Mattyblue

Issue is now, if the majority of L1/L2 clubs couldn’t afford to finish this season with no fans in the ground, how could they possibly start next season BCD? What on earth will have become of the pyramid if fans aren’t allowed back for say, 12 months?

We are in agreement then, if TM thinks he is the best man for the job, then get him in.

Read my last post again, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Of course football recruitment can’t be just based on qualifications, it’s too dynamic, coaches need real match day experience to draw on, too emotional an industry for that, relationships are all important. Can’t say I put much truck in ‘coaching badges’ anyway. My point was merely you don’t just hand out jobs because old pros round the place fancy it. You give them to people that can improve the club, if TM thinks he can, then sign him up. Fair enough, no?

Who’s being dismissive? I, like you have no idea of how good he could be. If TM feels he needs a new coach and DG interviews best, then that’s good enough for me. Remember, TM is a ‘football man’, his requirements for a coach won’t just be how many qualifications/university time he has, but if he feels he’s a leader the players will listen to/relate to, if he can use his playing experience to improve our strikers, if he’s a motivator, if he can play that bridging role between him and the players. Wholly uncontroversial in my view, to have only the highest standards in recruitment. That’s how organisations improve.

A bit like when Allardyce appointed a certain coach...

A qualification (and he hasn’t completed them, by the way) is just that, it qualifies you for a particular role. Doesn’t mean you have the other qualities needed to perform it, that’s for the recruiting manager to assess. He seems a popular bloke around the place, but because he has a qualification and has had a decent career as a player doesn’t mean he should be just given an important role in a non-playing leadership position If he’s the best man for the job, then get him in, in an ideal world we’d all prefer ‘Rovers men’ at all levels of the club, part of the reason the club feels so hollow is the lack of them on the board of directors, but if we aspire to be a top professional organisation it should always be a rigorous recruitment process, for whoever the candidate is.

How do you know it’s a sound investment? Is he a good coach? We have no idea. So what if he’s completed coaching badges, or if he wants to be a coach. The game is saturated with wannabe coaches. Only TM will know if he looks as if he’s got what it takes to make it in a non playing leadership role. If he feels he has, great, if he hasn’t then off you go. Appointments should always be on merit, not jobs for the boys or by sentiment.

An empty ground is par for the course in a lot of Test playing nations unfortunately, so it won’t be too odd to see, especially for the West Indies players...

I saw the screenshotter was getting wound up when it was on, as our overlord J*B was saying the ‘66 team would get beat by Mowbray’s Rovers. I presume he was on a fishing expedition. But it’s an interesting point. Not that the two teams are even close in quality, but the game is just quicker now. So you plonk that team into 2020 and they’d struggle to get to grips in with the pace. A bit of a daft discussion really, as given time to condition they’d wipe the floor with Mogga’s lot. Reminds me of the famous Harry Enfield sketch...

So? He should still have knowledge of emerging county and international cricketers. That’s part of the job. He had been Durham chairman for a couple of years and I didn’t spot any improvement. I like the bloke, but his time had come and gone. I was more annoyed about Gower, as he was an excellent host.

Thought Botham was past it. You could tell he watched zero country or non-England international cricket, so had little knowledge of emerging players and teams. Usually just went on about getting pissed up in the ‘80s. Totally in contrast to the likes of Nasser and Atherton and even Bumble, who behind the clown persona, is still in touch with the game lower down.

Possibly. She had to apologise as she was trying to contact others to help with my MyRovers account but was finding it difficult to get hold of other departments.

I spoke to a lady last week. Calls were being diverted to her house. Apart from her and odd others in other departments like IT, rest are furloughed.

Sounds like we are at crossed purposes. Of course I wouldn’t have expected anything else since the 5th, that was Friday afternoon! Im talking about how we heard nothing from March till June. A lot of fans have felt in the dark. I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had with people in recent months, with them asking me ‘what’s going on with STs?’ ‘Will we get a refund?’ Surprisingly I didn’t shout at them for having the temerity to ask. You don’t agree that the club could have been more proactive with comms, fine. But getting angry about it doesn’t change the fact that many fans do feel that way.

