Lost generation rubbish...

[Bentley Bullet]

And you're missing my point, which is the quality of the squad at any one time wasn't good enough to be safe from relegation. That squad might well have been impressive to us, but I doubt many other Championship team's supporters would be so content with it.

[Al4475]

Tough one to call! In my opinion 5 (technically 6 I suppose) games probably condemned us to our fate.

Home draw with Barnsley
Away loss to Yeovil
Home losses to Brum and Bolton
and the unfortunate happenings away at Charlton.

1 point (eventually) from those 18 were significant.

On the flip side tho there were other unexpected good results too!

[Savvy]

Strangely enough our biggest spend ever on players salaries was during the 2011/12 season, otherwise known as the experiment. That £10m had us relegated with several games to go. So much for ambition and reaching out for the PL.

As I recall, that investment was aimed at keeping us in the division not on getting us promoted to the Premiership!!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

We ultimately went down because of two dreadful runs. One in Dec, one in April.

In both cases, we were hit by injuries or loss of form from key players in those spells, at a time when we didn't have the option of bringing in new faces.

Now, you might say that we should have had another 5-6 Championship quality players in the squad, who would have taken £5k a week to warm  the bench if we hadn't been hammered by injuries. They would have been cover - an insurance policy against the sort of injury problems that we ended up dealing with.

Maybe you're right. Maybe we should have spent another £1.5m on wages as insurance.

Just suppose that we HAD done that, and we'd been even more unlucky with injuries and still gone down. Would you have been happy to accept that the club had done its best and had just had a bad rub? Or would you still be complaining that not enough had been spent?

Presumably there is a line somewhere? I'm interested in where you think it is.

[silent majority]

Strangely enough our biggest spend ever on players salaries was during the 2011/12 season, otherwise known as the experiment. That £10m had us relegated with several games to go. So much for ambition and reaching out for the PL.

As I recall, that investment was aimed at keeping us in the division not on getting us promoted to the Premiership!!!

No. Definitely JR's attempt at the Premiership and he confirmed that. Just the same as his introduction of a hedge fund takeover as another attempt at the same.

[wilts rover]

Bristol City's losses in the season they were relegated were £13m. They went down with a total debt of £60m, which you could say was money spent trying to compete in the Championship. This is the debt on crowds of 16-17k. So if £60m wont keep you in the Championship - how much should we have spent on our average crowds (to bring this back to topic)?

[Savvy]

The converse side of that being Cardiff who aimed high, have had 1 season in the premiership and come away with 62.5 million plus paracute payments for two years. Probably set the club up for the next decade, you'd have thought John Ryan might have thought of that..........hang on a minute!!!!

[Savvy]

Strangely enough our biggest spend ever on players salaries was during the 2011/12 season, otherwise known as the experiment. That £10m had us relegated with several games to go. So much for ambition and reaching out for the PL.

As I recall, that investment was aimed at keeping us in the division not on getting us promoted to the Premiership!!!

No. Definitely JR's attempt at the Premiership and he confirmed that. Just the same as his introduction of a hedge fund takeover as another attempt at the same.

Can you direct me to the link? Must have missed that statement!

[The Red Baron]

Ye Gods man! You don't recall the 20+ year idiocies of Hubert Bates then? The fatuous Boards of the 70''s? Rovers are unequivocally amongst the worst led clubs of the last 60 years.

BobG

Bates was a peripheral figure on the Board for many of those years - just another director with not a massive amountl of influence.
There was a period when he did seem to be dictating matters in not a good way but I don't think he was an ogre who affected us for decades.
Does anyone remember if and when he was chairman?

For me, Bates was very much the power behind the throne on the Rovers board. He did have a spell as Chairman around 1965-67. During that time Rovers did win promotion from Division Four but Bates was criticised by Bill Leivers, who resigned as manager mid-way through the promotion season citing boardroom interference. Bates was also roundly abused by Rovers fans after the club sold Tony Coleman and Laurie Sheffield in the first half of the 66-67 season.

[Bentley Bullet]

Bristol City's losses in the season they were relegated were £13m. They went down with a total debt of £60m, which you could say was money spent trying to compete in the Championship. This is the debt on crowds of 16-17k. So if £60m wont keep you in the Championship - how much should we have spent on our average crowds (to bring this back to topic)?

I'll say it again.....Investment doesn't guarantee success but the lack of it does guarantee failure.

What part of the above do you not understand? What part of the above do you not agree with?

