... apart from the final paragraph. http://www.pafc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10364~2538725,00.html What does a Chairman of Football do, pray? Would it not be more cost effective for a cash strapped club to employ an experienced, connected manager to do both jobs?
I'll give him his due, he did work hard towards our safety, but I was always a little worried about his past . Good luck to him and pne
Confirmed below... http://www.pnefc.net/page/NewsDetail/0,,10362~2538728,00.html I have mixed feelings about this. We would not have survived without his involvement this time last year. Having done the job he did after all the directors left, mostly on his own for several months I will give him a clap However, during the months of administration, his reputation was dampened by the arrival of the incompetent Guilfoyle and his many lies. The strange dealings with the Ginger bog-brush and the suspicion (although not proved - to my knowledge) that he was drawing a salary of £20,000 per month while the staff went without.
The saga continues-ha,ha you really could'nt make it up.Maybe the kindest way of summing up Peter Ridsdale is to call him a maverick.
Good luck to him. Thanks for all his help but also relieved to see him go. I didn't like his closeness with the administrators and I do wonder how BIL ever got to be preferred bidder. Would they have been chosen but for the 'sell Argyle to Ridsdale for £1' clause? I think we all can sleep easier without him but I can still acknowledge that he did, eventually, help save us.
We already have a rich owner who doesn't spend money so we are slightly better than Argyle were. Let's see what happens.
Hope we never meet again for the same circumstances but like to thank you and good luck with your new club!
It's quite funny really when you think that it is absolutely acknowledged by the majority he did quite a lot to save Argyle and helped in succeeding to do so but yet there is a sort of relief that he leaves. Not sure there are many who would have fitted into that small hole somehow. I am not sure we have much to criticise him about his dealings with Argyle and should be grateful he came along by chance (if you believe in Santa Gat then you obviously deal in make believe all around) on his walk around the UK. Until he arrived we knew something wasn't quite right but not that the train had already come off the tracks and was heading down the mountain side. In a way he forced the issue with the Administration and perhaps it was a good job somebody did. He is a ducker and diver and you do wonder if he has ever really done anything out of the goodness of his heart without an angle. But credit where it is due and I wish him well in his "take over" of Preston. (surely that must be his angle there eventually).
Pardon the intrusion, just wondering how the pro and anti Riddlers can balance good versus bad!! Good - in the right place at the right time, if you believe in coincedence/karma/a phone call from Stapleton or Fairies. Bad - hurrying up Admin, HIS choice of Administrator, HIS backing of BIL and Heaney, HIS unedifying dash to Monaco for HIS new patron - Kassam, HIS revalation that he was behind James Brent from the outset, HIS choice of top of the range BMW et al. What a man, at least he saved himself £1.
Had we not gone into Administration in a hurry then we would have gone into Liquidation as an alternative and maybe just as fast. Don't think you can blame him for that and of course as I said or alluded too earlier he was in the right place just when required. You can speculate if that was pure coincidence or not but we won't ever really know the answer to that one. Yes he was angling for ownership and yes he did back BIL with his mate the Admin Man. No he never once said Brent was the right man until it was certain that Brent was going to be the man. But, overall we may well have been worse off without him than with him. Perhaps it is a good thing that he has left the building and we don't have to speculate about his every motive anymore. Simple fact is we will never know now exactly who did what to whom and saved the day but I suspect it was a combination of a number of people and he was one of them in some way that did push the process along. I simply wish him well and don't think I should have any annamosity towards him right now. If something does creep out from under the carpet that says different then I might just swing a different way. One thing is for sure, life will never be boring around him.
It should have been completely obvious to a casual boardroom observer that PAFC was on the fast track to financial oblivion long before Ridsdale hove into view. Quite what our [relatively] high-powered board were doing at least from the point it became likely we were going to be relegated from the Championship, goodness only knows. What I'm quite sure of from experience is that it wasn't distraction from putting the World Cup bid together: that sort of project just doesn't take up that much time at board level. Whether the opportunity to make themselves some money from the bid led them to take risks they wouldn't have otherwise have done is a different matter: that's greed at the club's expense, not simple distraction. In short, Ridsdale didn't do anything that the board should have done earlier, with the possibility of avoiding administration. What Ridsdale DID bring to the table was his desire to own a football club: it's widely known he was stalking others immediately before he came to Argyle. As others have mentioned above, it could well be that this desire lengthened the whole ordeal as he tried to steer it to his advantage. I certainly think so. Guilfloyle would have been perfectly capable of carrying out an administration with a competent functionary running the club from inside. What he didn't need was a high profile individual like Ridsdale trying to influence the course of the process. It's reasonable to assume that having lost PAFC, Ridsdale is still looking for a club to take control of. Preston beware.
