dido
Predictions League
Peter Aitken
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,883
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Post by dido on Jan 5, 2023 21:31:15 GMT
Do we know what the wage budgets are this season? Can we see a comparison between position and budget for the division to get a better understanding please? I don't think there is a definitive way of knowing exactly what the wage budgets are LG but from various websites and looking at the accounts of clubs which publish their profit and loss accounts you can get a good idea. In addition, when asked about an increase in playing budget at the start of the season, Tom Gorringe said the budget would go up by the amount which central funding increased between League 2 and League 1 so I think my figures for the wage budgets of the three clubs are fair estimates. Obviously clubs like Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich have far bigger budgets than Rovers while Morecambe and Accrington will be paying less than Cheltenham and Exeter but all these clubs seem to have a strategic plan, for example, Ipswich promotion, Exeter consolidation, Morecambe survival. The question is really aimed at finding out whether others think Rovers have a strategic plan and if so what it is and how it is going to be achieved. When Rovers lose a few games we are told "don't worry we're doing OK because consolidation was always the aim this season" and when we win a few games we are told " promotion is possible and we may have to spend a bit more in January but we can still do it". To me this is not credible and you are either going for consolidation and setting budgets accordingly or you are going for promotion and your investment in the playing budget reflects that. To be fair I made the same point last season and suggested it was unwise for JB to increase his net spend in the January window. He probably did though with the signing of Loft and it could have been by a considerable amount depending on how much of Anderson's wages we were paying. The gamble paid off but only by the narrowest of margins and that was when Rovers definitely were planning for promotion. But it's not the way a sensible business with a sensible long term strategy operates and IMO this season should have been about consolidation while formulating a plan to progress to the next level. That would have provided Gasheads with the interesting discussion topic of how the extra £ 1 - 2 million or so we are currently paying in wages could be better invested. I'm sure you managed to celebrate the promotion (if only by the narrowest of hurrahs through gritted teeth).
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Post by swissgas on Jan 5, 2023 21:52:29 GMT
I'm inspired to reply by Aghast on the other forum who has pushed back against Gashead 81's attempt to close down discussion about redeveloping the Mem. Someone else had put considerable thought into how it could possibly be done and, wham, the party apparatus swings into action to try to stifle that wayward thinking. We are allowed to talk about the commercial set up so long as we call it "excellent", the hospitality so long as we call it "superb", social media "really good" and the club shop/ ticketing also "superb" with the proviso that if anything is not quite excellent, superb or really good it must be the fault of someone else. But any questioning of whether our wage budget is being managed to provide value for money or whether the Mem could be successfully redeveloped is immediately shut down.
"Not gonna go there" seems to be the stock answer but why do you feel so threatened by discussion of the long term things which really matter to Rovers, financial sustainability and a new stadium ? You are allowed top talk about what you want.
But dont expect debate because its boring and repetitive as you quote the same stuff over and over and over again, and if the club followed your mantra there would be no 7-0 experience, no Lee Brown moment, and the whole essence of supporting a football team ceases.
It becomes pointless.
Like many of the posts.
Do you really mean that ? Those were fantastic days for Gasheads just like the 2007 victory over Shrewsbury at Wembley which I experienced with my family. But is that the limit of your ambition ? Do you look at Brentford and Bournemouth in the Premier League thinking how lucky they have been or does it ever cross your mind that they might have used strategic planning to get there ?