'Let's not fly abroad on holiday, the plane might crash'
'Let's not sign Lionel Messi, he might break his leg'

[PDX_Rover]

At the end of the day we were relegated on goal difference. No great shame in that for a club of our size. The main thing is building the supporter base... Has been the case for the past 40 odd years.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

You make it sound like Cardiff were being run on prudent means and then all of a sudden decided to go for it and hey presto they succeeded. Generally you find the ambitious ones are the ones spending other peoples money.......until it runs out. A bit more cautious spending their own money. Of late there are more ciubs that have been badly damaged compared to those that have tasted the PL.

[wilts rover]

The converse side of that being Cardiff who aimed high, have had 1 season in the premiership and come away with 62.5 million plus paracute payments for two years. Probably set the club up for the next decade, you'd have thought John Ryan might have thought of that..........hang on a minute!!!!

or any of the other 22 chairmen of Championship clubs?

[wilts rover]

Bristol City's losses in the season they were relegated were £13m. They went down with a total debt of £60m, which you could say was money spent trying to compete in the Championship. This is the debt on crowds of 16-17k. So if £60m wont keep you in the Championship - how much should we have spent on our average crowds (to bring this back to topic)?

I'll say it again.....Investment doesn't guarantee success but the lack of it does guarantee failure.

What part of the above do you not understand? What part of the above do you not agree with?

'Let's not fly abroad on holiday, the plane might crash'
'Let's not sign Lionel Messi, he might break his leg'

The bit where you seem to think we didn't 'invest' in January. We brought in, among others, a £3m striker. How much more should we have spent that would have guaranteed to keep us up? How much should we spend that will guarantee us promotion next season?

[idler]

Ye Gods man! You don't recall the 20+ year idiocies of Hubert Bates then? The fatuous Boards of the 70''s? Rovers are unequivocally amongst the worst led clubs of the last 60 years.

BobG

l

Bates was a peripheral figure on the Board for many of those years - just another director with not a massive amountl of influence.
There was a period when he did seem to be dictating matters in not a good way but I don't think he was an ogre who affected us for decades.
Does anyone remember if and when he was chairman?

For me, Bates was very much the power behind the throne on the Rovers board. He did have a spell as Chairman around 1965-67. During that time Rovers did win promotion from Division Four but Bates was criticised by Bill Leivers, who resigned as manager mid-way through the promotion season citing boardroom interference. Bates was also roundly abused by Rovers fans after the club sold Tony Coleman and Laurie Sheffield in the first half of the 66-67 season.

  I that you'll find Tony Coleman went late in the season. I remember him getting sent off in a 4 1 home defeat and I'm sure that was about March.
The Rovers were on the crest of a wave when they finally went up in 1966.
The club must have been raking it in during the promotion season but didn't invest for the step up. Most fans felt let down by the board. More investment then might have saved us a lot of disappointment in the following years.

[Bentley Bullet]

The converse side of that being Cardiff who aimed high, have had 1 season in the premiership and come away with 62.5 million plus paracute payments for two years. Probably set the club up for the next decade, you'd have thought John Ryan might have thought of that..........hang on a minute!!!!

or any of the other 22 chairmen of Championship clubs?

Ah but what if they end up like Bristol City? Surely they should think twice about taking such a risky gamble........The incentives  are pretty impressive though!

[Bentley Bullet]

Bristol City's losses in the season they were relegated were £13m. They went down with a total debt of £60m, which you could say was money spent trying to compete in the Championship. This is the debt on crowds of 16-17k. So if £60m wont keep you in the Championship - how much should we have spent on our average crowds (to bring this back to topic)?

I'll say it again.....Investment doesn't guarantee success but the lack of it does guarantee failure.

What part of the above do you not understand? What part of the above do you not agree with?

'Let's not fly abroad on holiday, the plane might crash'
'Let's not sign Lionel Messi, he might break his leg'

The bit where you seem to think we didn't 'invest' in January. We brought in, among others, a £3m striker. How much more should we have spent that would have guaranteed to keep us up? How much should we spend that will guarantee us promotion next season?

What 'bit' suggests that I seem to think we didn't invest in January? I thought our recruitments then would keep us up, but alas I was wrong.......the conclusion therefore is more investment was needed. Although..............................................

I'll say it again.....Investment doesn't guarantee success.......

[Savvy]

You make it sound like Cardiff were being run on prudent means and then all of a sudden decided to go for it and hey presto they succeeded. Generally you find the ambitious ones are the ones spending other peoples money.......until it runs out. A bit more cautious spending their own money. Of late there are more ciubs that have been badly damaged compared to those that have tasted the PL.

