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DTG wrote: Matt, I know a chef, I make a quite decent beans on toast and at a push can feed half a dozen a passable roast dinner. It doesn't qualify me to run a commercial kitchen! You along with a couple of other mates of the Board are just not getting it. THEY HAVE, ARE and WILL CONTINUE TO DO IT WRONG until they get professional advice from PROFESSIONALS. You and your bean counting chums will say "we can't afford to". Well as has been shown by our abortion of a season "we couldn't afford not to", but the idiots in charge knew better and here we are.

The flaw in your reasoning is that the Board members have put their heads above the parapet to run the club because they love Torquay United. Why else would they spend their time and energy on a football club that spends most of its life in the bottom half of Division 2 and as a result, struggles financially year after year? The Board appealed for 'new blood' to come forward earlier this season but as far as I know, there was no response - such is the disinterest towards the club in the Bay. Okay - we might not have the best Board of Directors in English football, but it seems it's the best it's going to get !

There is no flaw to his argument at all. Nobody is doubting their love or commitment to the club, it's their ability to do the job successfully that's in question.

Regardless of who's done what and of course we don't we will never know everything but surely the likes of Baker and Phillips have to ask themselves where exactly they will sit historically with TUFC.Under their stewardship they have cost the club well over a million pounds and damaged the good work done previously possibly irreversibly.

Fans are rightly concerned where they will take the club next.

Southampton Gull wrote:I've been enjoying the debate, Matt puts up a fairly decent argument for someone typing words best suited to their rectum

Dave, you are of course correct and this has been my main gripe about the reign of Baker. Too often he's stifled forward thinking ideas rather than risk upsetting the "commercial department". If those in that particular area of the Club had done their job correctly we'd almost certainly be in a far better financial state than we are currently.

I've been banging on about this for years and nothing has changed except for one thing, we've lost our League status and the funding that goes hand in hand with it. With Phillips running around like a headless chicken it's no wonder people have been put off investing, I know I have.

Banging on for years? Me too Dave, it's been like the kid shouting out about the Emperors new clothes. Or being the non pedophile Catholic preist telling Bishop Brennan. We've been shouted down, Ferarrilovered, told there are weapons of mass destruction, grassy knolled, Area 51nd, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", there will be no white wash at the Whitehouse, smoking doesn't cause cancer, global warminged and statistically fed a load of old pony by the apologists for our situation. (Do you think I might have gone a tad over the top there?)

Matt and his cronies just don't get it, The Lawyers and Accountants on the Board need to be told to STFU, Someone with real Business knowledge needs to be appointed who has a Footballing background without the excuses.

DTG wrote: Banging on for years? Me too Dave, it's been like the kid shouting out about the Emperors new clothes. Or being the non pedophile Catholic preist telling Bishop Brennan. We've been shouted down, Ferarrilovered, told there are weapons of mass destruction, grassy knolled, Area 51nd, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", there will be no white wash at the Whitehouse, smoking doesn't cause cancer, global warminged and statistically fed a load of old pony by the apologists for our situation. (Do you think I might have gone a tad over the top there?)

Matt and his cronies just don't get it, The Lawyers and Accountants on the Board need to be told to STFU, Someone with real Business knowledge needs to be appointed who has a Footballing background without the excuses.

Sorry DTG - you're the one who just doesn't get it. As I said in my previous post, we might not have the most effective Board of Directors, but it's the best we're going to get. Where is this (quote) 'someone with real business knowledge needs to be appointed who has a footballing background' ? Wonderful if someone like that came out of the woodwork, but the Board appealed for new members last year and the result was ...... a deathly silence. I am not defending the Board - they have to bear the blame for the mess of the last two seasons as much as the managers and players. But with all due respect, none of us can throw the proverbial rotten eggs at the Board members if we're not prepared to put ourselves forward.

No problem Tom. The thing is you have to pay for the expertise. You don't have to of course but then you get what you don't pay for like Baker and Phillips. You are right, no-one is going to come forward so you advertise and appoint the best candidate. You might have to cough up a bit more dough for the right person but at least they won't lose you 1,000,000 pounds in the next 2 years by getting you relegated. Or pay for the striker who's going to score the goals that turn those 1-0 defeats into draws that give you enough points to survive so that you don't lose 1,000,000 pounds in the next 2 years. The Board appealed for new members last year but no-one in their right mind is going to trust the idiots in charge right now with the money. Better to hang on, see what happens and pick it up for pennies in the pound when the inevitable happens. If, of course, there is someone lurking in the background waiting for it to happen.

I would suggest that the Bristol Rovers fans have been throwing rather more than rotten eggs at their Board members and I doubt any of them are rushing to the front of the queue!

Can swear I keep getting a whiff of merse on here now and again

Dave_Pougher wrote:Can swear I keep getting a whiff of merse on here now and again

owing to my inquisitive nature, I actually know what you're on about (well, I don't actually, but I do know WHO you're talking about ); since we have quite a few new posters on here (& I haven't been around on here for very long ) you might be called upon to elaborate !

