Balance, from a moaner

[Valiiant]

22 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

I've spent most of the last few years falling out with most of them - genuinely nothing has ever mattered to me less. Just my honest view.

 

Just don't get any further. I mean I feel like you're one step away from joining them all in some sort of giant group hug and then belting out Kumbaya, My Lord together.

[Bede]

In fairness to Joe, he's always been incredibly measured and mature beyond his years.  Whilst I clearly disagree with some of his points, I too have found myself on occasion stepping back and wondering if, in the grand scheme of things, things are all that bad.  Particularly against the landscape of the previous 20 odd years.  But then I come to my senses and remember I'm a miserable old anarchist who hates everyone.

As ever, I guess the level of balance lies somewhere in between. 

[mbycars]

12 minutes ago, Bede said:

In fairness to Joe, he's always been incredibly measured and mature beyond his years.  Whilst I clearly disagree with some of his points, I too have found myself on occasion stepping back and wondering if, in the grand scheme of things, things are all that bad.  Particularly against the landscape of the previous 20 odd years.  But then I come to my senses and remember I'm a miserable old anarchist who hates everyone.

As ever, I guess the level of balance lies somewhere in between. 

You're not that old Steve 😁

[Bede]

46 in a couple of weeks, Mike!  Hope you're doing well mate.

Funnily enough, I was looking back through some old PM's in my inbox the other day - they go right back to 19 years ago.  A lot has changed since then.  Including my hair and waistlines!

[Warren]

53 minutes ago, Valiiant said:

 

While the OP made some good and fair points, the original post smacks of someone who for whatever reason is just desperate to appease the happy clapper club here which lets be honest, seems to be the majority of the forum. Crosby could set fire to their houses and get charged for Arson and they would still find ways to defend him.

The results have become frequently more poor after a positive start to the season. Performances are almost laughably bad at times. The manager keeps putting out the same formation and employing the same tactics week after week, regardless of what personal is missing. His substitution making in games is often mind boggling. It's all through no lack of effort on his part. But if someone doesn't have the ability to take a club forward then what's the point in thinking about him in any long term sense? Give him the rest of the season and then thank him for giving it a good go and get somebody with fresh ideas in.

I am not a happy clapper and agree with most of what you say. But although I'm frustrated with Crosby I'm prepared to see him as developing in the job. I'm hoping he can come good and have a long term future. But clearly a bad January will create a crisis and may require an experienced and proven manager to be brought in to save us. 

[CAVALIER]

2 minutes ago, Bede said:

46 in a couple of weeks, Mike!  Hope you're doing well mate.

Funnily enough, I was looking back through some old PM's in my inbox the other day - they go right back to 19 years ago.  A lot has changed since then.  Including my hair and waistlines!

Well one has shrunk 

[Valiiant]

Just now, Warren said:

I am not a happy clapper and agree with most of what you say. But although I'm frustrated with Crosby I'm prepared to see him as developing in the job. I'm hoping he can come good and have a long term future. But clearly a bad January will create a crisis and may require an experienced and proven manager to be brought in to save us. 

 

I just want him to show a bit more flexibility. And to also ditch this possession based football until we have the players who can properly implement it. I hope we batter Charlton tomorrow and win plenty of games for the remainder of the season. Humble pie can taste fantastic just as long as you're happy to swallow a bit of your own pride sometimes.

[Bede]

2 minutes ago, CAVALIER said:

Well one has shrunk 

That's not the only thing!

[JoeB2]

 

[CAVALIER]

4 hours ago, Bede said:

Great post once again Joe.  If I'd got more time I'd counter a few of your points but just a couple of thoughts:

1 - you say you're more satisfied with communication, yet felt compelled to write such a detailed summary.  Don't you think better communication during such a bad spell would have alleviated the calls for Crosby and Flitcroft and instill a little calm amongst a growingly disillusioned fanbase?  I've seen first hand fans fighting amongst themselves in recent weeks, such is the intensity and emotion of our current plight.  Fans are turning.  If ever there were a time for a club meeting with the fans, surely now would be it? The lack of leadership is astonishing, yet sadly totally expected by now.  Like it or not, Port Vale is a Football Club; a public heritage brand whose main customers have an incredibly vested interest in its performance.  You cannot treat it as a privately owned family business.  Yet they continue to do so.

2 - Supporters' Summit - I and many others were against this from the start.  From day 1 the club have pulled up the drawbridge of communications with fans.  They have systematically failed to properly engage with a healthy Supporters' Club - often organising things to conflict with SC initiatives, excluding them from supporter / club traditionally joint ventures such as player of the year, meet the manager events, Rememberance services etc.  They only engage in things they have complete control over.  They have cleared absolutely everybody out of the club that was BC.  Some clearing was inevitable and needed, but it went way too far and lots of bad blood has been created amongst people that went over and above during the club's hour of need on many occasions, but just got unceremoniously cast aside with no regard. 

