An Open Letter from Carol

[PV1973]

5 minutes ago, Doha said:

Was it raised by DC? I'm pretty certain it's a Flitcroftism.

I thought it was DC but happy to be corrected. IIRC they talked about small margins to try and give the players a boost on matchdays. 

[Packmoor_vale]

2 minutes ago, Vtid said:

I want to take this opportunity to apologise if I’ve offended anyone or spoke to them in an unnecessary way. Tensions are high, I’m angry & im a bit emotional with it all to be honest. The club I have supported from a 10 year old kid up & down the country is on the verge of relegation & were stuck with a DoF that I think the majority can agree is taking us in one direction. People have their own opinions, values & debates will occur. Words will get said that are inappropriate & I hold my hands up to some of that which isn’t right at the end of the day. It’s because we all care. We care about this club a hell of a lot more than some! I just pray Carol has the money & is willing to invest in an experienced manager. No coach or wannabe manager is getting this squad out of this mess. 

Good words mate 👍 

I’m the same I get wound up at times on here 

I’m still waiting for valiant 593 come on and read my first message I posted after work 😂🙈

[Nippy Naylor]

7 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

"The personal attacks have to stop"

What did she mean by this? Don't chant 'David Flitcroft, get out of our club"? That isn't abusive  or personal in the slightest.

There's some stronger stuff posted online but if she's wasting her time scrolling Twitter looking for Flickers hate then she needs to get a grip.

Yep she needs to start reading the room 👍

[Aguar61]

3 hours ago, onestepatatime said:

I feel as though fans have been hauled infront of the Headmistress and given a lecture on who is in charge. Condescending to say the least. However it is now abundantly clear who Carol believes is in charge  and that's DF.  Up to fans now  to decide if she's correct. I fear for my Club now.

Couldn't have put it better, excellent post,thanks

[DaneValiant]

It just feels like she’s been conned here. Flitcroft was given such easy targets and is now apparently unsackable because he met them.

We got a good cup run by drawing the lowest ranked team in every round and scraped through each time. And it’s nothing to do with his directorship. 

Every League One club can loan in players from Premier League teams as these teams have massive squads. Every League One team gets players bought by bigger teams because these teams also have massive budgets. 

Players got promoted from the academy to the first team because we have a threadbare squad.

He built a posh academy because he was given the money to do so. It’s not like he designed and built it himself  

And that he’s some kind of god for leaving his non-football job to come and work for us is pretty laughable. I could take the “difficult” decision to leave my job and come and work for Port Vale and I’m pretty sure I’d achieve exactly the same. 

[Wozza4England]

3 minutes ago, PV1973 said:

I thought it was DC but happy to be corrected. IIRC they talked about small margins to try and give the players a boost on matchdays. 

Another small margin to give some of our players a boost would be to paint L and R on their boots.

[osprey]

14 minutes ago, Killersrevenge44 said:

The most revealing statement in the letter for me is the revelation that the Shanahan's are not lifelong Port Vale fans. They did not get involved in Vale until after they had founded and established their business.

 

I always thought a true fan was  a fan from an early age.

 

Ms Shanahan and her husband only forged a relationship with the club after their business moved next door.

 

Call me cynical?

Is how long they are Vale fans really relevant?? 
they invested their own money to save Vale from the previous owner for Gods sake 

by your definition anyone who doesn’t support the Vale from birth doesn’t count ! 
good luck with growing the fan base based on that 

 

 

[PVFC FAN]

7 minutes ago, TJHValiant said:

That’s her and Flitcroft’s opinion. At the time we had been in league 2/4th division level for a period longer than at any point in our history. 
 

4th division football should never be acceptable for Vale. So it speaks volumes that she thinks it is. We were only at the bottom of the 4th division because of the worst owner in our history previously. 
 

We have shown when the fans and owner are United, we are never, ever a league 2 club. 
 

What facilities need to be ready for League 1 football over league 2? The club already met the requirements for the division. It is simply bull to suggest we went up too soon. 
 

Going down to league 2 again will put us behind any unambiguous schedule like that anyway. 

Let's be real here. Your one of those who still thinks it's the 90s. We haven't been in the championship for 20 years or something and we have been floating around in league 2 and league 1 for most of that time. I don't care if it takes 6 years to get up to the championship. In that time we might have gone down and back up. But investing in the things we have neglected for 20 years probably makes a lot of sence. Oh ye and by facilities I mean the academy and training ground and anything that will make money for a team that if we get to the championship would need that money for the budget.

