Low hanging fruit....

[Reg Smeeton]

.....or maybe this is just collecting windfalls.

   From  Sunday Times.

    Former Swindon boss Paul Sturrock's voice is still being used to greet callers to the club's automated switchboard, despite the fact he left for Plymouth in November. (Sunday Times)

[BANGKOK RED]

.....or maybe this is just collecting windfalls.

   From  Sunday Times.

    Former Swindon boss Paul Sturrock's voice is still being used to greet callers to the club's automated switchboard, despite the fact he left for Plymouth in November. (Sunday Times)

Perhaps they chose Sturrock's voice over the alternative...............................

DAVID BYRNE

[Batch]

I tried to ring somebody at the club and got Linda whatsits voicemail 6 months after they sacked her as part of the 'cost cutting' exercise.

Morale: The staff can't work the voicemail system.

[Reg Smeeton]

.....or maybe this is just collecting windfalls.

   From  Sunday Times.

    Former Swindon boss Paul Sturrock's voice is still being used to greet callers to the club's automated switchboard, despite the fact he left for Plymouth in November. (Sunday Times)

Perhaps they chose Sturrock's voice over the alternative...............................

DAVID BYRNE

 Its a fair point.  

 This snippet just annoyed me though, mainly as to why the ST put it in their paper, then why  the Beeb put it on their website.

 It does though point up a lesson to Fitton et al, that STFC is viewed as a model of ineptitude and it is getting these small details right that will help to improve the club's image.

[Ardiles]

Another article from today's Sunday Times:

READING HITS PROFITS GOAL

The move to English football’s top flight has helped John Madejski, owner of Reading, to fulfil a long-standing ambition to guide the Berkshire club to profitability.

The club, nicknamed the Royals, crowned its debut Premier League season by achieving pretax profits of £6.6m for the year to June 2007, against a £6.5m loss in the previous 12 months.

Sales for the latest period were £49.9m, a huge increase on the £17.8m generated in the previous year. The figures are contained in the annual accounts just filed at Companies House.

Madejski has owned the club since 1990 when he saved it from collapse, and five years ago told an interviewer: “I’m determined to make Reading trade in the black.” That has now been achieved after several years of losses. In the introduction to this year’s accounts, Madejski writes: “Our new status has seen the profile of the club increase on an unprecedented level.”

Media income for clubs in the Premier League dwarfs that available to teams in the lower divisions. Much of Reading’s profit is being reinvested in the club. Madejski plans to increase the capacity at its home stadium and is building a new £2m office block and media centre.

After 17 years, Madejski, who made his fortune from Auto Trader magazine and is worth £400m according to The Sunday Times Rich List, has made no secret of his willingness to sell the club should a suitable offer materialise.

I still maintain that Reading's rise up the leagues is a model to follow - it has so much more in common with Charlton than it does with Blackburn or Fulham.

I truly hope Mr Fitton turns out to be our Madejski - an enabler, rather than a benefactor.

[BANGKOK RED]

Non- italics please, a bit hard to read!

[Ardiles]

How's this?

Another article from today's Sunday Times:

READING HITS PROFITS GOAL

The move to English football’s top flight has helped John Madejski, owner of Reading, to fulfil a long-standing ambition to guide the Berkshire club to profitability.

The club, nicknamed the Royals, crowned its debut Premier League season by achieving pretax profits of £6.6m for the year to June 2007, against a £6.5m loss in the previous 12 months.

Sales for the latest period were £49.9m, a huge increase on the £17.8m generated in the previous year. The figures are contained in the annual accounts just filed at Companies House.

Madejski has owned the club since 1990 when he saved it from collapse, and five years ago told an interviewer: “I’m determined to make Reading trade in the black.” That has now been achieved after several years of losses. In the introduction to this year’s accounts, Madejski writes: “Our new status has seen the profile of the club increase on an unprecedented level.”

