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Post by uptheus on Jun 26, 2017 6:58:17 GMT
Thinking back to Myles’ opening post – what’s the plan? – it seems pretty clear that the question is rhetorical. There is no plan. But what is confusing most of us who used to be on the Positive Bus is that there used to be a plan. It’s just that gradually that plan has fallen apart/ been discarded. If you think back objectively, though, the pattern becomes clear. The plan appears to have been ASHTON’S, not Darryl’s. Ashton had a plan for how you could turn a lower league club with potential into a Championship club without breaking the bank. It involved hiring professionals at all levels, putting in place processes and structures of the kind utilised by the Premier League clubs and letting the professionals get on with it. Darryl was there as the money man. But the people doing the real work: Ashton himself, Craig Dean, Mark Thomas, Kevin Smith, Sarah Gooding, Jonty Castle and, of course Mapp, were all Ashton people and they had all bought into his vision of professionalism, structure, process etc. It took a while for these things to feed through into results on and off the pitch (there is always a time lag) but a year after the takeover the results were starting to become clear, in all areas. That pre-season – Roofe, Sercombe etc signing – and the tour of Austria was I think the moment that we all started to realise that we were onto something. Sure enough, results on and off the pitch started to follow. By the late autumn we were top of the league, crowds were booming, players were making themselves valuable assets (the first time that had happened at OUFC in decades) and the plan was working out beautifully. There was a huge money-raising gala dinner that Ashton and his team organised for the Youth and Community Trust that raised a fortune. Firoz was there, Stewart Donald was there, all the Councils were there. In short, everything was about as rosy as it could possibly have been. But just a few days later, Darryl decided to part company with Mark Ashton, because he wanted to have a go at running the club himself. He actually said that in interviews and programme notes – words to the effect of “There isn’t room for both of us at this club”.
In the 18 months since that decision, the positive moves made by Ashton have all but been reversed. Professional people like Kevin Smith and Sarah Gooding were binned off; massive issues like the need for a new training ground was forgotten about and then bungled. Relations with Kassam took a massive turn for the worst. OxVox went from being treated like a treasured friend to an enemy of the club. People were hired and fired within months. Rumours started to surface of inappropriate relationships within the club. Promotion was delivered by the team that Ashton put in place, but even then rumours were starting to be heard that not all was as happy a ship as before. Appleton apparently wasn’t happy when Jonty Castle got the bullet. Mapp’s eyebrows started to do a dance of their own every time the media asked him about the huge budget Darryl was claiming to have given him.
In the end, the chickens came home to roost in November/ December 2016. The management team were told that they would have to get rid of senior wages to bring in players on loan. At almost exactly the same time, the rhetoric against OxVox and the Council was ramped up to Force 9 levels. The rest is recent enough chaos/ history for people to remember: letting people know the club was for sale, relations with Appleton allegedly disintegrating, Academy director and Commercial Directors resigning, MD being summarily bulleted after less than a year, lashing out in the media on a near constant basis, accepting a bid from Sartori then reneging at the last minute. It all starts to become a lot clearer as to why MApp probably decided to leave too. Bottom line is that the club seemed to have lost its plan when Ashton left. And as previously noted, it's now very unclear if there is another plan or will be another plan. Darryl has said that he wouldn’t sell to Sartori because it was not the right thing for the club, but my belief is that in actual fact it was because he hoped that Appleton would get him promotion with a mid-table budget, making him a lot more money (potentially another £10m) a year down the line. However, that hope already seems to have fallen apart too. And just as it took a time for results on the pitch to catch up with the good decisions that Ashton made, so it is inevitable that the massive list of mistakes made since Ashton departure could end up causing a disaster for the club.
The positive bus was great while it lasted, but I'm not sure what direction that bus is heading in now, and I'm not sure the driver is too.
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Post by devilsalley on Jun 26, 2017 7:14:55 GMT
Top post that.
