Dream Stealers.
A number of good Blackpool fans have been, and still are, embroiled in ugly legal threats devised by dream stealers who, it would appear, have little better to do than to seek apologies and compensation from the erstwhile individuals who have had the temerity to upset them, instead of concentrating on the job in hand, that of running a successful football team, have a happy and growing fan base and be held in high esteem.
The case where a pensioner was asked for £20k has been well publicised and whatever the rights and wrongs involved in that case, the detrimental worldwide publicity it brought the club and the owners was tantamount to standing on stage in the Albert Hall during the Last night of the Proms and shouting ‘I’m a fool but don’t care’. It is said that all publicity whether it be good or bad is positive. In these instances, that is not the case, it was and is damaging.
The sad thing is the dream stealers are not what I would call stupid men. They have run successful businesses in their time, at least the older one has, but have allowed themselves, because of selfishness and avarice, to seek any way to make that extra quid whatever the consequences to the individuals who have been their bread and butter customers for years before the opportunity came along to make an even faster buck. Unfortunately, one of their greatest ploys seems to be that if anyone dare criticise them in a way in which they disagree, they will seek to hound that person until such time as another few thousand pounds are extracted from them. They also steal or destroy the dreams of their club’s fans in the process. How puerile!
Let me say here that when I say their club, I should say their business, because a club is the supporters, whoever be the custodian may be at the time.
They are masters of the dark art of aggravating matters and alienating even the most even tempered and laid back individuals, as was seen when the statue of one of our finest heroes, Stanley Mortenson was removed allegedly to protect it from damage during a demonstration against their tenure at the club. Instead of a fairly subdued and small demonstration, they encouraged people who have never marched before to join the demonstration. This was by far the largest gathering of discontent I can remember in 61 years of mixed fortunes and shows the lack of understanding they have of the ‘mob’ who revere both the statues, the history and the people they represent.
Some say the game was abandoned due to disaffected people running and staying on the pitch, but on examination, the fire alarm sounded, and the safest place is the pitch. The Bradford City Fire proved that theory. I’m guessing, but the club should have a number of fire risk assessments, one for the ground, one for the hotel, one for the offices and also have sight of the assessments for the businesses tenanting the property, who should each have their own. This should be part of their tenancy terms and conditions. In the assessment for the ground it should have procedures for dealing with a fire alarm during a match or when the ground is out of use. Those same procedures should state what to do if the alarm is false and what to do if there is an actual emergency. It is normal for the speaker system to be used to inform spectators what to do and when an all clear is given. No such information appears to have been given during the course of the occupation of the pitch and therefore it would be reasonable to assume, if you were on the pitch, that the all clear had not been given. They did, however, appear to smirk at the situation and retire to the safety of their board room. But I am straying away from the main subject of this blog.
Why do I call these men dream stealers? Because all football fans have dreams, the dream that one day their beloved team will be pushing for a promotion spot within the division in which they play; that with a bit of luck and some investment at the right time they will see their team in a higher division and so on. These sentiments are no longer evident at Bloomfield Road, the dice has been cast and a number 1 not a number 6 has been rolled. Was the dice loaded? It seems that way as the club has plunged from the dizzy heights of playing the giants of football, The Manchester Uniteds and the Chelseas down to the Gillinghams and Burys of the league. Whilst I mean no disrespect to Gillingham and Bury, the gap between them and the giants is quite obvious. That said, with the situation, at the time of writing, as bad if not worse than last season’s appalling build up and start to the worst campaign in our history at Nottingham Forest the questions have to be asked:
Who will be our manager?
Will he be able to tempt players to a tarnished club?
Will we have a team to start the season?
If we do have enough players, will they be good enough for the division?
Where will we pick up our first points?
Will we win away from home?
Will we challenge for promotion, stay in the division or go straight through to the next level below?
The number of charges being racked up by the football authorities against the club and the owners must be some sort of record for any member of the football league since its inception and it appears that to try and alleviate some of the pressure a new cunning plan, (sorry Baldrick) has been conjured up. A Fan’s parliament. Whoopee do. It seems though that they can’t even get this right. The terms and conditions of access to the parliament smack more of those favoured by Kim Jong Un than a democratic society. No doubt anyone thick skinned enough to sit in the Parliament and open their mouth in protest will be swiftly removed and those nodding donkeys who are left will be expected to back anything said by 118%.
Why 118%? Surely impossible isn’t it? Well actually no it isn’t I offer the following explanation which I found some time ago.
Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer this question:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26,
Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 =98%
And
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 =96%
But ,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 =100%
And,
B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 =103%
AND, look how far ass kissing will take you.
A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%
Now you know why some people are where they are!
Perhaps, however, I’m totally wrong. My dream now is that they decide to call it a day, due to the hassle and the drying up of any financial incentive to run the club and make a few dollars more, and head off into the hills and valleys of the Trough. The sooner the better in my book. They have done their best, they have done their worst, hopefully, so it is certainly now time to allow the supporters to have their dreams back, otherwise this will all end in tears and there will be no winners.
Please go, and go now.
I’m presently having a bout of amnesia and deja vous in parallel. The problem is, I have heard it all before, statements such as ‘lessons have to be learned’ roll of the tongue of a mouthpiece for the odious family that still taunt and sue the fans of Blackpool FC and laugh at the complete and utter dis-interest of both the FA and the FL.
I’m obviously on, partly, about this year’s April Fool’s gag, at least that’s what it appears to be because we’ve heard it so often before and we are meant to believe it. Come to think of it perhaps we are coming up to the time of the year when the baying crowd need softening up a little so that a few more season tickets can be sold when the time comes and a few more pennies can drop into someone’s grasping hands. Lessons will no doubt have been learned and a proper start to the season will be expected after a full pre-season tour.
Where the tour will be is anyone’s guess, last year it was to Penrith. Now I have nothing against Penrith, in fact it is quite a decent little town, but to have your one and only pre-season game as your tour there is a bit rich. Add to that the line-up, trialist after trialist after trialist and it explains why the envy of the Football League suddenly became the Laughing stock of the Football league. It begins to explain why the club found itself in difficulty from day one of the campaign, when players who should have been in the team or on the bench were not even registered.
Now we are sent back from where we came, to coin a phrase. The spectre of League one football has been confirmed. In some ways it is a relief for the condemned to know their fate, but it is a tragedy of titanic proportions that appears to have been engineered from poor judgement and pure spite. Could it be that William Shakespeare was right when he penned – ‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.’ The devils in our case being the owners of our club and until they are exorcised, I have no doubt that the continued fall from the pinnacle of success will continue.
The fact that we have been relegated is disastrous, but the length of time we remain down is important if we are to ever see a Blackpool team in the higher echelons again, certainly during my lifetime and the lifetime of a lot of older supporters. Supporters who have been through this all before in the 1980’s, supporters who have bled tangerine but are now so disenchanted with the miserly way in which the club is perceived to be run. Then there are the so called glory hunters, but truthfully a new breed of fan who have swelled the numbers at the ground and shown what can happen with a winning team, mostly gone maybe never to return. The youngsters who have been brought up on Manchester United, Chelsea etc via SKY television but who had never experienced the joy of a match day experience along with tangerine shirts blossoming around the area. What has happened to them? If, by some miracle, we are able to grace the upper leagues again, will they be back, or will it just be a case of ‘seen it all before, I want an instant fix’. However the worrying part is if we remain in the 1st division or even worse go down again, our fan base for the future will have been lost, if it has not already been lost.
