[spireitenag]

MDCCCLXVI, on 23 July 2017 - 07:49 AM, said:

I'd add to this that a prominent 'BB' member, someone with genuine qualifications and many years experience running a successful business (that's never acquired a CCJ, by the way), went to a great deal of time and trouble, offering his advice for free, in an attempt to improve the Club's financial performance.

I'm led to believe the owner's response was as curt as it was unappreciative.

My view is those running CFC only seek a certain type of person.

Perhaps 'birds of a feather' would be an apt adage to apply...

Perhaps they should seek out Darren Brown and chat about his business model.

[Stockholm Spireite]

RN Blue, on 23 July 2017 - 06:29 AM, said:

Here's me thinking this was a thread about Clucas.

Anyway, Moondog, you have ACs ear, can you ask in all seriousness why SS and CPS never received a reply to their very generous offers of assistance? It seems incredulous to me that a drowning man would knock away any sort of assistance to pull him out of the water. We are clearly not well run (due to the overwhelming evidence of late), despite protestations that we are a professional club that doesn't make mistakes - oh the irony, so I can't see why genuine offers wouldn't even generate a response - unless of course our expensive IT system is pump and emails don't get through, wouldn't that be funny.

RN, I've reached the point of detachment and have no need for someone to defend the indefensible. I can't believe any more lies along the lines of "we never got your emails / there must have been a problem with the system, or maybe even these offers should have come directly to me (AC)", especially when I took the trouble to not only email the club, but also post paper copies and have them signed for on delivery. I know my communications reached the club through the tracking systems of the postal carriers.

MDCCCLXVI, on 23 July 2017 - 07:49 AM, said:

I'd add to this that a prominent 'BB' member, someone with genuine qualifications and many years experience running a successful business (that's never acquired a CCJ, by the way), went to a great deal of time and trouble, offering his advice for free, in an attempt to improve the Club's financial performance.

I'm led to believe the owner's response was as curt as it was unappreciative.

My view is those running CFC only seek a certain type of person.

Perhaps 'birds of a feather' would be an apt adage to apply...

I'm aware of that very generous offer and the refusal, although not the exact wording. I agree 100% with your summation.

As Spireitenag says above, there's no helping folk who think they know everything.

[calvin plummers socks]

s42blue, on 22 July 2017 - 10:16 PM, said:

Genuine Q... would you say that to his face?

Absolutely!
You obviously haven't read his stuff about immigrants/ Islam/ homosexuality/ Town Fans/ killing of animals etc.
He is a right c....

[Jud]

calvin plummers socks, on 23 July 2017 - 08:47 AM, said:

Absolutely!
You obviously haven't read his stuff about immigrants/ Islam/ homosexuality/ Town Fans/ killing of animals etc.
He is a right c....

He knows a lot about Hitler, though. Weird, that.

[DIFH]

Stockholm Spireite, on 23 July 2017 - 08:26 AM, said:

RN, I've reached the point of detachment and have no need for someone to defend the indefensible. I can't believe any more lies along the lines of "we never got your emails / there must have been a problem with the system, or maybe even these offers should have come directly to me (AC)", especially when I took the trouble to not only email the club, but also post paper copies and have them signed for on delivery. I know my communications reached the club through the tracking systems of the postal carriers.




I'm aware of that very generous offer and the refusal, although not the exact wording. I agree 100% with your summation.

As Spireitenag says above, there's no helping folk who think they know everything.

Simple statements by the club whereby they want to re connect with the fan base make all the above mind boggling. DA seems to not want interference/help in any form as it appears that would signal incompetence/failure on his part.

Re connection with fans will not happen whilst ever the status quo exsists. It is obvious monies are being pumped into the club by DA but we are a bsket case beyond recovery.

[s42blue]

calvin plummers socks, on 23 July 2017 - 08:47 AM, said:

Absolutely!
You obviously haven't read his stuff about immigrants/ Islam/ homosexuality/ Town Fans/ killing of animals etc.
He is a right c....

Was a genuine Q. I haven't read. I skip most of the rubbish on here.

[whittman]

spireitenag, on 22 July 2017 - 05:44 PM, said:

Personally I think your attitude and stance sum up the feelings and the position a great number of fellow Spireites find themselves at presently.

There's no helping folks who think they know everything.

That last sentence imo sums up most deedahs and as they are running the club it is no real surprise

[calvin plummers socks]

s42blue, on 23 July 2017 - 05:06 PM, said:

Was a genuine Q. I haven't read. I skip most of the rubbish on here.

