Gotta give him credit for that, honest and heartfelt - he clearly wants success for him and us, just hope he is able to get the right advice, and put PW back in the conditioning team.
I think the idea that they wanted to get relegated is nonsense. It literally makes no sense at all. It has just gone very badly wrong.
The most telling statement I have seen came from Paul Douglas a couple of months ago, when he said that even if everything had gone really well it was still a challenge to stay up, but that once things started to unravel it made it a nigh on impossible task (or words to that effect). I think that is the reality. In the last couple of seasons we have had a couple of kamikaze clubs like Blackpool and Bolton effectively improving our odds, but this season nobody has gone into financial meltdown. Just us in footballing freefall.
I think that the biggest task facing any club is to rise through divisions sustainably. Football clubs just don't tend to rapidly grow a fan base. Burton have spent a lot of money this season by their standards on wages of battle hardened Championship players (O'Grady, Ward, Brayford, Dyer and so on) but they are clinging on. Isn't it likely that if they manage to hang on this season they will probably go down next? Their home support hasn't increased greatly. Despite building a massive stadium and transplanting a club into a big town with no near rivals and having had relative success in recent years, MK Dons struggle to get more than 6,000 home fans in on a regular basis.
Despite talk of stadium expansion and big ambition, I am yet to see a compelling reason to think that we could establish ourselves as a 'safe' Championship club for the long term. We aren't generating enough (any) revenue from players sales, and the commercial revenue (G&C site, units etc) seems to have stalled. A quick injection of cash from new owners or investors can give a short term boost, but with associated high risk.
I think I am saying that relegation from the Championship was, in the cir***stances, inevitable sooner rather than later. I think it has been the embarrassing manner of it that has hurt the supporters most, and for me that is all that Tony really has to apologise for.
Paul Warne has no managerial credentials. It would be a crazy appointment.
-- Edited by smiler on Thursday 23rd of March 2017 08:00:01 AM
Tony Stewart came into the lounge on the last game of last season and said 'I promise you things will be better next season'.
There is no excuse for only having 17 points at this stage of the season.
We don't want apologies, we want well thought out decisions. If he wasn't prepared to back a new manager with additional funds then he should not have sacked Stubbs.
Do sometimes wonder about the stories that it was AS that turned down Gregory and Bradshaw deals because of the £. Why would a manager care about an extra 100k if they were his targets and the people who could underpin their success. I'm not buying any talk of biggest budget in L1.
Agreed NY. When I look back over the season and consider the things said, the promises made then left unfulfilled, the absence of any sort of logic to events, ranging from the ridiculous to the absurd.
The Stubbs saga the Jackett fiasco, the continuing Warne(s) debacle.
The announcement about announcements which turn out to be rehashed announcements, re-shaped and re-modelled.
The money that is there for record breaking signings that never happen but morph into a record breaking wasteful costly 3 year flops and a season that is supposed to be better than the last becomes the worse season in 90 odd years in terms of games lost.
When I consider all that then I have to wonder too.
Chin up Towdlad. I know it stings but its only temporary. I don't think Tony Stewart is someone who would enjoy being bottom of any league table inside or outside sport, but I understand the cynicism given the trail of destruction that has been this season.
Having my children to take to the games has imbued me with a new sense of perspective. My eldest (14) enjoys the experience of being a supporter so much, even after yet another defeat she will ask before we leave the stadium whether we can go to the next game. We will be at all the remaining home games and at Wigan and Reading. If as expected we lose them she will enjoy them more than I will be able to, but the pain doesn't survive the time it takes to get home afterwards.
I remember when I was a student at Leicester in I think 1987 taking the train and changing at Birmingham, Crewe and Preston to meet family at Blackpool, stand on an open terrace in the pouring rain and watch us lose 3-0 in a dreadful third division game in a relegation season. If I remember rightly Winston Campbell had our only shot on target. About 3,000 in the ground total. I am not a 'happy clapper' as some would put it. It hurts that we have been embarrassed this season. But we have been in worse scrapes than we are in now, and there are better seasons ahead.
I do admire your positive approach Smiler, I think I'm right when I say I have never seen a negative comment from you that was not backed up with considered reasoning, if any such comment has been made at all.
As for me, on the other hand, I tend to be a glass half empty and do tend to get rather cynical (actually I'm very cynical about the game in general these days) having seen our club lurch from success to diabolical failure so often particularly when I see our near neighbours Barnsley build a half decent and relatively successful club. I'm referring to the events following our joint promotion back in the 80/81 season, when they built on success while for us it was thrown away.
The arrival of TS changed all that for me culminating in our short sally in the Championship and I felt we were at last moving into the 21st century. Its not the relegation that gnaws away at me, its the particular machinations behind the scenes that leave me feeling betrayed and cynical, that nothing has really changed except we now play in NYS rather than Millmoor.
Jack Mansell was the manager when I went to my first Millers game with my old grandad, so I can say I've seen it all before. But I do enjoy your posts.
I do admire your positive approach Smiler, I think I'm right when I say I have never seen a negative comment from you that was not backed up with considered reasoning, if any such comment has been made at all.
As for me, on the other hand, I tend to be a glass half empty and do tend to get rather cynical (actually I'm very cynical about the game in general these days) having seen our club lurch from success to diabolical failure so often particularly when I see our near neighbours Barnsley build a half decent and relatively successful club. I'm referring to the events following our joint promotion back in the 80/81 season, when they built on success while for us it was thrown away.
The arrival of TS changed all that for me culminating in our short sally in the Championship and I felt we were at last moving into the 21st century. Its not the relegation that gnaws away at me, its the particular machinations behind the scenes that leave me feeling betrayed and cynical, that nothing has really changed except we now play in NYS rather than Millmoor.
Jack Mansell was the manager when I went to my first Millers game with my old grandad, so I can say I've seen it all before. But I do enjoy your posts.
I think your reasoning is being felt by many Towdlad but now their begining to admit theses feelings and sound off. I do think the appointing of Warne(s) after the Wednesday game will have a somewhat detremental impact on the sensible thinking ST holder