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Post by swissgas on Jan 5, 2023 22:01:06 GMT
I don't think there is a definitive way of knowing exactly what the wage budgets are LG but from various websites and looking at the accounts of clubs which publish their profit and loss accounts you can get a good idea. In addition, when asked about an increase in playing budget at the start of the season, Tom Gorringe said the budget would go up by the amount which central funding increased between League 2 and League 1 so I think my figures for the wage budgets of the three clubs are fair estimates. Obviously clubs like Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich have far bigger budgets than Rovers while Morecambe and Accrington will be paying less than Cheltenham and Exeter but all these clubs seem to have a strategic plan, for example, Ipswich promotion, Exeter consolidation, Morecambe survival. The question is really aimed at finding out whether others think Rovers have a strategic plan and if so what it is and how it is going to be achieved. When Rovers lose a few games we are told "don't worry we're doing OK because consolidation was always the aim this season" and when we win a few games we are told " promotion is possible and we may have to spend a bit more in January but we can still do it". To me this is not credible and you are either going for consolidation and setting budgets accordingly or you are going for promotion and your investment in the playing budget reflects that. To be fair I made the same point last season and suggested it was unwise for JB to increase his net spend in the January window. He probably did though with the signing of Loft and it could have been by a considerable amount depending on how much of Anderson's wages we were paying. The gamble paid off but only by the narrowest of margins and that was when Rovers definitely were planning for promotion. But it's not the way a sensible business with a sensible long term strategy operates and IMO this season should have been about consolidation while formulating a plan to progress to the next level. That would have provided Gasheads with the interesting discussion topic of how the extra £ 1 - 2 million or so we are currently paying in wages could be better invested. I'm sure you managed to celebrate the promotion (if only by the narrowest of hurrahs through gritted teeth). Yes, I did celebrate the promotion as friends here will testify. Do you ever wonder why Rovers have to spend so much more than other clubs to achieve the same or sometimes inferior results ? Or what we could do with the surplus cash if we did manage the business efficiently ?
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2023 22:38:27 GMT
You are allowed top talk about what you want.
But dont expect debate because its boring and repetitive as you quote the same stuff over and over and over again, and if the club followed your mantra there would be no 7-0 experience, no Lee Brown moment, and the whole essence of supporting a football team ceases.
It becomes pointless.
Like many of the posts.
Do you really mean that ? Those were fantastic days for Gasheads just like the 2007 victory over Shrewsbury at Wembley which I experienced with my family. But is that the limit of your ambition ? Do you look at Brentford and Bournemouth in the Premier League thinking how lucky they have been or does it ever cross your mind that they might have used strategic planning to get there ? Brentford absolutely should be the template, along with Brighton. (How long did these clubs take incidently - 20 years for Brighton??)
Just because you dont see the strategic plan and know every detail does not mean there isn't one - and you are well aware of the strategy as its been communicated by WAQ and TG. So why keep going on about it? Why the obsession to know every little detail? Let them get on with it, thats why they are there.
On the wider point of funding/budgets, everyone knows the model in football is totally broken, from Barcelona down to Accrington, and I've said before if Rovers spent only what they generated from income we could survive in Conference South and there is no way we would be 11th in League One. So Rovers have to do the same as other clubs to give us the best chance to compete and if they dont there will be no Lee Brown moment, Sammy Igoe moment or Elliot moment.
So the club is reliant on WAQ in the same way Accrington are reliant on their owner and Newcastle on the Saudis. That unfortunately is the reality however much we disagree with it. (yes its madness, but its the reality, end of story)
There may be light at the end of the tunnel however with the potential Football Regulator and fairer redistribution of PL wealth. The potential ending of parchute payments may just mean that championship football could be a tad more feasible to sustain in a couple of years. Hopefully.
So if Rovers do have a shout for promotion they need to go for it. Opportunites in football dont come round often and I recall all too well in 99/2000 when we were top of League One and the board played safe (they followed your mantra) and got in 2 youngsters on deadline day when promotion was there for the taking. We didnt even get into the play offs. That killed us for a decade, it finished Ollie, led to relegation the next season and was a dagger into the hearts of many fans that took years and years to get over.
Your continued knocking of WAQ, TG and everything else connected with the club therefore does you no favours. Like I said before, if you gave some credit for the good work done by the club, without being told to do so, people may take your posts a bit more seriously - but you wont do that will you - and even now you question decisons made last season that will go down as one of the best ever. Its totally barmy.
I challenge you to start some threads giving credit for the improvements throughout the club so that you can prove you have a balanced view - your posts might then be taken seriously then rather than coming over as being bitter towards the ownership, for whatever reason.
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2023 22:50:39 GMT
Those trying to stamp out dissent, to silence those with whom they disagree, expecting everyone to agree with their faith, seem (without any apparent sense of the obvious irony) to be the same folk claiming the forum is dead. It's not. I like having people around with whom I disagree, socially, professionally, and on here. It's demonstrably fine. Just know that we all want what we think's best for Bristol Rovers and Gasheads. Same side.
