I simply cannot believe that Mallinson thought there were only 21 home league games!
Where has this guy been? What an idiotic posting from someone habitually
looking for negatives in every facet of Merry & Co.'s management.
Very sad and pathetic.
Season tickets
Re: Mallinson
1. I wasn't aware that the conference was being increased this season - I've never supported a conference club before so don't undersand how it works yet."LoyalOx " wrote:I simply cannot believe that Mallinson thought there were only 21 home league games!
Where has this guy been? What an idiotic posting from someone habitually
looking for negatives in every facet of Merry & Co.'s management.
Very sad and pathetic.
2. No its not an idiotic posting I honestly expected a reduction in ticket prices to reflect the new non-league status and as a way of getting more fans to buy season tickets. A quick look on TiU shows I'm in no way alone in thinking this.
3. Seeing as you want to get personal and use my name how about you share your name with the rest of the Internet too.
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Ancient Colin
- Grumpy old git
- Posts: 2663
- Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 12:23 pm
- Location: Nowhere near Treviso
"LoyalOx" will probably stay anonymous on the Internet, but I bet you can spot him on matchdays as he’ll be the guy wearing the anorak that says on the back “Conference Rules King
Last edited by Snake on Sat May 27, 2006 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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neilw
Mally, would you like to rewrite your thoughts now that you have been given the correct facts? A surprisingly poor and lazy attempt on your part to justify your feelings.
Regarding ticket pricing. The objective, surely, is to maximise revenue. I don't believe that a price reduction would have been compensated by an increase in demand, so consequently, I think it's probably the right decision. Could have been a little more creative with family packages and the like though, maybe. But me and the boy will be happy over in the North stand.
Nice man that Mr Merry, very nice man.
Regarding ticket pricing. The objective, surely, is to maximise revenue. I don't believe that a price reduction would have been compensated by an increase in demand, so consequently, I think it's probably the right decision. Could have been a little more creative with family packages and the like though, maybe. But me and the boy will be happy over in the North stand.
Nice man that Mr Merry, very nice man.
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LoyalOx
mally
Why did you not do your homework before posting that? That was very Jon Murray like.
As Neil says: it was lazy of you to average out the prices before
obtaining the facts. You seized on this and tried to make capital out of it.
As your such a keen reader of TIU, I am surprised,as there has been plenty of debate about the conference expanding this coming season.
Personally,I think the pricing could have been a little more imaginative but understand why Thomas & Merry have gone down this road.
By the way Mally,Firoz no longer own the club. Let' s move on and get
over it.
We now have a chairman who appears to be very committed to the club and who is in the process of rebuilding OUFC and implementing a strategy.We have not had anything like this for many many years.
He has made more than a decent enough start. Would you not agree?
I note you have not commented on his "masterplan" Mally. That kinda tells me alot.
As Neil says: it was lazy of you to average out the prices before
obtaining the facts. You seized on this and tried to make capital out of it.
As your such a keen reader of TIU, I am surprised,as there has been plenty of debate about the conference expanding this coming season.
Personally,I think the pricing could have been a little more imaginative but understand why Thomas & Merry have gone down this road.
By the way Mally,Firoz no longer own the club. Let' s move on and get
over it.
We now have a chairman who appears to be very committed to the club and who is in the process of rebuilding OUFC and implementing a strategy.We have not had anything like this for many many years.
He has made more than a decent enough start. Would you not agree?
I note you have not commented on his "masterplan" Mally. That kinda tells me alot.
Re: mally
John Murray's supposed to be a professional journaist I'm just a football fan. I'm certainly not a keen reader of TiU. The first time I've even looked on there in the last 2 weeks was after you posted on here to see if I was alone in being surprised at the prices (I wasn't)."LoyalOx " wrote:Why did you not do your homework before posting that? That was very Jon Murray like.
As Neil says: it was lazy of you to average out the prices before
obtaining the facts. You seized on this and tried to make capital out of it.
As your such a keen reader of TIU, I am surprised,as there has been plenty of debate about the conference expanding this coming season.
Personally,I think the pricing could have been a little more imaginative but understand why Thomas & Merry have gone down this road.
By the way Mally,Firoz no longer own the club. Let' s move on and get
over it.
We now have a chairman who appears to be very committed to the club and who is in the process of rebuilding OUFC and implementing a strategy.We have not had anything like this for many many years.
He has made more than a decent enough start. Would you not agree?
I note you have not commented on his "masterplan" Mally. That kinda tells me alot.
I really don't understand all this vitriol when it sounds like you also agree that they had a an opportunity to be imaginitive with ticketing and pricing but failed to do anything.
Yes we do have a chairman who appears to be committed to the club and that is to be applauded if he follows through on this. However, so far we have seen very little in the way of change and for the first time in the history of the club the owner of the football club does not own or control the stadium and we don't know who really owns the football club. Infact the Chairman has refused to answer questions on this when asked by the supporters organisation. At any other club I'm fairly sure that most people would be very concerned about these two facts.
