Relegation Thread 23/24 Sponsored by Sadford City

[Ainsty]

Shows how shit we've been so far that the bar for survival is on course to be so low. I mean we were champions less then two years ago ffs.

Can you identify what went wrong?

 

[Indian Dan]

Are your fanbase Flynn out yet mate? Don't see where he goes if he gets sacked again he's failed with us and you so far.

I’m an outer. I know he’s been hog-tied regarding budget but rinse and repeat game after game without attempting a change of tack has done it for me.

Tbh, after shipping 7 at home to Aldershot he should have been embarrassed enough to resign.

We’re in shit street whoever is manager. It’s the owner who needs to go.

 

[Chris FGR]

Can you identify what went wrong?

Basically, we've been run like a circus.

 

[Ainsty]

Basically, we've been run like a circus.

I'm sorry to hear that. It must be painful as a supporter to see Billy Smart taking over.

 

[Greenacres]

I'm sorry to hear that. It must be painful as a supporter to see Billy not so Smart taking over.

Fixed it for you!

Seriously though, it feels like our club is a complete and utter cluster at the moment...I really have no idea where it might end up.

Part of me expects to be watching a phoenix club in five years time that is a lodger at Brimscombe and Thrupp.

 

[Alfie]

Fixed it for you!

Seriously though, it feels like our club is a complete and utter cluster at the moment...I really have no idea where it might end up.

Part of me expects to be watching a phoenix club in five years time that is a lodger at Brimscombe and Thrupp.

Am I right is saying that Dale V was invited to invest in FGR after they were at point of going bust?
If so he has delayed the club's demise by about 20 years or so.

 

[Greenacres]

Am I right is saying that Dale V was invited to invest in FGR after they were at point of going bust?
If so he has delayed the club's demise by about 20 years or so.

I think it depends who you listen to, even he has said that the club were on the verge of folding and he couldn't bear to see a vital part of the community disappear...others may say that he was approached and asked to dip his hand in his pocket. Either way, he did stump up what was believed to be £25k to keep the Inland Revenue off the club's back as the coffers were empty...our previous Chairman, Trevor Horsley, had run out of money to pump into the club.

To start off he did stabilise matters and the club was run on a pretty professional basis, until he started to get ideas above his station of reaching the Championship...then it turned into something that was purely a vehicle for his ideas...now we have reached a stage where few believe he even cares about the football, the fans certainly aren't a priority and are on the verge of revolting (as in turning against him, not being vile individuals...the majority are really quite nice!).

This is the first season that I have heard fans publicly saying "Vince out"

 

[Chris FGR]

Afaik we were in trouble, but not on the verge of folding completely. We did need a cash injection to stave off the inland revenue and moving forward needed to promote the club/facilities better to try and bring in more income. Relegation to National N/S was most likely and we'd have needed to go part time again. Administration was the worst case scenario from what I've been told. Vince wasn't the only interested party in investing in/ taking over the club, but he certainly was the richest.

Funnily enough Vince has since closed the gym and Green Man pub to the public as making money out of our facilities or being a real presence in the local community throughout the week isn't really a priority for him. He makes money out of owning the club in other ways, primarily as an advertising vehicle.

 

[FGR-Star]

Am I right is saying that Dale V was invited to invest in FGR after they were at point of going bust?
If so he has delayed the club's demise by about 20 years or so.

You are wrong. Like Chris says, we would have most probably been a Conf South club for a bit and actually been a big club in a small pond, rather than the other way round.

 

[Greenacres]

You are wrong. Like Chris says, we would have most probably been a Conf South club for a bit and actually been a big club in a small pond, rather than the other way round.

I would tend to agree with this, the current ground does lend itself to generating income for events other than football...I certainly think that was what Trevor and his board were aiming for when they built it, with a pub, skittles alley, gym, dance studio and rooms that could be let for business meetings and the like. If we had either stayed in the Conference, or dropped down a division, our income compared to competitors would likely have been pretty favourable...however, despite banging on about sustainability, I believe the current owner has created a beast that is so far from being anywhere near sustainable. I really fear for the future and it seems like many of our fans, at least if you read what is being posted on the club forum, are starting to come round to that viewpoint.

 

[WhiteRussian]

I’m an outer. I know he’s been hog-tied regarding budget but rinse and repeat game after game without attempting a change of tack has done it for me.

Tbh, after shipping 7 at home to Aldershot he should have been embarrassed enough to resign.

We’re in shit street whoever is manager. It’s the owner who needs to go.

I thought you had turned the corner when you got rid of Power and haven't you bought your ground back as well?

 

[Indian Dan]

The club seems a magnet for chancers with little or no funds. There is a pervading stink of ‘shenanigans’ around the club. Sure the ground has been bought off the council on a 50/50 basis with the Supporters Trust, but nothing has actually happened with the suppposed redevelopment. We have a convicted money launderer associated, someone who was once one of the UK’s most wanted and despite a T/O of £7m and costs being pared to the bone we still don’t have a pot to piss in. Signs do, however, point to a change if ownership - but it could just be the next in a long line of ne’er do wells.

Fucked off with it all, tbh.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

So many clubs, and their fans, have been in very similar, desperate and depressing scenarios.

Looks like it's currently Swinton Town's turn.

 

[Chris FGR]

So many clubs, and their fans, have been in very similar, desperate and depressing scenarios.

Looks like it's currently Swinton Town's turn.

Well Swinton is more of a Rugby League town tbf....

 

[EnglishRed]

You can usually survive bad managers and bad players but 9 times out of 10 what gets you relegated out of the League is having bad owners.

