Rob if you can’t grasp the basics of what’s being proposed we’ll have to agree to disagree. You’re on your own path hope it brings about the improvements it’s after.
Chris - get where you are coming from fair point and great intentions which I back 110%. I also think the Chairman has the best of intentions but the football side of the club isn’t just a mess it has no format or identity and that to a fan is a big insult. I can’t fathom why this isn’t being addressed which is why I think a change of approach is needed
Why do we need all this additional financial help compared to every other football league team? We have already been more generous than an awful lot of fanbases!
Why are we sinking with the 6th best gate in the division, while clubs that didn’t even have half our gates seem to be doing just fine?
Am I completely missing something here?! Just more nonsense in the vacuum of information that is Walsall FC. Its okay, there’s another meeting in a month. We need more now guys. Don’t know what, but look where we are and how people feel. How long is the club going to survive like this?
I understand what you are proposing, but you can’t see that the sponsors we have won’t give a ■■■■ about a few hundred people not dealing with them. It’s like a drop in the ocean to them. It’s not like us signing a convicted pedophile (or the like) where them being associated with us could damage their reputation.
As for the money side of things, if you don’t want to contribute into the club financially then of course that is your right and absolutely a way of hitting them directly. Which out of what you’re proposing would be the best way forward for what you want to get across.
I get it I really do and in all honesty I don’t have the answers and I don’t know what other clubs are doing.
You could have a meltdown in 12 months as it turns out 50% of clubs have overspent and got too high levels of debt. We aren’t through this yet so the answer is we simply don’t know.
I trust the extra money left in the club and raised which in my opinion shows just how truly our fan base are brilliant at times, will be used to help the club in numerous ways which help and improve.
I don’t think financially we are near deaths door but I think the club may be looking to ride this out and mount a challenge the other side better than most clubs who took risks.
However I am usually quite optimistic and don’t like managers hounded out and even before Barrow I wasn’t too concerned about below us as I felt a performance like vs Cambridge and we’d have won. We didn’t and choices in game baffled me. I’m very worried about relegation and feel the club need to do something to help as it isn’t working currently and the danger is real.
I remember years back when Bury went bust someone on here summed it up very well with how the two clubs are/were run. “Bury spend money they don’t have. Walsall don’t spend money they do have.”
In a funny way that principle still remains. In January Guthrie was paid off, Ade and Jules sold on last day and then week later DC went and compensation was suprisingly received.
I simply can’t believe club would have gone bust end of season if all that hadn’t happened so why wasn’t some of that used on getting a decent striker on loan or something instead of the two freebies who’ve done nothing so far?
Decisions like that could still cost club its league status which is going to cost so much more in years ahead.
I agree, my gut feeling is we thought we were too far off the play offs be thought cash in, use money in summer for a better rebuild and have a good crack at it. The potential mistake is I don’t think we thought we’d be dragged into a relegation battle.
We are stuck in an ever decreasing circle, one that must be stopped.
We are restrained financially, therefore a weakened budget for team building.
Poor team gives poor results, equals less fans, and so it goes on.
Reducing that income will create a massive downfall of the club, inevitably leading to relegation.
Having supported a club that was lost through owners selling the stadium to developers, without alternative options, and not a lack of support, it is a monumental task of getting established again. Trust me, I tried, succeeded to a degree, but never at the heights the club had before, this was a different sport.
In a strange way Pomlett needs us to invest to help get us out of the mess we are in. Clearly asking us to do that now would send fans into overdrive. We are stuck with the freehold situation, stuck with the current situation, this is the hand we hold.
We all want this club to bounce back, the fans need to be a part of the solution.
I am not suggesting that fans should part with money to get back a poor product either. I am not suggesting that disgruntled fans should pay to watch this crap either.
What I am saying is that there are many skills, knowledge and efforts that can be used to help get out of the ever decreasing circle. If schemes or whatever ways were encouraged to help finance the club, would fans consider it?
Fans can be considered as part of the problem or part of the solution.
We need Leigh Pomlett to show his leadership skills, so we can believe in the future.
Yeah as I said fair enough. I can understand in these times the need to cash in especially as the two had 6 months left.
Please don’t in future insult supporters intelligence though saying you’re going all in for play offs…and then you sign someone who couldn’t get a game for Barrow and another who was playing for Oxford under 23s as Adebayo “replacements.”
I suspect that as a club we’ve been surviving on selling/scrimping for a good many years and it’s just been disguised, but now it’s coming home to roost.
Fans would come back if there’s some decent players on the pitch or at least some thought of strategy.
Given the long period without watching football I can see decent attendances next season…IF some ambition can be shown.
Forest Green and Cheltenham seem to have no issue signing decent players from the league above or good on loan players from local rivals so that seems a decent template to me given both are in good place now to get top 3.
