Thetownend.com

Have we ever actually had one?

In my 30 odd years as a fan i can't actually remember one.

Fitton and Wray would have been pretty good if their respective money men had been totally on board. I suppose the 'best' chairmen are their own money men.

Apart from a lucky club or 2 does anyone in the lower leagues have one.

Vale fans are getting twitchy with Smurthwaite as he has put the ground, club shop and football club into 3 separate ownerships.

Some reckon Blackpool's actual home attendances aren't much above the 1,000 mark yet Oyston clings on with no intention of selling up.

I'd hazard a guess the vast majority of L1 and L2 clubs are being shafted by their owners. Tbh, who'd buy a club just to appease the fan base and chuck money at it.

 We first need to distinguish between Chairman and owner. 30 years takes us back to Honest Bri.  He was a Chairman, the first owner as such was SSW, and he was never Chairman.

 Some of these individuals might be described as curate's egg...good in parts, rotten in others.  My father brought me up to always mistrust the hierarchy at STFC.... the same as Tories, inimical to the interests of the working class/ordinary fan.

 Honest Bri is the only one to have served at Her Majesty's Pleasure....his crimes, however were seemingly done in a misguided effort to bring success on the pitch, rather than feather his own nest.

 SSW, clearly was a genuine fan, but found the dodgy world of football a bit distasteful, hence the gross error of getting in Rikki and then Diamond Mike to do the dirty work.

 Others like Cliff Puffett, again a genuine fan, washed away by the level of financial problems.

I'm not sure Wray was all some make him out to be. It's easy to be liked when you're just saying yes to things the fans like, in reality his tenure was a bit of a mess.

Probably right but that wasn't what i asked

I'd say Fitton was a good chairman
Sure he made mistakes, but all chairman do, the last 6 months under him on the pitch were awful. But overall I think he was good and actually cared a bit for the club.
I also think he would come back given the chance.

Black/Fitton/Wray did many good things, but also bad things. On balance, given the state of the club when they took over, I'd say they just about managed break even. 

I think the problem is they came in sorted problems (fantastic), but left an equally large mess behind them, when you consider the diluting to nothing of the shareholding, the pandering of Wray to Di Canio pissing money up the wall which appears to have driven Black away, the subsequent fire sale which directly led us to where we are now actually we replaced problems with legacy problems of a similar scale. Interesting Fitton was mentioned as I was thinking about him the other night, I may be imaging this but didn't he get a large wad of cash personally off the back of the Austin deal?

Even should Power decide to sell doesn't Black still have a large legal charge over the club regarding proceeds of any developments etc etc? so another reason its not going to appeal to anyone sadly.

Yes, which is why I said break even on their regime.

I'd agree with that. Came in, sorted it all out, fucked it all up again and left us with Jed and Power. Pretty much right back where we started.

What makes a good chairman?

It's not just about throwing money at the team. A lot of work is needed behind the scenes, that a lot of fans do not see.

He was liked at the time because he was very good on the communication side of things.

Turns out he didn't have a backbone and pandered to every whim of a certain employee of his who wanted a new toy to play with every week or so

Wray and Fitton will be remembered fondly I think just due to the fact they communicated with the fans and they tried to actually make us into a Championship team and tried to market the club to the Town.

The problem is when the whole Town (and even a lot of the fan base) are pretty apathetic to the club what can you do? Fitton spent money and did the 6k season ticket thing and we failed to meet it.

Fitton was almost there I think, but even he can't be described as even good.  His single biggest achievement was shifting the goalposts with Season Tickets - that was a master stroke.  Unfortunately he did jack shit to structurally improve the underlying business.  Wray basically gave a bucket of cash to someone to get us promoted from the bottom division - you'd hope anyone could have achieved that.  So Wray's only achievement was somehow convincing Black to release all that cash.  Again, not much to hang your hat on.

Going back further, Hardman wasn't well liked, Hoddle even managing to publicly have a war with him over Kerslake.  Nope, in my time, not one.  Hillier was closest, and he was responsible for our demotion.  Hardman inherited the benefit of the preceding years, not sure whether he could claim responsibility, but he did manage us financially to the line while somehow keeping people like Hoddle here long enough.  Maybe him in the cold light of day - who was around for the Shrivenham Rd construction?

Mike Spearman was a good guy and interacted with fans a lot, but I don't remember what he really achieved (promotion under McMahon?) I was a bit too young to really take that all in

Cecil Green? Never heard anyone say anything negative about him.

The mistake of the Fitton era was that they weren't all on board with the strategy of whether to spend or cover costs by selling a Cox every year.

Had Black been convinced to splashed the cash in the summer of 2010 and invested in the team that got to Wembley we could have pushed on for promotion.

Instead the cash was blown a year later getting us back to the starting position and Black ran out of goodwill.

Sent from my HTC One M9

Cecil was a true gent, but outside of DRS's 30 year time frame...  Eric Lane, was cut from similar cloth.

Lee powers statement. I'm not a huge fan but I agreed with something he said. A lot of people on here had said they were giving up on town but powers has said he needs everyone behind the team. If there was ever the town need us it's now. We need to be the ones to push them over the line as there is no doubt the DO need the fans. So come Saturday let's get the place booming. Probably won't convince many on here but I'm hoping I do.


Sent from my iPhone

Who in their right mind would want to own a football club? Constant criticism from fans, even the sensible ones on occasions as we want financial stability as well as success. Very few teams are successful and even those that are sometimes slide down the ladder as they overspend to get that success. Go on 95% of forums and fans will be criticising the owners or manager or both. Social media has changed things for the worse, we now live in a world where even the uninformed idiots claim fiction as fact. Not saying Power is the saviour but the devil incarnate he isnt either. Support the team - end of.

I have to vote for Mike Spearman - for schooling a teenage me in being an opening bat, in sniffing out a pub on an away day, for putting his money on the line - and for staying around when others legged it during tough times.  And as for anyone still going to games in their late eighties, well.

But if they're more personal, it is Fitton for me.  Goodness knows what went so completely wrong, because he more than anyone, seemed to get it, gave us hope and took us from near oblivion to a bobble from the Championship in a heartbeat.  If only, if only...

We've had a few decent CEO's over the years though

Power is owner no other chairman has been sole owner.

Let's not kid ourselves that owners/chairmen of years gone by were that much different to Power now.

Divvying up the cash from pay on the gate was rife in clubs up and down the country. Power and his ilk suffer from the much closer inspection of their actions these days - who would have known so much of his previous business history without Google.

Mind you, doing anything about is just as futile as it's always been.

Just playing devils advocate, but what/how would people have felt had Lee Power took over from Diamandis etc and used this way of running the club?? would our perceptions change some what and would have Power be seen in a more positive light??

Is our expectation of owners been raised by the Fitton/Wray/Black era

Interesting question, but I do wish to point out that he took over from Jed. Hardly a hard act to follow!

It was a bit close to the Black era, so he was bound to suffer from bumping us back down to financial reality.

Do think he's being judged on his own dissmerits football, wise and reaping what he sows in other areas. I think he'd be judged the same way as he is now...

Personally I think I distrust more because of the Diamandis/Brady bunch type chancers we've had in the past.