He mainly polluted the 'Personal' part of the site

[moondog]

RN Blue, on 23 July 2017 - 06:29 AM, said:

Here's me thinking this was a thread about Clucas.

Anyway, Moondog, you have ACs ear, can you ask in all seriousness why SS and CPS never received a reply to their very generous offers of assistance? It seems incredulous to me that a drowning man would knock away any sort of assistance to pull him out of the water. We are clearly not well run (due to the overwhelming evidence of late), despite protestations that we are a professional club that doesn't make mistakes - oh the irony, so I can't see why genuine offers wouldn't even generate a response - unless of course our expensive IT system is pump and emails don't get through, wouldn't that be funny.

If they PM me for my email address and then forward on the emails sent I'll follow up, it's too difficult otherwise based on user names and no dates etc

[Wooly]

Well here's some good news for you for a change. There's no more sell on money to Mansfield Town for Clucas.

[RN Blue]

moondog, on 23 July 2017 - 09:42 PM, said:

If they PM me for my email address and then forward on the emails sent I'll follow up, it's too difficult otherwise based on user names and no dates etc

Thank you, hopefully one of them will do so, unless they are beyond caring now.

[dim view]

RN Blue, on 23 July 2017 - 06:29 AM, said:

Here's me thinking this was a thread about Clucas.

His value has shrunk to peanuts now.......

Newcastle United are hopeful of signing Hull midfielder Sam Clucas, 26, for £4m. (Sun)

[RN Blue]

dim view, on 24 July 2017 - 01:26 PM, said:

His value has shrunk to peanuts now.......

Newcastle United are hopeful of signing Hull midfielder Sam Clucas, 26, for £4m. (Sun)

4 million is hardly peanuts, although I hope the Hull chairman holds out for more.

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

Stockholm Spireite, on 23 July 2017 - 08:26 AM, said:

RN, I've reached the point of detachment and have no need for someone to defend the indefensible. I can't believe any more lies along the lines of "we never got your emails / there must have been a problem with the system, or maybe even these offers should have come directly to me (AC)", especially when I took the trouble to not only email the club, but also post paper copies and have them signed for on delivery. I know my communications reached the club through the tracking systems of the postal carriers.




I'm aware of that very generous offer and the refusal, although not the exact wording. I agree 100% with your summation.

As Spireitenag says above, there's no helping folk who think they know everything.

Talk of relationships with the 'Powers That Be' reminded me of this: http://www.thecfss.c...pic=59055&st=20

Or specifically, the reports from Lee Strafford relating to his treatment at the hands of the Allen regime.



'In 2004, when I found myself in the position of being able to justify the decision for PlusNet to become main sponsor at SWFC in 2004 it created the opportunity for me to try and make a statement about local businesses supporting the club. This was something that I had hoped was going to start a trend. I hoped that this would happen as the many discussions I had had with business men and fans in the corporate area of the club identified that the club was not seeing anything like the true potential income as there was a well established perception in the local business community that the board were operating a closed shop at the club and that the people themselves were an old boys network closed shop. This meant that, not only were many businesses put off culturally, but because of this lack of proper focus on commercial clients, businesses understood that they would not be able to experience an appropriate 21st century sports hospitality model if they were to bring their customers, trading partners and staff to Hillsborough. When we agreed to the sponsorship I made a stipulation to Ian Leech (who is now and was then a member of the commercial team) that I wanted nothing to do with any of the board members nor the CEO as they seemed to me to be a set of fossils with no understanding of how a modern consumer facing business needed to operate never mind how an important community asset need to be managed i.e. they had no concept of the term “custodian”. I just wanted to put something into the club and then just be able to turn up as a fan and watch the games.

This plan did not work out as I received a call from Ian Leech, during which he apologetically relayed that it was necessary to meet with the CEO as part of the sponsorship process. I agreed to meet the CEO at PlusNet’s offices, which were at the time at the side of the Sheffield Arena. Kaven Walker arrived and walked into my office and his opening line was “you’ve done well for yourself haven’t you son, should I be buying shares in your company?” What happened to “hello my name is x it’s nice to meet you, tell me why you want to get involved with the club”?!

I told Kaven “we had worked hard and have been very lucky. Because we have been successful and more innovative than our competitors in a market where our competitors are much bigger than us I would recommend anyone to buy our shares but I would not tell anyone when to sell our shares”.

