Time for JF to put his money where his mouth is!

Quoted from arryarryarry

That is not what Mr Parker said in his interview on Radio Humberside that I listened to.

Proof? And no he didn't. Just give over it was agreed to put loans in which changed on leaving of the board and that's the individual's choice. Ie he chose to get something (shares for his investment).

It makes no difference in any event so your point.

If Mr Fenty had purchased shares instead of loans you would say those champing at the he bit to put countless millions in the club were being put  off by his overwhelming shareholding.

Facts are in any form shares and or loans he is deemed in Finacial terms to control the club.


Put up or shut up. This is very boring and achieving zilch!!!

Facts are we have a competitive budget which is backed by one individual a fantastic commercial support and some great fans who actually back the club and who want the best and don't trawl over the past for no good reason.

Quoted from GrimRob

But we're not obscure in non-league. We're one of the giants because we have the resources to challenge at the top every season. Every year has arguably also been an improvement on the previous one.

If our funding was suddenly taken away we'd struggle to even finish in the top half, which would mean crowds would drop, and the chances of even making the-offs would be pretty remote.

What a defeatist attitude Rob.  

After all my years of supporting the club I think I would rather JF said he was putting 2 or 3 years of funding into one last season's excrement or bust bash at promotion. If it works, brilliant. If it doesn't then at least a once great club could go out with a bang and not a whimper like it is at the moment.

JF could walk away with some pride whatever the outcome and we would have a league team or settle for supporting at the level of Cleethorpes Town. I'd rather we risk all than carry on with the death of a thousand cuts.

Quoted from Meza

Why do we go over the same shite.  Yes I want whats best for GTFC but continually going over old ground just irritates, annoys, upsets me and probably other users just to make everybody known how much we blame someone.  Sometimes I do really wonder if those that can't move on should really be supporting town, maybe its time for a change Cleethorpes Town are on the up.  Sorry for the rant but I'd like to remain positive for the start of the season and you lot are killing that with all your negativity.   New season, new players same old fans.

Get behind the club and do your bit after all that's what we fans do.

This is a forum visited by a small number of fans, and we are quite rightly debating the likely fortunes of the club under the present owner.

It has nothing to do with supporting the team itself and will have no impact at all on the season ahead.

When the whistle goes we will all be cheering as loudly as ever I can assure you. But Fenty is just the current owner; he is not GTFC.

I support the club as an entity, but I am not a supporter of Mr. Fenty and what keeps me going is to be able to voice my concerns whilst still supporting the team as I have done all my life.  

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

This is a forum visited by a small number of fans, and we are quite rightly debating the likely fortunes of the club under the present owner.

It has nothing to do with supporting the team itself and will have no impact at all on the season ahead.

When the whistle goes we will all be cheering as loudly as ever I can assure you. But Fenty is just the current owner; he is not GTFC.

I support the club as an entity, but I am not a supporter of Mr. Fenty and what keeps me going is to be able to voice my concerns whilst still supporting the team as I have done all my life.  

Amen to that. Can we now all accept that we all love the club but have differing opinions and levels of acceptance as to how it is run?

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

I'm quoting you but it could just as easily be anyone from the "we are where we are" camp so I apologise if you feel aggrieved.

It is wrong to dwell on the past but equally wrong to accept where we are as some sort of inevitability. The present is part of the continuum but the future can be influenced by the present. If we (JF really I suppose) adopt the non-risk strategy that some are looking for on the grounds that the club could sink further if we don't, then the chances of moving upwards are hammered.

At this point you have to look back to that first season after relegation when the club had money to spend, didn't spend enough and spent some incredibly badly because JF picked the wrong manager and held the purse closed. If we do not learn lessons from that we will be in the Conference or lower for ever.

At some stage every businessman knows they have to speculate to accumulate. My gut feeling on this is that JF is the one who is really living in the past. He got his fingers burned quite badly with Newell and since then has been very reluctant to push the boat out beyond his contingency.

Now, it's his money and he can do with it as he wishes but, if he wants to see something tangible from all those years of financial backing for the club he has in my opinion reached the point of no return. Either he goes for it to attract class acts to the club or he keeps to the same policy and lets it slowly sink into mire with no chance of progress, stadium or anything else.

