Adver News: Q&A SPECIAL: Chairman McCrory responds to fan queries

[News Monkey]

Q&A SPECIAL: Chairman McCrory responds to fan queries
           
           


  AT A meeting organised by the Swindon Advertiser last month, Swindon Town chairman Jed McCrory pledged to answer fans’ questions on various topics to do with the running of the club.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10406655.Q_A_SPECIAL__Chairman_McCrory_responds_to_fan_queries/?ref=rss
           
           
           

[Batch]

Well the answers to the Trust were brief!

Not sure I know that much more now than before but I guess that was inevitable; emphasis on youth, training facilities, self-sustainability.

Not sure I understood what happened to the £1.2M either!

He did sort of confirm 'the incident' though.

[Frigby Daser]

Ok, I'll go first. I've tried to be rational, balanced, measured. No. What a complete prick he is.

[janaage]

I think my problem with Jed is I just don't like the bloke. First impressions weren't great and I can't see what he's adding to the club.

Having said that I'm happy to admit this is probably more down to me than anything Jed has actually done.

Good luck to him and the club, but I don't have a great feeling about all of this.

[Tails]

As with MacDonald, a lot of fans have already made their minds up on Jed. Doomed if he does, doomed if he doesn't.

I don't really have much of an opinion tbh, bit sick of all the negativity towards the people in charge when to me, they haven't really done anything wrong. Think I'll just stick to being a happy clapper and worry about supporting the team next season.

[Frigby Daser]

As much as anything, it's taken weeks to dish up answers that have largely already been given. It doesn't say a great deal for his productivity does it! I'm with Jan aage as well. As well as being one of the most unprofessional plebs associated with our club for years, I just don't like the bloke.

[Batch]

I guess this is relevant in some ways: BBC RS reporting wage bill to be halved to ~ £2M per anum from > £4M this season.

I guess that should set expectations.

Any idea how this compares to say smaller (Walsall/Yeovil) Medium (Brentford this ear) and larger teams (Sheff U) in the league?

[fatbasher]

All of this smacks of a business opportunity.

It's not unreasonable to try to make the club self financing. However, my feeling is that they will try to get the club ticking along with the day to day money that the club itself generates leaving them to take a wage or consultancy fee with the real pay day for them coming from the summer concerts. That is until someone comes along and buys them out for a handsome profit. In the mean time Kmac establishes himself as a manager and will then leg it when someone bigger comes knocking.

[horlock07]

Well the answers to the Trust were brief!

Not sure I know that much more now than before but I guess that was inevitable; emphasis on youth, training facilities, self-sustainability.

Not sure I understood what happened to the £1.2M either!

He did sort of confirm 'the incident' though.

Glad it wasn't just me, trying to be pragmatic I wonder whether its just the way the Adver has formastted it and the Supporters Trust ones were answered first as there is quite a bot of duplication.

It doesn't actually say anything that we didn't know, in some ways I welcome the straight nature of the responses its limited on corporate bollocks and happy clapping positivity and does admit that change is a foot.

On the negative side I did find myself thinking on most questions 'I haven't really got a clue whats going on here, but if you asked me that question and I was bullshitting thats the same answer I would have given'.

See what happens with squad over next few days and then move forward, if our wage bill is as massive as rumoured (as compared with others in league) I would be interested to know the figures as I do fear its a little scary in scale as it stands.

[Boston Red]

The Trust want people to look at Jed's answers, make their own minds up about them and then let us know what they think and what they'd like to see us do next. For now, here's our reaction:

TRUST STFC REACTION RE JED MCCRORY ANSWERS TO FANS QUESTIONS
9 May 2013
 
The Trust thanks Jed for taking the time to answer the questions put to him. Not every chair in his position would have done the same and we welcome his willingness to meet with fans representatives and his stated agreement to ongoing meetings. We look forward to working with the Supporters Club to make these meetings as effective as possible. We also want to praise the efforts of the club to engage the community – the big screen event over the weekend was a great example.

However, whilst we believe this should mark the start of a positive, structured relationship with fans groups, it is disappointing that not all of the answers to these questions are as detailed as we had hoped. More comprehensive responses to some of the more contentious questions would have helped address concerns widely expressed by fans – who asked us to put these questions to the board. We believe that openness, transparency and accountability are extremely important to well-run football clubs which serve their communities.

We would encourage fans to review these answers carefully, contact us with their thoughts and, most importantly, join the Trust. We want to represent the views of as many supporters as possible, as accurately as possible. 

Having encouraged the Board to improve their communications with fans we are also looking to improve the ways we engage and interact with supporters and will share our approach in the coming weeks. We welcome any views, comments or ideas around this. 

We want to praise the staff at the club, especially the players, for their efforts over the season and during the play-offs. A top six finish, after promotion the season before and the off-field issues was a real achievement. Despite the extremely disappointing end to the campaign, there are reasons to be positive too and we are looking forward to playing our part in a successful future for Swindon Town Football Club. 

[horlock07]

All of this smacks of a business opportunity.

It's not unreasonable to try to make the club self financing. However, my feeling is that they will try to get the club ticking along with the day to day money that the club itself generates leaving them to take a wage or consultancy fee with the real pay day for them coming from the summer concerts. That is until someone comes along and buys them out for a handsome profit. In the mean time Kmac establishes himself as a manager and will then leg it when someone bigger comes knocking.

So to be honest like most clubs at our level. I don't have a problem if they stabilise and sell at a profit (although I imagine Black has some clawback provisions to cover that), we were in the deep shit and they at the very least prevented even worse things happening so good luck to them.

As I said before (and this isn't aimed at the post above), Spencer and Paolo took something in the region of say £1m (agents fees for 1 year were £400k, plus salaries etc) out of the club, yet people are banging the wall because Directors want salaries, it makes no sense.

If KMac buggers off the a bigger club in time it means he will have done well here and had success, so win win and happy days.

[horlock07]

The Trust want people to look at Jed's answers, make their own minds up about them and then let us know what they think and what they'd like to see us do next.

Taking note of the brevity of his answers this should take them all of 10 minutes.

[phelpsieboy]

I have no issue with our wage bill being reduced, as it was quite high. But what I don't understand is why when Jed first came in be said the wage bill will be very similar to what it was this past season. Why get the supporters hopes up?

£4million was a Top 6 budget, similar to Doncaster, Notts County and Preston. £2million will put us with the likes of Leyton Orient and Shrewsbury.

[fatbasher]

So to be honest like most clubs at our level. I don't have a problem if they stabilise and sell at a profit (although I imagine Black has some clawback provisions to cover that), we were in the deep shit and they at the very least prevented even worse things happening so good luck to them.

As I said before (and this isn't aimed at the post above), Spencer and Paolo took something in the region of say £1m (agents fees for 1 year were £400k, plus salaries etc) out of the club, yet people are banging the wall because Directors want salaries, it makes no sense.

If KMac buggers off the a bigger club in time it means he will have done well here and had success, so win win and happy days.

Reasonable comment, however, my point though maybe not made that clearly is that they IMHO see us as money making opportunity. Unless Kmac does a SAF and gets us promoted with a bunch of kids then it is mid table mediocrity for us for the foreseeable future.

[Sippo]

With a £2 million pound wage budget we are unlikely to attract players with the quality to get promoted.