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Post by londonroader on Jun 26, 2017 7:25:58 GMT
Thinking back to Myles’ opening post – what’s the plan? – it seems pretty clear that the question is rhetorical. There is no plan. But what is confusing most of us who used to be on the Positive Bus is that there used to be a plan. It’s just that gradually that plan has fallen apart/ been discarded. If you think back objectively, though, the pattern becomes clear. The plan appears to have been ASHTON’S, not Darryl’s. Ashton had a plan for how you could turn a lower league club with potential into a Championship club without breaking the bank. It involved hiring professionals at all levels, putting in place processes and structures of the kind utilised by the Premier League clubs and letting the professionals get on with it. Darryl was there as the money man. But the people doing the real work: Ashton himself, Craig Dean, Mark Thomas, Kevin Smith, Sarah Gooding, Jonty Castle and, of course Mapp, were all Ashton people and they had all bought into his vision of professionalism, structure, process etc. It took a while for these things to feed through into results on and off the pitch (there is always a time lag) but a year after the takeover the results were starting to become clear, in all areas. That pre-season – Roofe, Sercombe etc signing – and the tour of Austria was I think the moment that we all started to realise that we were onto something. Sure enough, results on and off the pitch started to follow. By the late autumn we were top of the league, crowds were booming, players were making themselves valuable assets (the first time that had happened at OUFC in decades) and the plan was working out beautifully. There was a huge money-raising gala dinner that Ashton and his team organised for the Youth and Community Trust that raised a fortune. Firoz was there, Stewart Donald was there, all the Councils were there. In short, everything was about as rosy as it could possibly have been. But just a few days later, Darryl decided to part company with Mark Ashton, because he wanted to have a go at running the club himself. He actually said that in interviews and programme notes – words to the effect of “There isn’t room for both of us at this club”. In the 18 months since that decision, the positive moves made by Ashton have all but been reversed. Professional people like Kevin Smith and Sarah Gooding were binned off; massive issues like the need for a new training ground was forgotten about and then bungled. Relations with Kassam took a massive turn for the worst. OxVox went from being treated like a treasured friend to an enemy of the club. People were hired and fired within months. Rumours started to surface of inappropriate relationships within the club. Promotion was delivered by the team that Ashton put in place, but even then rumours were starting to be heard that not all was as happy a ship as before. Appleton apparently wasn’t happy when Jonty Castle got the bullet. Mapp’s eyebrows started to do a dance of their own every time the media asked him about the huge budget Darryl was claiming to have given him. In the end, the chickens came home to roost in November/ December 2016. The management team were told that they would have to get rid of senior wages to bring in players on loan. At almost exactly the same time, the rhetoric against OxVox and the Council was ramped up to Force 9 levels. The rest is recent enough chaos/ history for people to remember: letting people know the club was for sale, relations with Appleton allegedly disintegrating, Academy director and Commercial Directors resigning, MD being summarily bulleted after less than a year, lashing out in the media on a near constant basis, accepting a bid from Sartori then reneging at the last minute. It all starts to become a lot clearer as to why MApp probably decided to leave too. Bottom line is that the club seemed to have lost its plan when Ashton left. And as previously noted, it's now very unclear if there is another plan or will be another plan. Darryl has said that he wouldn’t sell to Sartori because it was not the right thing for the club, but my belief is that in actual fact it was because he hoped that Appleton would get him promotion with a mid-table budget, making him a lot more money (potentially another £10m) a year down the line. However, that hope already seems to have fallen apart too. And just as it took a time for results on the pitch to catch up with the good decisions that Ashton made, so it is inevitable that the massive list of mistakes made since Ashton departure could end up causing a disaster for the club. The positive bus was great while it lasted, but I'm not sure what direction that bus is heading in now, and I'm not sure the driver is too. Good post that, be an interesting few days seeing peeps trying to pick that to pieces for their own aims.
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Post by Paul Cannell on Jun 26, 2017 7:31:47 GMT
Yes. The rapid rebuttal unit's a bit slow off the mark this morning.
"Show me where DE said any of that".
"He's the best owner we've ever had".
"Stop making things up about a man who's put umpteen millions of his own money in.".
"He's got the best interests of the club at heart".
"He's totally open and transparent; he told me so when he bought me a hot-dog".
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Post by oufcyellows on Jun 26, 2017 7:41:52 GMT
Agree with all that.
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Post by Yellow River on Jun 26, 2017 7:50:27 GMT
Good, sensible, & well reasoned opening post.
Just goes to show, you don't have to post aggressive, antagonist, nasty personal stuff to get your view point across. You've got the Luton Outlaws site for that.