Matt Hancock is an outright liar.  They have shafted the fans over the loyalty scheme because they got rumbled over the out-of-control backhanding of tickets amongst corporate.  Since they had to reign it in, corporate have bit back and so now they have withdrawn our previous points from last season in order to re-set it in favour of corporate, who were at a dodgy advantage in the first place - they were recently handed 50 points more than everybody else, I believe?  I called Matt out on this direct and he still tries to flip-flop out of it, despite me hammering  him with various pieces of evidence, which he could not defend.  I have an interesting meeting with him next week, and he'll be getting hammered once again.  I will not tolerate the club lying to the fans.  The Supporters' Summit is a total sham mate. We've just changed the Supporters' Club to a Supporters' Trust for this kind of thing.  Governed by the FSA, run open and democratically to represent fans.  The SS (LOL) represents nobody.   Let's have open debate.  The club as a whole take the fanbase for mugs.

3 - We're all fur coat and no knickers - image over substance.  Why did we spend 1.2 million to hold the Robbie gig?  We put seats into a stand we cannot use for a one-off gig, meanwhile we have capacity restrictions in place in 2 stands because the facilities are so bad.  That is totally inexcusible.  Imagine how far £1.2 million could have gone in fan areas.  The manner in which the regular fan in the stand has been ignored and neglected is abhorrent. They created a totally unneccessary furore over the switch from Bycars to Hamil, because again, they don't consider the fans.  (I agree with the move - but it was handled apallingly).  But we can't afford the going rate for strikers.  If only we were a football club first and foremost.

There is a lot of repair required between the fanbase and club right now.  You know things are bad when folk like Dicko throw in the towel.  You know all too well how it goes when fans lose support, and so does Carol; we're slowly slumping back to that and those impressive attendance figures are starting to dilute.  And they only have themselves to blame.  It takes years to build confidence, but only a season to shatter.  It's so easy for us as fans to resort back to 'typical Vale' when our hopes are built up and once again dashed, as they so frequently are.  They don't sometimes deserve the support they get, in my opinion.  

The current stats you display of our rise cannot also be taken without the context against such a low bar of comparison of the last 20 years, when we have been ran by outright conmen.  To rise above those levels aren't much to write home about.  However, it is important to acknowledge that we are probably at our nautral level right now, if you take historical standings into consideration.  I certainly aren't expecting to be flirting with Championship at the moment - we're light years away from holding our own there.  It's absolutely no use having 'Championship Ready' corporate facilities to watch league 2 football.

Despite those negative points above, I appreciate and agree with plenty of your posts - I respect yours and your dad's views highly.

I'm not Crosby out, yet.  And I'm certainly not Carol out - her intentions are not of the same ilk as the three previous incumbents.  But I'm not happy either.  I find myself saying this all to frequently: I expected so much better from this current regime.  Without the fans, this club is nothing.  A sentiment that the Shanahans have never quite grasped.

I'm interested to see what happens in the coming months.  Ian Donaldson has reared his head again on Twitter and Synectics has undergone a restructure.  Is change afoot?

Excellent. Both Joe’s and your response capture my view on all of this and I’m not so much AC out but definitely Flitcroft must go for me after 2 very poor seasons. 
Fairplay in summarising this mate. Let’s hope your meeting goes well. 

[DazFred]

4 hours ago, Warren said:

I've seen two really great players live in my life time. Lionel Messi and Kenny Dalglish. That's how good Kenny Dalglish was. Rush was actually quite a limited player but very good at running and extremely good at finishing. I'm doing him down a bit I guess. Of course the Liverpool team they played in was a great side in its own right. 

So what I'm saying is if you give the ball to Dalglish and especially Messi they didn't lose it. Even under pressure. But we haven't got anyone that good. If we launch the ball to say Garrity or Chislett they will get tackled and it'll keep coming back. 

Chislett has some Messi qualities. But he has only about 60% of the strength of Messi. He needs to gain that without putting weight on. 

Chislett has some Messi qualities...long hair and two arms and legs?

Some of the comments you make are hilarious and I am a Chislett fan...

[Bede]

2 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

 

Same night as the SC meeting 😄

Imagine.

[Brian Johnson]

4 minutes ago, Bede said:

Same night as the SC meeting 😄

Imagine.

In the same room ?😁

[Bimbleabout]

 
While the OP made some good and fair points, the original post smacks of someone who for whatever reason is just desperate to appease the happy clapper club here which lets be honest, seems to be the majority of the forum. Crosby could set fire to their houses and get charged for Arson and they would still find ways to defend him.
The results have become frequently more poor after a positive start to the season. Performances are almost laughably bad at times. The manager keeps putting out the same formation and employing the same tactics week after week, regardless of what personal is missing. His substitution making in games is often mind boggling. It's all through no lack of effort on his part. But if someone doesn't have the ability to take a club forward then what's the point in thinking about him in any long term sense? Give him the rest of the season and then thank him for giving it a good go and get somebody with fresh ideas in.

F me. We just support our team. AC is our manager and until otherwise, we may not like what he does, we are all aware of it, he is our manager. Nothing we can do about that.
Relentlessly calling people happy clappers etc and veering constantly to insinuating people are clueless is just all abit, you know.
If he stays, he stays, if he goes, he goes, we will all still be here. Just ease up on the 'happy clappers are clueless' or whatever. Everyone is aware of the situation, but are powerless to do anything about it.
It could be alot worse, a hell of a lot worse.
UTV

[Bede]

17 minutes ago, Bede said:

Same night as the SC meeting 😄

Imagine.

Since we're talking balance - just been informed the SC meeting, which is traditionally held on the last Thursday of every month, has been moved to the following week in agreement with the club for them to hold this fans' forum.  Communication indeed.