Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: LincsRover on June 10, 2025, 09:10:01 pm
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One of the coaching staff at Senegal and at the city ground for the England game. One of the better players to come out of the ‘experiment’ season. Remember him causing all sorts of bother at Leeds that year - on and off the field I believe?
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One of the coaching staff at Senegal and at the city ground for the England game. One of the better players to come out of the ‘experiment’ season. Remember him causing all sorts of bother at Leeds that year - on and off the field I believe?
It's still being investigated by Saunders PI.
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and doing a good job by the looks of it............. 2:1 to Senegal currently..
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One of the coaching staff at Senegal and at the city ground for the England game. One of the better players to come out of the ‘experiment’ season. Remember him causing all sorts of bother at Leeds that year - on and off the field I believe?
just a advisor
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I will never forget his performance at West Ham away.
Had the entire ground on strings. Phenomenal player for us.
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One of the coaching staff at Senegal and at the city ground for the England game. One of the better players to come out of the ‘experiment’ season. Remember him causing all sorts of bother at Leeds that year - on and off the field I believe?
He was the best player on the park away at West Ham. That season would have ended very differently if we had been able to keep him and Billy together.
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Senegal were 6/1 to win on bet365. I couldn’t resist a little £20 bet after watching England v Andorra match and thought the odds were far too generous. Hope I haven’t spoken too soon??!! :evil: :coat:
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I will never forget his performance at West Ham away.
Had the entire ground on strings. Phenomenal player for us.
That’s the game I always think of whenever he’s mentioned. Unbelievable performance. He was a top player for us but I could never quite warm to him given his off-field reputation.
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I just remember him for setting up Sharps ‘that’s for you son’ goal. Was hated by many, more so for spitting a lot I think but he was great here.
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Wonder how we'd have gotten on that season if we'd had just kept the 'experiment' to a small few. Maybe just Diouf, Beye, Piquionne.
We signed absolutely loads of crap with them didn't we. No wonder it split the dressing room.
Diouf was some player though.
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Wage bill in the 2011 / 12 'Experiment' season was £9.3 million and resulted in relegation. The previous season the wage bill was 20pc lower at £7.5 million.
Our highest finish in those four Championship seasons under SOD was 2009 /10 when the wage bill was £6.6 million, broadly flat on our wage bill in the first season back in the Championship in 2008 / 09 of £6.4 million.
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I’m not sure I agree that The Experiment had anything to do with Diouf being what he was for us. He was just a naturally talented player. Certainly some of those who made up the team via McKay had natural talent and showed it, but to acknowledge that anything good came out of it for DRFC would be anathema to me. It was ruinous.
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
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I hadn’t realised Dioufy had played for you boys. After he left Wanderers I didn’t really pay much attention but what a player he was. The best part for me was his effect on the opposition fans who absolutely slated him, more out of fear I suspect than anything else. I turned the England match off after we’d scored last night, couldn’t stand any more of the Touchel sideways and backwards garbage so I watched the England v W Indies cricket instead. I didn’t realise until this morning they actually lost. Touchel out.
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
Really? Because I was pretty vocal about it at the time! To the point I got dogs abuse online and in person, as well as phone calls from then members of the VSC board telling me to stop criticising it because I was upsetting John Ryan, and additional calls warning me that McKay and his lawyers were keeping tabs on me.
No matter how well Diouf might have played away at West Ham, there were also games where he very visibly didn't fancy it at all and stropped his way through 90 minutes (Notts County at home). He was also significantly responsible for driving a rift through the team by virtue of being able to do what he wanted (like going out to a nightclub the night before a game at Bournemouth) and facing no repercussions from the management. See also Habib Beye being excused any training with the rest of the team and being allowed to fly in from Marseille just for matches. In every aspect it was a real lesson in how not to run a football club.
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Yes he had some issues which majority of us didn’t like, however could you ever imagine a player like him in a rovers shirt.
My daughter was a mascot during his time, and he came across has a nice guy, so totally different to his nasty side.
I always remember in games he played, he always interacted with kids at the front when there was a break in play.
Great memory of one of the best players in the world in a rovers shirt.
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
Really? Because I was pretty vocal about it at the time! To the point I got dogs abuse online and in person, as well as phone calls from then members of the VSC board telling me to stop criticising it because I was upsetting John Ryan, and additional calls warning me that McKay and his lawyers were keeping tabs on me.
No matter how well Diouf might have played away at West Ham, there were also games where he very visibly didn't fancy it at all and stropped his way through 90 minutes (Notts County at home). He was also significantly responsible for driving a rift through the team by virtue of being able to do what he wanted (like going out to a nightclub the night before a game at Bournemouth) and facing no repercussions from the management. See also Habib Beye being excused any training with the rest of the team and being allowed to fly in from Marseille just for matches. In every aspect it was a real lesson in how not to run a football club.
