Thetownend.com

Interesting quote from Nick Watkins in today's adver, confirms what most of us knew. Seemed at the shirt sponsors do last year that they were not exactly working as a unit and many times last season players were having a go at each other. I heard rumblings about the black and white players didn't interact with each other, and the Leeds players thought they were the leaders of the dressing room and isolated themselves from the rest of the squad.

Seems to explain why all the players were free to go to try and break up these cliques. There is clearly a discipline problem and a unity problem and PDC has clearly been brought in to erradicate this.

Didnt matter who was manager really, the players clearly were out for themselves and hence why most of them are abandoing ship. They are scared shitless of PDC. PDC will want the squad to be a UNIT.

Writing was on the wall early on really then. we should have tried to ship players out in January (or maybe we did) and maybe we would have had a chance against relegation.

Good write up by Wray, made some interesting points.

I can picture it now, Leeds in one corner, Celtic in another, the foreigners in another corner and the young'uns in the other corner.

See this sort of thing doesn't bother me, aslong as the results come. There will always be different groups of players (we all knew this months ago), and the same groups were probably in existant in the PO season. I don't think the cliques were to blame for the shambles last season.

Not only does it bring into question Wilson's management of the situation, it also raises the question what the fuck was captain Douglas doing?

Chatting with Lucas and Sheehan by the sound of things....

That's bollocks. You can have friendships outside of work with team mates but at work you should all be together and focused on the team goal.

Cliques fuck up workplaces, I know from personal experience.

agree with the above.i think the clique thing is being blown out of proportion.

also when things go tits up players will start to blame each other.that will happen at every club that struggles

Greer must have been a "rally the troups" kind of person and in fairness it showed on the pitch. God what a dropped bollock that was selling him :(

Maybe that is why we are in no rush to re-new Douglas contract???

I wonder how much this clique affected Austin's step up to pro football? How much of Austin's alleged antic's were in an effort to either join the clique or fuck it up

what herthab said

My money would be on prutton being ringleader

I find myself agreeing with Bart

"D'ya loik dags?"

Douglas, prutton, sheehan, timlin, o'brien and lucas

I think strood wrote on twitter that he had spoken to a player from one of pruttons old clubs. He said he was a wanker and ruined the dressing room there as well

All you have to do is look at twitter.

It was quite obvious who the cliques were and the Leeds one was the largest and most damaging and with the captain part of that it didn't help. Maybe Wilson just wasn't strong enough.

Half of you were adamant there were no fucking cliques last season

Antmusic, Prince Charming, Stand & Deliver,......

So many memories......

I thought Adamant made toilets?

Hes playing in Exeter next week, I was contemplating going to see him!

Stop the post-mortem.  We're down.  Cliques, shit managers, Austin having an affair etc. probably all contributed in some way, but at the end of the day, we were shit.  That was the over-riding factor that sent us down.

He was on the One Show a week back, must have been plugging his tour then.

He does, he's also branched out into toilet paper.

Prince Charmin

i know i shouldn't have but i actually laughed at that, shame on me...

Me too :(

I didn't.

Shit joke.....

 :no:

Funny there was no talk of any cliques when we got to the play-off final...

Gazzza is trying to say by the sounds of it there is a racist element to the squad also, I for one do do not beleive this, having been around the club on a few occasations when the players were about for various things, yep ok there were certain players preferring the company of others which to me is fairly normal at any club but I certainly did not see any split between the black and white players, and I would be shocked if that had been allowed to happen regardless of manager.

players will be closer to some than others.that doesn't make it a clique.
if the players were cliquey and this meant they were not doing their job properly then they should have been sacked.if their friendships meant they couldn't play football then they would have to be removed from the club.
it's bullshit and another excuse for a dire season.

Not saying the players are being racist at all. I think you have chosen to make something out of nothing. I was highlighting one of the cliques for example. Being a clique and being racist are 2 entirely different things and I think its a bit unfair to say "Gazzza is saying the players are racist" as that is not the case at all.

I know from the shirt sponsors do the black players hung around with the other black players. Perhaps thats becuase there is a culture difference. For example when they were asked questions they were quieter and reserved when say Ferry for example was loud etc. Its about being in your comfort zone.

Thats not to say the white players did not come chat have a laugh etc with them, ofcourse they did. Its an example of one of the cliques. Perhaps they chose to isolate themselves from the other members of the team??? There appears to be several factions in the dressing room. the black players as one, the twitter crew, leeds crew etc... There was no racist suggestion what so ever in that and what I said.

The players still talked to each other etc and have a laugh I am sure it was an example of a clique and no suggestion what so ever that there was racism in the dressing room at all.

Until the cliqueyness and racism have been removed from the club I will not be supporting them.

How can I delete my TEF account?

I agree with what Bart said. Prutton came across as a complete bellend and I can imagine he was an absolute cunt to try and work with! Massive chip on his shoulder.

I won't go to a match again unless Ferry releases a statement he is not part of a clique.

I won't go to a match again until August.

It's a fucking disgrace.

In other news, pauld has been using his alter ago, PaulD, to post comments under stories on the Adver site.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9070469.Qatar_ta_for__weatherman/#commentsList

He lives!

You can take the boy out of the form but you can't take the forum out of the boy... Forza PaulD

He'll be back.  I hope.

I love it how the adver gets stories so so wrong!!

He's out there helping children etc with his wife. So he's probably combining both activities. The charity work was all organised years ago. I know as I was at his leaving bbq on sat.

I don't think that's our pauld, I think someone asked him about that it ages ago and it turned out to be another pauld.

Was it our PaulD that was on the radio fighting the fight against Coate Water development. I could have been him, but with my clock radio it could have been metal mickey (google it youngsters).

Bloody tree hugger* :)


* I agree with them on this.

Did it rain ?

More than likely. Paul lives over that way and I think he mentioned something about a CPO on his house.

Don't you just love the adver plebs :

"Captain Sensible, Nowhere says...
2:14pm Wed 8 Jun 11

 Surely they'd have a weather girl wearing a burka?”

Well, maybe not as bad as that. Just a misplaced road on a plan.

http://thetownend.com/index.php/topic,32923.0.html

But the Augean stable has yet to be fully cleansed....there are still elements at the club who need to be elsewhere.

di Canio faces a massive job, particularly difficult for a new manager....we were shit for a reason, becoming unshit will  probably take a bit of time.

Ok Nostradamus - who must be expunged?

Come on Reg, do try to carry just one metaphor through the whole post. If you are going to reference Augean stables you could at least then call di Canio's job a Herculean Task.

Let's not forget his lack of experience could be his Achilles Heel.