Thetownend.com

Wasn't sure where to put this -

http://www.theguardian.com/football/when-saturday-comes-blog/2016/mar/31/swindon-town-fan-reporter-club

Bloody hell Sam is now writing for the Mail and the Guardian - I fear he may explode trying to deal with the contrasting angles he will have to take.... Does he blame immigration or embrace it to consider Swindon's position?

Interesting piece though!

Following on from Mark Coopers barbed comments earlier in the week our esteemed leader getting plenty of flak just now. Guess that's what happens in the wake of 6 nil thumpings by Scunthorpe largely brought about by a refusal to invest enough to enable the squad to cope with inevitable injuries and suspensions.

Sam actually wrote this piece for When Saturday Comes magazine which came out a couple of weeks ago. The Guardian just decided to publish it today for some reason.

It's all a bit dramatic. A lot of fans felt completely deflated after getting humiliated at Wembley and the following shite start to the season. It would be hard not to. If we have a good season next year you'll be reading about how he's rediscovered the love I'm sure.

It’s difficult to separate how much of Sam’s change in feeling towards the club/results is down to his job, and how much is simply down to growing older.  Years ago, a bog standard home defeat would leave me feeling sick in my stomach for the rest of the day, and down for a day or two after that.  These days, it’s different.  I felt more tired than depressed on the drive back from Scunthorpe on Saturday.

You get older, you discover girls, you have more on your plate to deal with, you develop perspective.  It’s normal.  It’s why the club will always need a steady stream of young ones to fill the shoes of duffers like us as we move in to shoulder-shrugging middle age.

I think he took the whole media ban too personally. He always harped on about it.

I can see where Sam is coming from, I've certainly lost the buzz for Town recently.

My biggest grumble would be with Power and his lack of interaction with the fans.

A scripted fans phone in (where Power ducks out of most legitimate question)s every couple of months is not enough for me.

I think the only way Power will change his stance and PR of the club is if it hits him where it hurts and that's his pocket. Sadly, if fans don't renew their ST then the budget is likely to be cut again and next season will throw up more Bradley Barry's and less Nicky Ajose's.

The increase of ST prices a couple of years ago despite cutting the budget to a 1\3 of what it once does not represent value for money.

Can't comment on the relativity of this to Sam's point, but 100%. Swindon are a passing though outside of matchday for me now, but not because of big bad Mr Power or anything else football-related.

From previous posts more on his plate would seem to consist of American fat bastard style burgers.

As I've said many times before people come in and out of fandom all the time.....and it's often the noisiest and til I die types who flake off first.

Apparently Leicester are quite popular these days.

Then there's those who pontificate on here who don't go anyway

The TEF has always been a home to those who don't regularly attend for a variety of reasons, doesn't necessarily make them less of a fan than the fella from Northampton who hasn't missed in however many years.

Yes, that's fair enough but a few could go but choose not to yet feel fit to criticise some who do go and have the occasional moan about things.

In all seriousness what do you want Power to do to engage with the fans, yes his PR is shite but he could alternatively go down the road of Fitton et al (the Black era say), who everyone loved as he engaged (although with hindsight the engagement was not much better, albeit with less rooooar, than Jed) saying all the right things whilst diluting the shareholdings of 'normal' fans in the background and thus removing a further link between man in the street and their club?

Yes the lack of press engagement is odd, but people seem to be getting drawn into the media 'ban' myth that the media outlets seem to be peddling rather than the fact that they are still free to go out and find stories just won't get them drip fed from the club anymore - is saying some manner of PR sterile bollocks actually any better than saying nothing at all, apart from it just fills column inches? Do we really need to hear every Friday how up for the game Branco is or how excited Thompson is to be welcoming Fleetwood?

I still fail to really grasp what Powers objectives are (actually I understand what the objective is but just cannot see a logical or easy way to get there) and as I have said countless times if he is here to make money there are plenty of other clubs where it must be easier to do so than Swindon who essentially own nothing apart from players (which he bought to the club - can you asset strip things you funded yourself), a training ground (ditto) and that's about it?

We aren't winning and fans need something to moan about.

Posh fans moan regularly about their chairman and they'd be nothing without him. Well, less nothing than they are now. So at least it isn't just us!

Well Power has said he's here to make money, so it should be straightforward to understand. As Jed showed there are many ways to asset strip a club...you just need some creativity.

My theory goes something like this and I'd like to stress it is no more than guess work...Power had to show a certain amount of funds to pass the FL FPPT and keep the club running, for which he deserves credit.

He then pays himself back said funds from the proceeds of player sales etc, so that when the question is posed, who is paying for the training set up, Lee Power is an honest answer.

The training set up has potential for development, one would assume the profits from which will go to the owner. You'd like to think in return for this the club will not have to pay rent....but let's wait and see on that.

We get to keep our historically lower league FC....Mr Power obviously likes the game and makes himself a few bob beside.

I think Sam is experiencing the equivalent of "never meet your heroes" syndrome. He got burnt by a particularly paranoid owner. He needs to get on with his career without the emotional ties and get back to enjoying matchdays in the pub - or burger van - with his mates

I can sympathise with Sam's article, must be very difficult to get a job writing about the football team you really support then see it all implode and become persona non grata.

As he rightly says when you get older perhaps the results do not matter quite as much but I would still like to see the Town twenty points clear at the top of the table but realistically that is not going to happen short term or even long term with the current squad, but once a Town fan always a Town fan.

