Miller11

Me too. It’s exactly what we are asking them to do.

The outcome of the meeting is that Suhail will now be attending our official MOU meetings, and that EFL mandated Supporter Consultation meetings (not “another fan forum”) will be occurring with the first one hopefully very soon. It wouldn’t be right or appropriate for the clubs entire strategy to be communicated to two supporters in what was effectively an initial introductions meeting, for us to then relay to our members. This is the sort of communication that needs to be coming directly from the CEO and COO, not through any conduit. It needs to be detailed, it needs to address wider supporter concerns, and it mends to be honest. This is exactly what we have impressed upon them. The January signings fiasco has been done to death. I’d say people have been held to account judging by the complete demolition of the previous recruitment team and exits of previous club officials, whether you personally believe they were the right people, I don’t know. There isn’t a mic drop question that is suddenly going to make Venky’s decide to sell up, or Waggott and Suhail to suddenly drop £15 million on a new centre forward. If you can think of one I’m all ears. Your last paragraph is exactly what we are trying to get beyond. The communications void won’t be fixed overnight.

The delay is proving my point above. It’s an absolute priority for WATR to get this message out ASAP.

Personally I feel a good level of comfort that this won’t be the case. It’s not for me to try and persuade anyone else of that though. The fact it’s a concern is, in my opinion, a direct result of their communication and the lack of trust it inspires.

Without completely jumping the gun on our official response, one thing that is massively problematic at the club is (lack of) communication with the fans. Whatever questions we ask, we are never going to please everyone. Some people think we don’t ask the right ones, some people think we don’t question the answers enough, some people think we shouldn’t engage at all, some people think we should be slinging round abuse. We have to act in a way that we feel best represents our membership, at the moment much of this is driven by the MOU we have with the club. What is currently beyond our remit is to get all the answers everyone wants, or to put across the clubs messages for them. We do however recognise we are in a “privileged” position as we have more access to ask questions than most. As a result a big part of what we discussed was around generally improving both communication and wider fan engagement, hopefully leading to an opportunity for everyone who frequently reminds us we don’t represent them to have their say.

1. Winners of the Championship Luton 2. Runners-up in the Championship Leeds 3. Championship Play-off final winners Bristol City 4. Where will Rovers finish the season? 19th 5. Which 3 clubs will be relegated from the Championship? Stoke, Oxford, Plymouth 6. Who will be the first club in the Championship to change manager? (For whatever reason) Watford 7. Who will be the BRFCS Player of the Season? (As voted for in the Match Centre on BRFCS) Tronstad 8. A wildcard prediction for something (possibly quite mad) that will happen to or at Rovers during this coming season Completely left field, last minute “Marquee” signing of at least £5 million.

Yes, there was a meeting with Suhail on Friday. Obviously there will be a full report of what we discussed and the agreed outcomes from it. I’m expecting to be giving up a lot (more) of my free (and not so free) time to answering questions and carrying out our agreed follow up actions as a result of it, no problem with that, but it wasn’t possible yesterday or today due to other demands on my time. We had planned to update the wider fanbase tomorrow. One of the actions I’ve taken is to contact representatives of all fan groups to brief them fully on what we discussed, obviously this includes the BRFCS ownership. @J*BYour inference that we wouldn’t have discussed this had Glen not brought it up is pretty wide of the mark. Glen is aware of the meeting due to the fact I discussed it on the phone with him yesterday.

Yes, Gary resigned on August 1st.

Nope. What would an example of a hard question be you’d like asked?

I don’t have an exact number, but it’s in the 400’s up by about 25% in the last year. You are absolutely right. We can spike membership with a critical statement at an appropriate time, I’ve seen it happen plenty of times in the past. However that hasn’t been without its issues.

I believe we were making positive steps on points 1 and 3, but obviously a massive spanner has been thrown in the works lately. We have to try. I’m only speaking for myself here and not the board, but in answer to your question… If they are providing additional funding to us, yes. If they expect the club to be entirely self funding, no.

At various points throughout its inception Rovers Trust/We Are The Rovers has taken a completely hostile stance against the owners. From looking to buy some/all of the shares, to backing other potential investors, to calling for them to sell, to shouting Venky’s Out into the void. None of which achieved anything. From a completely personal point of view, I’ve seen loads of instances over the years, Kean days, Coyle days, now, where individuals call for other groups or individuals to protest on their behalf. Lots of people talk about it but won’t “get their hands dirty”. Similarly, we have a lot of people telling us what we ought to be doing who don’t want to commit a tenner a year (not saying you fall into this category by the way). In terms of long term survival of Rovers, or any club, I’d argue that actions such as having your ground declared an ACV, and the soon to be legislation set out in the MOU around giving fans a greater say in the running of their club is pretty key.

We are a membership organisation. For us to take a public stance like that and effectively set back the progress we have made towards aligning with the Fan Led Review and tear up the MOU we worked extremely hard to have implemented, we’d need a very definite mandate from our membership. At present we have no widespread calls from our members to radically alter our approach. If there comes a point our board believe this to be the best course of action we’d have to set the wheels in motion for some sort of consultation with our members. I’m sure there will be some discussion on our future direction pretty soon after August 21st.

To clarify, no we are not. However, that shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of the way the club is being run. Nor should it be presumed we wouldn’t welcome new owners.