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dido
Predictions League
Peter Aitken
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,883
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Post by dido on Jan 5, 2023 22:53:10 GMT
I'm sure you managed to celebrate the promotion (if only by the narrowest of hurrahs through gritted teeth). Yes, I did celebrate the promotion as friends here will testify. Do you ever wonder why Rovers have to spend so much more than other clubs to achieve the same or sometimes inferior results ? Or what we could do with the surplus cash if we did manage the business efficiently ? No, never. Too busy enjoying the football being played and thanking the lord that ..... ..... Steven Lansdown (are you really not him?) is not near our club, as he follows your tenets with ....well, you can judge his success south of the river.
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Post by swissgas on Jan 5, 2023 23:06:17 GMT
Do you really mean that ? Those were fantastic days for Gasheads just like the 2007 victory over Shrewsbury at Wembley which I experienced with my family. But is that the limit of your ambition ? Do you look at Brentford and Bournemouth in the Premier League thinking how lucky they have been or does it ever cross your mind that they might have used strategic planning to get there ? Brentford absolutely should be the template, along with Brighton. (How long did these clubs take incidently - 20 years for Brighton??)
Just because you dont see the strategic plan and know every detail does not mean there isn't one - and you are well aware of the strategy as its been communicated by WAQ and TG. So why keep going on about it? Why the obsession to know every little detail? Let them get on with it, thats why they are there.
On the wider point of funding/budgets, everyone knows the model in football is totally broken, from Barcelona down to Accrington, and I've said before if Rovers spent only what they generated from income we could survive in Conference South and there is no way we would be 11th in League One. So Rovers have to do the same as other clubs to give us the best chance to compete and if they dont there will be no Lee Brown moment, Sammy Igoe moment or Elliot moment.
So the club is reliant on WAQ in the same way Accrington are reliant on their owner and Newcastle on the Saudis. That unfortunately is the reality however much we disagree with it. (yes its madness, but its the reality, end of story)
There may be light at the end of the tunnel however with the potential Football Regulator and fairer redistribution of PL wealth. The potential ending of parchute payments may just mean that championship football could be a tad more feasible to sustain in a couple of years. Hopefully.
So if Rovers do have a shout for promotion they need to go for it. Opportunites in football dont come round often and I recall all too well in 99/2000 when we were top of League One and the board played safe (they followed your mantra) and got in 2 youngsters on deadline day when promotion was there for the taking. We didnt even get into the play offs. That killed us for a decade, it finished Ollie, led to relegation the next season and was a dagger into the hearts of many fans that took years and years to get over.
Your continued knocking of WAQ, TG and everything else connected with the club therefore does you no favours. Like I said before, if you gave some credit for the good work done by the club, without being told to do so, people may take your posts a bit more seriously - but you wont do that will you - and even now you question decisons made last season that will go down as one of the best ever. Its totally barmy.
I challenge you to start some threads giving credit for the improvements throughout the club so that you can prove you have a balanced view - your posts might then be taken seriously then rather than coming over as being bitter towards the ownership, for whatever reason.
No I’m not aware of any strategy being communicated by Wael or Tom can you tell us what it is ?
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warehamgas
Predictions League
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 3,561
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Post by warehamgas on Jan 5, 2023 23:39:50 GMT
Why try and compare how a football club is run to a normal business? West Ham have just announced a record £12 million profit for last season, if you were a hammers fan by my reckoning you would be chuffed with that. But in reality it looks like they’re getting relegated and losing their star player Declan Rice. You spin the same old story every time, just enjoy the football and let those who run the club worry about finances. UTG
Arsenal have recently announced a £45m loss - they have just taken out a huge loan I believe.
Still, whilst Arsenal fans are shaking their head in dismay at being top of the Premier League Im sure you are right and the Hammers fans are celebrating in the bars with Karen Brady hosted aloft singing and celebrating that they have made a proft (and looking forward to the championship)
Come on contradiction, hard to compare us to Arsenal or probably any other PL club isn’t it? Arsenal will fill their ground every match with over 60,000 fans plus all the merchandise that will generate. They have multi millionaires running them so they will be able to service any shortfall or any loans. They also have the likelihood of Champions League football which produces a huge, huge windfall. We need a new ground and we need it asap. Don’t we? Ive really enjoyed the last few years when we’ve been in what seems is our natural place in the football hierarchy of League 1 but without that new ground we’re likely to flip-flop between the lower leagues. We are filling our ground, playing to capacity crowds (or very nearly) most home matches so we are maximising what we can do. Yet we are still likely to make a loss this year again. Perhaps it’s not a problem but we are completely dependent upon one man and how prepared he is to continue to fund our losses without the business growing. It may not be a problem but it could become one. I hope we don’t look at the past 7 years and see it as a wasted opportunity regarding the ground when from day one in Feb ‘16 Wael said the new ground was a priority and money wasn’t a problem. Appears to be more of a problem than it was first thought. Or am I wrong? UTG!