The old saying in football is "standing still is falling behind" If the board don't wish to invest, why get involved in football because it would appear from what most chairmen say the rewards or risk don't match the return? It might be easy to spend someone else's money, but they won't be spending any of mine until there's a change of paradigm at the club!!

[BobG]

If my old Dad is to be believed, and there's not many who wouldn't, it was Hubert Bates Esq who was behind the departure from the Rovers of Peter Doherty. Bates didn't like Roman Catholics. I'd like to know why you believe that that departure wasn't a disaster of earth shattering proportions for DRFC Lifelong.

BobG

[silent majority]

The converse side of that being Cardiff who aimed high, have had 1 season in the premiership and come away with 62.5 million plus paracute payments for two years. Probably set the club up for the next decade, you'd have thought John Ryan might have thought of that..........hang on a minute!!!!

I suppose most people would be tempted to think it was a gamble that paid off. But that would be a simplification of the Cardiff City story and you should, to get a good understanding of their predicament, look a little deeper. Cardiff started their push for the PL in 2003, so it's took them 10 years. You then have to look at the ownership of Sam Hamman and the debts he imposed on them, followed by Peter Ridsdale and his consortium that again took them to the brink of administration. Hammans loans came back to haunt them some years later. Rids dale then promised everyone the ' golden ticket' which was a season ticket for five years which was promised to be spent on players, it never was, it went to pay the tax bill.

Earlier this year their accounts showed they are £118m in debt. £66m of that is owed to their current owner, and vast proportions are still owed to Hamman, their life president. They're in a financial mess, they've had their shirt and badge changed. All for one season in the PL. 10 years of financial catastrophe and gambling all for 38 games of football, the majority of which they lost.

[BobG]

I've thought for a while almost every club in this country would be better off if the PL simply didn't exist. It's an effing disaster for most clubs who try to get there. It comes off, occasionally, for some - but that tends to depend on them having someone a bit special in the managers seat. That or, for the privileged few, some Arab or Russian with a few hundred million to throw around - which rather makes the point of the whole exercise rather bizarre anyway.

It would be an unmitigated disaster for DRFC if we ever managed to sneak a way in there. I hope we never do. Championship is trouble enough.

Many thanks for that summary SM. A salutary tale that far too many in this country shut their eyes to.

BobG

[DonnyBazR0ver]

So Savvy, what in your mind is a blueprint for fulfilling your ambition? How far along the way do you join the party?

[Muttley]

If my old Dad is to be believed, and there's not many who wouldn't, it was Hubert Bates Esq who was behind the departure from the Rovers of Peter Doherty. Bates didn't like Roman Catholics. I'd like to know why you believe that that departure wasn't a disaster of earth shattering proportions for DRFC Lifelong.

BobG

Bob

You keep repeating this unsubstantiated allegation. As I asked you earlier in the thread, have you got any other examples of Bates' failures etc?

As far as I know, he was the proprietor of a small sports shop on East Laith Gate (forget what it was called, Harrisons perhaps?) so I can't imagine there was a lot of money flowing from that - perhaps he was running the club on a frugal basis just like Bramall & Watson and therefore could not afford to retain players and maybe that was the real reason behind Doherty's departure.

[Filo]

If my old Dad is to be believed, and there's not many who wouldn't, it was Hubert Bates Esq who was behind the departure from the Rovers of Peter Doherty. Bates didn't like Roman Catholics. I'd like to know why you believe that that departure wasn't a disaster of earth shattering proportions for DRFC Lifelong.

BobG

Bob

You keep repeating this unsubstantiated allegation. As I asked you earlier in the thread, have you got any other examples of Bates' failures etc?

As far as I know, he was the proprietor of a small sports shop on East Laith Gate (forget what it was called, Harrisons perhaps?) so I can't imagine there was a lot of money flowing from that - perhaps he was running the club on a frugal basis just like Bramall & Watson and therefore could not afford to retain players and maybe that was the real reason behind Doherty's departure.

Wasn't Ray Harrison the proprietor of Harrisons sports

[idler]

If my old Dad is to be believed, and there's not many who wouldn't, it was Hubert Bates Esq who was behind the departure from the Rovers of Peter Doherty. Bates didn't like Roman Catholics. I'd like to know why you believe that that departure wasn't a disaster of earth shattering proportions for DRFC Lifelong.

BobG

Bob

You keep repeating this unsubstantiated allegation. As I asked you earlier in the thread, have you got any other examples of Bates' failures etc?

As far as I know, he was the proprietor of a small sports shop on East Laith Gate (forget what it was called, Harrisons perhaps?) so I can't imagine there was a lot of money flowing from that - perhaps he was running the club on a frugal basis just like Bramall & Watson and therefore could not afford to retain players and maybe that was the real reason behind Doherty's departure.

