A Mariners fan on our problems

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  • #231185
    alcazaralcazar
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    Registered On: December 24, 2013
    Topics: 50

    On reading Swann’s latest statement, Mariners supporter, Poojah, had this to say:

    “That’s exactly what’s happened – under Swann’s stewardship, Scunny quite literally pursued the pipe dream of reaching the Championship while routinely averaging sub-4,000 crowds by borrowing loads of money the club didn’t have with no clear plan for repayment.

    And anyway, to what end? Let’s say they had gone up, what next? They’d have got relegated, that’s what, unless they borrowed probably in the region of 8 figures per season, which would have been catastrophic long-term.

    Anyway, they didn’t and they failed, and now they have to massively tighten the purse strings to a point that it gives them little chance on the pitch. What’s going to happen when you do that, having got your fan base hooked on unrealistic expectations and a level of football well above what the football club can naturally sustain? People stop going; their average attendance this season is lower than the likes of Sutton, Barrow and Stevenage and looks set to be possibly their lowest in over two and a half decades.

    So then you cut costs again. You sell your best striker and your captain. Then you almost certainly get relegated into non-league, and crowds drop again. If they’re in the National League (or lower) next season, I predict they will average gates well below the 2,000 mark.

    And then you decrease expenditure some more, and the cycle continues. They are in an absolute tailspin and it’s going to be very difficult to pull out of it. They are absolutely fùcked in my opinion.

    Fenty’s game was very different; quite the opposite in fact. He lacked any ambition or vision whatsoever. Everything was always based on the previous year’s balance sheet, and so you tread water while others gradually rise above you. He lacked the imagination to see that if you increased the budget (modestly), brought in better players, played better football and achieved better results then income would increase and it might, just might, all pay for itself.

    But at least an approach seated in balancing the books at all costs leaves you with a club, albeit starved of investment at the end of it, I’ll give the man that much. Quite what Swann will leave in his rear view mirror doesn’t bare thinking about for Scunny fans.

    He’s taken a club, which for all the local rivalry and píss taking was a steady League One / League Two outfit and had recently reached the Championship (twice) through genuine merit and turned it into an untouchable, burning wreck.

    Yes, I’ll admit it – I want Scunny to get relegated and experience the same pain and frustration that we’ve had to endure in recent years. But I don’t like it when genuine football fans, who to all intents and purposes I probably have a lot in common with, have their football club stolen or destroyed.

    Peter Swann is a dangerous, dangerous man and it’s hard to see this not ending disastrously for Scunny.”

    #231189
    dandaherron@yahoo.co.ukJust Iron
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    Registered On: August 1, 2014
    Topics: 9

    Let’s see. I reckon we’ll know where we are in about 6 or 7 games time Alcy. If you’re correct then enjoy it. If not .. then I certainly will.

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    #231194
    cliffbyrnesrightpegCliff Byrne’s Right Peg
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    Registered On: October 17, 2015
    Topics: 57

    An almost perfect summary of our current plight.

    The only sentence I’m inclined to disagree with, is the end one. Ours appears to be a story of mismanagement and incompetence rather anything more sinister- although the Jury is still out.

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    #231197
    AwaywegoAwaywego
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    Registered On: June 20, 2017
    Topics: 166

    Let’s put Lincoln in that box as well, £5.1 million wage bill unsustainable in the long term, ok at the moment while there filling the ground but we all know that won’t last forever, just enjoy the good times while they happen I know I did (and I do mean the swann era)

    #231198
    Iron-aweIron-awe
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    Registered On: June 21, 2017
    Topics: 11

    Already read it earlier, been said before and it’s nowt new, It’s just another fan from another club with an opinion about a team they don’t support. Big deal, we don’t need a codhead to state the bleeding obvious do we, mind you it was on their forum and anyway who gives a f**k what he thinks.

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    #231204
    HeathHeath
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    Registered On: August 5, 2017
    Topics: 18

    Alcy, thanks for posting this. The Cod is spot on. This is not a dig at you, but a few days ago you posted that you fell out with Wharton because he lacked ambition. A poster listed Wharton’s achievements against the lack of achievements by Swann.

    The above article explains where we are due to being over ambitious, yet Wharton achieved without us tumbling down the league after relegation from the Championship.

    Confused!!

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    #231210
    alcazaralcazar
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    Registered On: December 24, 2013
    Topics: 50

    Let’s see. I reckon we’ll know where we are in about 6 or 7 games time Alcy. If you’re correct then enjoy it. If not .. then I certainly will.

    See, this is your problem

    You seem to believe that anyone criticising our club either isn’t a supporter, or, worse, is happy with the mess we are in.

    It’s called a straw man argument.
    look it up and learn something.

    #231213
    alcazaralcazar
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    Registered On: December 24, 2013
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    Alcy, thanks for posting this. The Cod is spot on. This is not a dig at you, but a few days ago you posted that you fell out with Wharton because he lacked ambition. A poster listed Wharton’s achievements against the lack of achievements by Swann.

    The above article explains where we are due to being over ambitious, yet Wharton achieved without us tumbling down the league after relegation from the Championship.

    Confused!!

    I’m pretty sure I actually wrote that Wharton SEEMED to lack ambition.

    I based this assumption on more than one observation.
    First off, his apparent reluctance to fund decent signings. “We tried but the lad didn’t want to come”, and the joke about 50p and a half eaten toffee didn’t come from nowhere.
    Second, the unseemly haste with which any half-decent player was sold on, and his acceptance of low offers just to get some money in. We NEVER looked like keeping decent players for another season or so, just to see where they might have got us, and to allow the paying, and long suffering supporters chance to see a quality player in an Iron shirt.
    Third, his apparent reluctance to try and fund success, (see 2, above), while the supporters paid and paid, week in, week out.
    And lastly, the almost obscene haste with which teams that had reached the Championship were dismantled.

