Thetownend.com

1 win in 10, a 28% win record. Is this what we accept now?

Previous years we would have been demanding the sack, chants at matches and pressure on the owners to make change.
Has the model of Lee Power and the thought that should the manager be sacked whoever comes in will be no better and under the same management restrictions made it acceptable? Is this the price of sustainability?

Doesn't seem to be a lot going on from the fans. People are moaning and getting fed up but it seems like an acceptance that this is what it is and we can't change anything.

"seems like an acceptance that this is what it is and we can't change anything."

Think you've hit the nail on the head. Though its obviously not certain that nobody better than Power is available, there is also the flip side that we could get someone worse.

I dunno, football changed. Apathy and acceptance, shitty goal songs, mass leaving 5 minutes early to get to the car park regardless of score.

I do think the dissatisfaction will be majorly heard both in voice and in ticket sales soon. Not expecting it to make a difference.
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Personally, the days of buying orange hats are over for me. I've got older. I don't care quite as much.

 A line I've been pedalling for a while is that there is a complete disconnect between the club and the fans, this is the logical end point of changes which have happened since the 80's and mirrors our wider society where neoliberal capitalism is free to trample all over the interests of the wider civic good.

 STFC is no longer the thing which many of us grew up with. 

As such I don't think there is any fight left amongst the fan base.  In the wider body politic the same despondancy is found in how the Tories are able to asset strip former publicly owned things like the Health Hydro and Thamesdown Transport....with Lydiard in the pipeline, and close down other assets like libraries, no doubt to flog the premises to developers with impunity.

 The reaction to this hopelessness, will be  :shrug: and not bothering to go any longer.

I think it's more acceptance nowadays. Look at Blackpool owners, untouchable.
(i'm not comparing us to Blackpool) just saying Club owners are protected and there nothing you can do, unless buy them out for millions.

Williams it seems, wants to be sacked and paid off (wont resign). Power doesn't want to pay him off

All news outlets are scared to run any transfer rumours/stories as they are worried about being banned.

This is the first time I've never went to Rovers away, i'm bored trying to support/watching other teams development players and expecting a flat performance, we need leaders, players that are our own and fight. We are so oblivious and easy to play against.

Ill continue to watch home games, but it seems like a chore lately.

Even in the Iffy relegation season, it was more fun and entertaining.

where "wider civic good" = STFC and "neo-liberal capitalism" = Pox and Brizzle and pretty much anyone else these days? 

There was plenty of fight as recently as 10 (?) years ago, when Diamandis was taking the club on a path many of the fans weren't happy with.  But agree with your general point.

It's difficult to assess objectively.  The one thing that every single one of us have in common is that we're all 10 years older/wiser/more weary than we were 10 years ago.  If you're comparing the way you feel now with the way you felt back then, you're comparing yourself to a younger, slightly more dynamic version of yourself.

Not denying the general point though.  Are the Snapchat generation as ardently STFC as their parents, generally speaking?  Possibly not.  But is that because the last serious success we've had as a club happened 20+ years ago?

We gave them out for free. Don't tell me Diamandis was sending someone round to hoover them all up then flog them off from the other side of the car park? If you can't beat 'em .....

I contributed some cash towards some of them.

Understandably you wouldn't let me pay people's Trust membership fees.

Sorry, yes you did, I was so quick to dash to the cheap gag, I forgot your generous support. Which was very much appreciated and still is. FFS, I feel a bit of a twat now tbh. And deserve to.

Davis you fucking bellend!

Pah, I didn't give *that* much.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good gag #alternativeFactsDavis

Football fans in general are less tolerant now, want instant results, look at Arsenal & Liverpool as soon as they lose, they expect to be entertained every game and to win every game, where as older(?) fans tend to take the rough with the smooth, the younger generation tend to want a trophy every season or it's a shit team.

Personally our slump isn't bothering me that much as we have been there done it before, it's a little different this time but we have always been a yoyo team and tend to go into seasons expecting us to be poor so when we do well I am excited, I went to Wembley the other season on a high because I expected us to finish poorly and not get to the playoffs.

Boycotts are all find and dandy but the owners aren't just going to walk away and say "fans want me gone, here have the club".... they are in it for the tune of millions and will only walk away on their terms, and in Blackpool's case, the fans boycotting has just made the owners more stubborn to sit it out. Coventry owners are making money so won't walk away, they have had at least 2 offers to walk away with cash in their pockets and refused to even adknowledge the offers so they are in it for the long haul. They won't have a stadium at the end of this season it looks like and will be relegated so are in a much worse position. Owners are now more money orientated when it comes to clubs now, the amount of fan owners is dwindling and the clubs are being run as a proper business to make money so this is going to happen more and more, the lower league teams are going to continue to struggle to buy players as the prices rise due to the greed set by owners and the money being pumped in at the top level, Lookman to Everton for £11m shows how stupid this has got and why owners like the Oystons won't let their "business" go as they only have to find one gem to make an absolute killing financially.