Were you against it when it was initiated?
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Were you against it when it was initiated?
Yes, 100% (https://vivarovers.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/how-seven-days-ruined-the-reputation-of-doncaster-rovers/)
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Horrible person off the field of play, played when he wanted to against the big clubs ie Leeds and West Ham and at a time when two parts of the team didn't mix.
No doubt gifted, someone you were well rid of as part of a club.
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Reported he gave the ref a right earfull at half time last night
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Wonder how we'd have gotten on that season if we'd had just kept the 'experiment' to a small few. Maybe just Diouf, Beye, Piquionne.
We signed absolutely loads of crap with them didn't we. No wonder it split the dressing room.
Diouf was some player though.
Chimbonda had talent but couldn’t be arsed with us
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
Really? Because I was pretty vocal about it at the time! To the point I got dogs abuse online and in person, as well as phone calls from then members of the VSC board telling me to stop criticising it because I was upsetting John Ryan, and additional calls warning me that McKay and his lawyers were keeping tabs on me.
No matter how well Diouf might have played away at West Ham, there were also games where he very visibly didn't fancy it at all and stropped his way through 90 minutes (Notts County at home). He was also significantly responsible for driving a rift through the team by virtue of being able to do what he wanted (like going out to a nightclub the night before a game at Bournemouth) and facing no repercussions from the management. See also Habib Beye being excused any training with the rest of the team and being allowed to fly in from Marseille just for matches. In every aspect it was a real lesson in how not to run a football club.
Were you against it when it was initiated?
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Yes, he was, in a big way.
If memory serves me right a few ex-contributors to Pop Stand came out of retirement to support Glen and the fanzine because of the dogs abuse he was getting.
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
Really? I wasn’t on here at the time, but I didn’t think anyone beyond the Rovers’ Boardroom favoured it. Involvement with McKay was an obvious red flag.
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I favoured it. I thought it was our only chance of staying in the Championship.
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I was massively against it at the time from dealings friends of mine had been involved in North of the border with the main protagonists behind it.
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I was also against it.
The whole thing seemed like a circus to me; an ill-planned, desperate course of action which seemed totally reliant on McKay.
Common sense seemed to be thrown out of the window in favour of a reckless policy of hiring so-called ‘World Class’ players with absolutely no allegiance to our club.
As for Diouf, I thought he was over-rated, certainly based on his spell with Rovers.
I never shared the adulation which some supporters heaped upon him. I didn’t like him before he joined us and nothing happened to change my view.
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I was also against it.
The whole thing seemed like a circus to me; an ill-planned, desperate course of action which seemed totally reliant on McKay.
Common sense seemed to be thrown out of the window in favour of a reckless policy of hiring so-called ‘World Class’ players with absolutely no allegiance to our club.
As for Diouf, I thought he was over-rated, certainly based on his spell with Rovers.
I never shared the adulation which some supporters heaped upon him. I didn’t like him before he joined us and nothing happened to change my view.
Football players don't have any allegiances to any club. They are employees and it is a job to them. The only exception (for DRFC) I could make would be James Coppinger.
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I was also against it.
The whole thing seemed like a circus to me; an ill-planned, desperate course of action which seemed totally reliant on McKay.
Common sense seemed to be thrown out of the window in favour of a reckless policy of hiring so-called ‘World Class’ players with absolutely no allegiance to our club.
As for Diouf, I thought he was over-rated, certainly based on his spell with Rovers.
I never shared the adulation which some supporters heaped upon him. I didn’t like him before he joined us and nothing happened to change my view.
Football players don't have any allegiances to any club. They are employees and it is a job to them. The only exception (for DRFC) I could make would be James Coppinger.
And even he did one when Forest came in for him.
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I was also against it.
The whole thing seemed like a circus to me; an ill-planned, desperate course of action which seemed totally reliant on McKay.
Common sense seemed to be thrown out of the window in favour of a reckless policy of hiring so-called ‘World Class’ players with absolutely no allegiance to our club.
As for Diouf, I thought he was over-rated, certainly based on his spell with Rovers.
I never shared the adulation which some supporters heaped upon him. I didn’t like him before he joined us and nothing happened to change my view.
Football players don't have any allegiances to any club. They are employees and it is a job to them. The only exception (for DRFC) I could make would be James Coppinger.
And even he did one when Forest came in for him.
To reduce the wage bill not through a desire to leave though
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
Really? Because I was pretty vocal about it at the time! To the point I got dogs abuse online and in person, as well as phone calls from then members of the VSC board telling me to stop criticising it because I was upsetting John Ryan, and additional calls warning me that McKay and his lawyers were keeping tabs on me.