To quote the bard again, ‘A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool’. I feel this quote adequately sums up the position we find ourselves in. We appear to have a fool at the helm, a fool who has become mute since his transgressions in text messages were revealed. This lack of any sort of communication from him or from his elderly in denial father has, rather than calming the situation, made things a whole lot worse.
I taught Health and Safety for many years and the one thing I couldn’t get across enough was the fact that communication was the most important element in any business, club, team et al. This applies throughout, and not just to Health & Safety. Communication comes in all sorts of forms, through general speech whether this be one to one or even one to one hundred, body language and of course through the written word. From the initial communication there will be feedback, not always positive, and this gives the communicator the chance to way up his/her options. Clubs tend to communicate through meetings as well as through direct messaging and get togethers, formal or informal. Be warned, any club that doesn’t communicate is on the rocky road to oblivion as people who rely or look forward to the next words of wisdom to come from above or the next meeting, become agitated and contemptuous of the person supposed to make those disseminations. That lesson appears not to matter to some, and thus we find ourselves in our unforgiveable position. A position that seems to have been purposely engineered or at least a position that has come about due to crass bad management.
My plea is for the Oystons to take stock of their situation and realise that they have passed the point of no return, where relations between themselves and their customers (the fans) have been damaged beyond repair, Put the club up for sale and go and look after their other business interests. They are not wanted at Bloomfield Road and neither will they or their family ever be, after what they’ve done.
What then? It doesn’t matter to me if the new incumbent is not a Champagne Charlie, as empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. So long as the new owner has that big heart we will see Blackpool rise again starting at fan level and I for one look forward to that day.
The Bad, The Good and the Ugly.
Life is full of mysteries and can, at times, be unjust. There are many reasons why the vast majority of people tend to keep a fairly low profile and wish for a peaceful life, as It has many unscrupulous, crooked, dishonest, unethical, wrongful, unprincipled and dishonourable individuals as well as the moral principled, upright, honourable, conscientious and forgotten heroes who go beyond the call of duty to help others in a far worse position than their own. We mustn’t forget the ones who tend to consider themselves a cut above the oiks or, dare I mention, the plebs. It reminds me somewhat of the old sketch from ‘The Frost Report’, where John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett stood in an ever decreasing line of height, that gave Corbett the pay-off line; “I know my place,” as the others describe their advantages in the form of "I get ... (e.g. a sense of superiority)", his character finally looks up at the others and says "I get a pain in the back of my neck".
The Bad:
Things at Bloomfield Road having deteriorated so much in the last three seasons have not given me a pain in the neck, but certainly a pain elsewhere on my anatomy and we certainly seem to have the same basic premise of the sketch with the latest goings on between the Chairman and the fans, one in particular who dared to contact him.
During the Chairmanship of OO and then his wife, I wrote a number of letters, texts were not really used in those days, questioning the goings on at the club and on each occasion received a reply. I must add at this point that none of the exchanges were abusive, and it is this that I find most annoying and disappointing in the response to the texts which were sent. I was taught at a very early part of my career in management to always maintain the high ground and not to be dragged into arguments or discussions which were only going to end up one way, i.e. egg on the face of the respondent. I’ll call this rule 1. So, rule 1 in the UCT book on management was broken by the man who said ‘he had never come across a consultant who isn’t a useless clueless tw3t.’ (UCT) I was a Health & Safety/Food Hygiene Consultant for the last sixteen years of my working life and had to sit and pass many examinations during my career, then keep them up to date to be able to be considered competent. I could have advised him about various things where he has fallen down and either been fined or received notice from the council, but, my offers of help was always turned down, at least I think they were as I never had the courtesy of a reply, unlike in the days when his Dad and Mum were at the helm. So BFC and KO blundered on without professional or with poor advice and ended up being fine for illegal tipping, having notices served for various faults in the ground and alarmingly having away supporters falling through the structure. It’s good to be a useless clueless tw3t and it certainly takes one to know one.
Marie Antoinette is one such character, queen of France pre the revolution had little political influence but acted as though she had. Dressed, at times, like a peasant but in reality was a very wealthy woman. The term let them eat cake, attributed to her, is probably folklore at best, but she eventually met her comeuppance when she was declared guilty of treason in the early morning of 16 October 1793 and was sent to the guillotine later that day.
Tzar Nicholas, ruled Russia from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He deluded himself, against advice, by assuming the troops on the Eastern front would fight for him but found out they only wanted to fight for their country. He thought the Cossacks in Petrograd would put down the initial uprising of the subsequent revolution, as that was what they were there for, unfortunately for him they also joined the revolution. In the spring of 1918, Nicholas and his family were handed over to the local Ural soviet by commissar Vasili Yakovlev who was then presented with a written receipt as Nicholas was formally handed over like a parcel. It is thought the family were executed in the early hours of 17 July 1918, but events are still challenged.
There are many other such UCT’s but as this is a football forum, perhaps I should stick to our own, in house UCT.
Pauline Cafferty, again a volunteer who went to Sierra Leone to help fight that dreadful disease and is currently undergoing treatment in London after also succumbing to it;
Debbie Purdy, The lady that died in Bradford on Christmas Eve after starving herself to death in the local hospice. Debbie had fought for the right to die and had gone through various court cases and as far as the Lords, I believe it is still being discussed. Suffering from Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis she didn’t want to continue and as her pleas had not been heard took the only conceivable way out after years of pain and complete disability;
There are many others, too many to mention but each one, in my eyes stands, head and shoulders above any of the Oyston Family. Two nurses, someone with special needs and a simple taxi driver, it would be interesting to know our UCT’s views on them!
The ignorant mind.
The ignorant mind, it is said, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion. (Bodhi dharma).
It could be true that, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills we are seeing at Blackpool FC. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't look at people for drugs, whether they be literal or actual, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
To add to a quote from Democritus in which he said ‘It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all’ we should ask the question, when have the fans ever been listened to? Yes there have, in the past, been meets, but little seems to have come from them apart from the fans buying signs for the club, buying flag poles for the ground, erecting a statue of our greatest living legend and so on. What has come from the other side apart from false promises, lie after lie, a steady (now fast) decline and currently writs?
It was stated by OO at the opening of the South Stand that without the financial assistance of our club president Valeri Belokon, the stand would not have been built. He was also praised as a giant of a man for having secured the footballer Adam and many others. OO went on to say that he believed his team would not be in the Championship without his support. Yet now he is damned as the devil incarnate by the same people who so lavishly praised him at that time! I just don’t subscribe to the thinking. It was after the investments by a certain Mr Belokon that things started to take off at the club, and it is since his side lining or concentration on other more pressing matters that things appear to have gone tits up, if you’ll excuse the expression.