 

[Conker]

Definitely in this league, you usually have to be a basket case and spectacularly shit to get relegated.

 

[Indian Dan]

Hello!

 

[FGR-Star]

Definitely in this league, you usually have to be a basket case and spectacularly shit to get relegated.

We fit that bill perfectly at present!

 

[Pilot_Phonic]

You can usually survive bad managers and bad players but 9 times out of 10 what gets you relegated out of the League is having bad owners.

We're the masters of this from this century...

Can take literally years to recover or fall into some miracle like what happened with us.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

We're the masters of this from this century...

Can take literally years to recover or fall into some miracle like what happened with us.

Didn't both happen with Wrexham?

 

[Optipez]

You can usually survive bad managers and bad players but 9 times out of 10 what gets you relegated out of the League is having bad owners

Couldn't agree more. When the owners aren't invested and leading the way clubs drift and without being financially propped up most drift downwards and almost inevitably through the trapdoor.

 

[Pilot_Phonic]

Didn't both happen with Wrexham?

Yes they did. Turn of the century, our chairman fell ill when we played Wycombe. He had suffered a heart attack and his kids pressured him to selling. Along came Gut(t)erman as a frontman for Alex Hamilton who wanted the land and sell it for profit, not giving 2 flyings about the club or anyone surrounding it.

Luckily (part I) he didn't get away with it, but we had to get into admin to save the club away from Hamilton, which made us go in the history books as the first club to be hit with 10 penalty points for doing so (god bless any fit and proper fit and proper test...).

Fast forward coming out of admin, local businessmen Moss and Roberts, where the latter is a property developer, sold the fans a pack of lies after acquiring the land off the administrators, then saying all profits from the flats (currently standing now) goes back to the club. The lies of course meant they kept it all for themselves. Fast forward crook after crook wanting the limelight to buy the club, so as a fan base we were the best thing to take it over. Pleased everyone that we still had a club but couldn't afford players as not allowed an overdraft, due to the way the trust was set up, so players like Cristian Jolley couldn't be bought, instead opting for Newport.

Fast forward again to COVID, that is a blessing in terms of saving our season as we had the worst season ever in our long history, but the PPG average meant we stayed up. Then the takeover occured.

A long 25 year or so story in about 4 paragraphs. Just writing this has given me more grey hairs than I already have.

Coming back to what EnglishRed said about ownership and behind the scenes stuff, if you're ever going down that route, then I can only wish good luck in getting the club back on a level footing.

 

[Greenacres]

You can usually survive bad managers and bad players but 9 times out of 10 what gets you relegated out of the League is having bad owners.

I think you hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head with this assessment. If you look at the clubs that have dropped down into the National League in the last decade the vast majority have had owners who were trying to rob the club of everything it had, avoid paying staff, in trouble with HMRC or so bad that you wouldn't trust them to run a bath let alone a football club. There have been very few clubs that have gone down because they were just poor on the pitch and couldn't string a few results together to put them above the genuine basket cases. This is what makes me so hacked off about our situation, our owner is generally clueless when it comes to making the right decisions about footballing matters...he doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would take kindly to receiving advice, more like everyone panders to his every whim even if they know he is asking them to do something barkingly stupid.

The weird thing at the moment is the absence of our CEO, during the busiest part of the season, who allegedly went home to New Zealand with his family for Christmas but seems conspicuous by his absence...my advice to him would be to cancel the return portion of his ticket, rather than have any more time spent at this car crash of a club on his CV, he seems like a decent bloke and deserves a chance at employment elsewhere.

 

[Essex2Wessex]

My understanding (right or wrong) is that new CEO is Mr Eco-friendly and consequently travels between the UK and NZ by boat, not plane. So is he doing any work on the way, and what sort?

Honestly the whole situation is a tragedy in its way: it could make an awful but engaging documentary about how to not run (or even I fear, destroy) a football club.

 

[Chris FGR]

That was a joke going around about the boat thing afaik.

It takes 32-40 days by boat from Europe. And that's on very infrequent freighters which carry a small number of passengers. He'd have had to set off in November to be there by Christmas. He can't take 2-3 months off every time he wants to visit his family.

 

[Greenacres]

That was a joke going around about the boat thing afaik.

It takes 32-40 days by boat from Europe. And that's on very infrequent freighters which carry a small number of passengers. He'd have had to set off in November to be there by Christmas. He can't take 2-3 months off every time he wants to visit his family.

You can add a few more days to that due to the Red Sea being a bit dodgy at the moment, with Houthis attacking shipping, and the safest route being to travel via the Cape instead of Suez.

 

[Chris FGR]

Good point.

The other option is to go via the Trans-Siberian railway. Takes 4-5 weeks and obviously involves travelling through Russia. Which is not advisable atm.

So yeah, pretty sure him going over there by boat (or train) is a wind up. Unless he doesn't intend on coming back.

 

[Tinpot and proud]

You can add a few more days to that due to the Red Sea being a bit dodgy at the moment, with Houthis attacking shipping, and the safest route being to travel via the Cape instead of Suez.

Surely Vince is mates with the Hamas loving extremist terrorist group and along with the sewer rat Corbyn can arrange safe passage through the Red Sea for him ?

 

[EnglishRed]

Surely Vince is mates with the Hamas loving extremist terrorist group and along with the sewer rat Corbyn can arrange safe passage through the Red Sea for him ?

Careful, your prejudices are showing.

 

[GTFCfish]

Definitely in this league, you usually have to be a basket case and spectacularly shit to get relegated.

And next level shit to get relegated out of it twice…….