For me it's Ian Dowie all day long...!! Although, I think the numb nuts who put him in charge in the first place can shoulder their share of the blame too. He was the wrong man, at the wrong time at the wrong club...!! An all round truly wretched football manager...!!
Well how about this for a thought. Assuming that for each home match last season we only had six coaches (usually more) of valley express fans and they all paid the basic seat price that was £130k into the club coffers that may not have existed if we didn't. Before the purchase by Jimenez and Slater that may well have been the difference between survival or administration. I welcome the Valley Express initiative and would be more than happy if I regularly saw 24 to 30 coaches parked along Woolwich road before a match. To insult them is to lose them and eventually the club. Get real, we don't all live within walking distance of the Valley any more, the world has moved on, public transport isn't what it was in the fifties and sixties because more people have cars. If every fan on six buses drove a car into the valley we would find the residents complaining even more loudly about match days. Valley Express is a good idea and is being copied by all of our rivals. A supporter is a supporter whether he comes to one match a season or every match, whether he knows who Stuart Leary was or thinks that Mambo is only a dance. He may not be a "true supporter" in your mind but because he or she adds to the communal will behind the team on the day of a match they are supporters and are the lifeblood of any club ours included. You would probably hate to be called elitist but that is what anyone who doesn't welcome new supporters truly is and it is an elite I, and I believe most of us, would not want to be part of. They are new supporters not plastics. Off my high horse now.
The Valley Express Scheme in its premiership format was a unmitigated disaster aside from being morally and commercially wrong. For CAFC to advertise in Gillingham High Street (as an example) with the banner showing Man U and liverpool Players equal size to a CAFC player suggetsed that it was not CAFC worth seeing at the Vlalley but the more glamorous clubs. This immediately attracted the loafer, plastic fan. (aside from advertising in another teams backyard which is very tescoish and commercial bullying) But we got what we deserved..... This Valley Express sloshers filled up 15% of the ground but were responsible for 80% of the bitching. They phoned up 606 and moaned and given the level of abuse at Curbs by these tossers it was no wionder he jacked it in. If you read Bill Curbishley article in the times I think summed up what these idiots did. They cost us about 60 million quid and 6 yeares away from the prem. I dont think you can call them supporters just transients looking for cheap premier football. If thats what CAFC rely on in the future then history will repeat itslef.
Most of the bitching that I am hearing about the club at the current moment, plastics, call that a celebration.... seems to emanate from?????
who? Surely my thirty years and personal donations to the club deserve a say? I want my club to be a club where the fans get treated properly and not a mercenary stopping station whcih it has been for the last 6 seasons. This club more than most owes to its fans but if you want to take it from behind, good for you.
Thankfully we live in a democracy and you don't have any more say than anyone other supporter, a mere thirty years or not. The owners who have taken the huge financial risk in investing in the club, sums which you and I can only dream of, are the people who have a greater say. We, whether we have been supporting the club for one match, or for thirty, forty or even fifty years al l have the same rightsto voice an opinion. I may disagree with you but I will always defend your right to put forward a (reasoned) arguement.
That very condecending of you to say so but thank you. Your mising the point, the owners are not taking a huge financial risk any more than the average fan is in buying a season ticket for theirmselves and their kids which in many cases represents a huge chunk of their income. If the owner spend 20 million of their estimated 90 million fortune that leaves enough to buy a flag, dont you think. The fans are spending sums that they cannnot afford or can you not accept that? They are the window cleaners, the brickies, the normals, who are skint and deserve recognition, the club means more to them than some toy or tax write off for some rich playboys. Have you an insight into the present board over that makes them soundproof? I have seen ten chairman at the club in my time. How many of them are skint now, except Hulyer. So kiss the arses all you want but remember who are the real saviours of this club. Surely they are worth more than a bit of parer and three fat opera singers
Owning a football club is a much greater risk than buying a season ticket. If I run into hard times I don't renew my season ticket or, since I live more than sixty miles away, don't put petrol in the car and go to the match. It is within my control. If I own the club and my other businesses run out of cash there aren't many people willing to buy a football club and its associated liabilities (two year playing contracts, maintenance of a ground and training area. Look how long it took Dick Murray to find another buyer. The ability to sell the club is in others control. What gives you the right to dictate how others spend their money. You buy a ticket to watch a footbal match not to have a concert. If you think you are getting a raw deal don't renew your season ticket
Your getting sand in your fanny now. Calm down and be rationale.How many Chairman actually lose all their fortunes-possible none. Its the shraeholders and investors that lose all their money when the companies go bankrupt. If the other business are failing then Mr Chairman should not be running a football club should he? Ive never met a chairman of our club collect dole or get the bus. There always money behind the sofa or squirrelled away. That why rich people are rich, there always more or some poor sucka to invest in their company. And Muzza was holding out for the best deal. Have some thought for the people taht bought shares in the club or Ronnie Moore....
Can't afford to go near a beach at the moment! Frequently the major sharholder is the Chairman. If they are not poor it is more to do with the work that they have put in to make the money that enabled them to buy the club rather than any money made from the club. We are not living in the days of aristocracy investing in football clubs. Most of the people, like Dick Murray, did so out of money they had earned through building up their own businesses. Yes, they are not poor when they sell the club but frequently they have lost a significant part of their acrued earnings which can't be recovered from down the sofa. They are poorer for it financially. Some people, a very few at the premier league level, do make money on their investment and if CAFC get back to the premier league then it is likely that the current owners will not have lost money in the process and may have gained some, but that will be the exception rather than the norm. If they run the club well enough for us to be premier league again then I for one will not begrudge them the return on their investment.
And what pray tell will be the fans return? Another bit of scrap paper? Why are we patting the backs of the superrich when the poor provide the most investment?
I can not remeber if it was King Solomon or Chris rock that said If OJ Simpson has twenty million dollars and has to give half to his wife, he dont need to kill her, he aint gonna go hungry. But If a man earns twenty thousand dollars and he gotta give half to his wife, he better kill that bitch.
The return is that we will still have a football club unlike the supporters of Rangers or Portsmouth who are likely to lose theirs.
Perhaps off topic- but the problem with the valley express was that it was always an experiment to see what reaction we would get in kent, with a view to move down there Also, I disagree with the notion that it was plastics etc that forced Curbs out. AC has even said as much before.
The sale of Scott Parker was the start of your down fall which we have yet to recover from. Although this is our first step!