In a misguided effort to try and put things back onto an even keel, or is it to shut the opposition and protests up and seek some sort of revenge, we now find that the full weight of the wealth and power of our owners is being used against unsuspecting fans. Everyday hail fellow well met, salt of the earth people whose only crime, it would seem, is to criticise those who must be obeyed and maybe sometimes being over exuberant in their protestations at some fairness in re-investment within the club are being singled out and threatened with court action. It would do those bringing the action to consider the following. When you are offended at any man's fault or criticism, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger, otherwise when that anger rises you should think of the consequences as whilst seeking revenge, you will need to dig two graves – one being for yourself. It is better, therefore, to destroy one's own errors than those of others.
Charles E Wilson said: ‘No one should suffer from the great delusion that any form of communism or socialism which promotes the dictatorship of the few instead of the initiative of the millions can produce a happier or more prosperous society.’ The same can be said for a football club, to coin the phrase no owner should suffer from the great delusion that a dictatorship of a family instead of the initiative of the many fans can produce a happier or more prosperous relationship between the two. Our present situation bears that out. Bottom of everything, all leagues whether they be goals scored, games won, points accumulated and so on. The facts are in the public domain and no one and I mean no one can deny them or argue with them. OK, we are lead to believe that we are the envy of the football league, but only one man is saying that and probably in his delusional world, believing it.
Every paper and some TV channels have picked up on the goings on at our club, and besides the forensic examination carried out by Channel 4, the most telling was probably that which appeared in the Football League Paper recently. Not only did it compare the saintly benevolence of Jack Howard at Wolves, a seemingly first class gentleman and a man who put football first, with the avaricious, rapacious and selfish behaviour of our wonderful family, who have apparently received a lot and seemingly spent little of the windfall, nay the jackpot, that has been given to the club since our one season in the Premier League. If I were treated in such a way by news outlet after news outlet I would hang my head in shame and want to curl up in a ball and rock, Basil Fawlty style. But not our lot, instead they appear to just become even tetchier, angry and unresponsive to anything that is said by anyone whether they be fan, journalist or anyone else. The result being another writ to another fan, who is probably an easy target for multi-millionaires, but complete and utter silence when the same things and worse are said by the aforementioned reporters.
Imagine the furore had one of the fans been bold, or is it stupid, enough to have created a caricature of KO with Dracula teeth, horns and a wicked laugh, grasping a bag of money.
Following an immediate ban from the ground, another writ would have been sent to the hapless supporter for their temerity. It remains to be seen if the caricature printed in the Football League Paper, as above, receives the same attention, I think not.
In the early 1970’s, I was convicted of serving short measures in a licenced premise.
Without going into too much detail, because I was 75 miles away on holiday at the time the drinks were served, but because I was the licence holder and therefore still responsible for all liquor served, it was basically a technical offence, but an offence all the same. I was prosecuted, fined £60, I was earning £40 a week at the time. In short, if that’s the correct thing to say, a whisky was one four hundredth of a pint short, it was the dearest drink I have ever purchased. But of course it hit the local papers and I was shamed by the locals who didn’t know the full story for quite a while. Now, whether I like it or not, from the day I was found guilty to this day, even though the conviction is now spent, I was given a record and I cannot deny it.
Likewise, someone found guilty of murder, until they are proven innocent is a murderer whether they have served their time or not; someone found guilty of stealing or thieving is a thief until otherwise proven and of course as Ched Evans has found out recently someone accused and found guilty of rape, is a rapist unless they can, on appeal, have the verdict and conviction quashed. If Ched Evans fails he is still a rapist, and the same rules apply to plumbers, bricklayers, consultants, MP’s, Celebs and of course even multi-millionaires. So, for any of them to claim they are not what they have been convicted of is just delusional. They are as guilty of their crime as I was of mine.
It would seem that some people need protecting from themselves, and it is interesting how things seem to have deteriorated at a faster rate than previously since our own Matt Williams left to seek better prospects, and no doubt more money, at a lower division club. The saying penny wise and pound foolish springs to mind and I believe that Matt has been the club’s biggest loss, the crutch on whom KO relied to get him out of another fine mess! How much bad press was deflected by Matt in his monthly columns in the Gazette and his regular contributions on the fans boards, which kept ‘the mob’ informed as to some of the goings on at the club? It seems that now there is no force field around a certain someone to save him from himself, his monthly Gazette contributions proved this, and it has ended up with an elderly man coming to try and save the situation his son has contrived to conjure up. Instead though this has just added fuel to the already explosive atmosphere. I’m afraid I would have to give both the elderly man and the son moins de points for their handling of any publicity either good or bad.
We await the outcome with baited breath on the charges, if any are brought, that KO will face if found guilty of anything by the FA, and I can already foresee the reaction that will come from both father and son. Add more misery to the already exasperated fan base, ruin further the outlook for the club, send a few more solicitors letters out to those who dare speak the truth and if they don’t apologise, send them a writ for defamation. That sounds good, let’s ruin a few more people’s lives whilst we feast on the bones that are left of this once great club.
Once again I quote: The ignorant mind, it is said, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion. (Bodhi dharma).
Lions lead by Donkeys
"Lions led by
donkeys" is a phrase popularly used to describe the poor leadership
of the British Tommies of WW1 and to blame the generals
who instructed them. The contention is that the brave soldiers
(lions) were sent to their deaths by incompetent, foolish and indifferent
leaders (donkeys). In my analogy I must include in the Lions, the Subalterns
(The junior Officers who lead from the front) only to be picked out by the
German gunners as first to die. Subaltern casualty/mortality rates were
catastrophically high during WWI and estimates for the mortality rates range from 65 to 81%. This was, at its lowest
estimate, double the rate for enlisted men. The remark, however, goes back a
lot further than Alan Clark who in his book ‘the Donkeys, coined the phrase. It
appears to have actually come from an ancient Arabic proverb which says
"An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a
sheep". Also, during the Crimean War a letter was reportedly sent home
by a British soldier quoting a Russian officer who had said that British soldiers
were ‘Lions commanded by Asses'
I do not apologise for the history lesson to start, or for
the obvious, nay blatant use of the tragedy of WW1 as the beginning of the blog
and as a comparable source to our beloved Blackpool FC. Why? Because I feel the
club has for a time now basically been a battlefield.
The Lions (the players) The Subalterns (the Manager and his
staff) and the Asses (our wonderful owners) all have a part in this blog and to
just take it a step further I should remind you that the subalterns are part of
the Lions.
As in WW1 where the generals could do no harm see no harm
and speak no harm and were of course completely blameless for anything that
happened on the battlefield, so we have a family who, it seems, are quite
prepared to sacrifice as many Managers as they can by starving them of support,
providing them without the tools they
need to do what they should be doing, whilst sitting in their ivory towers away
from the heat drinking fine wine and blaming everyone, bar themselves, for the
demise of this once great club. The similarities are so obvious I’m surprised
no one has noticed previously.
Chief Ass appears to be the one who cannot open his mouth
without telling more untruths and instead of long ears is now beginning to show
signs of a growing nose much like Pinocchio. As we embark on our fourth Manager
in twelve months, his antics are only beaten by the owner of Leeds United who
is coming up to his fourth in not many months, and that takes some doing.