Or what I think you would like is for us to spend money on players and do alright in league 1 for a couple of years before running out of cash and getting relegated and repeat. Just like what we have been doing for 20 years.

I think the plan for the championship once we went up was 5 years.

[JoeB2]

The last point I'll make on this is all these problems go away if we win games of football.

Appoint a good manager and back him in the summer, and complaints about condescending letters, toilets, hospitality etc. largely go quiet.

Balls it up like we have, and everything gets magnified.

Once Carol wraps her head around 'football product first', we might be ok - but it has to start with a quality appointment.

[Nippy Naylor]

8 minutes ago, PVFC FAN said:

It's a long term investment allowing the team to train hard in the summer and during the week etc. We are getting ahead of our selves. Because we have a plan and we came up to league1  3 years early the facilities that were supposed to be ready for league 1 are not ready yet. So we need to ballance cash out between facilities and players. Just to be clear if these facilities weren't getting built we would have no chance of getting into the championship with the small budget we would have in comparison to other teams. So we need the facilities to get are players better and move players on for more money.

We've got no chance of getting in the championship full stop with the current set up These facilities comments are for the birds ,you pay peanuts and you get monkeys , footballers are more interested in wages over fancy facilities 

[Vtid]

Just now, Packmoor_vale said:

Good words mate 👍 

I’m the same I get wound up at times on here 

I’m still waiting for valiant 593 come on and read my first message I posted after work 😂🙈

I’ve given myself a headache on this forum today to be honest mate. Going enjoy my night & come back tomorrow I think 😂 I will be devastated if we go down! Not because we’ll be playing awful teams at awful grounds etc but because this club hasn’t had a lot of success and it’s a good club that deserves it. Fingers crossed we get a good manager in asap as our form really needs to change. Enjoy your banter with valiant. he’s a stubborn one so will go on a while 🤣

[PVFC FAN]

Just now, Nippy Naylor said:

We've got no chance of getting in the championship full stop with the current set up

So where are we getting the money from you muppit Nippy. The only way we are getting extra cash is by using academy facilities etc to grow players and sell them. Or we can spend are money over the next 4 years and go into administration. Which one sounds better Nippy?

[andy jones]

32 minutes ago, Nippy Naylor said:

When Rudgie was manager look what he achieved without new training facilities 

We don't need new training facilities 

We need a squad of quality footballers 

An experienced manager 

And Flitcroft binned off 

 

 

Rudgie worked in a different world .. pre Bosman, pre prima donna footballers on immense salaries (try comparing Foyley's salary to what even a league 2 striker gets today), the Vale Park pitch of even recent times that quality players wouldn't dream of signing up to these days.

Basically we are 2 years into a at least 5 year project. Unfortunately we are suffering team wise with 'second season syndrome'

[AndreasLipa]

3 hours ago, ValeForever. said:

Carol, that is a superb letter.

Ultimately herself & Kevin own the club & they deserve our respect. As owner of the club she had every right to entrust Flitcroft with the job she bought him in to do. We are unrecognisable from when he first came to the club, nobody can deny that.

The message is loud & clear. He's here to stay, Carol's here to stay. There will be ups & downs (potentially even a relegation along the way) but ultimately we are working to improve the club over the long term. The letter rubber stamps this.

Whether you agree with her or not, you have to respect her opinion & she's right about the potential protests. Very subtly hinting that potential managers will be looking at that before they make a decision to join us. DF is no Norman. He may have appalling interpersonal skills & he might come across like a used car salesman at times with the language he spouts, but ultimately he will be doing his best for this club. Even when that's not good enough (Jan transfer window).

I hope we can come together as a fan base. We might go down. Does anybody want that to happen, absolutely not. Would we be in a much stronger position to bounce back, yes absolutely.

The journey continues. Ultimately you either come along for the ride or you don't.

You can't have read the same letter as me. It's a bizarre attempt to sugarcoat the reality we find ourselves in, by highlighting the positives (some completely irrelevant to now, such as the community work in 2020) and none of the huge negatives that needed addressing.

She's become too close to "Dave" on a personal level, as well as him pulling the wool over her eyes. The man is a complete fraud. 

[Brian Johnson]

46 minutes ago, andy jones said:

Brilliant post mate.

Are you Flickers in?