It's always interesting to see the reaction to bits like this. Was never meant as another moan at the owner, more a warning about how the job can blunt enthusiasm (though of course I did take the initial media ban very personally - if you'd been on the receiving end of the phone call I received two days after that Peterborough game in Jan 14, you'd have been equally offended, I'm sure).
I fully intend on getting on with my career but writing is all about experiences and this just happened to be mine, and it gives me material which others seem to want to read about. Which is a bonus.
I went in the stands for the Blackpool game. Couldn't get excited, which is sad. But it'll change at some point.

I think a lot of people are being a bit harsh, all Sam's saying is that going to football is no longer about football. So it isn't so good.

Its a good piece Sam and jobs certainly can blunt the enthusiasm.

It always seems like a dream to have a job in something you love.  Working in live music for me has resulted in the magic disappearing to a great extent, so I can see where Sam is coming from.  There are occasions where the excitement returns but a lot of it just becomes workaday.  Just another gig.

Its not quite as bad as it is for Sam in that Im attached to live music rather than one band, whereas Sam became attached to one club not the whole of football, but friends and family still get pissed off with me if we ever go to gigs and festivals that my enthusiasm doesn't match theirs anymore.

Still.  I could still be a civil servant so I cant complain.

I'm the same, or similar. More than a decade working in video games actually became rather dull - or the vast majority did.  Even the foreign travel and nice hotels. Now I hardly touch them. Games, I mean, not nice hotels etc.

Sam is doing live over by over updates on the t20 final today on the daily mail site.

Fair play to him.

If he had any morals he'd refuse to do any work for that shite

That would be sensible, turning down work after a pretty lean time i would imagine. Someone else will pay those bills..

I think sonic was taking the piss, SR

Absolutely not!

Someone from the DM contacted me once. I told them to fuck off.
I'm not judging Sam, but I'll go against the "well no one would turn that down" thing, because I really, really hate that paper.

That's like saying you didn't read the sun in the 80's but everyone did. I find the mail quite readable, in a dog wont let go of a bone sort of way, even though the bone is a quorn fillet really.

I was born in 91. ;)
I genuinely find the Mail offensive. They won't have any of my money.

Yeah I know, it was a generalisation, It is shit, but pretty much all press are these days, news for morons written by morons in the main.

Their website is blocked out here. Huzzah for military juntas.

True, but for all its faults you can't exactly accuse the Guardian of constant racism/sexism, for example. There's a difference between being shitty and perpetually fuelling and reinforcing people's hatred of minority groups. I can't just get over that, it infuriates me.

Yes, I am one of those people.. :sofa:

What a load of old bollocks. I work in the media. Most of my friends work in the media. None of them are morons.

Fuck off with your generalisations. It's a fucking hard industry to get in to, and poorly rewarded when you do - of course there's a lot of outlets that are pretty poor - content factories and outlets that regurgitate - but there's also more excellent journalism than ever.

So are you saying you're NOT a cunt then?

I'm confused...  :D

I think he's saying he isn't a moron. Of course he's a cunt. It's one of the pre requisites for being a member of the TEF, isn't it?  :)

I'd say Panda is a tired and emotional cunt who's had a Ben Stokes-style bad day at the office and who now needs and deserves a few nightcaps ;)

Just to be sure, are we in agreement that Panda is definitely a cunt? 

I think he's saying some media types are morons, but not him because he's got clever friends,  isn't he :)

(no offence Sam, well some I suppose)

We're all cunts.
Only some of us are morons.
That's my definitive analysis of the situation, and if you don't get it you're a moron.
And if you disagree you're a cunt.

So let me get this straight..

If we agree or disagree, we're still cunts?

Just to confirm, I didn't actually defend myself so happy to be called a moron, and accept I'm a cunt. I don't take lightly to family members, friends and my fiancé all being generalised as a moron. I had indeed had a Ben Stokes style bad day, but would have reacted the same if I had spent the day drunk on a beach in paradise.

I would expect the same reaction if I said all postmen, or soldiers, or lawyers, or estate agents, or IFAs or whatever are morons, cos it's a dickhead thing to do.

Postmen are all morons though

So are soldiers, proper cunting morons!

The ones with Boiled eggs are ok.

Estate agents are most certainly all cunts and morons

I'm a lawyer and can confirm that the profession is indeed populated by cunts. And plenty of morons as well.

IFA here. Definite moron.

I've met morons in the media but plenty more dedicated, badly-paid, very talented men and women who go into the industry wanting to produce content that is very different to what they end up being instructed to write. And that's because what critics call 'proper' journalism, and probably is proper journalism, doesn't get read anywhere near as much as the 'trash'.
Any paper's analytics team will tell you that. Sadly, online media is very much supply and demand, and therefore you get a lot more low-brow stuff. If consumers took more of an interest in the detail, research, analysis, comment etc then it may be different. As it is, I'm very proud to be writing for a national - it's what I wanted to do from a very young age. I'm aware that might make me a little bit more of a cunt.

 :shutup: CUNT  :clap:

You're a talented journalist, Sam. I think most people here would agree with that, and you have every right to be proud of your achievements. Stratton's post did say "in the main", not that all journalists were idiots. I think every industry can succumb to their own kind of bureaucracy, or let their standards falter due to demand. I suppose it's how you interpret that that determines how you view journalism as a whole.

My point was more that The DM can fuck off because it's racist.

As long as they're feeding you well, Sam.

Part-subsidised canteen and a Wasabi within walking distance. Happy days.

You are learning from Talk Talk ain't you!

I knew someone would suggest I was being kiss-arsey. It's true though. Our podgy little clown is a good writer.