Players come and go, they always have done and they always
will do, however, our turnover of players in the last few years has been
immense. A lot of those who arrived also left without either being seen or
perhaps after a couple of cameo appearances. What a complete and utter waste of
money. Not only that, it appears to have destroyed the continuity we had and
the camaraderie which had patiently been built up with some of the older players
being at the club for a number of years welcoming the newer players into the
fold. All gone in one fell swoop, instead we have a gathering of players,
probably very fine players in their own rights, who seem rather oblivious of
the strengths and weaknesses of their colleagues in the team, a team that has
not completely gelled, no doubt due to the lack of pre-season and the
requirements of this very tough league. We have a new manager who has been
handed an extremely tough task to rescue our sinking club from going into the
first division. Time will tell if he is up to the job, but I feel the damage
has already been done and his mission is impossible. Our Lions will no doubt be
the sacrificial Lambs when all goes wrong.
I hope to look back on this one day, smile and say ‘I got that one
wrong’.
There is only one family and in particular one man to blame
for this helter skelter ride down the Leagues since our glory days in the
Premier League and we fans need to remember that. We need to keep up the
pressure to see if we can rid the club of the Asses and encourage a new ‘knight
in shining armour’ to take control of OUR football club.
Lee Clark is not to blame for the sacking of any of the
previous managers, Lee Clark is not responsible for the perilous position we
currently find ourselves in, Lee Clark is not responsible for the lack of
decent training ground, Lee Clark is not responsible for the lack of funding or
the parsimonious spending on repairs to the cladding or indeed the playing
staff. He is responsible for taking a vacancy and jumping from the frying pan
into the fire, and as such it is up to us to ensure we back him and the team to
the hilt. Let’s give him a warm welcome and save our embitterment and rancour
for those who deserve it. The Asses.
Success & Failure, You decide why!
Henry Ford once said, ‘If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself’. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to have been the case at Bloomfield Road for a long time now. Instead, it appears that successive managers have been pulling in one direction whilst the Oystons have been blocking their moves or pulling in the opposite direction, making their job if not untenable certainly a thankless task.
It has taken a lot of people, and I include myself, a long time to work out why we have had a progression or more aptly a series of poor seasons since being in the Premier League and it hasn’t been down to the want of trying by these unfortunate managers who now have a minus on their records, as well as being accused of being unprofessional, it would appear it has been down to the crass unwillingness of the Oystons to back their manager with any resolve at all.
This season is the culmination of that policy, which we learn is still ongoing. Our finale to our climb from the lower reaches of the Football League to the pinnacle of success. It is as if someone has put a curse on us to get back from where we came!
After last season’s hair raising end to the season when we were in with a good chance of going down to the first division, it was with a slight sigh of relief to hear that a new manager would be installed forthwith, or words to that effect. Whoever this ‘Supermanager’ was going to be, (did he wear his trunks over his pants?) he was certainly going to have his work cut out to reinvigorate the side which was now just basically a bag of bare bones. Gone were the players who had served us so well over the recent seasons, who had kept the moral going between themselves despite the miserly Dickensian wages, compared to other clubs, they were being paid and the likewise Victorian training facilities in which they were, and still are, expected to prepare for a rigorous Championship season. But, it was not to be, weeks went by before eventually just before the start of the season one Jose Riga was appointed. Season tickets were sold on the strength of the ‘Riga Revolution’ but almost immediately there was no communication from the club. The manager wasn’t speaking, The Oystons weren’t speaking, and the fans started to become even more restless than they had in the previous season. No players seemed to be joining the club and the proverbial hit the fan when the pre-season training camp in Spain was cancelled due to lack of players. The whole pre- season was a shambles, the club itself seemed to be in a complete state of panic with a new secretary in place and holes appearing left right and centre in the pre-season planning.
Now, failure is not usually fatal, but failure to change is often a precursor of worse things to come and that is exactly what has happened and it would seem is still happening. A new manager has been installed and I wish Lee Clark all the very best in climbing the mountain that is in front of him, but, if things were so bad between the O’s and Riga, why on earth didn’t KO get rid of him at the point it appeared there was no return? This may have given the new incumbent a fighting chance to rack up more than 7 points at this stage of the season.
This was a very poor decision and failure by the man in charge, instead of biting the bullet he dithered and dithered again, resulting in the present mess we find the club in.
Some have likened the man in charge to a psychopath or a sociopath and when you look at the traits of such a person it can be seen why the assumption is made:
Uncaring
The Psycopath checklist (PCL) describes psychopaths as being callous and showing a lack of empathy, traits which the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) describes as “cold-heartedness.” The criteria for dissocial personality disorder include a “callous unconcern for the feelings of others.”
Could it be argued that there are similarities in this description?
Shallow emotions
Psychopaths, and to a degree, sociopaths, show a lack of emotion, especially the social emotions, such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment. It’s recorded that most psychopaths show a “general poverty in major affective reactions,” and a “lack of remorse or shame.” The PCL describes psychopaths as “emotionally shallow” and showing a lack of guilt.
Again are there any similarities that we can see?
Irresponsibility
Research shows psychopaths show unreliability, while the PCL mentions “irresponsibility” and the PPI describes psychopaths as showing “blame externalization,” i.e. they blame others for events that are actually their fault. They may admit blame when forced into a corner, but these admissions are not accompanied by a sense of shame or remorse, and they have no power to change the sociopath’s future behaviour.
Have we seen any of this trait?
Insincere speech
Ranging from what the PCL describes as “glibness” and “superficial charm” to “untruthfulness” and “insincerity,” to outright “pathological lying,” there is a trend toward devaluing speech among psychopaths by inflating and distorting it toward selfish ends. The criteria for APD include “conning others for personal profit or pleasure.” They also have trouble understanding metaphors and abstract words.
It must be asked who now trusts anything that comes from the mouth of KO, time and time again we are told about something only for it to be somehow forgotten and these quotes are well recorded, not only by me but by many.
Overconfidence
The PCL describes sociopaths as possessing a “grandiose sense of self-worth.”
Really? Who would have thought that?
Narrowing of attention
Researchers have said the core deficit in psychopathy is a failure of what they call response modulation. When normal people engage in a task we are able to alter our activity, or modulate our responses, depending on relevant peripheral information that appears after the task has begun. Psychopaths are specifically deficient in this ability, and accordingly this explains the impulsivity of psychopaths, a trait which shows up in several of the lists of criteria, as well as their problems with passive avoidance and with processing emotions.
Now the plot is thickening and I am beginning to realise why the assumptions above have been made.
Selfishness
Psychopaths have been known to show a “pathologic egocentricity [and incapacity for love],” which is affirmed in the PPI by its inclusion of egocentricity among its criteria. The PCL also mentions a “parasitic lifestyle.”
Enough said and I intend to go no further with this as it basically speaks for itself!
Inability to plan for the future
It is also said that psychopaths show a “failure to follow any life plan.” According to the PCL, psychopaths have a “lack of realistic long-term goals,” while the PPI describes them as showing a “carefree nonplanness.”
In defence of those under this attack, there has obviously been plenty of pre planning in how to maximise the profit for the family whilst forgetting about those who are the customers. However, in football terms, the word pre-planning appears none existent.
