot agree that it may have been best to have folded and start again.

We would probably now be playing at Odsal against the likes of Farsley Celtic and Avenue in front of a 1000 fans.

Starting again doesn't necessarily mean we would have risen back to the football league, far from it.

We would also not have experienced those wonderful moments in 2012-13. Yes I know that was a very brief highlight in the last 20 years, but the thought of folding is a horrendous scenario.

 

You're as big as you act. We have a big fan base, and a big ground (or rather, we rent a big ground). That's it. What else do we do, that demonstrates we're a big club?

I feel like a broken record, but you'll never go anywhere without strong and capable leadership. There's a litany of clubs who've dropped down the leagues, reset and recovered, overcoming as big if not bigger challenges than we've faced and done it much more effectively.

I don't want this to be a personal attack - the reality is, our owner had his pants down when buying the club and isn't really interested. He wants to avoid losing money, which to a point I understand - though I think the failure to get him to invest is a symptom of inexperienced and weak leadership at the club itself. Moving beyond the owner, we have a young, inexperienced CEO who's never operated at anywhere near the level he's now at. He was the easy (and almost certainly cheap) option, installed to oversee a very simple and unambitious mandate of 'don't run us at a loss'. And there-in lies the rub; there's a complete lack of growth mindset, we seem to have no proactivity to seek investment, build capital, manage risk on the basis of where we can grow rather than what we can prevent etc. We lack experience and skill at the top, simple as that. Its the root of why we flounder.

 

Totally agree. How can a business make progress without investment? Sitting differing on the half way line will not cut it. The most likely scenario is that you will go bust. We have the facade of a big club, but there is no substance. The business model we employ now ie funding the squad with ST sales is fraught with danger, add to that serving up the same every year ie lack of progress and we have serious problems.

 

I honestly think the 'sustainability' mindset is a big threat to the future of the club. Its a slow death.

 

I agree 100%. Sparks isn't going to step down, because he's keeping to the remit. Rupp isn't going to sell unless he gets what he wants, because he doesn't need to. And that's that. We continue season in, season out, to perform mid table. Maybe we get lucky with GA and he keeps us mid table, or until one season he takes us too close to relegation, so we fire him and bring someone else in. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

 

So the facts are that Rupp has had to fork out A LOT of money to make up for Rahic’s mistakes and we are talking around the 4 mill mark in just one season of overspend. While I don’t think Sparks should be in the position he is nobody can argue where we are commercially. We are looking at a 60-70% improvement in that area which is a massive positive.
The reason Rupp won’t sell isn’t because he doesn’t want to, it’s because there isn’t a buyer. He is owed millions from the club and the club has no assets. The argument of the stadium and training ground is one that will go on forever but the fact still remains we don’t own them. Yes this doesn’t matter overly from a footballing side but to perspective owners it means what are they paying for? This isn’t conjecture but cold hard facts. Any potential new owner is buying us in name only and paying off a ridiculous amount of money owed to Rupp. We just aren’t an attractive prospect.

 

Hate is a terrible word to use about a fellow human being who you don't know from Adam your one sad individual @Rcbantam

 

Bang on an absolute stupid comment, think of the ground rent alone or he he suggesting we play at Horsfall the weekends Avenue aren't playing unbelievable Jeff.

 

Can I ask where did that figure come from, do you have any proof or is it just a figure you plucked out of the air to make a point £4million.

 

The massive improvement on the commercial side of things is built on sand. Unless we start to see success on the pitch sometime soon , all of that will slowly be washed away.

 

Rahic did massively overspend the season we were relegated back to league 2. He basically bought a load of shite for top dollar, i know football my arse.
The admins and losing ownership of the stadium, have cost the club approx £400,000 per annum on rent for the past 20 years , so £8 million that could have been used elsewhere. Gibb and his pension fund, knew exactly what they were doing for their £2.5 million investment , and guess what, we currently have to do it all again in a few years, unless something changes. I do not blame him though. Big Geoff gambled and we lost.