Surprised and also not surprised...........if that can be possible. I have always given Peter Ridsdale the benefit of the doubt regarding his past history.Most of you will probably remember me saying that until he does something to harm PAFC I will except what he does for our club. I firmly believe that he has been good for Argyle in the time that he has been here.........and he will be hard to replace.........we are very thread bare in management potential without him. He says that he will help us during the January transfer window.....with Prestons blessing..........I think he has probably pencilled in some targets for us......and already done some of the ground work. I firmly believe that Darren Purse would not be here if it wasn't for Ridsdale's influence........my worry is that Purse might get cold feet because of Ridsdale moving on......to sign full time in January.....I hope I'm wrong about that. So he wasn't keen to stay and play with someone elses train-set for too long........not knowing the facts about the Preston job it is hard to ascertain what influence he will have there. It is obviously a club with more potential at present than PAFC..........and it is far nearer his home. Fletcher will be thrown more into the management side of things without Ridsdale experience to help him........until a new man arrives........I just feel Fletcher will be exposed beyond his limited management experience......could be a dodgy time.
He deserves all the clap he can get. Less a cure! Yes alright, he helped us out big time when we were in the sh1t, but I just don't like or trust him as far as I could throw him (the fat b*****d)!
It is a bit of a worry that it has happened now when we appear to have turned a corner on the field and I agree with you Plym that it was the Riddler who had the contacts, so no Reidy and no Riddler, surely Fletcher isn't established enough to be "in" with other managers, trainers etc. This could set us back again - I hope I'm wrong. The biggest thing I blame Ridsdale for is for sticking with the ginger one and losing us months of precious time, also it was the Riddler who brought in his mate the Gulliablefool. Weigh this up with the good he has done for us and the scales are pretty evenly balanced, still didn't trust him though and he always looked shifty in pictures. The biggest worry now though is how (if at all) this will affect the players on the field and Fletcher of course.
As I said previously it is strange the way people perceive Ridsdale. On one hand a good thing for most at the outset but on the other not particularly trusted by most either and a sort of sigh of relief he has gone. I don't think his leaving will rock the boat in any way at all. He had no input whatsoever that I know of in training or selection so it should make no difference to performance. I also think this will kind of make a man of Fletcher. I do think things are on the up at Argyle with or without the man. The only strange thing I find in this is that Brent intends to replace him. I'm not sure why we need anyone in that seat except as an assistant to Brent himself as a self confessed novice in the world of football.
Bizarrely I was about to post a thread today titled "Is it time to re-appraise Peter Ridsdale?" then I switch on the laptop and the news is Ridsdale is the new chariman of Preston.The guy is a complex character for sure,a true maverick.There is no doubt he has done some positive things at home Park,just a few days ago procuring the services of Darren Purse-who was outstanding in his first game.Ridsdale's biggest asset right now would be his huge contact network in the game-but ultimately he is totally unpredictable,and could have left us in the lurch at any time.So thanks Peter,for whatever you have done for our club but we all need to move on-so goodbye and all the best to you and Preston North end.
Sensible..........we will be without anyone with management know how,able to run the day to day requirements of a professional football club. Brent runs an organization that has many different parts, PAFC is only one small part of the whole. Who ever runs PAFC for him will be reporting back to him and keeping him in the loop.........Brent will guide the direction the club goes......but he will be totally useless regarding the ways of the football world. It is a critical position that needs leadership........it will be January before a Board of Directors is put together.........following the meeting that all are invited to. OK hopefully Fletcher will look after the playing side of things..........but he won't be involved any higher up the pecking order........I don't think people understand what Ridsdale was involved in doing behind the scenes...........the things that needed to be done...........I think it will be very important to get the right man in with the experience in running a club.
I simply don't agree plymborn. All this behind the scenes stuff and doing "things that needed to be done". The club is not going to grind to a halt just because one person has left. The things to be done were not done personally by Ridsdale. I'm talking paying people and organisation for a matchday either home or away. Staff did that and I have never worked anywhere where an organisation has stopped because a boss is off sick or on leave. There is a format that they have followed previously which will not particularly change. If you want to sponsor something then you talk to someone in the office. If you want your kit packed then the kit man packs it. If you want a team selecting you talk to the manager if you want players coached then you talk to the coaches. What is all this "behind the scenes" stuff that was so important Argyle will grind to a halt over? There is no transfer window until January and I'm sure Fletcher is capable of speaking to another club in the meantime if push comes to shove. I'm sure Brent has an accountant capable of sorting out the books in his organisation somewhere in the short term. Brent is short on football knowledge but long on business acumen and isn't some patsy who is wet behind the ears.