Violence
The criteria for dissocial personality include, a “very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.” The criteria for antisocial personality disorder include, "irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.”
As far as I’m aware, this appears not to be quite the case, but, someone out there may know better. But it couls be said that issuing legal letters to those deemed to have sinned is a form of bullying and therefore violence.
So, is it a justified claim that we have a sociopath or even a psychopath in charge at the top, I don’t honestly know and I will allow you all to make your own conclusions? However going back to Henry Ford, and his quote that ‘If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself’. I fear not only for the immediate future of this club but also the very future full stop, for failure is not usually fatal, but failure to change in our case would seem to spell the end of the Best Trip at best or the end of the club as we know it.
The True Face of the BFC Fans
Why do
increasing numbers not want to go to Bloomfield Road anymore, is it because the
club is dying? It's a question those
leaving are more than ready to answer. The problem is, those who hold the purse
strings are not listening to the peaceful but increasingly noisy protests of
the fans, and a lot of the remonstrations are about a fair crack of the whip
i.e. the money gained from our Premier League sojourn and that, of course, is the problem.
Some,
although an ever decreasing number of, people would say the club is not
dying... yes, it seems to be in a transition... but transitioning is not the
same as dying.
Really?
What cartoons have they been watching?
Clearly,
the club is dying or at least regressing. Those who maintain it is all down to
transition should do their research. Just take a look at the gates this season.
Well down on last season and they were in turn down on the previous season. In
other words, more and more past supporters are finding more fulfilling things
to do on weekends, and once they are lost to the club, they are going to take
some getting back.
Seriously
though, Blackpool FC isn’t dying, well not quite anyway? Blackpool FC will
always be here. We, the fans, are Blackpool FC, not the owners although it is
their business. But you can be sure, BFC are going through more than a mere
"transition." Study these
things carefully. I'll offer several explanations of where I feel things have
been or are going wrong and look at best practices that, as I see it, might
reverse the trends contributing to the decline or regression, take your pick
which word you use.
Trends impacting on our decline:
The
flirtation with the big boys in the Premier League:
Totally
against all expectations, poor little Blackpool made it to the pinnacle of the
leagues, as we all know, and for a breath-taking couple of hours after our
opening game were actually top of the League.
Who, in their right mind, could have forecast that? I would argue
no-one.
Our
second game, away at Arsenal, brought us back down to earth with a bump, but,
did we care? We just kept on singing
even after the 6 – 0 thumping, scenes that the on looking Arsenal fans had
probably never seen before or since. Now any owner in their right minds would
at this stage have been looking further ahead, planning how to market this
phenomenon in Tangerine which the whole country seemed to be embracing and the
fans were certainly generating along with the players, but even as results
started to go against us, it appears that purse strings were kept extremely
tight. Opportunities to sign decent players such as Mehdi Banatia were missed,
because he would have cost around £100k, this guy has just been sold for a
reputed £21 million. Instead we went for the cheap option, the bargain basement
players who were either too old or unfit, not of the standard required for such
a high quality of football or a combination of the three.
Many
reasons have been given for our exit back to the Championship, we didn’t at
times have the rub of the green or the backing of the ref, it must be said, but
it could so easily have been avoided with some forward planning and a little
bit of speculation.
2.
The match
experience:
Consider,
for a moment, the experience fans were having during the halcyon days of the
Premiership, visiting grounds of the big boys where money appeared to be of little
object to making match day an unforgettable experience. It wouldn’t be fair to
say that all grounds were great. There were some less than comfortable places,
Villa, with its narrow corridors and seats beyond the corner flag; Wolves,
where it seemed fair game for away fans to be treated like prisoners on a day
out; West Ham, where it was literally impossible to see the game from below the
ground level due to Police and Stewards standing in the way. But on the whole,
the match day experience was excellent and our facilities were usually decent.
Contrast that with our own ground, away fans seated in a temporary stand that
had to be hastily built before the season, no alcohol for them, porta type
toilets with, I understand, only two for the females. Surely this is now a game
where the fairer sex are welcomed. OK we also had our overflow in the same east
stand, but at least they were able to take advantage of better toilet
facilities and so on. As I said though in section 1, ‘who, in their right mind,
could have forecast that we would have been in the Premier League,’ so some
leeway has to be given here on the ‘temporary’ stand. Was the lesson learnt? I
would say no, we still have that same stand, we still have the same toilet
conditions and no alcohol for away fans, we can still only accommodate a couple
of thousand away fans when some of the larger clubs could perhaps fill both
ends!
Once
again forward planning seems to be a concept that is alien to our owners. It
would not have been unreasonable to expect the temporary stand to be replaced
by a permanent stand with an increased section for the away fans, thus generating
more money for team strengthening in order to reach the premier league again
and in turn generate more income.
3.
General
ground and player facilities:
We lost a
number of games and a lot of our momentum due to the excessively cold weather
that hit the coast during our Premier season by not having any under pitch
heating system in place, or indeed it would seem any plans in place to cope
with the kind of weather that was experienced. OK it was better that the winter
of 1962/3 when Jimmy Armfield famously skated on the pitch in front of the Kop,
but that was 50 years ago when our training ground was state of the art and not
just a state like today! Our players were still training in an antiquated
training ground, that remains in place today, leaking roof, lack of heating,
poor shower facilities, no all-weather pitches and of course exposure to the
cruel winds off the Irish Sea. I suppose though being a centre of exellAnce
makes up for it in some ways and if it was good enough for Matthews and
Mortenson, it should have been good enough for the then current crop of players.
One thing we did gain were sprinklers, and we can now boldly boast that we have
a Premier League legacy!
Once
again it all boils down to poor or lack of any forward planning by the powers that
be. In all my years in management I was taught and was expected to show forward
planning, it’s what’s known as planned expansion. We seem to have no expansion
plans and panic measures in place when things don’t quite work out.
4. Leadership
in Crisis;
Volumes
have been written about this in the past by people with varying, but quite
often similar, views so I don’t intend to dwell on this subject for too long.
But you can be sure, lack of backing for the managers leading to poor
performances, leading to management changes followed by the alleged cover-ups
by the owners, have been driving people away from Bloomfield Road and continue
to drive people away, faster than any other causes combined. It seems that it
is always someone else’s fault and that as far as our most esteemed owners are
concerned everything is completely hunky dory. Mind you, I suppose that is why
we have someone on such a large salary plus perks such as company car, to
deflect any criticism or wrong doing downwards, sideways or at least away from
the true perpetrators.
Come
clean, be honest with the fans for once in your life. You may not be liked any
better but at least you will be appreciated. Forward plan and put this in your
future agenda.
5.
Competition.