    I’m not going to mention what really got up my nose, since I’ve recently mentioned it on here and the thread was removed. Seems we are still favouring fear over the truth.

    #231220
    HeathHeath
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    Registered On: August 5, 2017
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    Thanks for the explanation. The Wharton period gave us Sharp, Keogh, Hooper, Hayes, Beckford, Murphy in a team full of experienced players.

    I understand the complaint of not holding on to players, but I think it is true that it’s difficult to hold on to players who are performing well and ambitious. Agents see to that and hard to hold on to them because of the wages they could get by moving.

    Hooper was scoring more than Carroll, yet Carroll was sold for over £30 million. So we could be criticised for not holding out for a higher fee.

    If we had been better run over these last few years there should have been no reason why we couldn’t carry on competing with yoyo teams like Rotherham, Barnsley, Peterborough and Donny.

    That second half of the season fall and playoff loss to Millwall started the slide and not getting enough or anything at all when the better players left that team.

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    #231227
    dandaherron@yahoo.co.ukJust Iron
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    Registered On: August 1, 2014
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    Alcy wrote : ‘See, this is your problem
    You seem to believe that anyone criticising our club either isn’t a supporter, or, worse, is happy with the mess we are in.
    It’s called a straw man argument.
    look it up and learn something.’

    Not at all, Alcy. I think the article itself just went a bit too far in the last section. I think Peter Swann has made a massive mess by thinking he had skills and know how he didn’t possess and over reached in terms of ambition. As far as your good self is concerned I think it’s perfectly fair to say that, whatever qualifies as a ‘supporter’, you have consistently, over many years and under different Chairman, been pathologically eager to carp and criticise. I don’t recall you ever displaying any generosity or appreciation of those perceived to be ‘the establishment’ … even in the years when we punched way above our weight. Of course you are entitled to consistently and loudly criticise every generation of Scunny’s ownership whether we are the envy of every club of similar standing or … as now .. a laughing stock. Just don’t get riled when people point out that you don’t seem capable of anything but a jaundiced view of all things Iron.

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    #231230
    alcazaralcazar
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    Registered On: December 24, 2013
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    Having supported them for almost 60 years now, my jaundiced view is pretty much set in stone.
    This club has always seemed to set it’s supporters up just to knock us back again.
    They get going, then disappoint.
    Lack of ambition? Planned relegation? Piss-poor business management skills? Who knows.

    But no-one should make the mistake of thinking that I actually like, enjoy, or approve of the predicament we’ve been put in by Swann’s stupidity, ego and broken promises.
    I’m as devastated as the next man.

    But even if we escape this season, I will NEVER forgive Swann for turning us from a club others looked up to, into a laughing stock.
    Nor will I EVER either believe, or trust the guy again.

    And nor should any sensible supporter.

    He’s had his chance, messed up, and if he had even one shred of decency, he would give back the ground and land, and walk away, taking his useless rude family with him.

    Sell the club for £1, and give us back our belief.

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    #231295
    IronfanIronfan
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    Registered On: December 23, 2013
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    This club has always seemed to set it’s supporters up just to knock us back again.
    They get going, then disappoint.

    Supporters of most clubs probably say the same

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    #231410
    NigelHollingsworthTheKnut
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    Registered On: June 8, 2014
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    Brentford are doing quite well.

    #231415
    AwaywegoAwaywego
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    Registered On: June 20, 2017
    Topics: 166

    For now!

    #231429
    lesgeolesgeo
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    Registered On: December 25, 2013
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    Regarding ‘matters sinister’.
    Someone whose highly knowledgeable opinion I value greatly – and really knows her/his politics from the inside – has declared to me that he/she has encountered a surprisingly tiny ratio of plots in high places as opposed to the alternative explanations.
    Whether this is where plots are assumed to have happened in: politics, business, high finance etc – playing the odds, apparently, you are ALWAYS safer assuming incompetence to be at the heart of the matter. It begins as the odds on favourite.

    Consequently – applying the logic above – this writer would wager his tenner on incompetence. Managing businesses – and football clubs which happen to be businesses – are not the same thing.

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    #231433
    Lord KitchenerLord Kitchener
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    Registered On: December 24, 2013
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    Just a minute. They are not ‘Mariners fans!’ They are stinking smelly Cod Heads….

    #231441
    AwaywegoAwaywego
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    I wouldn’t trust anybody’s opinion if they can’t make their mind up which sex they are.

    #231445
    IronIronIronIronIronIron
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    Registered On: December 24, 2013
    Topics: 7

    What a sensible post.

    Swann is many things, but I would suggest that incompetent is quite probably top of the list.

    I will also say that his intentions have always been to improve the position of the club. Sadly, his incompetence and lack of football knowledge have led us to where we are now. The sooner he realises this the better. Let’s hope that the recent activity and the confirmation of Hill staying on regardless as the start of a change in fortune.

    Regarding ‘matters sinister’.
    Someone whose highly knowledgeable opinion I value greatly – and really knows her/his politics from the inside – has declared to me that he/she has encountered a surprisingly tiny ratio of plots in high places as opposed to the alternative explanations.
    Whether this is where plots are assumed to have happened in: politics, business, high finance etc – playing the odds, apparently, you are ALWAYS safer assuming incompetence to be at the heart of the matter. It begins as the odds on favourite.

    Consequently – applying the logic above – this writer would wager his tenner on incompetence. Managing businesses – and football clubs which happen to be businesses – are not the same thing.

    1 user thanked author for this post.
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