My issues with the board

Sorry, my 2nd post and another long one. Here goes.

Seems like the anti-board protest was a damp squib, and lets all be honest Smudger is a complete c**t. But does he have a point? I think the board have made 4 serious errors;

1. Employing Peter Grant. With the state of the squad at the time, we needed an experienced head to re-build. It was not the time for gambling on an unproven manager, and the gamble back-fired badly.

2. Mis-reading the future of football economics. I remember Delia saying in our promotion year that she thought the bubble would soon burst on football economics, how wrong was she. Since then we have had even more foreign investment, a new TV rights deal that has almost doubled the money going into the Premiership, and the Championship starting to get speculative investment. The result being prices are way higher than they anticipated for even journeymen players, and we are enduring a relegation scrap.

3. Investing too much in the club infrastructure and not enough in the team. I think they got the balance wrong, but its a more difficult balance to get right than most realise. Given how close the club was to bankruptcy, and how much money was wiped off from the ITV Digital collapse, who can really blame them for investing in alternative methods of generating income. Bear in mind that player prices have risen considerably because of point 2, then the error is compounded. We should also remember that a lot of the money HAD to be spent, we needed a new pitch and press facilities for the Premiership (not through choice, we had to spend the money), and the South Stand needed replacing. Also, how many clubs DON'T invest in corporate hospitality/restaurants/hotels these days? Did they get the balance wrong? Yes. But the balance is much tougher than people realise, and look at some other struggling clubs who put ambition before prudence before saying this is the entire problem.

4. Not being tough enough on contract negotiations. However much they wring their hands and say 'we had to put that clause in there, or else the player wouldn't have signed' it was their responsibility to support the manager and ensure that our best players who we wanted to keep would not leave. Over the summer we lost our best players through holes in contracts they negotiated. Not good enough.

If it was down to me, I would sack Doncaster and get in a CEO with a football pedigree. I would also recruit a board member with a solid football background, our board don't understand the game fully and it shows.

I have no time for those making personal attacks on our board, however. Their main priority has been to ensure our club has a future, and bearing in mind they witnessed first hand how close we came to bankruptcy in the late 90s and the losing of the ITV Digital money, I can't blame them. Those picking specifically on Delia need to have a word with themselves, she took on the catering/hospitality side to great success and has plowed millions of her own money in with little hope of a return. At the end of the day they are fans, and have the club's long term future at heart.

Its time for the Turner's to come to the party. If the 2m they 'invested' over the summer was it, then they bought 2 seats at a great club's board very, very cheaply and we can add a 5th point to the above. I can't believe this is true though, the loan signings we have made so far make me confident we have more to spend in January. I don't want statements about how much we have to spend, that will push player prices up further. We need to see proof through decent player acquisitions because however much better we look now, we need to strengthen further if League 1 isn't to become a reality for us next year.

OTBC and back to the beer.

Posted By: Big Down Under, Dec 5, 05:38:08