For what it's worth the alarm bells started to ring for me in the autumn 2016, attacks on Oxvox, training facilities debacle and the follow up spat with the council, some really poorly thought out press releases about that time.
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Post by slimjim on Jun 26, 2017 7:55:24 GMT
Best post I've read in ages. All the gossip and rumour about mis-management of funds, personal fall outs and staff being treated poorly aside for a moment - the real worry for many of us is around the lack of depth and breadth of footballing experience running the club. DE is a money man without any past experience in football. David Jones is a Sky presenter and a top one at that. He may well have a very good relationship with many high profile folk in the game but that doesn't make him anywhere near an expert in running a football club. So many experienced people have been given the axe by DE and my belief is that DE (and our beloved OUFC) is in for a bumpy ride. I hope I am wrong
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Post by oufcyellows on Jun 26, 2017 7:58:34 GMT
I think he's realising how hard it actually is, and how important those staff are. He obviously thought he didn't need Sarah gooding yet 6 months later has put Someone in her role, same with the head of academy and commercial role,thought he could do away and cover it by passing on the work load to existing staff. The main worry is that he hasn't then advertised the md role to fill the hole left by ma and then gbt. I've said previously that bringing in ma was probably Darryl greatest achievement and getting rid of him his biggest mistake. Nobody has agenda against him personally, he could very well turn the situation around. And bringing in a person like Ashton or jmg to run the club and help him make the decisions would be a great start
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Post by londonroader on Jun 26, 2017 8:07:15 GMT
Yes. The rapid rebuttal unit's a bit slow off the mark this morning. "Show me where DE said any of that". "He's the best owner we've ever had". "Stop making things up about a man who's put umpteen millions of his own money in.". "He's got the best interests of the club at heart". "He's totally open and transparent; he told me so when he bought me a hot-dog". Team meeting at Islip, oh sorry that venues changed now.
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Post by saddletramp on Jun 26, 2017 8:11:12 GMT
Thinking back to Myles’ opening post – what’s the plan? – it seems pretty clear that the question is rhetorical. There is no plan. But what is confusing most of us who used to be on the Positive Bus is that there used to be a plan. It’s just that gradually that plan has fallen apart/ been discarded. If you think back objectively, though, the pattern becomes clear. The plan appears to have been ASHTON’S, not Darryl’s. Ashton had a plan for how you could turn a lower league club with potential into a Championship club without breaking the bank. It involved hiring professionals at all levels, putting in place processes and structures of the kind utilised by the Premier League clubs and letting the professionals get on with it. Darryl was there as the money man. But the people doing the real work: Ashton himself, Craig Dean, Mark Thomas, Kevin Smith, Sarah Gooding, Jonty Castle and, of course Mapp, were all Ashton people and they had all bought into his vision of professionalism, structure, process etc. It took a while for these things to feed through into results on and off the pitch (there is always a time lag) but a year after the takeover the results were starting to become clear, in all areas. That pre-season – Roofe, Sercombe etc signing – and the tour of Austria was I think the moment that we all started to realise that we were onto something. Sure enough, results on and off the pitch started to follow. By the late autumn we were top of the league, crowds were booming, players were making themselves valuable assets (the first time that had happened at OUFC in decades) and the plan was working out beautifully. There was a huge money-raising gala dinner that Ashton and his team organised for the Youth and Community Trust that raised a fortune. Firoz was there, Stewart Donald was there, all the Councils were there. In short, everything was about as rosy as it could possibly have been. But just a few days later, Darryl decided to part company with Mark Ashton, because he wanted to have a go at running the club himself. He actually said that in interviews and programme notes – words to the effect of “There