It's only going to get worse imho, look at Morecambe, Notts County and Bury just in the last 3 months  ::)

Someone asked me how we got on today and then commiserated after I told her the score. I found myself saying, 'it's only football, it's not important'. The worse thing is I think I actually meant it.

When we lost 3-0 at Bristol City, that stuck with me for days. I was over the the frustration and manner of this abject defeat by the time I got home.

Now you're just jumping on the already crowded "Davis you fucking bellend" bandwagon

Yep Preston sorted that for me, and I reckon that's where it started for most.

looking back to the early 80s, when we playing in front of the 2000 fans , there was an acceptance of the situation that we were  in then, football was still fun, even tho we were more crap than we are today, but the players had a passion to play the game and did their best. Today all im watching is players going through the motions.
Whats the answer, the more we lose the more the morale of these young players drop, its been said before, but losing becomes a habit, however good the team is, once you get in that rut, it takes a miracle to find a way out and start winning again.
Im afraid its starting to happen with these young Chelsea loanees, they are getting the losing habit, as there is nothing positive  at the CG, every way they look there is only the negative view, from forums to the media and now more vocally from the stands on matchday, all this is  pushing us further and further towards relegation.
All i want now for this season is us to beat the scum, then i can take relegation, even tho it we hurt like hell, as i cannot see us getting promotion back to league 1 in a hurry.
COYR

I know it did for me.

Worst, most abject, Swindon performance I have probably ever witnessed in 43+ years of watching us.

My wife asked me how we got on yesterday and in a similar way to herthab I just found myself not really caring about us losing as it seemed a foregone conclusion long before a ball was kicked.

sorry redjed, if I could make a deal with the footballing Gods I'd take a loss to Oxford and staying up.

I think there is a real danger of going down and dropping again a season or two later. I want the safety net..

This present squad would certainly struggle in Div 4. The good news is that very few will be here next season....the bad news is that unless the recruitment policy changes we'll just get more of the same.

I don't think it will change....Power will have noted that a decent player in Div 4 can still command a handsome fee.  In many ways Div 4 is a better place for his model, insofar as the PO's go to 7th place and only 2 go down, so less pressure, and our type of player doesn't do pressure.

That's the depressing bit!

But my worry is this - Power we all accept and understand is trying to run the club breakeven* . If we go down we will get even fewer fans than staying in Division 3. He'll have to cut the budget even further, find it harder to convince QPR/Chelsea to send us more embryos, etc, etc.

Wages are a bit lower in div 4 but I can't see it offsetting these things.

* alegedly.

If we go down I just see us sinking further and further.

That's fookin rubbish

Now here's someone who knows what he's talking about.

I just can't see a way out at the moment, Power can't/won't sign the type of players we need in Div 3/4 who can set the tone, a Greer type that we can build around.

There seems to be a growing feeling that Power's experiment hasn't worked and that he should move on.

The issue then is we are most likely to end up with another Jed type chancer, or worse an Oyston or SISU.

For me the best bet would be that Power wakes up & modifies his approach.

Very much this for me, yes Power has made mistakes and hes not the best owner but we could be far far worse off than we are now, easily.

Unfortunately Power seems to have a real deep rooted problem that he cannot admit that he has got things wrong.

He's made a big play of being the only ex-player being an owner - this giving him some kind of special insight on how to run a club successfully.

He's made some monumental errors - the inexplicable one being the 5 year contract for Williams.

Maybe he's just as clueless as all the others

I agree with the last bit.  Power is sound financially and like it or not that's the prerequisite these days.  We need him  rather than some chancer who bankrupts us.

Like you I can't see a way out.  The thing I cling onto is my memory of losing abjectly 1-2 to Hartlepool under Trollope or possibly Beamish in front of barely 2000 fans.  As I drove back onto the M4 I remember thinking "this club is completely fucked".  How many years later were we in the premier league?  10?   I know the football world is very different now but it can still be done.

Same for me.

I can easily take defeat, and relegation - Christ, we've experienced it enough times before.

What got me this weekend was Chalky's comments about the lack of effort and being second best all over the pitch. This division this season is so shit, any kind of organisation and 100% effort will be enough to be competitive and at the very least would mean going down with a fight.

What has also pissed me off a bit has been the FA Cup. Power's model seems to totally disregard the significance of cup runs doing positive things for club, team and fans. Buying low and selling high isn't the only way to bring income into the club.

Still, I'm not giving up my support, even after next weekend's increasingly inevitable embarrassment.