Reform at Ipswich

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All i care about is the team, winning games and winning promotion etc.
My view is i don't really care who Ashton had lunch with, and it doesn't effect me who he supports.
And for everyone to throw their toys out of the pram and demand he leaves or gets the sack i find quite laughable.
How about we look at all the good he has done for this club, instead of pillorising the man for having lunch with a political figure.
As i mentioned in my earlier post, this sums up the disgusting cancel culture that is prevalent today, which i find quite sickening.

What about the PR team that "booked" this in? should they all be sacked too?

I wonder what would happen if we all just ignored this and concentrated on supporting the team?

Try putting this into perspective - People want the man sacked and out of a job for having lunch with a member of parliament, not raping or beating a 9 year old girl up.
 
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Nuggets said:
But it wasn’t Starmer and it wasn’t any other political figure - so it’s a moot point. If Farage had turned up and paid to use a meeting room, then decided to pay for a private stadium tour - that would be more acceptable in that he’s a paying citizen. There wouldn’t anywhere near the levels of anger and disappointment.
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But it's not a moot point. It's being blown out of proportion because it's a villified public figure. If it was Starmer, then i guarantee you this wouldn't have had as much negative press.
My point is, everyone on here is up in arms, is because it's someone they dont like, or what they stand for.
 
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stretchyboy said:
All i care about is the team, winning games and winning promotion etc.
My view is i don't really care who Ashton had lunch with, and it doesn't effect me who he supports.
And for everyone to throw their toys out of the pram and demand he leaves or gets the sack i find quite laughable.
How about we look at all the good he has done for this club, instead of pillorising the man for having lunch with a political figure.
As i mentioned in my earlier post, this sums up the disgusting cancel culture that is prevalent today, which i find quite sickening.

What about the PR team that "booked" this in? should they all be sacked too?

I wonder what would happen if we all just ignored this and concentrated on supporting the team?

Try putting this into perspective - People want the man sacked and out of a job for having lunch with a member of parliament, not raping or beating a 9 year old girl up.
Click to expand...
I would imagine whilst a lot of people dislike who it is, what people mainly dislike is that a political party was allowed to make a party political video which looked like the club has endorsed them, by giving them the red carpet treatment. And then going on to lie to the fans about their involvement.

Even if that is not a lie, it shows a high level of incompetence somewhere in the organisation to allow a political party to use the club as propaganda.

People might have disliked the club meeting Farage in a private meeting even if it got out into the public domain but that is different to senior people at the club allowing a political party to use the club as a propaganda tool and the club looking like they were complicit in this and then lieing to the fans about it.

Individuals and owners of businesses can come out and support who they like even if we dislike it but organisations like football clubs have to be very careful about this with multiple stakeholders involved most importantly the fans but also from an ethical perspective knowing what voice and brand a club like Ipswich has in the area which could influence the outcome of elections.

Ive seen people calling for him to be sacked, I'm not sure I'm in that camp yet however it is an extremely high profile mistake that has made international news which shows it is an unprecedented mistake by senior people at the club.
 
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stretchyboy said:
But it's not a moot point. It's being blown out of proportion because it's a villified public figure. If it was Starmer, then i guarantee you this wouldn't have had as much negative press.
My point is, everyone on here is up in arms, is because it's someone they dont like, or what they stand for.
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I didn't realise Starmer wasn't a vilified public figure, I thought he was more disliked than Farage?

However as we are on that point, I'm not sure any other politician would probably have had it in them to be as opportune as Farage was in that scenario, I cant imagine any other party making a video quite like that using a football club as propaganda but Farage probably couldn't believe the opportunity he was given and loves the attention and chance to be controversial.
 
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For me personally, I don’t care who Ashton has lunch / gives a private tour to. That’s his business as is the political party he supports. Had the club come out and said that MA had given a tour to Farage and then had lunch, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. However, what the club said was that they didn’t know Farage was coming, that the tour had been booked under an alias etc. this is not an accident, what it appears to be is an out and out lie and that’s what I have an issue with. Most of us remember has disconnected we felt from the club during the Evans / McCarthy era and the recent ownership that includes MA has been a complete opposite - engaging with the fans and getting the club back with the community. This 1 act doesn’t erase the last few years but it does leave a very bad taste in the mouth. Need to get back to football and doing everything we can to get into the top 2
 
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I think excluding people is not a good look, just don’t give it airtime.
 