isn’t room for both of us at this club”. In the 18 months since that decision, the positive moves made by Ashton have all but been reversed. Professional people like Kevin Smith and Sarah Gooding were binned off; massive issues like the need for a new training ground was forgotten about and then bungled. Relations with Kassam took a massive turn for the worst. OxVox went from being treated like a treasured friend to an enemy of the club. People were hired and fired within months. Rumours started to surface of inappropriate relationships within the club. Promotion was delivered by the team that Ashton put in place, but even then rumours were starting to be heard that not all was as happy a ship as before. Appleton apparently wasn’t happy when Jonty Castle got the bullet. Mapp’s eyebrows started to do a dance of their own every time the media asked him about the huge budget Darryl was claiming to have given him. In the end, the chickens came home to roost in November/ December 2016. The management team were told that they would have to get rid of senior wages to bring in players on loan. At almost exactly the same time, the rhetoric against OxVox and the Council was ramped up to Force 9 levels. The rest is recent enough chaos/ history for people to remember: letting people know the club was for sale, relations with Appleton allegedly disintegrating, Academy director and Commercial Directors resigning, MD being summarily bulleted after less than a year, lashing out in the media on a near constant basis, accepting a bid from Sartori then reneging at the last minute. It all starts to become a lot clearer as to why MApp probably decided to leave too. Bottom line is that the club seemed to have lost its plan when Ashton left. And as previously noted, it's now very unclear if there is another plan or will be another plan. Darryl has said that he wouldn’t sell to Sartori because it was not the right thing for the club, but my belief is that in actual fact it was because he hoped that Appleton would get him promotion with a mid-table budget, making him a lot more money (potentially another £10m) a year down the line. However, that hope already seems to have fallen apart too. And just as it took a time for results on the pitch to catch up with the good decisions that Ashton made, so it is inevitable that the massive list of mistakes made since Ashton departure could end up causing a disaster for the club. The positive bus was great while it lasted, but I'm not sure what direction that bus is heading in now, and I'm not sure the driver is too. Interesting post,but how much is truth and how much is guesswork ? "In November/ December 2016. The management team were told that they would have to get rid of senior wages to bring in players on loan" So what senior wages did we get rid of in mid season ? I don't know MApp at all,but he seems to me the sort of bloke that if that ultimatum had been given to him in 2016,he wouldn't still have been the Oxford manager in May 2017. "but my belief is that in actual fact it was because he hoped that Appleton would get him promotion with a mid-table budget, making him a lot more money (potentially another £10m)" Now that is guesswork, i haven't seen anyone posting on here with regards Sartori,who has even come up with a guess at how much money he offered for Oxford. So if we don't know what was offered in the first place,how can you say that if we were in the Championship,Eales could sell the club for "potentially another £10 mill?" IMO if the Sartori bid had enabled DE to walk with a profit,he would have. If Oxford have a bad season,DE will have no offers on the table,the £10 mill he has stuck in a club with little or no assets,is a big gamble to make on winning promotion with a "mid table budget" So perhaps the offer would have enabled DE to cut his losses,not clear the debt,he thought hard about it,but decided not to. But that is just my opinion,i have no facts,no details,no insider knowledge.
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Post by bazzer9461 on Jun 26, 2017 8:13:12 GMT
Yes. The rapid rebuttal unit's a bit slow off the mark this morning. "Show me where DE said any of that". "He's the best owner we've ever had". "Stop making things up about a man who's put umpteen millions of his own money in.". "He's got the best interests of the club at heart". "He's totally open and transparent; he told me so when he bought me a hot-dog". Team meeting at Islip, oh sorry that venues changed now. Yes it has moved to the lay-by on the A40 at Wheatley ( Cheltenham bound side ) as there is also a hot dog van there.