Like I said, triggered by. Looks increasingly like Szmodics and Gallagher are off. One was inevitable, one has been widely called for. What it has done is highlight the threadbare nature of the squad and lack of required quality. The second I get wind of the last bit being true I’ll do everything in my power to expedite their exit. To reiterate, The second they become unwilling or unable to fund us there is nothing positive about their ownership of Rovers. Again, big couple or three weeks coming up. You won’t see a single mention of any marketing prospectus in any of our minutes from the last 12 months. You’ll see a lot of talk about fan engagement and consultation, shadow board formation, regulatory expectations, and calls for clarity and improvement. The scope of our MOU allows us to provide feedback on certain areas, lately it has mostly been around ticket pricing and fan engagement. The fan led review, which we contributed heavily to, outlines a lot of the expectation on clubs to consult with supporters that is already being phased in at EFL level.

No summer holiday for me this year, just having my tea after getting back from Wigan, apologies for the deafening hour silence. To clarify a few things: We have discussed budgets and finances a lot during our MOU meetings. Last time round we were told that Venky’s envisioned no problems in remitting funds when they applied to do so with the ED, albeit under the restrictions (costed and guaranteed). Additionally they were hopeful the requirement for a guarantee would soon be removed and the court issues all resolved. This was followed up with specifics around the wording in the court document where it was reiterated that they believe they could send money over. We were also told that Waggott can only tell us what the owners are telling him. He asks them to send money over when required. when that wasn’t possible he had to make up the shortfall with sales and cost cutting. In my personal opinion, the last 18 months has been about preventing any winding up orders, which has been done successfully, and mitigating fan unrest, which hasn’t. We then asked if any money had been requested from them - we were told it had. We then asked if it had been sent yet, and we were told not yet, but it was expected. Obviously this was some time ago, not sure of levels, or whether it has materialised. We wouldn’t ever be told transfer budgets or any other commercially sensitive or contractually private information. My guess would be that something has occurred in the last week or so as suddenly their appears to be a green light in terms of incomings, to what level remains to be seen. I don’t attend fans forum meetings, but I expect similar discussions were had with them. Presumably the heavy looking activity on here tonight has been triggered by the piss weak lineup we fielded against Wigan? I haven’t read every post. Can’t argue with that, the squad needs major work. Apparently incomings are on the way, and evidently outgoings are too. As a slight aside, I’m not sure everyone on this thread who thinks they are a member are - we can check for you. Also, we are getting calls to take a more confrontational stance, rip up the MOU, cease engagement etc from people who categorically aren’t. We always respond to member emails, we don’t monitor this thread 24/7. We are constantly telling the club that the current situation is not acceptable, and the mass unrest that is permeating the fanbase is being exacerbated by their lack of communication, and obviously their lack of action. We’ve complained loudly that we have been told about projects, and how the likes of Phillips and Wharton were heralded as the future of our club for years to come, and they’ve both been shipped off in their teens and barely a penny spent replacing them. I’m not sure what anyone thinks abusing Steve Waggott would achieve for us. I’ll tell you what us publicly calling for Venky’s to sell the club has done when it’s happened in the past - absolutely nothing. That said, we’ve made it very clear that the one positive thing anyone could possibly say about them as owners over their tenure has been the level of funding. The second they become unwilling or unable to fund us there is nothing positive about their ownership of Rovers. For the moment we need to keep trying to exert influence using the means we have available to us, obviously it’s a pivotal few weeks coming up though.

These are categorically not licensed by either ASICS or Rovers. They will likely also be of very poor quality.

One of the strangest performances I’ve ever seen from an opposition player. He absolutely terrorised us that day, but his finishing was woeful. If he’d banged in 10 goals last season he’d no doubt be getting a move to the Premier League considering his physical profile, the fact he’s only 21 and a full international.

Just heard Southgate saying our ball retention needed to be better. While Adam Wharton never got out of his tracksuit and bib. Definitely time for a change. Anything other than a Spain victory would’ve been scandalous really. Without even taking into account how poor and boring England have been, Spain were by far the best team in the tournament. I particularly enjoyed seeing a side bucking the modern trend and playing some genuinely exciting stuff - I think the standard throughout has been generally really dull. The winning goal tonight was glorious.

It’s definitely something we can look to introduce. We need to find ways to better engage with the membership and this could be an effective way of doing so.

No criticism aimed at you Carl, just making the point that if people want the Supporters Trust to act in a certain way they need to be a member.

I missed the post(s) that are hidden, but in response to Carl’s quoted above: Josh has made really valid and accurate points regarding space on the board, but it goes even further than that. We are a democratic membership organisation. Anyone who feels WATR should be taking a different approach/implementing ideas raised on this message board - it costs £10 a year to join.

Got to agree, it looks amazing on. Definitely 95 vibes. That shade of blue is it!

Jury is still out. Difficult to judge accurately in all honesty but didn’t stand out either way.

Interesting how we lined up today. 4-4-2 and a 4-1-4-1. It would certainly support Eustace’s comments that he likes out and out wingers… let’s hope we sign some. First half we saw a lot of the ball in wide areas. JRC was drifting in and Dolan cutting in, both fullbacks were getting up and supporting. Brittain saw a lot more of the ball, but Pickering was the more useful of the two with it. Gallagher won a couple of flick ons to nobody in particular. Szmodic made some really good runs in behind but the ball was either missed or too late. Sammy going off injured is a major concern. Second half really demonstrated our frightening lack of depth. I can only think Saadi was thrown in at the last minute as the planned strike partner for Vale was unavailable. Gent was lively and Duru impressive. Buckley streets ahead of the vast majority of players in the pitch. Despite their involvement in the goal I thought Markanday’s decision making remained very poor and Vale looked miles off it. Ref robbed us of a bit of excitement in seeing Tyjon. Ridiculous considering he let their keeper (who made Wahlstedt look as composed as prime Friedel) stay on after a ridiculous challenge near the half way line!