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You're effectively comparing apples with oranges in including owner-chairmen like Power to figurehead chairmen like Carson.

But still, the answer is Jim Little.

God you are right. Had some horror stories haven't we

You've missed Rikki Hunt as well. A rogue's gallery that rather puts Power in perspective, you'd think...

SSW?

Well-meaning, perhaps, but his incompetence nearly put us out of business.

Indeed..... we've had 3 owners as such, SSW, Black and Power.  SSW and Black, to an extent still worked with a Board which may have had a Chairman, not necessarily the owner.  Power doesn't.

When SSW and Black dumped us into Div 4, they made sure we came staright out the next season.

Tansmedia was more credible than Jim Little was

Wheres the Jed option anyway

Did Jed ever really own the club  :hmmm:

It was so difficult to work out who was doing what back then other than Callum Rice "doing the cruises"

Never mind all time worst XIs, what's our all time worst board? Sandy Gray in charge of finance, Callum Rice on entertainment, Mike Diamandis on PR?

You could argue that SSW's involvement in getting us back-up was to allow someone else to invest and start pulling some of the strings - not that it lasted long, but it gave the foundation needed in that summer.

Hillier is an odd one - lots of good because of him but ultimately his actions nearly crippled the club.

Diamandis can't get on the list because he clearly wasn't running the shop, not even a little bit.

Hillier because he got us demoted and cost the fans a chance of promotion to the top division for the first time.

But would we have got that far without him? You could argue that if it hadn't been for his dodgy dealing we would never have got out of the old fourth division.

Besides, what he did was no different, or worse, than a lot of clubs did at the time (and probably still do.....). He just got caught and he, and the club, was made an example of.

Jed needs to be there as he'd get my vote. Outright lied to peoples faces, threatened to have fights with people, lied in court and one of his cronies is now in prison. Could argue Diamandis should be there as he did it without the title.....

You'd have to have Colin Howard as groundsman..... his straw on the pitch in 86 was the reason for 6 successive away games. 

Wasn't chairman, just the majority shareholder. But his "General Manager", Diamandis, who was the actual rather than titular chairman would have to be right up there. And Jed for demonstrating depths of incompetence that made Diamandis' crew look professional by comparison. (Dis)Honourable mention for Rikki Rhyming Slang

I added Carson because I wanted to vote fo him :D

Said no-one at an STFC AGM ever

Jim little
Jed/Ged
Terry Brady

It's amazing that all of them, even the more popular ones, fucked up royally.

Fitton didn't have the guts to sack Wilson earlier and his dealings within Charlie Austin's exit looked after his own interests more than the clubs. Wray's kissing of the Di Canio ring essentially lost us the backing/money of Andrew Black.

Ugh. Boardrooms.

And that's exactly why Nice Guy Jeremy gets my vote. Amazing what you can get away with by smiling and telling people what they want to hear...and throwing some one else's money around like it's confetti...he's a grade A cunt in my view.

I voted for Wray as well. Not necessarily because I think he was the worst, but more in protest of those (mostly not on the TEF) that think he's some kind of hero.

All he did was say yes to spending somebody else's money. I could do that.

Sorry, who is Jim Little?

Some bloke who turned up with a portuguese consortium
His business credentials were running a chip ahop in ireland iirc

an American and not a fan of the club ;)

he had previously invested in cork city.

Best Holdings, the three amigos, little, Rufus Brevet, the whole thing was quite bizarre

*Short version - go to the bottom.

Have to say the rooooaaaaaarring Mc(Mac)Roary < many spellings of own name should be a big red flag. Either evading something (tax probs) yet not very clever at it. Incompetence to such a degree that I can't even begin to think if he did own us anyway.

You can be a "dodgy" businessman or a hustler but this guy just had none of the charm or class. Just pure slime. His "acumen" was lower than that of a nursery school attendee and his business plans (if any), would have likely looked like they'd been written with pencils of jelly.

The only "upside" is that his incompetence was so visible it was consistent. You knew what was going to happen.

The "better" dodgy ones make their money, get out and it doesn't get discovered til several years later. The clever ones call it "restructuring" and Sir William Patey springs to mind. Essentially brought in to find new buyers of the club (effectively an administrator) and replaced JWray. He found lovely new buyers in our lovely friend Jed/Ged/Jedd.

It's been said time and again but I still find the timing of Black's withdrawal of funding crazy. Top of the League, built a squad capable of competing in the Championship and I still believe we would have gone up. Surely the financial reward for getting into the Championship was higher that of the spending. Had we not got promoted he could've ditched out end of season. Had we got promoted he could've exited with the club in an attractive position for buyers (and likely more better ones). However, it's not my money and I respect his own financial decision but I don't think another 5 months would have hurt his wallet much more in the grand scheme of things. Not when promotion to the 2nd tie was a decent bet. He is a betting man after all and 4/6 fav was a good price, oh well...

*Anyway, MC Jeddy for me. More cunt than you'd get in a Dutch whorehouse.

Couldn’t agree more with the Black point.

It’s like backing someone to win the league at 200/1 then cashing out whilst there 20 points clear with 10 games to go rather than letting the bet ride.

We were winning that division.
A team in the 2nd tier after back to back promotions on the biggest upward trajectory for many years would have been worth more than what Black would have had to take out his pocket for the remainder of the season.

He chucked his teddy, plain and simple.

...but he wasn't the chairman.

Wray's job was to convince his best pal to keep investing.

You could argue that Hillier did what he did for no personal financial gain. The fall out from Brian Hillier's demise and 1990 demotion was more to do with what happened after 1990 and not on his watch. This set up the problems for the likes of Rikki Hunt to 'shine'.

Yes, the club ended up paying back some additional transfer fees for players signed via tribunals. The bigger problem was after 1990 the players wages rose as they argued they were Div 1 standard. We continued to chase the dream for the next 3 years.

This was the living beyond our means that was financed by selling players like Alan Mac, Jon Gittens, Paul Bodin, Duncan Shearer and Dave Kerslake. This frustrated and saw off Ossie and then Hoddle so by 1993 we were in no position to compete either financially and with an ageing squad.

We ended up playing catch up for the rest of the 1990s as we sustained Championship football but the transfer fees dried up and the debts ran up. Rikki Hunt stuck with McMahon for far too long which drained the support base (5/6k gates in our last Championship season). Remember we sold George Ndah and said we were debt free 3 months before we went into admin.

Into the 2000s and SSW is still having to fund the losses to the point where any way out is a decent offer like St Modern, Best Holdings etc. When Fitton and Black arrive they spend millions clearing up the old debts so by 2013 the goodwill from Black had run out and being the gambler he was left the casino rather than chase his losses.

It's a long history of financial mess from either well meaning people making the wrong football decisions to more shadier characters behind the scene.

Maybe if we had not won the 1990 appeal and ended up in Div 3 we might have sold the stars of that side and rebuilt the club on a more sustainable level. No-one wanted that and we paid the price for that one season in the big time.





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Sigh.

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