No matter how well Diouf might have played away at West Ham, there were also games where he very visibly didn't fancy it at all and stropped his way through 90 minutes (Notts County at home). He was also significantly responsible for driving a rift through the team by virtue of being able to do what he wanted (like going out to a nightclub the night before a game at Bournemouth) and facing no repercussions from the management. See also Habib Beye being excused any training with the rest of the team and being allowed to fly in from Marseille just for matches. In every aspect it was a real lesson in how not to run a football club.
Well said Viva. That period f**kin stank. People chasing pipe dreams. Crooks and schysters circling the club. I think John had lost his way by then. He'd been brilliant but he was out of his depth. It happens. We were lucky we sidestepped it. Terry is many things but I suspect he can smell something off better than most.
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Like I said, I never heard of anyone being against the "experiment" when it was initiated.
Until now!
That doesn't mean there wasn't any, it just means that I don't recall hearing any.
No doubt, those who did object can show me the evidence of their concerns at the time and show me what I missed.
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I was also against it.
The whole thing seemed like a circus to me; an ill-planned, desperate course of action which seemed totally reliant on McKay.
Common sense seemed to be thrown out of the window in favour of a reckless policy of hiring so-called ‘World Class’ players with absolutely no allegiance to our club.
As for Diouf, I thought he was over-rated, certainly based on his spell with Rovers.
I never shared the adulation which some supporters heaped upon him. I didn’t like him before he joined us and nothing happened to change my view.
Football players don't have any allegiances to any club. They are employees and it is a job to them. The only exception (for DRFC) I could make would be James Coppinger.
And even he did one when Forest came in for him.
To reduce the wage bill not through a desire to leave though
I got the feeling from the outside (which I think was shared) that the club had been hijacked and Copps leaving was not "desertion" but reflected a common disenchantment of attachment which was also a hangover from the heartless dismissal of the ever-loyal SOD after both his two main strikers were crudely taken out by Dunk and Co at Brighton.
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I might be wrong but I thought Hayter’s injury was more from over reaching than a foul.??
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I might be wrong but wasn’t it Billy & Ryan Mason who Dunk assaulted in that game which pretty much destroyed our season??!!
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Like I said, I never heard of anyone being against the "experiment" when it was initiated.
Until now!
That doesn't mean there wasn't any, it just means that I don't recall hearing any.
No doubt, those who did object can show me the evidence of their concerns at the time and show me what I missed.
I'd thought it about a 50/50 split for/against... but a look back at some of the posts on here from the time and it turns out (on this forum at least) there was only a handful out and out against it like myself. A fair few more weren't keen, but were willing to see where it went, and more shared your view.
I don't know how representative that was of the wider support – there were a lot of comments in agreement on articles I wrote at the time, but then as I said, I also copped a lot of abuse.
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Cheers VivaRovers.
I hold my hands up to your foresight of the disaster that occurred following the failed "experiment", but I refuse point blank to have any respect for those who condemned the "experiment" in hindsight.
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I remember talking to my cousin about it, as I was thinking, yeah maybe, but he was totally against it and was right as it turned out.
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The thing is, I was all for Rovers investing huge amounts of money to earn even huger amounts of money by sustaining Championship football.
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Ah well, we recovered from it pretty well by winning the league at Brentford just the season after. That was some turnaround really looking back. And in no way in hell should we have gotten relegated in 2014. That turned out to be the real disaster as we haven’t been back since.
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I was also against it.
The whole thing seemed like a circus to me; an ill-planned, desperate course of action which seemed totally reliant on McKay.
Common sense seemed to be thrown out of the window in favour of a reckless policy of hiring so-called ‘World Class’ players with absolutely no allegiance to our club.
As for Diouf, I thought he was over-rated, certainly based on his spell with Rovers.
I never shared the adulation which some supporters heaped upon him. I didn’t like him before he joined us and nothing happened to change my view.
Football players don't have any allegiances to any club. They are employees and it is a job to them. The only exception (for DRFC) I could make would be James Coppinger.
And even he did one when Forest came in for him.
To reduce the wage bill not through a desire to leave though
Yes it was Ldr, it was a totally incorrect statement by German rover. Copps was forced to leave purely to save money.
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I didn't mind us trying something different in some ways but it clearly went too far. The real problem was just how big of a change it was including the manager. It became an act of desperation not an attempt at something different.
The habib Beye thing was very odd, but on a match day he was certainly very good and committed. It was that kind of thing that led to it failing though.
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I was broadly in favour being a short term move to keep us up but with concern about what would follow as we would have to get back to more sensible recruitment once the 'stars' moved on. Plus, the less time McKay was associated with us the better.
Perfectly understandable those who opposed it as it didn't sit comfortably. As it happened we got relegated anyway so on the flip side, it would have been interesting to see whether fans would still have been supportive of SO'D had we accepted relegation was inevitable.
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The thing is, I was all for Rovers investing huge amounts of money to earn even huger amounts of money by sustaining Championship football.