Says it all when someone exciting like Wright gets signed and within 3 games he’s being modified into a right wing back.
They don’t want to know, though, this is the issue. The board room doors are closed. We feel like outsiders. They want our money but none of our thoughts. It doesn’t work that way!
Mole and Gamble are all of a sudden going to start shaking our hands and asking for our opinions after 15 years of ‘looking into’ things haha? They have a forum full of suggestions here, for free, but don’t want to know!
I’d argue Melbourne is an ok replacement in all honesty, I think if we’d have pushed up the table he’d have signed.
I think they gambled on mid table, hoped Yaw may be a rough diamond and a bit of luck would have kept us in contention, I really do. Unfortunately they gambled and may have lost big. I still don’t think selling Ade and Jules was wrong as they wanted to go and we got money, what I think has been wrong is not looking to pick up and early 4/5 points by staying hard to beat and nicking a win in anyway possible and then start looking at playing a new style. That’s where we are so it’s now how do the hierarchy address the failed gamble to try and steady the ship and balance having to convince players and coaching staff we may recruit that we are turning it round if we stay up?
Melbourne is decent but if he replaced Jules…who replaced George Nurse?
I mean if you’re serious about going up…you replace a good player who leaves mid season with another good player, basic principle surely?
Same happened in 15/16 when George Evans left and was just replaced by guys who’d barely played in league football and hardly featured at all.
Wasn’t like the team were even close to top 7 when they all left so reality is top 12 standard team/squad has just declined into bottom 6 standard in last 6 weeks. On LP I’m afraid.
I completely accept your position WalsallOne but why can’t we compete with much smaller clubs in L2 who do not have in place at all the commercial and hospitality revenues that we normally have?
Our gates are reasonable at this level, we have had consistent income from the selling of playing assets plus all the commercial activity in normal times and still we can’t compete with the likes of Cheltenham, Stevenage and Crawley. This is not just about the pandemic, this is about the 450k we have to pay to a certain person before we even start.
I think we are on the same wavelength. We need a Strategy from The Board/Pomlett. I appreciate the balancing act of gambling, especially if we ain’t got a pot to take from. Pomlett has stated that he is a pragmatist, so any form of gambling is doubtful!
I think Wright is a steal at this level, I think Vincent playing in an advanced forward midfield role with McDonald on the other flank and either Josh or Lavs upfront would give us something. It would buy us enough points to get through this season at least.
We need a damn good Manager at the helm. That’s where the calculated gamble needs to come in my opinion. The fans will then buy into it and away we go. To a degree we had this with Clarke, but then We saw him for what he was and we are back to square one.
I know what you are saying, most “Directors” don’t like the staff or customers telling them how to do their jobs. I don’t know either of them, so difficult to give an opinion. I do believe that Pomlett is more open to idea’s though, so hopefully his influence will help.
Yes, I sometimes live in a dream world. I live in hope that someone somewhere will wake up and together we will get back to enjoying some good football with some success.
Something has to give and someone needs to be brave enough to hold their hands up and ask for help, I don’t care who that is, but please for the good of the club, let’s find a bloody solution to the situation we are in.
Given the right leadership, they have a core base of 3500 people willing to support and help it. Get it wrong and we all suffer.
I accept a lot of that and I am waiting to see the accounts for last year. With all the extra income we get from our commercial activities there is there is no way our budget should be less than those clubs. This time last year we were running into form and perhaps if COVID had not come along we would be in a different position but there is no doubt we have been hit harder than most due to the nature of the package from the Premier League.
Absolute tosh, LP and his band of brothers who for years went along with Bonser’s penny pinching antics for the betterment of his pension fund, couldn’t care a hoot for that irritating football nonsense that interrupts their commercial and entertainment facilities that are the ‘core’ of The Banks’s’ Stadium (Suffolk Life) Ltd.
We are considered as plebs that turn up every other Saturday and cost them money. LP would not have watched last nights gutless abomination being presented to us as a football team and had any thoughts other than ‘when can we open our entertainment facilities again’.
He appointed Dutton because he would have been a very cheap option to keep those pesky supporters at bay. Now that this has not worked he will have to face up to the unhappy plebs making another nuisance of themselves again.
Be honest, we are fed lie after lie to keep us in check, now he is faced with having to replace his cheap option with someone that will cost…how annoying…
Walsall, the Saddlers to us, needs new faces at the top, otherwise this demise will continue until we are playing in the Northern Counties League. Bescot will still be running ‘entertainment’ evenings in the Bonser suite, no matter what team plays on the turf in the middle of the ‘ground’.
Completely agree, except that Walsall being a league club is actually a USP in it’s status to our ground as a commercial/entertainment hub. Lise this, it’s a mediocre conference center next to the M6
