Bonser #1 Leech
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Will there be a weighting for the London clubs because if not they will not be able to afford big squads and we may see a few near the bottom
Get your bets on
Well run to what end?
I would say well run to ensure Bonser’s pockets remained lined.
We’re division 4 now, just like we were 30 years ago, similar if not worse fanbase, but he’s what 10 million better off and counting?
I don’t see how that equates to a well run football club.
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On the other hand the period from 1998 up to 2004 was one of the most successful in our history with players of real quality in the team. Reading “Match of my Life” has re awakened my excitement of being a Walsall fan in that period. Quality players like Merson, Samways , Aranalde etc in our shirts. They were good times and I doubt I will see anything like them again.
The point I am making is that no one is all bad. I think in those days very few of us begrudged him the rent which, of course, was much lower then. My complaint is that after that period when his enthusiasm waned he should have moved on and let someone else take the reins. The Pomlett takeover is probably 10-15 years too late!!
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My interpretation of a well run club is exercising fiscal responsibility, don’t spend what you don’t have, keep any debt to an absolute minimum, pay the staff and vendors on time, encourage community service, obey the rules maintain a successful marketing department and offer match incentives to supporters on a regular basis which invites them to bring a friend for little cost.
As we have seen, there are lots of clubs who don’t obey the rules and seem to get away with it, if we tried that the EFL would take us to the cleaners and make an example of us.
LP said there are many clubs at our level who may not survive this current crisis, some are probably hanging on by the skin of their teeth. I’m grateful our club is not one of them.
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My interpretation of a well run club is all those things but also giving the supporters hope of better times ahead and something to be proud of.
We weren’t in the black. We were 2 million in debt… mostly to Bonser. A debt we largely still have but has been handed over to Pomlett.
Given all the money that came in for player sales and cup runs over Bonsers tenure it’s no wonder fans ask where it all went.
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I’m not saying Bonser is bent
Or that from heaven he’s sent
But when he took hold
Our old place got sold
And now he’s collecting the rent
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The reason we are back were Bonser found us is because after we narrowly missed out on promotion and a huge cash injection he suddenly lost interest and took cheap gambles on the likes of Whitney and Keates he didn’t give a monkey’s and undid all that Smith had put in place including the youth and academy set up.
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Bonser lost the plot when he turned down selling the club when Lee was manager - didn’t suit him then. He didn’t suit us after that (although he’d done an OK job of running the club prior, after it fell into his lap for tuppence).
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Bonser made three very good managerial appointments. Nicholl, Graydon and Lee. Those three dragged us from where we are now into the championship then kept us there. Absolutely remarkable given the funds they had. Smith was more of a good non-sacking if there is such a thing but by then I think Gamble was doing the hiring and firing albeit with JB sign-off.
But those three managers each performed minor miracles and in Graydon’s case a major miracle. If Bonser deserves any credit at all it is for those appointments.
The debit side of his balance sheet is far more populated. Those things are well documented on here so tempting as it is, I shan’t take up more space with the list because others have covered a lot of it. But the biggest sleight of hand in a compilation that would have Penn and Teller on their feet was the assertion that the only answer to the clubs woes in the early/mid nineties was to separate it from the freehold of the land upon which it sits. The only answer. The club couldn’t muster or find or beg, borrow or loan around £300k. And neither could Bonser himself loan the club money to purchase the freehold (yet amazingly he could loan the club £2m less than 10 years later). It is a story beyond any type of close inspection. A Dominic Cummings of a tale.
Well done on three appointments and not so well done on around ten others, a special mention for Paul Merson, VSA and structuring the club in a way that has held it back from competing with its former third tier peers and leaving it behind many in the fourth tier. The unique achievement, confounding all conventional wisdom in all this is to buy a lower league football club and get seriously minted on the back of it over the next few decades. Bravo sir. Bravo.
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Yeah if truth be told for the budget that bonser gave we have been very lucky indeed and had moderate success. And even luckier not to be plying our trade in non league. He knew exactly when to get out the crafty bastard.
Agree regarding those three miracle appointments, but another key factor of that golden era was the Bosman ruling. There can be few lower league clubs who capitalised on bringing in cheap, talented foreign players than we did during that period, so Boner and the SunTanMan deserve grudging credit for that, too.
That approach had a shelf life though, and as money in football moved on, particularly over the past decade, Bonser struggled/refused to adapt. Even Smith, who seemed to have found a sustainable solution in the ‘DNA philosophy‘ was taking annual budget cuts, and as we now know there was no contingency plan for when he left…
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The downside of that was that STM became the agent for these players, so he’d bring them in to hawk them on. Bit of a conflict of interest.
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Jan Sorensen Kevin Broadhurst Paul Merson Chris Hutchings Jimmy Mullen John Whitney Dean Keates probably missing some all awful cheap appointments he got lucky with Graydon and Nicholl thats about it he never backed them they were just miracle workers on a small budget.Money and Lee were also good managers but wanted more than Bonser was willing to give.Read Mersons book recently and Bonser appointed him when he returned from rehab he never wanted the job complete recipe for disaster and it turned out to be just that.
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Mixed bag. Some sold ridiculously cheap (Boli, Peron) and some that gave 5 years service (Leitao, Aranalde, Matias).
Looking back, we lost a lot of foreign talent because they couldn’t be tempted to sign permanent contracts following short term deals (Otta, Padula, Junior, Ekelund, Ledesma etc).
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Good shout on Money as an addition to the three I mention.
Just difficult not to think of Dickie Dosh and the complete undoing of all of his work in the January 2008 transfer window. Followed by the “and why shouldn’t I?” followed by the “go support Luton, Bournemouth or Rotherham “ offer to us lot.
But yes, DD did a great job.
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Fees undisclosed?
That lasted long then…
Will suit Bolton & Salford admirably…