Carol Shanahan.

[Fosse69]

The thing that still gets me to the core is Carol's statement of "Championship Ready".
What this does is set expectation. This get's people excited with confidence that the club that they love is finally being being run with passion, strategy and a clear vision for progression.
Then comes reality, a lie, broken promises and disappointment. 
The worse thing you can do in a business is over promise and under deliver, which Carol has done.  My trust in the Vision, Process and Leadership of the club I have supported for over 40 years has now gone.
If you are unable to run a successful business delivering customer satisfaction then please hand it over to somebody that can.  UTV.

Did she set a timescale for the Championship? Was it for the infrastructure? How are the players to be funded before the Academy is in full production?

Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app

[Rockape99]

25 minutes ago, osprey said:

Don’t think Sproson would be a recruitment answer- not been overly impressed with the ones Vale have taken with him as agent. Plus he works in the first interests as agent for his players not Vale. 

Mate I can’t disagree, it’s just musing this morning on how to move forward , but one thing for sure this malaise from Carol can’t go on . 

[Rampant Zebra]

8 minutes ago, Fosse69 said:

Did she set a timescale for the Championship? Was it for the infrastructure? How are the players to be funded before the Academy is in full production?

Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app
 

Jam tomorrow? I don't expect that the academy will ever be in full production...

[pete vale]

9 hours ago, mr1876 said:

Think you'll be ok having a browse round the shop next season because if we can't offload these crock of sh!t players they'll be nobody in there buying tickets 

There is nice signage for the RW Suite entrance though so we'll be fine sir......El Presidente will ride again....

[NW9Valiant]

1 hour ago, JoeB2 said:

Has everyone forgotten finishing 20th in League 2?

Going further back. 2008-09, we finished 18th after dropping to League 2. At least we had Big Marc Richards and Griff in the midfield with his tackles. What a time.

We've been here more than once and we will bounce back. I was more worried under the previous regimes than I am under Carol whether the team can get rebuilt at least. 

I'm trusting that she won't spare expense next season, because I don't see there being another choice.

Current state of the team though, lot of work to do!

[Wrex]

2 hours ago, Bimbleabout said:

Also you can't be on a pedestal and engage with fans, media etc etc constantly when all is good and then pretty much retreat and withdraw when things go wrong. It's ethier one or the other, but it has to be relatively constant or imo it comes across as pretty disrespectful and arrogant to the average supporter,even if she is hurting aswell.

That is the thing for me. Carol hired Flitcroft and put him in charge of all things football. That was a terrible mistake and in if itself was poor leadership, delegating responsibility to somebody else. One continuing error that is thankfully over now.

However, even if Moore or another person put the club on their back and carried us back into League One, then it will feel awfully hollow when Carol starts doing the rounds with media interviews when she was so silent during our ongoing long malaise. Bar the love letter to Flickers, of which the less said the better.

[Brian Johnson]

31 minutes ago, Fosse69 said:

Did she set a timescale for the Championship? 
Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app
 

I seem to remember something along the lines of 5 years

[pete vale]

12 hours ago, Phil500 said:

Never understood the combining of the ticket office/ club shop. Fine on non match days, but does not work at the other times. Can’t see how it has improved anything.Dozens of staff everywhere so three in the ticket office for a couple of hours costs next to nothing.

Basically they are clueless my friend. Mutton dressed as lamb. Not an ounce of common sense about the place.

[TJHValiant]

I’ve had a look, but I can not find a financial period where we have managed bigger losses?

Could it be, that these are the biggest losses in our history? Under Carol? Our competent saviour who is running the club well? 
 

Surely not? 

[Bimbleabout]

I seem to remember something along the lines of 5 years

Think it was/is a 10 year plan guys, maybe wrong tho

[pete vale]

Can someone with accountancy accumen explain to me the reasoning behind the said £3M+ loss and loans outstanding owed. I'm told that the Shanahan's have ploughed up to £12 million into the club (I may be wrong on the exact amount). I assume this is classed as a loan (to their own business?) and recoverable either by sale or can it be offset in the Synectics accounts in some guise. We must have made decent profit in hospitality and merchandising. I remember Smurthwaite 'creaming off' the profit from catering/ hospitality etc and languishing the debt onto another side of the business, namely Port Vale FC? How does it work in the finance world. To me it's a mess that could have been avoided to this extent.

To me people with an existing, successful business don't walk into another venture and totally screw it up, football knowledge or not? Money is money afterall.

It is a very surreal, strange situation, one not witnessed before? Or is the current situation merely a 'wolf in sheeps clothing scenario'? Hard to believe, I'd hate to think we've been hoodwinked. I do hope as a footnote that DM was not recruited off the back of a 3 hour face-time interview?