Merry has also been economical with the truth when it comes to his business interests and background. He is reported to have made his money through a company that doesn't stand up to scruitiny. Again more unanswered questions.
I really hope that everything works out and we come bouncing back and I'll be there every game cheering us on and praying for this to happen but blind illogical faith in the new regime is just the same as blind illogical hatred of the old one.
Re:
This summer two have gone down from the Conference and two each have come up from both the Conference North and Conference South to make 24 clubs. From next season onwards it will be 4 down and 2 x 2 up."Ancient Colin" wrote:Oops, sorry, like Mally I hadn't noticed the expansion of the division (or whatever it is called). So do extra clubs come up or do the bottom few get reprieved? I've got friends who live near Altrincham (poor dears) ...
The Non-League Pyramid has been undergoing quite a restructure in recent years and while the three Conference divisions should now retain this new format ongoing, there continues to be chaos further down the ladder, so it could quite easily all change again soon. An expansion of Step 4 has only been half-implemented (although Oxford City, didcot and Abingdon Utd found their way through the mess to gain promotion to the Southern League (West), while Step 5 (Hellenic etc) remains all over the place.
What is perhaps of more concern is how the promotion and relegation is actually being decided each season. THe three teams in contention for dropping out of the Conference are doing so because of i) the Chairman deciding to stop funding, ii) struggling to get out of Adminstration & iii) a seemingly harsh punishment for a slight administrative oversight.
It is this sort of thing that we will have to watch out for if we want to get out of the league this season as administrative issues become more insular, more chaotic, more inconsistent and arguably more political.
We've made silly errors in recent years (like bringing the wrong kit to games) and the last thing we want is to miss out on promotion by being docked points for something stupid.
So while the new mission statement sounds great, the main objective for the new regime is to get XI players onto the pitch that can win games against oppostion no worse than we met this season and to make sure we conform to all the rules, particularly the wage cap and particularly in the light of what counts as income from the stadium, parachute payments and other such variables.
We now know Kelvin can use Powerpoint, let us just hope his affinity with Accounting Software is as good..(Oh and buys Mick Brown the new edition of the Conference Rule Book too)
Re: mally
So taking over a side four places above the relegation zone and seeing it fall into the zone for the first time ever and getting relegated is 'more than a decent start' to his chairmanship?"LoyalOx " wrote: He has made more than a decent enough start. Would you not agree?
I would say that his planning since the end of season seems to be good, but apart from the training ground all the rest is currently talk. Time will tell and we all wish him every success.
Why the North Stand couldn't have been made the Family Stand I don't know? (apart from us getting ManUre in the 3rd round of the FA CUP of course, but I am sure families would be happy to transfer for that game.
It does seem a little odd to me the easy ride Merry & Smith have been given. He came in with talk of top quality players to be brought in. Only one really improved the squad and the rest disrupted a team who were finally showing some unity. Losing at home to Chester and only getting one point from some very winnable away games cost us badly.
And now there is talk that he is not answering questions about the purchase of the stadium, there is no fans forum in place and the season tickets are worse value then last year.
I appriciate the need to raise some income, but I was under the impression this would have come from the new owners rather then expecting us long suffering fans to stump up the cash again. They don't even seem willing to pay off the rubbish that cost us badly last year and thus enable us to start again.
Say what you like about Kassam, but he held at least one forum a season and I would like to see one held before the new season.
And now there is talk that he is not answering questions about the purchase of the stadium, there is no fans forum in place and the season tickets are worse value then last year.
I appriciate the need to raise some income, but I was under the impression this would have come from the new owners rather then expecting us long suffering fans to stump up the cash again. They don't even seem willing to pay off the rubbish that cost us badly last year and thus enable us to start again.
Say what you like about Kassam, but he held at least one forum a season and I would like to see one held before the new season.
Well that is huge leap interpretation of my post SuperOx.
Whilst it is obvious to me that what came before (the Kassam era) is, in the vast majority, responsible for us being in the predicament we find ourselves in, I don't believe the new owners got many of their decisions right when they came in.
My view has always been clear since the end of March.
I think Awford instead of Patterson as coach was a mistake.
I think the fact that we tried to 'play' our way out of trouble in Smith's first few games in charge was poor judgement. The fact that Jim Smith decided 'now is the time to fight and battle' two games from the end of the season indicated that he and Awford didn't really appreciate the scenario.
As Ty has said the loan signings were undoubtedly poor (except N'Toya). MCF will tell you Jim only had 24 hours to do this. My opinion is that OXVOX and others were whispering for weeks that the players were lined up ready to come in and the fact that he managed to sign 5 in 24 hours indicates that this was probably the case.