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Post by oufcyellows on Jun 26, 2017 8:16:53 GMT
Thinking back to Myles’ opening post – what’s the plan? – it seems pretty clear that the question is rhetorical. There is no plan. But what is confusing most of us who used to be on the Positive Bus is that there used to be a plan. It’s just that gradually that plan has fallen apart/ been discarded. If you think back objectively, though, the pattern becomes clear. The plan appears to have been ASHTON’S, not Darryl’s. Ashton had a plan for how you could turn a lower league club with potential into a Championship club without breaking the bank. It involved hiring professionals at all levels, putting in place processes and structures of the kind utilised by the Premier League clubs and letting the professionals get on with it. Darryl was there as the money man. But the people doing the real work: Ashton himself, Craig Dean, Mark Thomas, Kevin Smith, Sarah Gooding, Jonty Castle and, of course Mapp, were all Ashton people and they had all bought into his vision of professionalism, structure, process etc. It took a while for these things to feed through into results on and off the pitch (there is always a time lag) but a year after the takeover the results were starting to become clear, in all areas. That pre-season – Roofe, Sercombe etc signing – and the tour of Austria was I think the moment that we all started to realise that we were onto something. Sure enough, results on and off the pitch started to follow. By the late autumn we were top of the league, crowds were booming, players were making themselves valuable assets (the first time that had happened at OUFC in decades) and the plan was working out beautifully. There was a huge money-raising gala dinner that Ashton and his team organised for the Youth and Community Trust that raised a fortune. Firoz was there, Stewart Donald was there, all the Councils were there. In short, everything was about as rosy as it could possibly have been. But just a few days later, Darryl decided to part company with Mark Ashton, because he wanted to have a go at running the club himself. He actually said that in interviews and programme notes – words to the effect of “There isn’t room for both of us at this club”. In the 18 months since that decision, the positive moves made by Ashton have all but been reversed. Professional people like Kevin Smith and Sarah Gooding were binned off; massive issues like the need for a new training ground was forgotten about and then bungled. Relations with Kassam took a massive turn for the worst. OxVox went from being treated like a treasured friend to an enemy of the club. People were hired and fired within months. Rumours started to surface of inappropriate relationships within the club. Promotion was delivered by the team that Ashton put in place, but even then rumours were starting to be heard that not all was as happy a ship as before. Appleton apparently wasn’t happy when Jonty Castle got the bullet. Mapp’s eyebrows started to do a dance of their own every time the media asked him about the huge budget Darryl was claiming to have given him. In the end, the chickens came home to roost in November/ December 2016. The management team were told that they would have to get rid of senior wages to bring in players on loan. At almost exactly the same time, the rhetoric against OxVox and the Council was ramped up to Force 9 levels. The rest is recent enough chaos/ history for people to remember: letting people know the club was for sale, relations with Appleton allegedly disintegrating, Academy director and Commercial Directors resigning, MD being summarily bulleted after less than a year, lashing out in the media on a near constant basis, accepting a bid from Sartori then reneging at the last minute. It all starts to become a lot clearer as to why MApp probably decided to leave too. Bottom line is that the club seemed to have lost its plan when Ashton left. And as previously noted, it's now very unclear if there is another plan or will be another plan. Darryl has said that he wouldn’t sell to Sartori because it was not the right thing for the club, but my belief is that in actual fact it was because he hoped that Appleton would get him promotion with a mid-table budget, making him a lot more money (potentially another £10m) a year down the line. However, that hope already seems to have fallen apart too. And just as it took a time for results on the pitch to catch up with the good decisions that Ashton made, so it is inevitable that the massive list of mistakes made since Ashton departure could end up causing a disaster for the club. The positive bus was great while it lasted, but I'm not sure what direction that bus is heading in now, and I'm not sure the driver is too. Interesting post,but how much is truth and how much is guesswork ? "In November/ December 2016. The management team were told that they would have to get rid of senior wages to bring in players on loan" So what senior wages did we get rid of in mid season ? I don't know MApp at all,but he seems to me the sort of bloke that if that ultimatum had been given to him in 2016,he wouldn't still have been the Oxford manager in May 2017. "but my belief is that in actual fact it was because he hoped that Appleton would get him promotion with a mid-table budget, making him a lot more money (potentially another £10m)" Now that is guesswork, i haven't seen anyone posting on here with regards Sartori,who has even come up with a guess at how much money he offered for Oxford. So if we don't know what was offered in the first place,how can you say that if we were in the Championship,Eales could sell the club for "potentially another £10 mill?" IMO if the Sartori bid had enabled DE to walk with a profit,he would have. If Oxford have a bad season,DE will have no offers on the table,the £10 mill he has stuck in a club with little or no assets,is a big gamble to make on winning promotion with a "mid table budget" So perhaps the offer would have enabled DE to cut his losses,not clear the debt,he thought hard about it,but decided not to. But that is just my opinion,i have no facts,no details,no insider knowledge. MacDonald and Taylor !
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Post by Gary Baldi on Jun 26, 2017 8:38:35 GMT
I thought Castle left because MAPP wanted the lad whose names escapes me, to come in instead to do the same role?