[TJHValiant]

13 minutes ago, pete vale said:

Can someone with accountancy accumen explain to me the reasoning behind the said £3M+ loss and loans outstanding owed. I'm told that the Shanahan's have ploughed up to £12 million into the club (I may be wrong on the exact amount). I assume this is classed as a loan (to their own business?) and recoverable either by sale or can it be offset in the Synectics accounts in some guise. We must have made decent profit in hospitality and merchandising. I remember Smurthwaite 'creaming off' the profit from catering/ hospitality etc and languishing the debt onto another side of the business, namely Port Vale FC? How does it work in the finance world. To me it's a mess that could have been avoided to this extent.

To me people with an existing, successful business don't walk into another venture and totally screw it up, football knowledge or not? Money is money afterall.

It is a very surreal, strange situation, one not witnessed before? Or is the current situation merely a 'wolf in sheeps clothing scenario'? Hard to believe, I'd hate to think we've been hoodwinked. I do hope as a footnote that DM was not recruited off the back of a 3 hour face-time interview?

A business is only as good as its product and the people around it. Synetics offers a service people need and Carol is very good at leading that. People pay money equals successful business. 
 

Doesn’t mean she is actually good at running a business per se. 
 

Vale is a crap product that fewer want to buy because the people around it are awful. It wouldn’t matter if Elon Musk owned Vale if it was the same squad of dire players and clownish support staff. 
 

Difference is, Musk would probably spend the money on better players. Doesn’t make him a better businessman, just one with the better means to do so. 

[JoeB2]

12 minutes ago, pete vale said:

Can someone with accountancy accumen explain to me the reasoning behind the said £3M+ loss and loans outstanding owed. I'm told that the Shanahan's have ploughed up to £12 million into the club (I may be wrong on the exact amount). I assume this is classed as a loan (to their own business?) and recoverable either by sale or can it be offset in the Synectics accounts in some guise. We must have made decent profit in hospitality and merchandising. I remember Smurthwaite 'creaming off' the profit from catering/ hospitality etc and languishing the debt onto another side of the business, namely Port Vale FC? How does it work in the finance world. To me it's a mess that could have been avoided to this extent.

To me people with an existing, successful business don't walk into another venture and totally screw it up, football knowledge or not? Money is money afterall.

It is a very surreal, strange situation, one not witnessed before? Or is the current situation merely a 'wolf in sheeps clothing scenario'? Hard to believe, I'd hate to think we've been hoodwinked. I do hope as a footnote that DM was not recruited off the back of a 3 hour face-time interview?

She paid around £5m and had loaned us, interest-free, £8m, over 5 years. 

Of course the losses are greater now, but that’s down to two factors:

1. Losses are higher across the football pyramid. Nearly every club is insolvent and reliant on director’s loans. Our losses have been very manageable (1m a year) until last season where clearly we made a dog’s breakfast out of League 1. Comparing losses for previous owners is useless.

2. 3.4m is a fairly standard loss for League 1. Very normal. It’s bad for us, but common for a lot of teams. You have to be spending way in excess of what you bring in to compete. Unfortunately, Carol fell for the BS from Flitcroft and consequently the money was poorly spent.

It’s clearly ‘give Carol a kicking’ season which is understandable- her poor leadership has squandered the opportunity created in May 2022 and set us back several years and several million. She should have listened earlier and set up a far better quality assurance structure to assess where the money was going.

I’m not coming out to bat for her. I was raising concerns in the immediate summer after promotion where our signings were non-existent and we played minimal friendlies. I had worries in January 2022 when we seemed to bundle home a load of questionable signings and very nearly fell out of the playoffs. It was a circus then, held together by a very good manager.

However, let us not rewrite history. Carol’s first two seasons were Covid-impacted, and in her first full season with fans we went up. Survival in League 1 was acceptable, if underwhelming last year, and then this year has been a disaster. 

Folks emotionally predicting we’re on our way to non-league, that Carol has killed us, and that she hasn’t a clue what she’s doing are (in my view) emotionally and angrily lashing out after a relegation. 

The fundamental truth, however some try to twist it, is that PVFC will always incur losses of at least 1m a year (as every club does) and someone has to pick up that bill. Carol is the current fool daft enough to do so, for the ego trip and adrenaline rush. 

I’m really not bothered about apologies or ‘taking responsibility’, or making her March through Burslem whilst we chant ‘shame’ At her. 

She just needs to quietly and without fuss go away, learn from the mistakes, and do what she did in 21/22. Moore’s rumoured wage suggests she is more than happy to throw more money at the financial black hole of PVFC. The alternative is she sells up, incurring about a £10m loss, to (most likely) a consortium of investors who would again have to foot the losses, without the attachment to the club or area.