Lancashire
probably has more clubs per capita than any other place in England although I
am just surmising and could be proved wrong. With the emergence from the
shadows of Fleetwood, it now gives the club one more headache. If Fleetwood do
well and continue to progress at their present rate, how long will it be that
we are looking up to them? I know that is pure speculation, but stranger things
have happened. Whilst any self-respecting Blackpool fan could not support
Preston North End, Blackburn or Burnley, would they have the same qualms about
swapping their allegiance to the Cods? It would seem that a number have already
defected so it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that this trickle
of disenchanted fans could gain momentum. Then there are other things to do on
a Saturday afternoon, credit this to the social changes in the '60s, to the
Internet, to the influx of immigrants and minorities, to whatever you'd like,
but the fact is, people today meet other people of entirely different
traditions and hobbies so, if they are discovering anything at all, it is that
there are things such as golf, for those that like to spoil a good walk, taking
up another hobby or just sitting and watching the telly that are a reasonable
alternative to sitting watching a poor team try and play football.( No
disrespect intended to our present players). Things have changed dramatically
over the last ten or so years, and you can virtually do anything now with a
little bit of research or even do things virtually, if that makes sense.
Dare I
mention forward planning again?
Conclusion.
As you
will no doubt have observed, throughout this blog, I have frequently mentioned
forward planning of which there seems to have been little. We only have to go
back to the delay in the building of the Armfield stand to understand how the
mind of our owners appear to be wired. ‘We don’t need an extra stand to
accommodate the 17 people who are being locked out at matches’ was the frequent
cry, and this in some way explains why things were not in place at the ground
when, in fact, they should have been. I can’t personally remember any other
club who have been so piecemeal about their development or had so little
foresight when building a ground. Even the likes of Bournemouth, who are owned
by the fans, updated their stadium whilst in the lower leagues thus looking for
a better future, and look at them now. Rotherham who have been to hell and back
now have a spanking new ground, Chesterfield with the famous open end again have a brand new ground, and dare I
mention Plucky Little Wigan?
All
around us we see progress at other clubs, yet we have that very motto on our
badge, a little bit of an oxymoron I would suggest. Could it be that I have got
things completely wrong and that forward planning was there from the very
start. Plans to use any monies received from the year in the Premier League to
help prop up other family owned businesses; to buy other possible businesses;
to build a hotel purporting it to be good for the club and employ a bit of
nepotism by installing family to run these new businesses whether they had the
back ground, the nous or the experience to do so.
Now the
latest way to empty the ground has been found, banning orders for those who
dare hold a placard or a sign which is not liked, has it not been realised that
if one person is banned, it could lead to others not coming, I know of one man
who has been banned and it has cost the club seven season tickets. Threats of
court action for having the temerity to hold up a newspaper front page with a
slight alteration. It’s probably as well that a moustache and glasses weren’t
added to the picture as this would have really been a defamation of the person,
and goodness knows how a seemingly dyslexic or maybe sloppy solicitor would
have handled that one.
Is there
a way back? I would hazard a guess and say yes, but it would take one thing
that to start the ball rolling, one thing that the fans have been and still are
craving for. A change of ownership. However, if this insanity is going to
continue, it will certainly not entice the fans back to the ground and the
patient may wither away. I hope I’m wrong.
Lucky
Ian Holloway often used to exclaim ‘how lucky we are’ and then go on to explain why he felt he and the supporters of Blackpool Football Club were lucky. So all things being even, I thought I would use a similar metaphor to start this blog.
How lucky we were. Up until a couple of seasons ago being a Blackpool Supporter was fun, even during the bad old days, and goodness knows there were many, there was always hope, always a feeling that something better may be just around the corner. It bolstered our core support which had dwindled over the bad old years and made following the ‘Pool’ just that tad bit easier. Of course the pre match drinks and general comradery of the faithful certainly helped, but there was just that suspicion that one day, one day our club would rise from the ashes of re-election and perhaps have a better future.
Travelling to places like Wigan Athletic who had recently been admitted from non- league football made even our abysmal ground seem quite palatable, and after all we could still chant to them that they were a plucky small club, unlike ourselves who we thought were bigger than them! How things change.
Gradually we started to see a progressive rise through the leagues, a promise of a new ground; a promise of a retractable roof; a promise of a retractable pitch; many promises of new training facilities; a promise of this and that and the other and yet we still wait to see when, if ever, the majority of these promises are met. My bet is that they won’t be.
Arriving in the Championship, with our two sided ground, we were certainly not expected to stay for very long but, we surprised everyone by not only staying but consolidating our position to the extent that we attracted someone from overseas to invest in the club. A benefactor who provided money for our continued climb through the leagues. The rest, as they say is history.
Let us be honest, most of the ground was built with money provided from outside the club, the football league, etc. The Armfield Stand, opened with great trumpeting of the achievement was again funded, in the main, by outside help. The Gene Kelly had to go and a Gene Kelly mark 2 with roof to boot was put in its place to accommodate our climb to the Premier League. Who, in those dark forlorn days of the old fourth division on a freezing cold wet night in Aldershot or Hartlepool would have dreamt it, yes things would get better, but not that much better.
That was the pinnacle and now we are on the slippery slope back down to where we belong, oblivion, Hades, we seem to have somehow sold our soul to the Devil or is it someone else that has done the deed? When you sell your soul to the devil, you are giving your life to him in return for an object or ability of great power. You are also signing a pact chaining you to him, which makes you serve under his dark ungodliness. There are no distinct changes in Personality, Physical Appearance, or emotions. Unless that is what you traded your soul for. Usually, when one sells their soul, they get something of untold power. This 'power' usually causes the human psyche to become one that is corrupted by greed, power, lust, and violence. Make your own mind up if this description fits anyone we know.
In the 1950’s and maybe before there was a journal sold in Blackpool by the name of Billy’s Weekly Liar. Printed in Preston, its motto was ‘Smile Dammit, Smile’. It was of its time and I remember seeing it as a child. Headlines such as ‘Unconscious Skeleton found on Beach’, ‘Mersey Tunnel stolen by Cat Burglars’ were some of the selling points. A story about a three foot fortune teller who had escaped from prison by head-butting a warder in the privates had the headline ‘Small Medium at Large’. It was worth buying for the laughs and contained stories that were just not true. The good news is, it seems to have been resurrected under the name Karl Oystons Weekly Column. The Blackpool Gazette have given a stage for this comedian to transfix us with his weekly fabrications, deceptions and general porky pies, and he hasn’t let us down at all, each week is a revelation as to how his mind works, and do we believe him? Of course we don’t due to the general nonsense and garbage that has been spouted over the years. Anyone who has the temerity to criticise his modus operando is also likely to receive a letter from his solicitors, Drivel, Malarkey, Twaddle and Balls, threatening a court appearance if they do not tow the line.
So, Messrs Drivel, Malarkey, Twaddle and Balls what will I be saying wrong if I reiterate a promise made by the Chairman to back the manager and sign some Flotsam and Jetsam from Premier League clubs? It seems to me that two players who are more like driftwood or seaweed and have basically been nowhere near the Premier League do not fulfil that promise.
Of course, and I write this before they have kicked a ball in anger for BFC, I may be proved wrong and I hope I am, but once again we see the gradual lowering of the standard of players being brought in to the club. Seriously though it could be that our fantastic training facilities, the cold showers, the chance to wash your own kit and bring your own sandwiches etc is far too underwhelming for the spoiled brats in the cosseted Premier League, therefore we have to look at Sunday and local league teams to ensure the bench is kept full.