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Post by swissgas on Jan 5, 2023 23:43:04 GMT
Yes, I did celebrate the promotion as friends here will testify. Do you ever wonder why Rovers have to spend so much more than other clubs to achieve the same or sometimes inferior results ? Or what we could do with the surplus cash if we did manage the business efficiently ? No, never. Too busy enjoying the football being played and thanking the lord that ..... ..... Steven Lansdown (are you really not him?) is not near our club, as he follows your tenets with ....well, you can judge his success south of the river. That’s your prerogative and I completely understand why most Gasheads just want to concentrate on the football. What I don’t understand is the “F off down Ashton Gate” mentality which some aim at those of us who criticise. If Nick Higgs and Wael had achieved what they set out to do and we had a decent stadium, a decent training ground and a team which was consistently competitive in League 1 and sometimes challenging for promotion to the Championship ( our historic level) then I could see why Gasheads might be irritated by criticism of the way the club is run. But every few years a new era starts, then it fails, and then a new one begins with the same eventual outcome but fans continue to believe that one day our lottery numbers will come up and many get extremely annoyed if someone suggest there might be a better way.
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warehamgas
Predictions League
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 3,561
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Post by warehamgas on Jan 5, 2023 23:55:06 GMT
Do you really mean that ? Those were fantastic days for Gasheads just like the 2007 victory over Shrewsbury at Wembley which I experienced with my family. But is that the limit of your ambition ? Do you look at Brentford and Bournemouth in the Premier League thinking how lucky they have been or does it ever cross your mind that they might have used strategic planning to get there ? Brentford absolutely should be the template, along with Brighton. (How long did these clubs take incidently - 20 years for Brighton??)
Just because you dont see the strategic plan and know every detail does not mean there isn't one - and you are well aware of the strategy as its been communicated by WAQ and TG. So why keep going on about it? Why the obsession to know every little detail? Let them get on with it, thats why they are there.
On the wider point of funding/budgets, everyone knows the model in football is totally broken, from Barcelona down to Accrington, and I've said before if Rovers spent only what they generated from income we could survive in Conference South and there is no way we would be 11th in League One. So Rovers have to do the same as other clubs to give us the best chance to compete and if they dont there will be no Lee Brown moment, Sammy Igoe moment or Elliot moment.
So the club is reliant on WAQ in the same way Accrington are reliant on their owner and Newcastle on the Saudis. That unfortunately is the reality however much we disagree with it. (yes its madness, but its the reality, end of story)
There may be light at the end of the tunnel however with the potential Football Regulator and fairer redistribution of PL wealth. The potential ending of parchute payments may just mean that championship football could be a tad more feasible to sustain in a couple of years. Hopefully.
So if Rovers do have a shout for promotion they need to go for it. Opportunites in football dont come round often and I recall all too well in 99/2000 when we were top of League One and the board played safe (they followed your mantra) and got in 2 youngsters on deadline day when promotion was there for the taking. We didnt even get into the play offs. That killed us for a decade, it finished Ollie, led to relegation the next season and was a dagger into the hearts of many fans that took years and years to get over.
Your continued knocking of WAQ, TG and everything else connected with the club therefore does you no favours. Like I said before, if you gave some credit for the good work done by the club, without being told to do so, people may take your posts a bit more seriously - but you wont do that will you - and even now you question decisons made last season that will go down as one of the best ever. Its totally barmy.
I challenge you to start some threads giving credit for the improvements throughout the club so that you can prove you have a balanced view - your posts might then be taken seriously then rather than coming over as being bitter towards the ownership, for whatever reason.