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Post by oufcyellows on Jun 26, 2017 8:40:07 GMT
I thought Castle left because MAPP wanted the lad whose names escapes me, to come in instead to do the same role? That happens a lot. Like Sarah gooding leaving because she was head hunted
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Post by captainox on Jun 26, 2017 8:43:50 GMT
I thought Castle left because MAPP wanted the lad whose names escapes me, to come in instead to do the same role? Crawford Chalmers
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Post by Gary Baldi on Jun 26, 2017 8:48:11 GMT
I thought Castle left because MAPP wanted the lad whose names escapes me, to come in instead to do the same role? Crawford Chalmers That's him. Knew he was a CC, but nothing more! It's worth pointing out that Peter Lee is head of Commercial at the moment. There are caveats to his time on the job due to his other businesses and depth of the role, but there is some leadership there.
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Post by Gary Baldi on Jun 26, 2017 8:50:04 GMT
I thought Castle left because MAPP wanted the lad whose names escapes me, to come in instead to do the same role? That happens a lot. Like Sarah gooding leaving because she was head hunted From the outside, it looked a better job at West Ham than OUFC. It seems her new role at NCFC is a bigger role of the one here. Can't say I blame her for getting up the career ladder
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Post by Si Bradbury on Jun 26, 2017 9:31:49 GMT
How long will it be before pressure is exerted on the ADMIN team and/or the thread is shut down or deleted? Reasonable questions in the opening post.
Frankly, I am sick and tired of 'people' trying to moderate anything the fans or media want to discuss or talk about (AND I'm not talking about the personal stuff of recent weeks) and I feel very sorry for ESB and Malcolm in all of this.
Simple answer OXFORD UNITED - I assume you're reading these boards, hold a proper full fans forum.
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Post by foley on Jun 26, 2017 10:17:07 GMT
How long will it be before pressure is exerted on the ADMIN team and/or the thread is shut down or deleted? Reasonable questions in the opening post. Frankly, I am sick and tired of 'people' trying to moderate anything the fans or media want to discuss or talk about (AND I'm not talking about the personal stuff of recent weeks) and I feel very sorry for ESB and Malcolm in all of this. Simple answer OXFORD UNITED - I assume you're reading these boards, hold a proper full fans forum. Is that right? Are ESB/ Malcolm being pressurised into removing threads (the DE out one I believed was removed due to potentially libellous comments on it)?
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Post by Gary Baldi on Jun 26, 2017 12:27:16 GMT
I think it falls into two areas - there has been some content that has been posted that even for a lay person, has fallen into legal territory that the mods must deal with. Sadly, some people fail to realise that the more they post it, the more the mods will have to clampdown on anything questionable. I can imagine some tweets have been removed and accounts are now private, so this place is not unique in that.
The other area is awkward questions and politely, the club can naff off on that one. Sadly, there is a lot of misinformation going around at the moment, so it must be hard when posts are of a style that make the mods think can we allow this on the site.
I'm not sure a fans forum will help because from previous experience, it won't stop people making stuff up or writing content in a way that could be seen as legally questionable. Or calling stuff they don't believe as lies.
Getting a new manager in and players signed will hopefully move some conversations on, but who knows on that one
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Post by Mark Sennett on Jun 26, 2017 13:03:52 GMT
How long will it be before pressure is exerted on the ADMIN team and/or the thread is shut down or deleted? Reasonable questions in the opening post. Frankly, I am sick and tired of 'people' trying to moderate anything the fans or media want to discuss or talk about (AND I'm not talking about the personal stuff of recent weeks) and I feel very sorry for ESB and Malcolm in all of this. Simple answer OXFORD UNITED - I assume you're reading these boards, hold a proper full fans forum. This post is very telling. If ESB or any other mod has been asked to take down a thread due to content that's not on but what should have been done is simply remove any posts that were feared to be libellous. If I'm reading correctly Simon is saying the pressure was more than about just the allegations made and that's poor if true. This forum is all about debate and the poster who started this thread poses some interesting views and raises key questions that were asked on the locked thread. Perhaps most telling is the fact that both Colin and Simon from OxVox have now posted on here with very strong criticisms about the club not properly communicating with OxVox. There is no excuse for not talking to OxVox who have all worked tirelessly over the stadium issue in recent months and it's a really worry that their relationship with the board is clearly fractious. Simon has also clearly hinted at the club having issues with press coverage and that's very dangerous grounds for any club to walk on if true. Just look at the PR own goal that Lee Power had up the A420 when he fell out with the Advertiser. Bottom line is there are a lot of key questions that need to be answered by the club who have quickly become very poor at communicating key messages to fans and the supporters' trust. The What is the Plan thread is exactly right we need answers now. I also back Simon's calls for a fans forum to happen imminently.