Well at least Ashton has come out, apologised, and owned up to it. He needed to say something - even if there was a lot of corporate jargon involved.

I’d be interested to know more on what these apparent “untruths” Ashton referred to - not sure why he didn’t feel the need to set the record straighter in that respect.

I still believe he should’ve been sacked. Hopefully we can focus on the football now and the club can get around the promotion push. Make no mistake though, Ashton has to be on very thin ground with the club owners. It would be beneficial for them to bring in a new chairman that Ashton reports into - similar to how he worked with O’Leary a couple of years back - because I don’t think he’s suited to having this much power.
 
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Is an unreserved apology enough?Not sure,but I think we need to hope the Club can move forward from this without it affecting our promotion push too much.In over 50 years of supporting ITFC this has been one of the most disappointing and uncomfortable spells made worse by the fact it was self-inflicted.
 
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Bigal2 said:
Is an unreserved apology enough?Not sure,but I think we need to hope the Club can move forward from this without it affecting our promotion push too much.In over 50 years of supporting ITFC this has been one of the most disappointing and uncomfortable spells made worse by the fact it was self-inflicted.
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We’ve got to hope now that he’s a … reformed man :1980_boogie_down:
 
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Agree you can pick parts out of his response, he certainly could've said more and not had so many caveats on it but I think it's about as good as you're going to get from the figurehead of a club.

Lots of questions unanswered but I doubt they ever will because it risks having a tit for tat situation with Farage and Reform and given they like to sow division that would not be a good thing to do.

Damage has been done and some cant be undone I'm sure for many but for me this apology was needed and is part of moving forwards now from an embarrassing week for the club.

Agree with you Nuggets about having a Chairman to keep Ashton in check, generally the club have made some outstanding decisions under his leadership but he's clearly always had an unhealthy ego which has the potential to be his and our downfall. I felt much more comfortable with a seemingly experienced level headed figure keeping Ashton in check.

I say this tongue and cheek but I'd be happy if McKenna was Chairman, CEO and manager that man comes across as a superb leader of people.
 
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I often see Sheepshanks at the ground on match days,I know he’s pi$$ed on his chips with a lot locally with the way he played fast and loose with taking the Club into administration but I always felt he was Town through and through-a steadying hand??
 
" And I have offered my resignation as chairman and will be pleased to continue to serve on the Board, if they so desire."
 
Bigal2 said:
Is an unreserved apology enough?Not sure,but I think we need to hope the Club can move forward from this without it affecting our promotion push too much.In over 50 years of supporting ITFC this has been one of the most disappointing and uncomfortable spells made worse by the fact it was self-inflicted.
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Time will tell - that could go either way and it’s ultimately down to how the players feel. Some are disgusted and we’ve seen plenty of players treated shoddily over the last two years. ‘Siege mentality’ or ‘I can’t wait to move on in the summer’. The only thing we know for sure is the club has been thrown up in the air and we will have to see how it lands. Whether he retains his position might ultimately boil down to the fortunes on the pitch.

I also think Ashton is going to face much tougher questions and have to defend his actions in a much more robust fashion in the weeks than a controlled piece put out by the club. I don’t think he will escape giving his account of what has occurred. Until he does that, the questions will keep coming and the situation is not resolved.

As for the PR and management team, I think for the staff to get back to a harmonious position as a team there will have to be some changes and I expect that not much of that will happen until the summer.
 
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I am wondering what our American owners are thinking about all this. Presumably they have representation on the Board, and of course appointed Ashton. They will be acutely aware of the bad PR internationally. I cant envisage they would fire him straight away as there is too much to play for the next few weeks. And it would show desperation and yet more incompetence firing the CEO and Chairman with no firm replacement ready to take over, who has been familiarised, briefed and with the right experience.

Moreover, it seems that Werhun was also involved in that lunch. And we can assume that Kieran and his staff and players have not been amused at all these shenanigans and will still be hopeful of reaching the Play-offs at worst.

Critically as others have said, the damage is already done. I doubt anything we do now will stop the stop the oppo fans chants, the social media circus and the ongoing feeling from the majority of fans that our wonderful football club doesn’t feel quite the same.

As the saying goes, act hastily now and repent at leisure, or something like that.
 
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