Exactly right, so don’t churn out identical statements. Things have changed since March, if only incrementally.

Please do. End of the day Joe, as anyone that has worked in comms will know (like I have), it is communication 101 to keep in touch regularly. Even if it’s a ‘holding statement’, my bosses would have my head if I was delivering a project/or had paying customers and we offered radio silence for months on end, especially in a crisis like this. It doesn’t matter that there were no real developments. Some fans aren’t following all this as closely as we are, and will be completely in the dark without comms from the club, that’s just the way it is with a diverse customer base. No idea why you are getting so worked up. Especially as brfcs has been fairly mild in its criticism of the club since shutdown (which is most abnormal for this place), saving most of its ire for the authorities.

The multi-Season ticket household is a good point. The family of 4 all with STs are going to be getting a much poorer deal than the household with one ST holder.

I’ve honestly not seen anything refund related (including a pre-emptive flagging) mentioned by the club and I’ve read everything COVID related on the website. I don’t want to anger you, so I won’t ask you to find and post the link, maybe Chaddy can as he’s the king of links for brfcs...

You’re in a right ‘huff’ this morning. You said refunds were mentioned in the second quote, Paul said ‘where?’ and you went off on one and said you never mentioned refunds! Just that ‘YOU’LL GET YOUR REFUND!!’ Err Ok! Yes, I’d expect a holding statement just like that, that we are working with the EFL and we’ll be back in touch when we have more to share, just a bit of communication to paying customers. Keeps fans feeling in the loop, even if there’s little development. You might not be bothered to hear it, I’m not particularly, but I know some fans have been querying why they’ve heard nowt for months, as they aren’t as au fait with all the machinations of EFL plans, negotiations and discussions etc like fans like us are. Couple of lads I work with were asking me what’s happening with STs etc as I’m seen as the office Rovers nut.

Sorry still don’t see anything that says there will be a choice between ifollow and refunds, can you spell it out. Also, please can you tell me what the club has said to fans since March, before that email on Friday? I’m probably not a million miles from your position, I’m sure we will hear more in coming days and I’ll take the ifollow, however you are being very flippant to paying customers that have spent hundreds, thousands in some cases and haven’t even had an acknowledgement for months - just basic customer service to put together a statement to ST holders, separate from just copying and pasting EFL statements etc, that they ‘are in the club’s thoughts’ , ‘we are working with the EFL’ etc that would take 10 minutes for a decent PR team.

I must be being dense, but where does that even hint at refunds? I’m not particularly arsed about a refund, but we must have been one of the few clubs that literally said nothing to fans from March (Not counting EFL press releases posted on rovers.co.uk) until that follow on from another EFL bulletin in June, like I said not even a holding statement.

Lot of assumptions there, Joe. How do you know we’ll be given a suite of options to choose from? No point ‘having a rant’ either way until we know where we stand. But what I would say is the club have said literally nothing since March outside copying and pasting EFL press releases - just a holding statement/email saying ‘we’ll be in touch with our loyal fans’ doesn’t seem too onerous for a club with PR/social media teams, surely?

I watched the opening game against Switzerland the other day and the Scotland game, we were pretty poor until the second half of the Scotland match - Shearer header, McAllister missed a pen and we went straight down the other end for a Gazza special. From then on, we improved massively, and I think we would have gone on and won it, if Gazza had reached that Shearer cross...

Oh definitely, a decade of largely bobbing around second division mid table, with no real sniff of being involved in anything post new year sucks the life out of everyone.

That ain’t happening with Mowbray’s football. As Stuart says, the atmosphere only gets going at Ewood with exciting play - and that’s true with 6,000 or 16,000 in attendance.