Should we have let our top scorer go ?

[Sad-Rovers]

Sad

You said that Bates ran the club in a sustainable manner and implicitly compared that to the current situation. That was what riled a few folk.

Didn't go bust, did we?

[BillyStubbsTears]

No. But in an era of very big crowds, we invested next to nothing in the ground and laid the ground for the club's fall to the very bottom of the pile by the mid-70s and generation-long stay there.

There is a reason why the likes of Barnsley and Rotherham were better supported than us throughout the 80s and 90s even when we were at similar levels. It goes back to the way the club was neglected through the late 50s and 1960s.

By contrast, whilst the KM2 have been bankrolling us, we've had the highest league position and attendances in half a century, and we've secured a century-long lease on an excellent stadium.

Not really any comparison.

[Bentley Bullet]

Mid table league one is the real problem here. It's the one league where sustainability is very difficult to achieve, you don't get the revenues of the Championship, nor can you get away with spending very little on wages as you would in Lg2. It has to be one or the other, up or down?

That's what still riles me about our relegation(s) from the Championship, SM. If only we'd had just that bit more quality in the team, to set our target just that bit higher than one capable of avoiding relegation, especially when considering the rewards of Championship football, it seems it would have been a worthy investment.

What riles me more than that though was following our second relegation, when people were saying that we would be better off financially in league one!

[Bentley Bullet]

There is a reason why the likes of Barnsley and Rotherham were better supported than us throughout the 80s and 90s even when we were at similar levels. It goes back to the way the club was neglected through the late 50s and 1960s.

Well, that as well as those two places being reminiscent of the song 'frigging in the riggin'.......in terms of there's f**k all else to do.

[silent majority]

Mid table league one is the real problem here. It's the one league where sustainability is very difficult to achieve, you don't get the revenues of the Championship, nor can you get away with spending very little on wages as you would in Lg2. It has to be one or the other, up or down?

That's what still riles me about our relegation(s) from the Championship, SM. If only we'd had just that bit more quality in the team, to set our target just that bit higher than one capable of avoiding relegation, especially when considering the rewards of Championship football, it seems it would have been a worthy investment.

What riles me more than that though was following our second relegation, when people were saying that we would be better off financially in league one!

We've had two relegation's from the Championship, and for two very different reasons. The first one is because JR was desperate to see PL football in his time as Chair of DRFC and so the 'experiment' was born, and at a time when our wage bill hit a record high. Just goes to show that money isn't always the answer as we maintained Championship football in previous years on less.

The second relegation, I believe, was due to an inexperienced manager. I also think that the squad that he assembled, from the January window onwards, was one of the best squad of players that had ever played for DRFC. There was a belief that we wouldn't, couldn't, be relegated after beating LUFC at Elland Road.

[Bentley Bullet]

I can't argue with that SM. I agree that there was little doubt of our surviving the drop with that team, it was definitely one of the best teams we'd had. But it had to be, we were competing in the best league we'd ever been in.

Your last paragraph sums it up for me though. The belief that we wouldn't be relegated was about the best us Rovers fans could hope for, and having that belief alone was what we all classed as a successful season.

[Sad-Rovers]

It's true that squad of players was probably as good as we're likely to ever see. It's also true that we had the 3rd smallest wage bill in the Championship that season.

It's not a huge surprise we finished 3rd bottom, really.

[BillyStubbsTears]

And the second lowest attendances...

[Sad-Rovers]

Undeniably true. But attendances were certainly better than this season and last.

As Martin says L1 is a difficult division to operate in financially. We either invest to make the step up or cut costs to L2 level and accept the inevitable.

Perhaps this is the decision that Hubert Bates and the board made back in the 60s?

[drfchound]

Attendances in the Championship are always going to be better than in league one.
The quality of the opposition is always going to be a bigger draw for the floating fans and of course the away end is always going to be more full, in most cases considerably more full.
It is my understanding that the extra gate money alone generated from the away end in Championship seasons is worth around £1m.

[The Red Baron]

Undeniably true. But attendances were certainly better than this season and last.

As Martin says L1 is a difficult division to operate in financially. We either invest to make the step up or cut costs to L2 level and accept the inevitable.

Perhaps this is the decision that Hubert Bates and the board made back in the 60s?

I very much doubt they considered players' wages to that degree, because wages were nothing like as significant as they are now.

The parameters under which football clubs and their directors are operating now bear no comparison with those of 50-60 years ago.

Another thing that has largely been ignored is the issue of boardroom interference. Two former managers complained of that during Bates's watch. Have you heard of anyone complaining that our current board meddle in football matters? I think not.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sad

If you're going to make that sort of argument, you'd be as well looking at the numbers.

You suggest that back in the 60s, it might have been a reasonable argument to say that we couldn't financially sustain Tier 3 football. But in 1965/66, when we won Div 4, we were the 46th best supported club in the country.

Put that in context. We were the 46th best supported side in the country in 2008/09. When we finished midway up Tier 2.

That says to me that in the 1960s, we comfortably had the income potential through the turnstiles to cover top-end Tier 3, bottom-end Tier 2 status. And in recent years we haven't.

So comparisons between the eras are fundamentally flawed.

[BobG]

At least one manager resigned over Bates' interference and there may have been 2 more. Bates was a creep and a shyster of the first order. Defending him, his role and his actions displays nothing but ignorance of the events and personalities extant at that time. The man was and is indefensible.

Cheers

BobG

[The Red Baron]

Bob

The two managers who went public were Norman Curtis and Bill Leivers. Doherty kept his own counsel, but I'll bet he had some tales to tell!

Bates liked to appoint player-managers. One could argue that these were fashionable at the time. At the same time, they could be seen as being subservient to the board because of their playing contract. I very much doubt that Bates would have had any truck with men as independently-minded as O'Driscoll or Ferguson.