At the moment JF's choice of manager suits his current policy. Hurst appears to be as lacking in ambition as JF in the way his team plays and the selection of his transfer targets, but it is a bit hard to tell which of JF and PH is the chicken and which is the egg.

A superb summing up.

I would only add that it is possible that Mr.Fenty has quietly slipped into accepting the status quo; the wages and general running costs of the club, although out of our reach as mere fans, are such that he can manage because we are at such a low level.

He still gets to run the place as he wishes, still gets the match day buzz as he entertains his opposite numbers/guests, still has the kudos of being the owner of a professional  football club.

Perhaps he is waiting for developments on the new stadium to try to bring some new life into his tenure?

We will find out in due course but I reckon we might be waiting a while.    

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

What a defeatist attitude Rob.  

How anyone can me a defeatist compared to the some of the negative misery guts on here who have already written the season off! The same buffoons who think if we replace the whole team, manager and board with half the budget we have now we will somehow go sailing into the sunset and live happily ever after. The reality is some people are just negative moaners and will always be negative and moan no matter what the team is doing. I will never be one of them especially when we're doing well in the league every season with the setup we have.

Quoted from chaos33

I think making the play offs and then falling in the semis in consecutive years does not constitute improvement. Quite the opposite. It looks like we haven't followed the clues, learned lessons, used our resources wisely enough.

I disagree. Most teams who make the play-offs don't do so the next season. Their best players or manager get poached, and it's hard to reconstruct as a competitive side. I'd be surprised if Gateshead or Halifax finished in the top five again for instance, but I think we've got a good chance, largely because of our financial backing allowing us to hang on to the manager and much of the team that have achieved what they have. If we keep finishing in the top five every year one day we'll get promoted! But we need the budget to keep getting us there.

As somebody not daft enough to be a gambler, the idea that we should go all-in, shite or bust appals me.

Anybody who is willing to see our 136 year old club go out of business in the event of a failure to win promotion in one shite or bust season (which, let's face it, could easily come at the hands of one of the many dreadful refereeing decisions we encounter each year), seems to me to have a very strange view of what supporting a club actually means.

We've certainly seen a dramatic fall in status since Fenty took charge - partly his fault, partly not. Anybody thinking that, in this day and age, we'd be regulars in the second tier of English football had he not become involved at the club needs to take a reality check. We were punching above our weight back then but the monetisation of football means that bigger clubs inevitably find their way higher up the Football League, barring the odd occasion where a smaller club manages to get themselves promoted 'above their level' for a season or two.

This is not to say Fenty is blameless, as his poor managerial choices have ultimately cost us what ought to be a place in the lower divisions of the Football League. That said, we always knew it was going to be difficult to get out of the Conference and that was before you had the likes of small clubs such as Fleetwood and Crawley spending huge amounts and managing to get themselves promoted. On the other hand, you had Luton spending similarly huge amounts for many years before finally getting it right and FGR are spending comical amounts without any success as yet so the idea that it is easy to just spend your way out of the Conference is clearly not true.

Ultimately, I fail to see the point in this thread. Divisive bickering between fans before a ball has been kicked in the new season and before our signings are even complete can't possibly achieve anything productive.

My one and only contribution to this thread as I have nothing else to say on the matter.

Quoted from GrimRob

How anyone can me a defeatist compared to the some of the negative misery guts on here who have already written the season off! The same buffoons who think if we replace the whole team, manager and board with half the budget we have now we will somehow go sailing into the sunset and live happily ever after. The reality is some people are just negative moaners and will always be negative and moan no matter what the team is doing. I will never be one of them especially when we're doing well in the league every season with the setup we have.

So throwing a few insults at posters who bother to care is the way forward???

Quoted from GrimRob

If we keep finishing in the top five every year one day we'll get promoted! But we need the budget to keep getting us there.

No we won't. We will just finish in the top five. Look at the play-off games we have had Rob and you will see that we came up short on class each time. That's the pattern that will continue. We grind our way into the play-offs and then fall short in the knock-out, losing a bit more credibility each time.

The difference between us is that you think making last spot in the play-offs is a success whereas I accept making the play-offs is an achievement but only as a poor consolation prize after fighting all season for the top spot.