We will be absolutely fine next year, and if I had to bet, I’d assume we’d have a fairly successful year considering the weakness of League 2 24/25. The cloth will have to be cut a large amount (which is probably going to force much-needed efficiencies) and the off-field structure needs completely reshaping, but as a serial moaner who is never satisfied I’m rather sanguine about it all. 

The compounding effect of so many losses over the last 18 months have absolutely battered the fanbase emotionally. Everyone is knackered. There’s an intensity to how awful we’ve been. We’ve been crap for ages. We need the season to finish and to all find something else to do for 3 months. PVFC will be fine under Carol Shanahan - as much as that appears to be a controversial view on this thread.

[darren1810]

1 hour ago, Fosse69 said:

Did she set a timescale for the Championship? Was it for the infrastructure? How are the players to be funded before the Academy is in full production?

Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app
 

She cited the Plymouth model as one to follow.

However they had a season of consolidation. Then missed the play offs on the last day, followed by the title the season after.

 

[darren1810]

9 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

She paid around £5m and had loaned us, interest-free, £8m, over 5 years. 

Of course the losses are greater now, but that’s down to two factors:

1. Losses are higher across the football pyramid. Nearly every club is insolvent and reliant on director’s loans. Our losses have been very manageable (1m a year) until last season where clearly we made a dog’s breakfast out of League 1. Comparing losses for previous owners is useless.

2. 3.4m is a fairly standard loss for League 1. Very normal. It’s bad for us, but common for a lot of teams. You have to be spending way in excess of what you bring in to compete. Unfortunately, Carol fell for the BS from Flitcroft and consequently the money was poorly spent.

It’s clearly ‘give Carol a kicking’ season which is understandable- her poor leadership has squandered the opportunity created in May 2022 and set us back several years and several million. She should have listened earlier and set up a far better quality assurance structure to assess where the money was going.

I’m not coming out to bat for her. I was raising concerns in the immediate summer after promotion where our signings were non-existent and we played minimal friendlies. I had worries in January 2022 when we seemed to bundle home a load of questionable signings and very nearly fell out of the playoffs. It was a circus then, held together by a very good manager.

However, let us not rewrite history. Carol’s first two seasons were Covid-impacted, and in her first full season with fans we went up. Survival in League 1 was acceptable, if underwhelming last year, and then this year has been a disaster. 

Folks emotionally predicting we’re on our way to non-league, that Carol has killed us, and that she hasn’t a clue what she’s doing are (in my view) emotionally and angrily lashing out after a relegation. 

The fundamental truth, however some try to twist it, is that PVFC will always incur losses of at least 1m a year (as every club does) and someone has to pick up that bill. Carol is the current fool daft enough to do so, for the ego trip and adrenaline rush. 

I’m really not bothered about apologies or ‘taking responsibility’, or making her March through Burslem whilst we chant ‘shame’ At her. 

She just needs to quietly and without fuss go away, learn from the mistakes, and do what she did in 21/22. Moore’s rumoured wage suggests she is more than happy to throw more money at the financial black hole of PVFC. The alternative is she sells up, incurring about a £10m loss, to (most likely) a consortium of investors who would again have to foot the losses, without the attachment to the club or area.

We will be absolutely fine next year, and if I had to bet, I’d assume we’d have a fairly successful year considering the weakness of League 2 24/25. The cloth will have to be cut a large amount (which is probably going to force much-needed efficiencies) and the off-field structure needs completely reshaping, but as a serial moaner who is never satisfied I’m rather sanguine about it all. 

The compounding effect of so many losses over the last 18 months have absolutely battered the fanbase emotionally. Everyone is knackered. There’s an intensity to how awful we’ve been. We’ve been crap for ages. We need the season to finish and to all find something else to do for 3 months. PVFC will be fine under Carol Shanahan - as much as that appears to be a controversial view on this thread.

Good post Joe.

Part I don't agree with is the weakness of the league. I get that Stockport and Wrexham have bypassed us. But there are always flies in the ointment and surprises. 

Who'd of called Orient as Champions and Stevenage runners up last season. 

You only have to look at our friends from Swindon since the play off semi to see how it can go. 

I sadly anticipate a minimum of 5 years again meandering around before we are back. It's the Vale cycle.

By which time another 5 years of my life has passed and I'm in my 60's.

Success next season seems a forlorn hope to me with this sad bunch of losers. I hope I'm wrong obviously but weaker league or not there are still plenty of candidates to go up.

Cheltenham,MK Dons , Doncaster who are ending the season tremendously. We need another reset which will cost a packet.

I don't want to turn up in August with Jones,Lowe,Massey,Loft, Debrah,Grant etc still at the club .