this has got to be the most frustrating time supporting Rovers

[ONIGP]

Less than many and less than we will do if no buyer comes in.

Call me pedantic, but we have spent many seasons outside of the football league. Rovers didn't start in 1921 just like top flight football didn't begin in 1992.

 

[Gray]

I disagree with your first comment. This weekend's fixtures illustrate that it is theoretically possible for every team below us to pick up three points;
Fleetwood v Barrow
Swindon v Crewe
Accrington v Shrewsbury
Bristol Rovers v Grimsby
Cheltenham v Salford
Colchester v Barnet
Crawley v Chesterfield
Gillingham v Oldham
Harrogate v Bromley
Newport v Cambridge
Notts County v TRFC
I accept that it's unlikely all of them will, but there don't seem any nailed on defeats for the sides beneath us in that list.
Even in some weeks where teams below us play one another and for sake of argument share the points, assuming they still had 6 games against bottom rivals, that still leaves 8 games they can theoretically win
On current form we're winning 1 game a month and there's only 1 game in May so put that down as a draw and a projected points total of 42, which is touch and go whether it will be enough.
I'd be very surprised if your suggestion of 39 points being sufficient to secure safety is correct. There isn't a real gulf between the top sides and the rest, so the top sides more likely to drop points than a typical season.

The late, great Brian Clough once opined that football was sadly played on grass not on paper, however a quick analysis of our run in on the soccerstats site shows that we have a very tough next 4 games coming (opponent points per game: 1.66) and a run in that is tougher than all but one of the clubs below us (Barrow). Our opponent points per game (nobody mention Covid) for the run in is 1.42, all clubs below us face in the region of 1.2 or 1.3 opponent PPG. Bristol and Newport have noticeably weaker opponents to play. As above, football is played on grass, not on paper (or spreadsheet) but our position is precarious.

https://www.soccerstats.com/latest.asp?league=england4

 

[dollar'sbloke]

If you take unbiased view, the PJ years dwindled away where leaving the league was inevitable. Palios stabilised the club for some years and beyond his anticipated tenure. We are now back on the verge of PJ's final days. The big issue is there is no new Palios let alone a new PJ. We get ever closer to a Chester sustainable model
We can spit our dummies out and claim victim hood but that is the reality we have no one funding us or attracting funds in.

 

[frenchrover]

O4anotherplayoff said: Etc., Etc., Etc.,

BIT OF A GIVEAWAY THERE, MARK

 

[Alun]

Over the years I have watched some good, some bad Rovers teams but I have never seen a Rovers team, without any fight, energy, pride or determination as the team showed today. One thing you can say about Rovers is that they always had a team that would at least win, lose or draw, would battle and fight, but over the last few years that philosophy seems to have gone by the wayside, whose fault is that you could start at the top and blame the owner, manager, players, coaches, in a way they are all to blame. How do we get over it is the question, At the moment we have owners who need to sell for health and monetary reasons, we have a manager who no doubt is doing his best but seems more and more out of his depth and we seem to have a team that at least to me seem unfit and can't last ninety minutes who also seem to think that as long as they turn up to play, that is enough. As a club Rovers has always been a club mostly playing on a shoestring, except for the early Johnson years,, when he pumped money in and took the club up the leagues, those days are gone and we are back moving between the bottom two divisions, like we have for most of our history. My worry is that without something changing we will either follow teams like Southport and Chester or start alternating between divisions 2 and the National league. Even with the rumoured take over.. If its an investment company they will be looking to make a profit on their investment and I just can't see where that profit is going to come from.

 

[bigmart]

Alun, unless there is a real change in how the club is run then we will not alternate between league 2 and the national league we will be stuck in the national league.

We don't need to have owners with a lot of money Accrington, Crewe, Bromley and Oldham are all comfortably above us with smaller playing budgets, we need much better recruitment, more and better coaching too.

 

[O4anotherplayoff]

As a club Rovers has always been a club mostly playing on a shoestring, except for the early Johnson years,, when he pumped money in and took the club up the leagues, those days are gone and we are back moving between the bottom two divisions, like we have for most of our history. My worry is that without something changing we will either follow teams like Southport and Chester or start alternating between divisions 2 and the National league. Even with the rumoured take over..

Spot on Alun. And the costs for clubs just to stand still, never mind progress, are spiralling. Somebody has to pay for it at the end of the day. Which leads in to…

We don't need to have owners with a lot of money Accrington, Crewe, Bromley and Oldham are all comfortably above us with smaller playing budgets, we need much better recruitment, more and better coaching too.