Not a good start. Things soon got worsened as Kaven’s follow up was “being the main sponsor of a football club is a very powerful position, and as CEO I am very powerful, we can pretty much do whatever we want”. I was horrified and responded with “Kaven I am a techie entrepreneur and we are in the business of creativity and our products are bought based on trust and as such our reputations are everything and I have no interest in getting involved in any activities that would call into question the integrity of my personal brand”. After a brief discussion on football the meeting ended. What I took away from it though, ultimately led to me becoming more involved at the club. This meeting and one other discussion confirmed my view about where our club was headed. They probably don’t remember, but I had the briefest of discussions with Dave Allen and Bob Grierson during which I said that I thought the way forward was for the club to take advantage of the work already done to put the PLC structure in place and to seek a listing on the stock market. This would mean selling new shares (equity) cheaply to institutions resulting in said pension and investment funds each having circa 5% holdings and collectively accounting for circa 50% of the shares in the club, thereby raising circa £10m, which would fund the club as it sought to establish itself properly in the championship. Thereafter it would enable the club to be sold to a new owner who would be looking to take the club into the Premiership. The response I got was “we are ok, we don’t need to do that, we have everything under control internally”!!!!! What followed this was being asked “how much I was willing to put into the club”?!?!?!?!

So, my worst fears based on everything I had seen heard and experienced were confirmed. Our club was underfunded, the directors were pulling cash out of the business at the wrong time when we needed to get established in the championship and they had no interest in pursuing any path that would result in them losing control of the boardroom

I concluded that because of the characters in the boardroom and also the nature of the CEO, that our club would not be progressing any time soon and was more likely to meltdown one more time resulting in the club going into administration.

This view was reinforced over the next year or so as more of the staff opened up to me and expressed their concerns about the conduct of the board and also the CEO.

I decided to keep a watching brief and to try and put something in place when the club did indeed melt down in order to save the club from the potential consequences of administration.

This view was confirmed and was made more profound when Dave Allen departed in November 2007 and more crucially the creation of the poisonous environment by the events that lad up to that departure.'

[Town_Fan]

MDCCCLXVI, on 24 July 2017 - 03:07 PM, said:

Talk of relationships with the 'Powers That Be' reminded me of this: http://www.thecfss.c...pic=59055&st=20

Or specifically, the reports from Lee Strafford relating to his treatment at the hands of the Allen regime.



'In 2004, when I found myself in the position of being able to justify the decision for PlusNet to become main sponsor at SWFC in 2004 it created the opportunity for me to try and make a statement about local businesses supporting the club. This was something that I had hoped was going to start a trend. I hoped that this would happen as the many discussions I had had with business men and fans in the corporate area of the club identified that the club was not seeing anything like the true potential income as there was a well established perception in the local business community that the board were operating a closed shop at the club and that the people themselves were an old boys network closed shop. This meant that, not only were many businesses put off culturally, but because of this lack of proper focus on commercial clients, businesses understood that they would not be able to experience an appropriate 21st century sports hospitality model if they were to bring their customers, trading partners and staff to Hillsborough. When we agreed to the sponsorship I made a stipulation to Ian Leech (who is now and was then a member of the commercial team) that I wanted nothing to do with any of the board members nor the CEO as they seemed to me to be a set of fossils with no understanding of how a modern consumer facing business needed to operate never mind how an important community asset need to be managed i.e. they had no concept of the term “custodian”. I just wanted to put something into the club and then just be able to turn up as a fan and watch the games.

This plan did not work out as I received a call from Ian Leech, during which he apologetically relayed that it was necessary to meet with the CEO as part of the sponsorship process. I agreed to meet the CEO at PlusNet’s offices, which were at the time at the side of the Sheffield Arena. Kaven Walker arrived and walked into my office and his opening line was “you’ve done well for yourself haven’t you son, should I be buying shares in your company?” What happened to “hello my name is x it’s nice to meet you, tell me why you want to get involved with the club”?!

I told Kaven “we had worked hard and have been very lucky. Because we have been successful and more innovative than our competitors in a market where our competitors are much bigger than us I would recommend anyone to buy our shares but I would not tell anyone when to sell our shares”.

