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I don’t think it will come out in the wash.
I can’t see SE engaging in a public slanging match and our glorious leader is unlikely to want to detail the events of what seems to be yet another sorry chapter in a story that is becoming a tragedy of epic proportions.
The rather cold reference to ‘current regime’ tells you all you need to know I think. He’s made his feelings pretty clear without resorting to mud slinging.
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I’d speculate he jumped.
There’s only so much crap anyone can take, no matter how committed you are to the ‘project’.
I suspect he has discovered over the last few months with grim clarity just what kind of comedy show our glorious leader is running down there.
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Yes – to single him out the criticism is a bit harsh.
He hasn’t been perfect this season but he’s done more than most to contribute to our meagre points total.
When you have to deal with the traffic that he’s had to this season the odd error is inevitable.
He has commanded his box significantly better this season – more out of desperation than anything I think – because he’s realised that his best chance is just to come for everything because defensively we’re so fragile.
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He’s no worse either though.
How can you judge anyone properly trying (and inevitably failing) to sort out this Swann inspired shambles?
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Who would want to buy us for the price Swann will want?
The share value of the club when he took over was, I believe, around £1m – and of course the club owned their own ground.
Whilst the shares themselves are worthless Swann made a series of share issues that he himself took up – notionally placing the share value of the club at several millions of pounds.
Having now hived off the ground (and ascribing a notional value of around £11m to it) it seems to me that Mr Swann will be seeking offers in the region of 8 figures – certainly if any prospective purchaser wants to take the ground back rather than being left with Swann as the landlord.
This also nearly recoups most of the money he squandered at the clubs expense of course.
For this hefty investment you will get a loss making entity, on an unprecedented downward spiral, with no playing squad worth talking about and a stadium that is falling down.
Besides that, you’d have the issue of having to totally reorganise the off field structure of the club – unless you were happy with the current chief scout et al.
Whilst I’m sure there must be a kind hearted simpleton out there who also happens to be a multi millionaire I’d be surprised if he came knocking on our door anytime soon because he’s probably under lock and key for his own safety.
The reality is that either by incompetence or design, Swann seems to have managed to make us totally unsaleable – unless he is simply prepared to give the club and ground away of course for next to nothing – which seems even more unlikely than the kind hearted simpleton scenario described above.
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This side would struggle in the National League but that’s academic because this side won’t actually be playing in the national league.
Most will be released or jump ship voluntarily if they get any sort of offer elsewhere.
Assuming Swann doesn’t try and just wrap things up (which wouldn’t totally surprise me) we’ll have the usual late influx of desperate bargain basement signings – of the ‘has been’ and ‘never will be’ variety along with the usual half a dozen 18 and 19 year olds on loan to pad out the squad numbers.
I wouldn’t fall off my chair in surprise if we’re not scanning the national league north by this time next year wondering what local derbies we can look forward to on 2023/24.
Hats off to Swann. In a perverse way it takes rare talent to be such a monumental and consistent failure as a football club chairman on and off the field over such a lengthy period of time.
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I thought it looked really harsh in real time.
Having seen a photo still of the impact though – it looks significantly worse, almost to the extent it looked like a different challenge!
He went in over the top of the ball studs raised and made full on contact with the players shin.
On that evidence it was dangerous play and a straight red – so the ref got it right.
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There isn’t much difference between us and that Donny side.
They won 4 all season – we might scrape to 5 or 6 if we’re extravagantly fortunate.
They scored 30 in the league – we’ll be lucky to surpass that as well.
Prince Moncrieff was their top scorer with 10 – and no one will get close to that.
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I don’t think he can really be blamed for the lack of quality of the signings in January – disappointing in the most part that they have been.
You end up signing what you can afford and that dictates the quality.
It was evident we were struggling by the last minute nature of the deals – we were literally scavenging for scraps that no one else wanted.
Both Cox and Hill have done the equivalent of trying to buy a serviceable car for £100.
You might pick a Ford or you might pick a Fiat but either way you’re going to end up with a crappy old banger.
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Hill isn’t the problem in the same way that Cox and the countless others who came and went before him weren’t the problem.
Hill’s overall record stands very close inspection as do the records of people like Alexander and Robins before him.
They don’t suddenly turn into bad managers overnight.
The real problem is we aren’t in need of a competent lower league manager.
For the last 4 seasons it’s been a case of ‘only fully certified miracle workers need apply’.
The real problem?
The one man who has had a controlling influence in every disaster that has befallen us on and off the field over the last 4 years?
Well we surely all know the answer to that one.
Mr Chairman – take a bow.
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I suspect a proven ability relating to the reproduction of loaves and fishes is a prerequisite – or at the very least membership of the magic circle.
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Let’s not expect higher standards from Hill than of any other mortal.
99.9% of people who work do so out of necessity to one degree or another.
I’ve no idea how well financially secure Keith Hill is but I assume an income is welcome because even a casual observer wouldn’t have termed it a dream job when he took it.
Let’s be honest as well, if everyone had enough integrity and honesty in the UK, say tomorrow, to tell their boss exactly what they really thought of them, then there’d probably be 16 million unemployed the day after.
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A bit harsh on Hill I think.
Whatever he may think privately he can hardly say publicly (well, perhaps not until he departs anyway). He has to try and be seen to be positive rather than just throwing in the towel.
Hill is a proven manager. His stats over nearly 2 decades don’t lie.
We have had other experienced managers – Robins, Alexander, Hurst etc – all of whom have been successful before and after leaving the club.
That paints a picture and illustrates the the real root cause.
It comes down to budget directly affecting the quality of the players any manager can bring in – pure and simple.
When you have a sub standard budget you end up with a sub standard squad.
That’s what we’ve got.