Agree with so much of that contradiction.👍 But we should question some of the decisions surely. As I said on the other place it sometimes appears that you get shot down and criticised if you question decisions that the club makes. I’m the one who asked questions about our recent Club Secretary appointment and got challenged which was fair enough because I was able to answer and explain my concerns and even explained what I thought TG might have done to make sense of the appointment. But because I asked questions it was seen as not giving him a chance and told to give him a break!! Hey ho. We comment on forums, someone disagrees and puts another pov. We do it with respect and accept different povs. We don’t always agree. Doesn’t particularly worry me, I have a high tolerance for differences but it appears to worry other people who don’t accept alternative views….sometimes! UTG!
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2023 10:18:20 GMT
Arsenal have recently announced a £45m loss - they have just taken out a huge loan I believe.
Still, whilst Arsenal fans are shaking their head in dismay at being top of the Premier League Im sure you are right and the Hammers fans are celebrating in the bars with Karen Brady hosted aloft singing and celebrating that they have made a proft (and looking forward to the championship)
Come on contradiction, hard to compare us to Arsenal or probably any other PL club isn’t it? Arsenal will fill their ground every match with over 60,000 fans plus all the merchandise that will generate. They have multi millionaires running them so they will be able to service any shortfall or any loans. They also have the likelihood of Champions League football which produces a huge, huge windfall. We need a new ground and we need it asap. Don’t we? Ive really enjoyed the last few years when we’ve been in what seems is our natural place in the football hierarchy of League 1 but without that new ground we’re likely to flip-flop between the lower leagues. We are filling our ground, playing to capacity crowds (or very nearly) most home matches so we are maximising what we can do. Yet we are still likely to make a loss this year again. Perhaps it’s not a problem but we are completely dependent upon one man and how prepared he is to continue to fund our losses without the business growing. It may not be a problem but it could become one. I hope we don’t look at the past 7 years and see it as a wasted opportunity regarding the ground when from day one in Feb ‘16 Wael said the new ground was a priority and money wasn’t a problem. Appears to be more of a problem than it was first thought. Or am I wrong? UTG! Covered by subsequent post I think Wareham. No, not comparing us with Arsenal, but the principle remains re no prizes for breaking even. We absolutely need the new stadium
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2023 10:41:50 GMT
Brentford absolutely should be the template, along with Brighton. (How long did these clubs take incidently - 20 years for Brighton??)
Just because you dont see the strategic plan and know every detail does not mean there isn't one - and you are well aware of the strategy as its been communicated by WAQ and TG. So why keep going on about it? Why the obsession to know every little detail? Let them get on with it, thats why they are there.
On the wider point of funding/budgets, everyone knows the model in football is totally broken, from Barcelona down to Accrington, and I've said before if Rovers spent only what they generated from income we could survive in Conference South and there is no way we would be 11th in League One. So Rovers have to do the same as other clubs to give us the best chance to compete and if they dont there will be no Lee Brown moment, Sammy Igoe moment or Elliot moment.
So the club is reliant on WAQ in the same way Accrington are reliant on their owner and Newcastle on the Saudis. That unfortunately is the reality however much we disagree with it. (yes its madness, but its the reality, end of story)
There may be light at the end of the tunnel however with the potential Football Regulator and fairer redistribution of PL wealth. The potential ending of parchute payments may just mean that championship football could be a tad more feasible to sustain in a couple of years. Hopefully.
So if Rovers do have a shout for promotion they need to go for it. Opportunites in football dont come round often and I recall all too well in 99/2000 when we were top of League One and the board played safe (they followed your mantra) and got in 2 youngsters on deadline day when promotion was there for the taking. We didnt even get into the play offs. That killed us for a decade, it finished Ollie, led to relegation the next season and was a dagger into the hearts of many fans that took years and years to get over.
Your continued knocking of WAQ, TG and everything else connected with the club therefore does you no favours. Like I said before, if you gave some credit for the good work done by the club, without being told to do so, people may take your posts a bit more seriously - but you wont do that will you - and even now you question decisons made last season that will go down as one of the best ever. Its totally barmy.
I challenge you to start some threads giving credit for the improvements throughout the club so that you can prove you have a balanced view - your posts might then be taken seriously then rather than coming over as being bitter towards the ownership, for whatever reason.
