Ryan Sparks Interview

A bit of humility goes a long way sometimes, especially when the decisions you've made see long supporters showing apathy toward the cause. Bigging yourself up, which is clearly the case in todays piece written by Parker (I'm not discounting poetic licence from Parker as he clearly did this the other week) leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth when 16th in the division is the current standing of your endeavours.

 

He backs himself I give him that. And that is not just his problem, but Rupp too. They must be blowing smoke up each other arses. The club is in the black, and there was progress last season when we reached our highest league position in X amount of years. Not to mention attracting an ex Prem and international manager. THESE are the things he/they are focusing on. Its the end of this season when we haven't finished higher than 7th and season ticket sales are lower than before that RS is going to be sitting uncomfortably in his faux leather directors chair.

 

I feel sorry for Sparks if he truly does believe this spiel. The owner is never around to offer support and there’s no one else to answer to. Past managers have had a pop at the club and the Cowleys ran a mile to tinpot Colchester, albeit an Essex club. The fans (rightly) are growing restless, so self praise is probably all he’s getting!

This is where Rupp’s absenteeism hurts us as an owner who gives a damn would be in a better position to see we need support.

16th in League 2, let that sink in. Wholly inadequate

 

Absolutely this. I think they both need a bloody reality check. An owner with more input is just what Sparks needs but then he actually alludes to the fact he thrives off being the main guy in charge, the less input from Rupp the better for Sparks the way I read it. He's happy for Rupp to keep out of the way.

 

Agree with you both. The only way I see that reality check being provided is a significant drop in ST sales.

 

Priced at that tantalising point where you can kinda buy them but then if things go wrong it's only about 9 quid, cheap enough to not care. It's a good sales pitch for the cheap tickets.

 

Do you not think they’ll put prices up?
Or keep them at current prices where as you say it’s only £9 and cheap enough that people will just buy regardless?

 

Some ppl like less scrutiny although no idea why. How do you know what mistakes you have made if there is no annual assessment? We are all good at telling ourselves we are doing a fantastic job, it is human nature. We all need our mistakes to be highlighted as well as what we have done well. We need targets and a plan to improve. If R/S cannot see he needs a football man at his side to help. It will leave him free to do what we know he is good at.

 

I don't think they dare put them up. The whole club mantra is built around the cheaper than anyone else scenario.

 

I've sent you my reply in a PM

 

And a price freeze a reduction in relative terms. Slow decline.

 

When you say leaving him free to do what we know he's good at I presume you mean marketing/selling brand "Bradford City" a unique brand with no competition, a single source product !!! sponsorship is only available from the club, backed up by the number of tickets sold rather than bums on seats controversial I know but it would heavily devalue the product if those figures were released
This will soon drop off if we continue to fail on the pitch,season ticket sales slump, and the general malaise continues, it then becomes a difficult sell to restricted targets
He needs to concentrate on getting a marketable product ON the pitch first the rest will follow
Fully agree without a "football man" given whatever title you prefer we will continue to flounder in this dreadful league in other words we are doing things back to front and that is not "sustainable" in any shape or form i would hope he realises this along with our absent leader and his many advisers, until this changes I expect the mediocrity to continue

 

From what I've read so far. It reads like he thinks things are going well. There's been some minor turbulence, like sacking Hughes, but overall it's going as he wants.

I understand he won't want to be overly negative, especially when it won't be long before they're asking supporters to renew their season tickets. But, his demeanour isn't reflected in a lot of fans overall opinion of what we're seeing.

Many people see the club as a rudderless ship, changing bosses and hoping that fixes things. When/if it doesn't then just rinse and repeat until we find our one Parkinson every 20 years.

There's no structure or plan to get anywhere. There probably wasn't under Rhodes/Lawn either, but PP excepted, that was another period of abject failure. It's like he thinks bobbing along in the septic tank of English pro football is all we could ever hope for. And anything else is just a couple of seasons of a bonus every decade.

I don't want Rupp to go on crazy spending sprees or set unsustainable budgets. But is even a feasible formulation of how we build something better now beyond City?

If Sparks sees himself as climbing the greasy pole of football administration. I don't see how 'keeping one of the bigger clubs in League 2 in mid table for multiple seasons' gets him a bigger job, either. If he wants to move up, the only way to do it is to make the club successful.

 

This is a worry for me, that he thinks he is doing a good job and it's going well, and so does his boss, and that means we are stuck where we are for the foreseeable...

 

from Sparks interview ”Every player we’ve got in the squad, apart from Harry Chapman and Matty Platt, have got options in their contracts.” So we have an option on Bobby Pointon then !!!

 

You're right, unfortunately. It was never going to be an expose, or a hard hitting piece of investigative journalism. Parker can't burn his ties with the club, and Sparks was never going to do anything other than tell the world what a wonderful job he's doing.

 

Just read the cliche ridden instalment. He is saying that we want to take either promotion or Bristol Motors Trophy or both. So if we do neither what then? Will that be deemed a failure? Or will we revert to finding something we are doing better at than 2018!

 

After reading today's latest bollox.

He's delusional. If he thinks they've got more players right than wrong. Out of his depth. Just reinforced the view that Gent isn't for us either.

Out.

 

The real worry is, the obvious interpretation of his interview so far, is he thinks:

a. We have a plan.
b. Its working, and just needs more time.