We can critique Hill’s tactical nous on match day and we can question his signings – but the reality is he’s been forced to rearrange the deckchairs on a sinking ship on a weekly basis because he hasn’t received the support needed to be able to bail it out.
We’ve got a non league budget and a chairman and executive management team who have overseen that – and whose own ability level will be ‘well suited’ shall we say to non league football – which is exactly where we are heading.
Whether we had Hill or Jurgen Klopp in charge – the end result would be the same.
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Scunthorpe United have already lost far more than EFL status
Hits the nail on the head in the last couple of paragraphs.
The conclusion seems to be that he’s gambled and made incredibly costly mistakes on other peoples tabs.
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A few rogue chairmen to blame in amongst that lot.
We’re not run as a hobby and there’s no way we’re going down though so we’re ok.
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The point I suppose is that we signed players whose prospect of gainful employment elsewhere was limited.
If the story is to be believed we have a budget that would place us in the bottom half of the national league which means trying to bring in quality, unless you’re going to try and run with a squad of 14 or 15, is virtually impossible.
The fact Hill knows the players in question in some respects is almost irrelevant.
I’m sure he knows hundreds of players, but we can’t afford most of them.
You only have to look at the game time and recent scoring records (or lack thereof) of the players who he’s brought in to realise why we were able to afford them and why we didn’t have to beat off an army of other clubs to get them. Basically we were left scavenging for left overs and scraps on deadline day.
Being kind, defensively I don’t actually think we’re that bad, and as a side I don’t see a lack of effort – but the lack of quality in the middle of the park and further up the field is absolutely frightening.
It’s significantly worse than I can ever remember and I go back nearly 50 years – and have seen lots of dross, particularly back in the 70’s (when crowds were significantly lower than now might I add).
That comes down to wages, pure and simple. We can’t compete with the rest of the division in terms of players who are sought after to any extent.
Assuming we go down, then under Swann sadly we’ll face exactly the same issue in the National League next season.
It doesn’t matter to an extent who he puts in charge either.
If you’ve got a crappy 3 wheel van that’s 40 years old you can put Lewis Hamilton behind the wheel and he’s still not getting a ton out of it down the motorway.
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Just woken up thinking about our issues and current plight…..
I have to be careful what I post because some people with incredibly large egos but increasingly small pockets police this and other social media platforms looking to pounce on the little man with any opinion that doesn’t quite suit their own lofty opinions of themselves.
I wil say this though – the current regime needs to get out and get out quick (even if it’s a case of resigning from the board but staying as majority shareholder for the time being).
There are good people, with the best interests of the club at heart, who won’t (or are prevented) from going to watch this wretched outfit by a man who turned up long after (and who will be gone long before) these proper supporters.
The current situation makes me want to vomit, as does the rotund one in charge.
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Hippo must be one of the few players who gets to drop down a division, out of the league as well, but feel like he’s won the pools.
Top scorers in the building are now Burns and Jarvis with 2 apiece.
Top assist provider left is Beestin I think with 1.
You couldn’t make it up really.
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It’s just depressing.
They’re so short of the requisite quality all over the park it’s quite frightening as to how someone managed to actually assemble such a poor squad at a professional level.
Sometimes just a couple of signings can turn a struggling side around but I don’t think that’s possible with this lot.
You’d need half a dozen quality acquisitions to even scratch the surface and I think we can safely say that isn’t happening so I agree, we’ll all be spared any last day agony – we’ll be down long before then.
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3-2 wildly flattered them – Rovers should have had about 8 – and probably would have had if it hasn’t been for Watson and some wasteful finishing.
Had we equalised late on it would have been a scandal really but it’s a small positive to take from the game I suppose.
There’s no hiding from the fact though that for the first 89 minutes we were absolutely appalling.
We didn’t even play like a national league side – it was worse than that.
There was no tempo, no movement and most of them looked as if they’d struggle to pass wind, let along the ball.
There weren’t many out there tonight who will be playing league football next season – and for good reason – they aren’t good enough by sone distance.
Remind me again – who is in charge of recruitment and which genius hired him?
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That nearly ignores the fact he has managed to turn us into a wholly unsaleable asset.
Riddled with debt he’s incurred, ground in hock, no playing staff of any quality, anything not nailed down worth more than a tenner sold, and destined for the national league and beyond.
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It was a pathetic statement and a public relations disaster, in keeping with previous efforts.
No apparent self awareness or acceptance of a catalogue of errors.
The usual pass the buck mantra – it’s not my fault, its not my head of recruitments fault – it’s C-19’s fault, it’s the fans fault, it’s the players fault – it’s anybodies fault except the man making all the decisions.
The ‘manipulation of the truth’ line was sad and comical in equal measures.
The table doesn’t lie, the debt position doesn’t lie, and the absence of a ground doesn’t lie.
Who needs to manipulate the truth when the truth speaks volumes.
Just pathetic excuse after excuse.
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Ah, the golden year of 81/82.
Home to Wigan midweek – got beat 7-2. Remember it well.
FA Cup 3rd round at home to Hereford when the floodlights failed when we were all over them – and beating Halifax away 2-1 when MOTD were there.
The squad list actually had some good names on it but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
A lot of those guys – Green, Partridge, Grimes etc we’re right at the end of their careers and weren’t regulars.
O’Berg was out injured for a large chunk of that season as well from memory and Cammack only came back from Lincoln for the last few weeks of the season.
So, in the round, they were a pretty poor side.
But, they were comfortably better than this lot and a number of those players were in the 82/83 promotion squad.
Their record of 7-9-7 at home is comfortably better than this lot will do and they only finished 2nd bottom on GD.
You need to go back to the mid 70’s to find incompetence on the current scale – and the facts support that.
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