No I’m not aware of any strategy being communicated by Wael or Tom can you tell us what it is Sure about that? You have commented on it before I'm positive. Its on the website & TG listed the headlines in the programme recently. The pillars being: Infrastructure dev (inc new stadium), work towards sustainability, youth development, develop the fanbase, develop community, and continued improvement throughout the club. So when you say there is 'no strategic plan' you are deliberately misleading. Once again. I gave you an open goal and once again you choose to balloon it over the bar. You could easily have chosen to say " there are clear improvements in some off field matters, evidenced by independent feedback on hospitality, great supporter vibe re the Fanzone, and obvious improvements in recruitment and training facilities, but there were initial issues with ticketing this season and there is no feedback on the stadium and so far delivery of that has not been forthcoming and appears to be a major failure" If you had said something like that people may take your posts seriously and give you the time of day, but you choose to merely focus on negatives along with baseless "speculation" to support it (being kind there, as some people would call it "making things up")
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2023 10:49:16 GMT
Brentford absolutely should be the template, along with Brighton. (How long did these clubs take incidently - 20 years for Brighton??)
Just because you dont see the strategic plan and know every detail does not mean there isn't one - and you are well aware of the strategy as its been communicated by WAQ and TG. So why keep going on about it? Why the obsession to know every little detail? Let them get on with it, thats why they are there.
On the wider point of funding/budgets, everyone knows the model in football is totally broken, from Barcelona down to Accrington, and I've said before if Rovers spent only what they generated from income we could survive in Conference South and there is no way we would be 11th in League One. So Rovers have to do the same as other clubs to give us the best chance to compete and if they dont there will be no Lee Brown moment, Sammy Igoe moment or Elliot moment.
So the club is reliant on WAQ in the same way Accrington are reliant on their owner and Newcastle on the Saudis. That unfortunately is the reality however much we disagree with it. (yes its madness, but its the reality, end of story)
There may be light at the end of the tunnel however with the potential Football Regulator and fairer redistribution of PL wealth. The potential ending of parchute payments may just mean that championship football could be a tad more feasible to sustain in a couple of years. Hopefully.
So if Rovers do have a shout for promotion they need to go for it. Opportunites in football dont come round often and I recall all too well in 99/2000 when we were top of League One and the board played safe (they followed your mantra) and got in 2 youngsters on deadline day when promotion was there for the taking. We didnt even get into the play offs. That killed us for a decade, it finished Ollie, led to relegation the next season and was a dagger into the hearts of many fans that took years and years to get over.
Your continued knocking of WAQ, TG and everything else connected with the club therefore does you no favours. Like I said before, if you gave some credit for the good work done by the club, without being told to do so, people may take your posts a bit more seriously - but you wont do that will you - and even now you question decisons made last season that will go down as one of the best ever. Its totally barmy.
I challenge you to start some threads giving credit for the improvements throughout the club so that you can prove you have a balanced view - your posts might then be taken seriously then rather than coming over as being bitter towards the ownership, for whatever reason.
Agree with so much of that contradiction.👍 But we should question some of the decisions surely. As I said on the other place it sometimes appears that you get shot down and criticised if you question decisions that the club makes. I’m the one who asked questions about our recent Club Secretary appointment and got challenged which was fair enough because I was able to answer and explain my concerns and even explained what I thought TG might have done to make sense of the appointment. But because I asked questions it was seen as not giving him a chance and told to give him a break!! Hey ho.
We comment on forums, someone disagrees and puts another pov. We do it with respect and accept different povs. We don’t always agree. Doesn’t particularly worry me, I have a high tolerance for differences but it appears to worry other people who don’t accept alternative views….sometimes!
UTG! Agree Wareham - its all about balance and expressing a reasonable and balanced argument, and being able to back it up, rather than baseless rhetoric designed to promote nothing but negativity. Big game tomorrow, and a big month ahead potentially - Up The Gas!
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Post by petecolley on Jan 6, 2023 12:22:53 GMT
Do you really mean that ? Those were fantastic days for Gasheads just like the 2007 victory over Shrewsbury at Wembley which I experienced with my family. But is that the limit of your ambition ? Do you look at Brentford and Bournemouth in the Premier League thinking how lucky they have been or does it ever cross your mind that they might have used strategic planning to get there ? Brentford absolutely should be the template, along with Brighton. (How long did these clubs take incidently - 20 years for Brighton??)