How lucky we were, but no longer, despite the massive affection we all have, and have had through years of emotional support for our team we have to come to terms with the fact that the Oystons see BFC as just another business and if it makes money it is their money not the clubs money not our money, their money to do with what they like and they certainly do that. What will occur once Wonga have been dealt with by the Financial Ombudsman is any ones guess, but it will be another few less riches for them to hide away in Promenade Up Yours Ltd and may even tempt them to go, Oh dream on dream on dear boy.
Remember the motto of Billy’s Weekly Liar? SMILE DAMMIT, SMILE. Well if it wasn’t so serious I would be bursting my seams with laughter, as it is however, crying seems more appropriate.
How lucky we were!
written by Curryman Wednesday, 10th Sep 2014 15:51
It
was Saturday morning, school had finished for the week and there was a
football match to go and watch. Dad was having a bath, unusually his
second one this week, and changing his underwear for the third time this
week, Mum suggested he was getting rather posh changing so often and
wondered whether the fact that she had finally got rid of the Burco
boiler, wash board and Posser and replaced it with the latest Hoover
washing machine with attached mangle had anything to do with this new
era of cleanliness.
Dad arrived at the breakfast table with bits of
paper stuck by blood to his face. “Damned safety razor” he said, “at
least with the cut throat you tended to be rather careful, but a safety
razor, indeed, about as safe as a chip pan on a hot stove at night.”
“Never mind” said Mother, “ You’ll get used to it I suppose, now eat
your breakfast up we can’t afford to be throwing anything out even
though rationing has finished, money doesn’t grow on trees you know.”
Outside it was a usual type of early Autumn day, a few birds were
singing and the swallows had all left for warmer climes, it had been
raining a bit overnight but had now stopped and the cloud was beginning
to dissipate thus allowing a week watery sun to appear.
Dad was now quietly eating his breakfast, a full English at that, with a
pint mug of Seargent Major’s tea, at least that’s what he called it
when it was that strong you could stand your spoon in it, whilst trying
to catch up with the nation’s news in the paper. I couldn’t wait to be
an adult so that I too could read at the table, being a lad it was
frowned upon and considered very bad manners. Suddenly he exploded,
“This flaming paper has gone up from tuppence to tuppence halfpenny,” he
said that’s an extra Threepence a week we’ll have to find. His face
bright red, partly from the bath and no doubt due to his increased blood
pressure owing to the price increase, he toddled off back to the
bathroom mumbling away to himself and leaving his cup and plate on the
table to be cleared away by Mum.
Outside some
of the lads were knocking about, playing with an old football, many of
them had scrapes on their knees from being tackled and hitting the
pavement or road as they fell in their short pants. I joined in with
them and was soon rolling on the floor after being barged off the ball
by fatty Smith, but was soon up and at him, revenge as they say is sweet
and within a minute I’d managed to trip him with a slightly high
tackle. He hit the ground head first and his head spit open. That’ll
teach you, I thought. Out came his rag of a handkerchief, which looked
well used, to help stem the blood and the game continued. No sooner had
we started again and a voice shouted me, “come and get ready if you want
to go to the match”. It was Dad, the paper on his face had gone and
large blotches of congealed blood had replaced them. Looking me up and
down he remarked at the state my shoes were in and I was threatened with
not going to the game if I didn’t go and clean them immediately. The
order was received and obeyed and I also had to wash my hands and face
again.
We set off. Living a fair way from the
ground, there was no other alternative than going in the car, she was a
beauty, a pre-war Ford 8 with two doors and wire wheels and was my
Dad’s pride and joy. Starting her could sometimes be a nuisance as she
either had to be started with the handle in the front of the engine or
rolled down a hill. After much cursing and swearing and a fair bit of
sweating the engine burst into life and we were off to see the
magnificent famous Tangerines play. It was the highlight of my week akin
in some ways to Christmas, something that you just couldn’t wait for
and got more and more excited as the time drew near.
Oh the memories of those days, the smell of the stale beer and fags on
the men’s breath, the passion of the supporters, the expectation of the
crowd, the comradery of the fans both home and away, the feeling of
being manhandled down to the front so you could see the game, the crush
to get out at the end, sometimes with your feet not actually touching
the ground. The feeling of disappointment if you had lost but the pure
excitement if you had won or even drawn against some of the better
teams. The expectation of hearing the results, how had the other games
finished? Had we moved up the table?
Sadly
those days are long gone. Despite the passion having remained until
three seasons ago, despite the feeling that something better may be
around the corner, the eternal hope of better things to come, those
feelings have been killed in the main by the greed of one family who
give neither a fig for the game, the supporters, the players or their
manager. Their sole interest is to squeeze as much as they can from a
corpse that was once a vibrant and colourful football club with a
lengthy proud history, in order to line their own pockets and maintain
their lifestyle.
Everyone seems to be at
fault but them, everything that goes wrong is not their fault, yet
despite all the evidence around them, they maintain that someone else is
to blame.
We are the envy of the football league. Pah!
written by Curryman Wednesday, 3rd Sep 2014 08:36
In my previous blog, the second of a trilogy, I referred to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and I thought, for the uninitiated I would expand on that theme in order to make some sort of sense out of my statement. I state here and now I don’t study the Bible and am not particularly religious, but where the cap fits.
The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are described
in Revelation chapter 6, verses 1-8. The four horsemen are symbolic
descriptions of different events which will take place in the end times.
(in our case the end of BFC as a football club) The first horseman of
the Apocalypse is mentioned in: “I looked, and there before me was a
white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode
out as a conqueror bent on conquest.” This first horseman likely refers
to the Antichrist, who will be given authority and will conquer all who
oppose him. The antichrist is the false imitator of the true Christ,
who will also return on a white horse (Revelation 19:11-16).
Think about the goings on around our club and there are distinct
similarities between what is written in the Bible and what our owner has
done during his tenure. OO was given a crown and is still worshipped by
some, although that is in steep decline, who believe he was our knight
in shining armour, but his behaviour over the years including his stint
in jail suggest otherwise. It has become apparent that although he
attends matches and appears to be still somewhat interested in football,
to a point, his input is declining and the second horseman now has the
reigns.
The second horseman of the Apocalypse
appears in Revelation 6:4, “Then another horse came out, a fiery red
one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make
men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.” The second
horseman refers to terrible warfare that will break out in the end
times.
Who presently holds the reigns at the
club? KO. What has he done, he has caused warfare between fans of the
club, fans and the Owners, players and the owners, and now the
individual directors. He is in my opinion the second horseman and his
real dislike of football and poor judgement will be obviously exposed
once his father has passed away and been laid to rest. He will no doubt
receive a large chunk of the wealth that is left when the old fellah
goes. What he does with that wealth will be interesting and I personally
cannot see it finding its way into the coffers of the football club,
even though we are regularly told the money is there if it is needed, I
don’t personally think it is, the land the ground stands on is far too
valuable to have such a local amenity despoil it and that will be
another tale. It could be that part of the plan is to reduce those who
wish to come to the games, making BFC unviable and facing bankruptcy,
because as we know someone is a past master at becoming a bankrupt in
order to get their way and already we have seen the lowest attendance
for a game in the Championship since 2009/10. What a shame the
government stopped the idea of a Casino in Blackpool, the club could
have gone already! It appears that basically he is a money grabbing,
risk averse individual with the morals of a slug and the business acumen
of an amoeba.