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Post by mcf86 on Jun 26, 2017 13:12:09 GMT
If, as it appears, no 'Official' fans forum is imminent, perhaps OxVox might consider holding an open fans forum and invite DE and others from the club?
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Post by Yellow River on Jun 26, 2017 13:22:25 GMT
When was the last open fans forum? Not the RadOx Facebook thingy but a proper open fans forum where the board and coaching staff take questions from an audience of OUFC supporters.
There are many concerns and questions that supporters deserve to have explained and answered, needs to be held before the start of the season at the latest in my view.
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Post by bazzer9461 on Jun 26, 2017 13:26:26 GMT
When was the last open fans forum? Not the RadOx Facebook thingy but a proper open fans forum where the board and coaching staff take questions from an audience of OUFC supporters. There are many concerns and questions that supporters deserve to have explained and answered, needs to be held before the start of the season at the latest in my view. Last one I attended was at the Oxford bowls club I think DE and co did 4 in different venues, the first open was at the ground not long after the season started and a statement ended with " not to talk the MAPP about George Long"
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Post by tbfuth14 on Jun 26, 2017 13:33:08 GMT
Excellent OP, and I can vouch for a lot of it from what I've heard since Ashton left. All the information matches up. A fans forum is needed me thinks...
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Post by myles on Jun 26, 2017 13:39:49 GMT
Unsurprisingly, I think the opening post on this thread is spot on. Whilst I certainly wouldn't trust Ashton as far as I could throw him, there's no argument that he is a "football man" with a broad range of experience and contacts in the game. It was clear from before Day One that he was the one with "The Plan" and Eales was the one with the money. Since Ashton left, a move clearly driven by Eales apparent desire to take all the credit, things have slowly unraveled and continue to do so. There is an Ashton-shaped hole at the centre of the business, and that hole has grown and grown.
A lot of fans hailed Eales as a "successful businessman", but I have to ask what evidence is there of this? There's no doubt that he pretty much reached the top of his chosen career path, but that wasn't as a businessman. He has provided funds for others to make a success of their businesses, and he's reaped the rewards of those, but what business has he built up himself? When he surrounds himself with the appropriate professionals and he is simply providing the funds, he has been successful, but when he has his hand on the tiller, it would appear less so. In fact, the two non-OUFC examples of Eales' vanity projects, where he has been more directly involved, are Marussia F1 and the Quantel Bifold touring car teams. And how did they work out?
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Post by pottersrightboot on Jun 26, 2017 15:54:06 GMT
Hold on a minute .
'Everything's unravelled'?
Where were we in the pyramid when the guy turned up as owner, when Ashton left....and where are we now?
I honestly believe people's brains are melting in the sun.
Sure there are questions to be answered,but this rush to the precipice plus doom laden prophecies , ( much of it based on washerwoman gossip), does my head in.
And now Eales is a crap businessman to boot. Based on what evidence exactly?
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Post by pottersrightboot on Jun 26, 2017 15:59:41 GMT
And now you're calling one of the most successful periods in our history - one promotion, about 10 giant killings in 3 years and two Wembley appearances a 'vanity project'??
These are strange times indeed.
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Post by myles on Jun 26, 2017 16:15:30 GMT
And now Eales is a crap businessman to boot. Based on what evidence exactly? Where have I said he's a crap businessman? I've just challenged the off-mentioned comment that he is a "successful businessman". Any evidence of that? And as you think this is all a bunch of hooey, Tim, let me ask you, Robin Herd: good chairman or bad?
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Post by isibuko on Jun 26, 2017 16:44:29 GMT
Really interesting OP, but I think there is a balance to be had with the success that we have had on the pitch even without Ashton in place. Last season was an excellent season - we didn't get promoted but we consolidated and kicked on in a number of ways...including some of the best football I've seen as an Oxford fan.
Definite questions to be answered by Eales but I think we have to be careful reverting straight to calling him 'slippery' as people have been, and somehow seeing him as someone who is running our club into the ground. We need to be a bit careful what we wish for, given the last few chairmen that we've had.
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