Just because you dont see the strategic plan and know every detail does not mean there isn't one - and you are well aware of the strategy as its been communicated by WAQ and TG. So why keep going on about it? Why the obsession to know every little detail? Let them get on with it, thats why they are there.
On the wider point of funding/budgets, everyone knows the model in football is totally broken, from Barcelona down to Accrington, and I've said before if Rovers spent only what they generated from income we could survive in Conference South and there is no way we would be 11th in League One. So Rovers have to do the same as other clubs to give us the best chance to compete and if they dont there will be no Lee Brown moment, Sammy Igoe moment or Elliot moment.
So the club is reliant on WAQ in the same way Accrington are reliant on their owner and Newcastle on the Saudis. That unfortunately is the reality however much we disagree with it. (yes its madness, but its the reality, end of story)
There may be light at the end of the tunnel however with the potential Football Regulator and fairer redistribution of PL wealth. The potential ending of parchute payments may just mean that championship football could be a tad more feasible to sustain in a couple of years. Hopefully.
So if Rovers do have a shout for promotion they need to go for it. Opportunites in football dont come round often and I recall all too well in 99/2000 when we were top of League One and the board played safe (they followed your mantra) and got in 2 youngsters on deadline day when promotion was there for the taking. We didnt even get into the play offs. That killed us for a decade, it finished Ollie, led to relegation the next season and was a dagger into the hearts of many fans that took years and years to get over.
Your continued knocking of WAQ, TG and everything else connected with the club therefore does you no favours. Like I said before, if you gave some credit for the good work done by the club, without being told to do so, people may take your posts a bit more seriously - but you wont do that will you - and even now you question decisons made last season that will go down as one of the best ever. Its totally barmy.
I challenge you to start some threads giving credit for the improvements throughout the club so that you can prove you have a balanced view - your posts might then be taken seriously then rather than coming over as being bitter towards the ownership, for whatever reaso
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Post by petecolley on Jan 6, 2023 13:22:09 GMT
I agree with you fully and by the way, thanks for posting this comment, you have saved me from having to reply to Swiss.
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Post by swissgas on Jan 6, 2023 15:23:08 GMT
No I’m not aware of any strategy being communicated by Wael or Tom can you tell us what it is Sure about that? You have commented on it before I'm positive. Its on the website & TG listed the headlines in the programme recently. The pillars being: Infrastructure dev (inc new stadium), work towards sustainability, youth development, develop the fanbase, develop community, and continued improvement throughout the club. So when you say there is 'no strategic plan' you are deliberately misleading. Once again. I gave you an open goal and once again you choose to balloon it over the bar. You could easily have chosen to say " there are clear improvements in some off field matters, evidenced by independent feedback on hospitality, great supporter vibe re the Fanzone, and obvious improvements in recruitment and training facilities, but there were initial issues with ticketing this season and there is no feedback on the stadium and so far delivery of that has not been forthcoming and appears to be a major failure" If you had said something like that people may take your posts seriously and give you the time of day, but you choose to merely focus on negatives along with baseless "speculation" to support it (being kind there, as some people would call it "making things up") And you say my ideas are out of date. You are referring to Wael's open letter to fans from July 2020. I said at the time it was the best statement of aims to come out of Rovers since the Agenda for Change document in 2006 and was hoping in the ensuing months there would be some meat put on the bones with targets, numbers and dates. But in that respect nothing happened and eight months later JB came in. He didn't just criticise Rovers he was absolutely merciless and said the club was a complete shambles, we didn't know what we were doing and he was going to have to knock the whole thing down and rebuild it with his own people and his own methods. But Gasheads didn't say "hold on Joe, we've got Wael's strategic plan, we like it, you can't get rid of that". We didn't fight back we weakly bowed down and said he was right and that the club was a shambles and the plan we had welcomed eight months previously wasn't working so we had better let JB rip it up and start again. Are you really pretending the 2020 list of aims is a strategic plan and that it is still in place ? Has anyone told JB ? Wouldn't it be more honest to say the only plan we have is to hand over complete control to JB and hope he can get us to the Championship ? At the present time most Gasheads would be happy with that but I'm putting forward ideas which extend beyond this particular new era.