Not a good start. Things soon got worsened as Kaven’s follow up was “being the main sponsor of a football club is a very powerful position, and as CEO I am very powerful, we can pretty much do whatever we want”. I was horrified and responded with “Kaven I am a techie entrepreneur and we are in the business of creativity and our products are bought based on trust and as such our reputations are everything and I have no interest in getting involved in any activities that would call into question the integrity of my personal brand”. After a brief discussion on football the meeting ended. What I took away from it though, ultimately led to me becoming more involved at the club. This meeting and one other discussion confirmed my view about where our club was headed. They probably don’t remember, but I had the briefest of discussions with Dave Allen and Bob Grierson during which I said that I thought the way forward was for the club to take advantage of the work already done to put the PLC structure in place and to seek a listing on the stock market. This would mean selling new shares (equity) cheaply to institutions resulting in said pension and investment funds each having circa 5% holdings and collectively accounting for circa 50% of the shares in the club, thereby raising circa £10m, which would fund the club as it sought to establish itself properly in the championship. Thereafter it would enable the club to be sold to a new owner who would be looking to take the club into the Premiership. The response I got was “we are ok, we don’t need to do that, we have everything under control internally”!!!!! What followed this was being asked “how much I was willing to put into the club”?!?!?!?!

So, my worst fears based on everything I had seen heard and experienced were confirmed. Our club was underfunded, the directors were pulling cash out of the business at the wrong time when we needed to get established in the championship and they had no interest in pursuing any path that would result in them losing control of the boardroom

I concluded that because of the characters in the boardroom and also the nature of the CEO, that our club would not be progressing any time soon and was more likely to meltdown one more time resulting in the club going into administration.

This view was reinforced over the next year or so as more of the staff opened up to me and expressed their concerns about the conduct of the board and also the CEO.

I decided to keep a watching brief and to try and put something in place when the club did indeed melt down in order to save the club from the potential consequences of administration.

This view was confirmed and was made more profound when Dave Allen departed in November 2007 and more crucially the creation of the poisonous environment by the events that lad up to that departure.'

You would quote Hitler as a shining bastion of efficiency if you could use it as a dig. Strafford is a whiny nobody.

[Spireite-Karl]

Town_Fan, on 24 July 2017 - 03:48 PM, said:

You would quote Hitler as a shining bastion of efficiency if you could use it as a dig. Strafford is a whiny nobody.

They dig enough holes for themselves in all fairness

[Town_Fan]

Spireite-Karl, on 24 July 2017 - 03:54 PM, said:

They dig enough holes for themselves in all fairness

I dont disagree but some people have to go into fantasy land and rewrite history to feel better about themselves.

[The Earl of Chesterfield]

Town_Fan, on 24 July 2017 - 04:33 PM, said:

I dont disagree but some people have to go into fantasy land and rewrite history to feel better about themselves.

I note you posted similar sneers at Strafford on the original thread.

And you've now used Hitler's name to somehow discredited the reference.

Bit desperate.

But anyway, I've never met the bloke (Strafford, not Hitler) and I don't know why you've such issues with him, however I was merely pointing out what look like legitimate parallels between events at SWFC and CFC.

This post has been edited by MDCCCLXVI: 24 July 2017 - 05:45 PM

[Bobby Darling]

calvin plummers socks, on 22 July 2017 - 05:41 PM, said:

As Stockholm says- some of us offered tangible help to a failing club but got not one reply -even a courteous no ta.

I mention Sally Swain as at the end of last season when MP had left and I spent 3 months in Town with a lot of free time to help I tried to chase up with her via phone and email and never got a response. I popped into the club for details of a function one day and mentioned her at reception to be told- don't bother she doesn't acknowledge thy sort of thing.

What Stockholm offered is incredible really both of financial worth (and saving) and of immmese expertise.

I find it quite insulting that of all the clubs I've worked with (20 now from Prem to Spanish la liga to championship and below I've never really had any bad experience in terms of courtesy.

But Town the club I've passionately 'supported' (or not according to Spire Power) for 40 years have shocked me time and time again. Like Stockholm I wasn't in it for money or fame (:-)) - probably as they couldn't afford our services in the real world ordinarily.

I guarantee if I (and Stockholm and Misnomer) had had our free services taken up we would not have gone down last year.

Your last statement is a very bold one. A genuine question: what team did you coach at what Premier/La Liga club. I'm interested.

[calvin plummers socks]

Bobby Darling, on 24 July 2017 - 06:33 PM, said:

Your last statement is a very bold one. A genuine question: what team did you coach at what Premier/La Liga club. I'm interested.

I don't coach football.
I work wth footballers- slight difference.