You're struggling with vocabulary there, BB. You can only get away with calling it investing if it succeeds but regardless of outcome it was GAMBLING... and it failed miserably.
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Hindsight's a wonderful thing. I didn't hear of anyone being against the "Experiment" when it was initiated.
Really surprised to read this as I remember plenty of people seeing this for what it was at the time. Genuinely fell out of love with the club for a long time over the sacking of SOD and what followed.
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The thing is, I was all for Rovers investing huge amounts of money to earn even huger amounts of money by sustaining Championship football.
You're struggling with vocabulary there, BB. You can only get away with calling it investing if it succeeds but regardless of outcome it was GAMBLING... and it failed miserably.
Pies, I’m sure that people can invest money but fail to make gains on it if things go wrong.
I suppose though that any investment which doesn’t return favourably can be regarded as gambling.
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Really surprised to read this as I remember plenty of people seeing this for what it was at the time. Genuinely fell out of love with the club for a long time over the sacking of SOD and what followed.
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Absolutely correct. I stopped going for the duration as I thought it was an awful idea and undermined everything I thought we stood for.
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In football, Hound, throwing massive amounts of money around in the hope of getting promotion or in that case avoiding relegation is not investing as you well know... it's gambling.
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Of course football clubs invest in players! They invest in players with the hope of improving the team's performance, competitiveness, and financial stability.
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'In the hope of'. Now I think you're getting it.
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It's still an investment!
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Investment in the club. Gamble with the investors money?
BobG
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Gambling is betting on a horse. Investing is buying the horse.
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Any investment, in any circumstances, where there is a chance of a loss, is a gamble.
Some “investments” are riskier than others.
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Investing in gold is a gamble. Investing in a house is. Like everything else, you win some, you lose some. English football clubs, particularly those outside the PL, are generally speaking, very high risk financially. That equates to my idea of gambling tbh.
BobG
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That's why clubs like Brentford and Bournemouth invested in reaching the Premier League.
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Good footballer in his day but I witnessed his spitting antics. One of the worst things you could do to a person without physically assaulting them from behind.
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I might be wrong but wasn’t it Billy & Ryan Mason who Dunk assaulted in that game which pretty much destroyed our season??!!
You may well be right and there were two casualties, both of which seriously weakened us.
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Lol BB! That is very true. As is the fact that, just in the last year or two Middlesborough, Wednesday, Watford - to name but three - tried the same. And failed. There's plenty more too.
The epitome of a gamble.... You win some, you lose some. With somebody else's money it's easy to say invest innit? If it's your money it's more often either for love. or it's a gamble.
BobG
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Investment doesn't guarantee success, but a lack of it certainly guarantees failure.
That's why football clubs have always had wealthy chairmen and board members, because they were willing to invest their money in the hope of success.
Rovers are one of those clubs, however, that didn't always have such willing chairmen.
Hubert Bates springs to mind.
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I might be wrong but wasn’t it Billy & Ryan Mason who Dunk assaulted in that game which pretty much destroyed our season??!!
You may well be right and there were two casualties, both of which seriously weakened us.
Sharp and Hayter both stretchered off in that game. Ryan Mason got crocked in the very next home match the following Tuesday.
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I might be wrong but wasn’t it Billy & Ryan Mason who Dunk assaulted in that game which pretty much destroyed our season??!!
You may well be right and there were two casualties, both of which seriously weakened us.
Sharp and Hayter both stretchered off in that game. Ryan Mason got crocked in the very next home match the following Tuesday.
Thanks DBR - I thought I'd got it right originally. Mason eliminated shortly afterwards took vital elements of the team out, but still the Board effectively blamed SOD. Its a pity that the millions which people now reveal went on paying McKay's Stock on Hand wasn't made available to SOD. I had not realised that the McKay players were being supported financially by our Board. It was hardly an arrangement that you would have expected seemingly experienced businessmen to agree to.
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I do believe, though I do not know for sure, that this is exactly why Messrs Bramall and Watson withdrew their financial support at one point - to show John he couldn't take them for granted, and, to express their disagreement - presumably after failing to persuade John to do otherwise.
BobG
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I do believe, though I do not know for sure, that this is exactly why Messrs Bramall and Watson withdrew their financial support at one point - to show John he couldn't take them for granted, and, to express their disagreement - presumably after failing to persuade John to do otherwise.
BobG
I think they were Ambushed, seem to recall JR quoting a Patty £2 million when in fact it was a Paltry £14 Million! When they cottoned on they jumped ship!
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Hadn't we lost something like 19 in a row including previous season when S O'D got the bullet?
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In football, Hound, throwing massive amounts of money around in the hope of getting promotion or in that case avoiding relegation is not investing as you well know... it's gambling.
Rovers invest.
TLT saves.
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Hadn't we lost something like 19 in a row including previous season when S O'D got the bullet?
I think it was something like 6 points from a possible 48.