Wasn't Ray Harrison the proprietor of Harrisons sports

It was called Harrison's Sports and Ray Harrison was there but it was Hubert Bates money behind it in the sixties.
A lot of their Sunday League team were Rovers juniors or ex juniors.

[Savvy]

So Savvy, what in your mind is a blueprint for fulfilling your ambition? How far along the way do you join the party?

My blueprint would be as follows;

Have a boardroom full of people who have the interest of Doncaster Rovers at their heart, not people who openly admit to not having an interest in football.

Have a boardroom full of people who are committed to improving the club's stature within the football league, just because we have been primarily a lower league club in our history that should not be a reason for seeing our future as a league one club!!!!

Having a boardroom full of people who are committed to getting us into the championship and keeping us in the divison to the point where we become an established championship side, which I believe is where a town the size of Doncaster deserves to be, and, had it not been for a lack of investment we would have still been there now!

Employing a manager capable of getting us back into the championship and then having a target of 61 points a season (the average) in order to keep us in the division until we become an established championship team.

Having a boardroom full of people committed to providing the necessary funds to maintain championship status, and not expecting the manager to sell the family silver at the end of the season to balance the books. Please note that doesn't include putting bids in for Messi/Suarez et al, pure and simply players of the quality to keep us in the division.

This would give me the confidence to start putting back some of my disposible income back into the club in the same manner as I have done previously. I missed 9 games throughout the whole of the conference experience, including friendlies, Macmillian trophy etc, was one of the 29 or so who watched Adriano Rigoglioso score the screamer at Hereford that night and was at the Gateshead friendly with about 20 or so others!!!  My first season was 1969 in the era of Ogston, Wilcockson, Clish, Flowers, Robertson, Hasleden or Rabjohn etc.

From 18 onwards I've travelled the length and breath of the country following this team, and we always used to talk in the car of being able to compete at league 2 level as it was, because Rotherham spent most of their time in that league at the time, we always used to talk about having a new ground to bring more people in, we always used to talk about someone coming in with a bit of money to take a punt on getting us there. We put up with the lack of skill and the lack of money, but then as now we would not have put up with a lack of ambition!!!!!!

[NickDRFC]

Cool story, now tell me where you find this room full of people who are both Rovers fanatics and multi multi millionaires? Do you not think if they were out there they would have invested already?

[The Red Baron]

If my old Dad is to be believed, and there's not many who wouldn't, it was Hubert Bates Esq who was behind the departure from the Rovers of Peter Doherty. Bates didn't like Roman Catholics. I'd like to know why you believe that that departure wasn't a disaster of earth shattering proportions for DRFC Lifelong.

BobG

Bob

You keep repeating this unsubstantiated allegation. As I asked you earlier in the thread, have you got any other examples of Bates' failures etc?

As far as I know, he was the proprietor of a small sports shop on East Laith Gate (forget what it was called, Harrisons perhaps?) so I can't imagine there was a lot of money flowing from that - perhaps he was running the club on a frugal basis just like Bramall & Watson and therefore could not afford to retain players and maybe that was the real reason behind Doherty's departure.

You need to remember that in 1958 the maximum wage was still in force for professional footballers, so they were nothing like as difficult to retain as they are now.

Even in the 1960s, the wages they earned were nothing like they are today, even allowing for inflation. By the same token, clubs did not need wealthy patrons to bankroll them, so it was possible to find a small-time local businessman like Hubert Bates on the board.

It really isn't possible to compare the directors of then with people like Terry Bramall and John Ryan.

[Savvy]

Cool story, now tell me where you find this room full of people who are both Rovers fanatics and multi multi millionaires? Do you not think if they were out there they would have invested already?

Did you read my post? who said anything about multi millionaires? Apparently we have millionaires on the board already, but what good are they if they are not prepared to invest. The current board don't even appear to have a coherent view of the future of the club let alone be prepared to invest!!

[Filo]

Cool story, now tell me where you find this room full of people who are both Rovers fanatics and multi multi millionaires? Do you not think if they were out there they would have invested already?

Did you read my post? who said anything about multi millionaires? Apparently we have millionaires on the board already, but what good are they if they are not prepared to invest. The current board don't even appear to have a coherent view of the future of the club let alone be prepared to invest!!

I think this bit from your blueprint sort of says we need multi millionaires

Having a boardroom full of people committed to providing the necessary funds to maintain championship status, and not expecting the manager to sell the family silver at the end of the season to balance the books