Boston away was a fiasco, that day the pressure increased considerably. You can't blame Kassam that the team left late, didn't know the best routeandhad to buy sandwiches from a garage 40 minutes before kick off.
Letting Orient have more than 1,000 tickets for the last game was a mistake.
So whilst I accept that Kassam and his choice of managers is clearly the reason we found ourselves in a relegation fight I feel that Merry and Smith are not exempt of all blame for us losing that fight.
Whilst it is obvious to me that what came before (the Kassam era) is, in the vast majority, responsible for us being in the predicament we find ourselves in, I don't believe the new owners got many of their decisions right when they came in.
My view has always been clear since the end of March.
I think Awford instead of Patterson as coach was a mistake.
I think the fact that we tried to 'play' our way out of trouble in Smith's first few games in charge was poor judgement. The fact that Jim Smith decided 'now is the time to fight and battle' two games from the end of the season indicated that he and Awford didn't really appreciate the scenario.
As Ty has said the loan signings were undoubtedly poor (except N'Toya). MCF will tell you Jim only had 24 hours to do this. My opinion is that OXVOX and others were whispering for weeks that the players were lined up ready to come in and the fact that he managed to sign 5 in 24 hours indicates that this was probably the case.
Boston away was a fiasco, that day the pressure increased considerably. You can't blame Kassam that the team left late, didn't know the best routeandhad to buy sandwiches from a garage 40 minutes before kick off.
Letting Orient have more than 1,000 tickets for the last game was a mistake.
So whilst I accept that Kassam and his choice of managers is clearly the reason we found ourselves in a relegation fight I feel that Merry and Smith are not exempt of all blame for us losing that fight.
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SuperOx
Boston
Fair enough.
It was during the Boston game that I thought "this is it, we are definitely going down" It was indeed a fiasco from start to finish not helped of course by the bus driver going via Melton Mowbray on an Easter monday afternoon.The bus driver confessed to that cock up but they should have travelled up on the sunday. It was unacceptable.
Firoz "caved in" to the takeover two days before the deadline.It was due to pressure from the Alexandra Palace administrators.It wasKassam's pig headed ways and appalling "football management" that led ultimately to our demise. It was always gonna happen with a chairman like that.
Merry had to pick up the pieces.In retrospect,he should have backed away,let Kassam take the rap for the relegation which would still have occurred,in my view, even under "Patto's " stewardship.
Relegation, for me, should have happened under Kassam's not Merry's watch.
It was during the Boston game that I thought "this is it, we are definitely going down" It was indeed a fiasco from start to finish not helped of course by the bus driver going via Melton Mowbray on an Easter monday afternoon.The bus driver confessed to that cock up but they should have travelled up on the sunday. It was unacceptable.
Firoz "caved in" to the takeover two days before the deadline.It was due to pressure from the Alexandra Palace administrators.It wasKassam's pig headed ways and appalling "football management" that led ultimately to our demise. It was always gonna happen with a chairman like that.
Merry had to pick up the pieces.In retrospect,he should have backed away,let Kassam take the rap for the relegation which would still have occurred,in my view, even under "Patto's " stewardship.
Relegation, for me, should have happened under Kassam's not Merry's watch.
You could be right about that (wating for Kassam to take us down) SuperOx but I think Merry was worried that Bill & Bren were being lined up for a rival takeover and that was what made them dive in and do the deal without the stadium.
I think their biggest mistake was removing Patto after the players had demonstrated their willnnes to play for him. Jim Smith could have been installed as DoF and if and when Patto faltered they could have made the swap. They say - if it ain't bust don't fix it - well how about - if its just been fixed don't try and fix it again.
Anyway that's all if's and but's and in the past - we are where we are. Lets hope its the step back we needed to get a proper run at the division. So many clubs do back to back promotions in the lower leagues - it must be our turn soon for the football Gods to glance our way.
I think their biggest mistake was removing Patto after the players had demonstrated their willnnes to play for him. Jim Smith could have been installed as DoF and if and when Patto faltered they could have made the swap. They say - if it ain't bust don't fix it - well how about - if its just been fixed don't try and fix it again.
Anyway that's all if's and but's and in the past - we are where we are. Lets hope its the step back we needed to get a proper run at the division. So many clubs do back to back promotions in the lower leagues - it must be our turn soon for the football Gods to glance our way.
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neil w
The last few posts are considered, reasonable and fair. Things could have been better post Kassam, for sure. However, I believe, as fans, it's time to step in to the spirit of what is happening. Yes, there have been a few mistakes to date, yes, the season ticket offering was bland and yes, there will be more mistakes around the corner. But fundamentally it would appear that the club is now being run for the benefit of the club, the community and us fans. For that alone, Merry (and others?) have my support and backing, until proved otherwise. I think Merry deserves some support and encouragement, don't you?