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Post by Bath Gas on Jan 6, 2023 16:11:08 GMT
No, never. Too busy enjoying the football being played and thanking the lord that ..... ..... Steven Lansdown (are you really not him?) is not near our club, as he follows your tenets with ....well, you can judge his success south of the river. That’s your prerogative and I completely understand why most Gasheads just want to concentrate on the football. What I don’t understand is the “F off down Ashton Gate” mentality which some aim at those of us who criticise. If Nick Higgs and Wael had achieved what they set out to do and we had a decent stadium, a decent training ground and a team which was consistently competitive in League 1 and sometimes challenging for promotion to the Championship ( our historic level) then I could see why Gasheads might be irritated by criticism of the way the club is run. But every few years a new era starts, then it fails, and then a new one begins with the same eventual outcome but fans continue to believe that one day our lottery numbers will come up and many get extremely annoyed if someone suggest there might be a better way. We have a decent training ground (with plans for further development), the team is moving towards being competitive in League 1, as can be seen this season - not bad considering that it needed almost a complete re-build when JB took over. The decent ground is the big one which is missing at the moment, it sounds as though things are still moving behind the scenes regarding this, it's just that Joe Public doesn't know all the ins and outs of what's going on behind closed doors these days.
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eppinggas
Administrator
Ian Alexander
Don't care
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 8,511
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Post by eppinggas on Jan 10, 2023 12:55:54 GMT
That’s your prerogative and I completely understand why most Gasheads just want to concentrate on the football. What I don’t understand is the “F off down Ashton Gate” mentality which some aim at those of us who criticise. If Nick Higgs and Wael had achieved what they set out to do and we had a decent stadium, a decent training ground and a team which was consistently competitive in League 1 and sometimes challenging for promotion to the Championship ( our historic level) then I could see why Gasheads might be irritated by criticism of the way the club is run. But every few years a new era starts, then it fails, and then a new one begins with the same eventual outcome but fans continue to believe that one day our lottery numbers will come up and many get extremely annoyed if someone suggest there might be a better way. We have a decent training ground (with plans for further development), the team is moving towards being competitive in League 1, as can be seen this season - not bad considering that it needed almost a complete re-build when JB took over. The decent ground is the big one which is missing at the moment, it sounds as though things are still moving behind the scenes regarding this, it's just that Joe Public doesn't know all the ins and outs of what's going on behind closed doors these days. What leads you to this conclusion BG? Are you privy to the ins and outs of what's going on behind closed doors? I am Joe Public.
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Post by Bath Gas on Jan 10, 2023 13:19:00 GMT
We have a decent training ground (with plans for further development), the team is moving towards being competitive in League 1, as can be seen this season - not bad considering that it needed almost a complete re-build when JB took over. The decent ground is the big one which is missing at the moment, it sounds as though things are still moving behind the scenes regarding this, it's just that Joe Public doesn't know all the ins and outs of what's going on behind closed doors these days. What leads you to this conclusion BG? Are you privy to the ins and outs of what's going on behind closed doors? I am Joe Public. Ha ha - I'm Josephine Public! My son recently spent some time with a gentleman who had been approached with regards to investing in Rovers, which included the club having a new ground. I think it's fairly common knowledge that Wael and Lansdown are both open to having investors on board.
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eppinggas
Administrator
Ian Alexander
Don't care
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 8,511
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Post by eppinggas on Jan 11, 2023 15:12:38 GMT
What leads you to this conclusion BG? Are you privy to the ins and outs of what's going on behind closed doors? I am Joe Public. Ha ha - I'm Josephine Public! My son recently spent some time with a gentleman who had been approached with regards to investing in Rovers, which included the club having a new ground. I think it's fairly common knowledge that Wael and Lansdown are both open to having investors on board. Not tonight Josephine. The only thing I heard was that Wael was now open to outside investment (which he wasn't a few years back), but still wanted to retain overall control. Not sure how that narrative feeds in to a new Stadium becoming a reality. After 7 years, it would appear to be that we are moving towards as a new stadium with the speed of an asthmatic ant carrying a very heavy bag of shopping. Copyright Blackadder. (Sorry, off topic. Appreciate your comments BG. I'm a professional cynic and my hearts not in it).
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