Media income for clubs in the Premier League dwarfs that available to teams in the lower divisions. Much of Reading’s profit is being reinvested in the club. Madejski plans to increase the capacity at its home stadium and is building a new £2m office block and media centre.

After 17 years, Madejski, who made his fortune from Auto Trader magazine and is worth £400m according to The Sunday Times Rich List, has made no secret of his willingness to sell the club should a suitable offer materialise.

I still maintain that Reading's rise up the leagues is a model to follow - it has so much more in common with Charlton than it does with Blackburn or Fulham.

I truly hope Mr Fitton turns out to be our Madejski - an enabler, rather than a benefactor.

[Reg Smeeton]

Ardiles....we made a profit in the Prem.  

  Madejski has been subbing Reading to the tune of 2 mill a season for a number of years now.   He is both an enabler and benefactor.

[pauld]

.....or maybe this is just collecting windfalls.

   From  Sunday Times.

    Former Swindon boss Paul Sturrock's voice is still being used to greet callers to the club's automated switchboard, despite the fact he left for Plymouth in November. (Sunday Times)

Perhaps they chose Sturrock's voice over the alternative...............................

DAVID BYRNE

 Its a fair point.  

 This snippet just annoyed me though, mainly as to why the ST put it in their paper, then why  the Beeb put it on their website.

 It does though point up a lesson to Fitton et al, that STFC is viewed as a model of ineptitude and it is getting these small details right that will help to improve the club's image.

And that the national sports media can't tell a proper story about lower league football from the hole in their arse - sum total of Sunday Times column inches about STFC about to go out of existence, zero; yet they can apparently find the space to do a "snigger, snigger" bit about the bloody answerphone. Hope that didn't push out any more important football stories like the colour of Ashley Cole's new Bentley or anything like that

[Reg Smeeton]

Nevertheless it is this perception of STFC as a serial basket case that the new regime has to address....whilst not expecting to see anything happen too soon, it is important that Fitton et al pick up the windfalls as soon as possible, to start to tidy up the place.

 For example have they contacted the Trust about attending a meeting?

[Ardiles]

Regarding the column inches point (and I'm not wanting to relegate the other points you have raised in the posts above) - I can remember going down to my college JCR to read the Sunday papers on Sunday mornings in the early/mid 1990s in the safe knowledge that the nationals would have covered our game the previous day.  When you're playing in the 2nd level of league football, the nationals will send their press to the game.  In the 3rd level, they're not interested.

To contradict myself slightly, I also remember reading during the 1992-93 season that certain correspondents used to make the trip to Swindon for no reason other than a Hoddle-inspired side was guaranteed to produce a display worthy of national coverage.  The next promotion is key.  When we're a 2nd flight side again, I think I'll rest easy.  We'll have come home.

[flammableBen]

Do National paper sports journalists really just go around ringing up club hot lines in an attempt to fill in space?

[flammableBen]

I know it's a Fitton quote or something, but I was hoping this thread would be about the Low-Hanging-Testicled Zamzubu Tribesmen of Madagascar. From a young age they hang weights from their scrotum, stretching it out until some manage a dangling of below knee level. They have to be very careful of the Madagascan Jungle Sabre-Toothed Marmot; which have become a bit of a testicular menace.

[Bushey Boy]

Do National paper sports journalists really just go around ringing up club hot lines in an attempt to fill in space?

Yes, dex (strood) spends all his lectures learning how to make phone calls

[Reg Smeeton]

I know it's a Fitton quote or something, but I was hoping this thread would be about the Low-Hanging-Testicled Zamzubu Tribesmen of Madagascar. From a young age they hang weights from their scrotum, stretching it out until some manage a dangling of below knee level. They have to be very careful of the Madagascan Jungle Sabre-Toothed Marmot; which have become a bit of a testicular menace.

  I thought  the Zamzubu, wedged wooden boards into their sacs on the way down..I must be mixing them up with the Zacdanglo.