The third horseman is
described in Revelation 6:5-6, “...and there before me was a black
horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard
what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, ‘A
quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's
wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!’” The third horseman of
the Apocalypse refers to a great famine that will take place, likely as a
result of the wars from the second horseman.
So who is the third? Who charges around, allegedly, at speeds way and
above the legal limit in their car forsaking all those who despise his
doltish behaviour and putting anyone who dares to step out into this
path in danger of death or serious injury? The scales represent the bets
that are, again allegedly, placed on the outcome of his ill thought out
perilous, to others, races. The wheat and the barley seems to me to be
the money that has been removed from the club to allow such greed to
consume the first three horsemen. I would interpret the oil and the wine
as the ways in which the removed fortune has been spent on personal
avarice and other ventures instead of where it should have been spent.
The famine referred to in the text (due to the wars of the second
horseman) could be the loss of a great deal of the fortune by the
current Chairman through his wars with all and sundry, leaving less for
his heir to inherit.
I don’t know the third
horseman, only by reputation, and honestly do not care if our paths
never cross, but it would seem he is an extension of the egotistical
dynasty that prevails within the club, if all reports seen are indeed
correct.
The fourth horseman is mentioned in
Revelation 6:8, “I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its
rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They
were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and
plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” The fourth horseman of
the Apocalypse is symbolic of death and devastation. It seems to be a
combination of the previous horsemen. The fourth horseman of the
Apocalypse will bring further warfare and terrible famines along with
awful plagues and diseases.
Is the fourth
horseman already within the family? I would hazard a guess and say yes.
It seems there is a certain penchant for adverse publicity in the family
as they nonchalantly go about their daily business of worshipping
mammon and it can be seen that greed and decadence breed voracity and
debauchery. Unfortunately, this theme appears to continue throughout the
whole of the line. So it’s more of the same for the long suffering fan,
if we survive that is. As a remark attributed to Marie Antoinette when
she heard that the peasants were starving goes, “Qu’ils mangent de la
brioche” (let them eat bread/cake). But we, the fans, the customers,
don’t have a crumb of comfort from any source, so where are we supposed
to get our brioche?
Only one thing, in my
opinion, separates the four horsemen from the current incumbents. None
of the horsemen of the apocalypse required body guards whereas money has
to be spent on such extravagances for the above named and I would
hazard a guess that they will need their protection for a very long
time. Money well spent? The oil and the wine seem, to me, to be
dwindling.
Can we alter it? Extremely
doubtful, as I feel this is just what will occur, like it or not, under
this ownership ending with the spectre of Hades (bankruptcy) and the
final demise of one of the most famous old clubs in Britain.. All, I
feel, we can do is keep up the pressure and pray that eventually one of
the family will see the light and become a true benefactor, or a rich
investor will finally rid us of the plague, (London 1665) also look what
the great fire of London did in 1666, mind you pigs still don’t fly,
and the cow hasn’t jumped over the moon!
The Folly of Denegrating your fanbase.
written by Curryman Sunday, 17th Aug 2014 12:19
Gerald Irving Ratner (born 1949, London) is a British businessman and motivational speaker. He was formerly chief executive of the major British jewellery company Ratner’s Group (now the Signet Group). He achieved notoriety after making a speech in which he jokingly denigrated the company's products, which caused the company's near collapse (the so-called "Ratner effect").
Today, Ratner's speech is still famous in the corporate world as an example of the value of branding and image over quality. Such gaffes are now sometimes called "doing a Ratner", and Ratner himself has acquired the sobriquet "The Sultan of Bling". Ratner has said in his defence that his remarks were not meant to be taken seriously. Source Wikipedia
Rather than defend both his Secretary and his Manager, he chose the unwise path of defending one in public and criticising the other, which has led to various conspiracy theories. People will only be made fools of for so long, as the old saying goes ‘you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of them all of the time’, and the end result of denigrating the customers is clear and is coming. Customers are voting with their feet, season ticket sales have fallen and once the customer trust is gone it is extremely hard to get it back, more so when those responsible have little clue how to do things. A good example is in the South Stand where after a protest by a long standing supporter, he was banned, this has resulted in seven people not renewing their season tickets and a loss to whoever of £1367 plus add ons. It appears that we have a lot of white spaces, where adverts should be shown, around the perimeter of the ground again lost revenue. Is he clueless? I’ll let you decide.
Not my fault? Are you sure?
written by Curryman Thursday, 14th Aug 2014 22:53
The ongoing exasperation and indignation of the BFC fans shows no signs of ending following a summer of silence and then the usual broken promises and vacuous statements coming from the family spokesman in charge at Bloomfield Road. This has been followed up with what appears to be a regular column in the Blackpool Gazette, which began by blaming every person for the debacle of Nottingham Forest on everyone but himself. It is basically like a script from the Simpsons.
Despite saying that he wanted the supporters to have a club they would be proud of, (01/07/2009) and recently adding ‘this goes without saying, but recruitment has been our failing and needs to improve.’ (March 2013) We found ourselves in the intolerable position of having only eight players in place by late July, weeks before our first league game and then, as mentioned above, a panic to ensure enough players were registered for the first game away at Nottingham Forest.
What long term planning there is at Bloomfield Road appears to the uninitiated, like myself, to how much more of the lemon juice can we squeeze out of the rind for our family’s banquet before the whole thing goes rotten on us and has to be discarded. Long-term planning is common in any company, but when dealing with high-profile families who all want the best for themselves, there’s a tendency to emphasize the individual’s desires over organizational objectives and this is what appears to have happened to our beloved club.
Recently, at long last, the press have started to take notice of what is happening, and I can’t help but feel that once a few forensic examinations of the accounts and goings on at the club are carried out, things will begin to surface that could be both damaging to the family and damaging to our club.
Blackpool fans are usually quite passive and on the whole well behaved, it takes a lot to rankle them and even more to getting them to react. However, over the past six months or so it has been noticeable how the wind is changing in the rank and file, it is no longer just a few over exuberant youths who are protesting at the goings on within the club, the lack of investment, the callous disregard to the fans concerns and indeed the blatant dis-respect of those who have no other way to protest but at a game or outside. This has become endemic throughout the family and really shows the true colours of those in charge. What seems to be forgotten is that these good people who are held in total disregard, nay in contempt, by the family are not just fans, but customers.
(1) ‘Defined’ requirements, those which must be met by the delivered product or service often written in the contract or inferred to as such in the advertising and would probably include the following:
(a) Facilities provided (i.e. is the ground safe and up to standard, are the toilets clean etc);
(b) Cost and payments ( are the costs as it says in the advertising);
(c) Customer support ( is there a fans liaison officer as required by the Football League and does that person function);
(d) Response times to failure (a word now often used to describe our sad demise);
(e) Revolution taken as a positive and not as a negative (positive a revolutionary discovery or a new start, negative upset and angst).
(2) ‘Implied’ requirements, often understated, but which create an overall perception of the business in the eyes of the customer (the fan). The little things that show a club and its owners really care about their customer base. A little effort in this area can go a long way. We seem to have little or none of it, rather the opposite.