Yeah, running a business with heart instead of head, give it a crack and let me know how it works out for you.

Of course you think I don't get it, we're not even really having the same discussion. The genuine hilarity is that, as usual, the quiet men, the ones who really know (moreso even than I) are (privately) unwaivering in their support of my continued struggle against those who plough this endless "without Baker, we'd be highly successful" line which, despite Dave's intervention, still isn't true.

No, they're not perfect and yes, some of them should be flushed down the toilet, but to suggest that we should simply do away with the sensible restraints that a number of the Board rightly bring and simply spend, spend, spend is so crackers as to be barely worthy of reply.

It's gone tits up, that's sad, but we are in an infinitely better place now than we were last time and that is thanks to the Board and no one else.

I didn't see all this bollocks when we were in the playoffs. This Board, if blamed for the failings must take the credit for the successes. At the moment, although I'm sure it doesn't feel that way, under the present administration, there've been plenty more of those than failures.

It's not perfect, far from it, but this picture of utter despondency you seem to want to paint is inaccurate and unfair even if you only know the half of it.

Matt.

So, with respect, who should, if anyone, take the majority of the blame for costing the club around a million pounds?

Responsability is a varied thing and if there were a "post mortem" , and I think there probably will be if only to identify collective failings, then surely ultimately someone in responsability should be prepared to stand up and be held accountable. If they did so they would gain more respect than if they didn't do so and continued next season " carrying on" should results again start to go wrong.

Accusation without evidence leads to stunted debate. You've asserted a million pound defecit as to, I presume, where we "should be". I can't pass comment until I've had an opportunity to assess for myself the grounds and evidence upon which you base that statement.

Matt.

Purely based on loss of revenue, over the next two seasons,from losing league status. I have no idea exactly what state the clubs finances are in separate to that, not sure I wanted to hear either.

I sort of find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Matt, in that, two years ago, when in the play-offs, nobody was complaining about the board.

We had just had our 2nd successive play-off campaign and 4th in 5 years and the new stand was completed.

I always imagined that Martin Ling was going to be here for the long haul. The board had never sacked a manager, haven given Paul Buckle 4 years and Ling a year and a half before he went ill. In a way, the club was a model of how things should be done, unless there was much (that I still am to be convinced by) that was hindering behind the scenes. But the new stand, the rapid expansion of the youth development system and success of the team all augured well.

The parts where the club failed are most obviously seen in the position of manager.

Probably waiting too long to see what was going on when Ling went sick but at that point what was the club supposed to do? I doubt they realised at first, he would be off for so long. Being smitten with Knill and then dispensing with Ling, probably, retrospectively, was a disastrous decision. Then waiting until it was too late to get rid of Knill, just aggravated the situation even more.

But other than that, what have they done that is so wrong?

I am glad to see you are coming 'round to seeing that getting rid of Ling was disastrous for us, hector. It was their worst decision to date.

hector wrote:I sort of find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Matt, in that, two years ago, when in the play-offs, nobody was complaining about the board.

We had just had our 2nd successive play-off campaign and 4th in 5 years and the new stand was completed.

I always imagined that Martin Ling was going to be here for the long haul. The board had never sacked a manager, haven given Paul Buckle 4 years and Ling a year and a half before he went ill. In a way, the club was a model of how things should be done, unless there was much (that I still am to be convinced by) that was hindering behind the scenes. But the new stand, the rapid expansion of the youth development system and success of the team all augured well.

The parts where the club failed are most obviously seen in the position of manager.

Probably waiting too long to see what was going on when Ling went sick but at that point what was the club supposed to do? I doubt they realised at first, he would be off for so long. Being smitten with Knill and then dispensing with Ling, probably, retrospectively, was a disastrous decision. Then waiting until it was too late to get rid of Knill, just aggravated the situation even more.

But other than that, what have they done that is so wrong?

Look back. I was complaining before then. As it turned out rightly so after we practically gave Buckle to Rovers yet allowed him to oversee a dismal and abject performance at Wembley which cost us the chance to scale the dizzy heights of League 1. Baker was telling anyone who would listen that we didn't want to gain promotion. Smalltime thinking that eventually ended up costing us our League status. It's this kind of amateurism that stinks and precisely the kind of thing DTG is complaining about. The majority of the Board are exempt from any criticism by me, the two responsible are Baker and Phillips. They stifled ideas put forward by other more positive thinking Board members, they have overseen a disastrous spell and they should be the ones to carry the can. Knill was shafted as was Ling before him, denied what was agreed and left to carry the can.

Matt can paint a pretty picture, he can divert away from what is really being said but ultimately he's just sitting with his head in the sand like many others and not grasping the facts because he's blinded by the spin bandied about by those nice fellows. If people can't see it or refuse to see it then carry on in ignorance, it's that ignorance that these nice fellows are counting on.