Leaving aside the fact you’ve told us previously that Oldham would actually have a bigger budget than us, you do realise that all four clubs you mention (and more besides) are in hock to the tune of millions to their owners?

So what do you mean by ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’? How much money do you think they need? Or do you really mean we don’t need owners with a lot more money than Palios has put in? In which case you’re just taking a few million for granted.

But all those seasons under the current owner and none under any previous owner, must be a coincidence

The fact that relegation from the FL was only introduced in 1987 obviously has a lot to do with that, as does the absence of any points deductions when we went into administration in the 80s. The underlying performance of this club pre-Johnson warranted several relegations from the FL under current rules.

And, unless somebody’s willing to keep ploughing in enough millions in the future, it will no doubt see more non league football in the years to come. And that’s before considering the inevitable introduction of three down.

A relatively apathetic Wirral and a supporters trust that’s more Sunday League than FL means this club is always going to be relying on somebody’s millions in order to satisfy the demands of its fan base. Even if a new stadium does eventually enable it to finance itself.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

The fact that relegation from the FL was only introduced in 1987 obviously has a lot to do with that, as does the absence of any points deductions when we went into administration in the 80s. The underlying performance of this club pre-Johnson warranted several relegations from the FL under current rules.

It did not.

Prior to 2015 we had never finished in a league position that would result in relegation under the current rules.

 

[dollar'sbloke]

The fact is and Palios has been unequivocal about this, which doubtless will mean some will undermine it with no facts, this club needs tens of millions to turn it into a leveraged stadium/events project worth maybe £100 million. Out of that the new owners would expect to make a return on outlay, think double over a medium term, whilst expanding the football entity to a championship type one.
Palios even younger and healthier was never going to have the seed money.
Many of our fans would jump at the most thinly veiled spiv who threw a bit of cash about in the short term. In my opinion we don't want anyone who just proposes to pay some bigger bills thinking it will turn us around, as whatever scenario you can imagine they all end up not balancing the books.
Palios seems to have set his stall out for someone to pay about ten million to get in with millions to fund the short term and more for a brand new approach away from PP. The alternative is a Chester sustainable model

 

[dollar'sbloke]

It did not.

Prior to 2015 we had never finished in a league position that would result in relegation under the current rules.

Untrue in 1987 the administration penalty would have seen us bottom under current rules and saved Lincoln.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Untrue in 1987 the administration penalty would have seen us bottom under current rules and saved Lincoln.

I referred to final league placings.

Even in those crisis years we did not finish as low on merit as we have under Palios.

If administration had incurred that penalty in 1987, Norman Wilson probably would not have filed for it, and Johnson may have acquired the club directly from Osterman. We will never know.

 

[O4anotherplayoff]

We’ve finished bottom two in the bottom division a couple times since entering the FL and if we’d suffered the current penalties for entering admin we’d have gone in the 80s too.

Still, as usual, the blind, the complacent and the entitled will carry on ignoring the fundamentals and just cherry-pick at the edges in order to feed the agenda.

 

[dollar'sbloke]

I referred to final league placings.

Even in those crisis years we did not finish as low on merit as we have under Palios.

If administration had incurred that penalty in 1987, Norman Wilson probably would not have filed for it, and Johnson may have acquired the club directly from Osterman. We will never know.

We filed for it as three directors wanted to protect us from bankruptcy a far bigger issue. I know people who were at the meeting at eastham golf club that fans groups agreed to the secret deal. It was existential and far bigger than league status.
We also came second to bottom twice so whatever your point was, apart from the usual anti-palios one, 24-25 and 56-57 so wrong again.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

We filed for it as three directors wanted to protect us from bankruptcy a far bigger issue. I know people who were at the meeting at eastham golf club that fans groups agreed to the secret deal. It was existential and far bigger than league status.
We also came second to bottom twice so whatever your point was, apart from the usual anti-palios one, 24-25 and 56-57 so wrong again.

We finished second from bottom in Division Three North, which would not have resulted in relegation if two teams were relegated from the Football League. There was also a Division Three South.

So your argument, even if it is accepted, is that on only a handful of occasions in the last century were circumstances even worse than they are today.

Hardly the greatest endorsement of Palios's tenure at the club is it ?

 

[dollar'sbloke]

We finished second from bottom in Division Three North, which would not have resulted in relegation if two teams were relegated from the Football League. There was also a Division Three South.

So your argument, even if it is accepted, is that on only a handful of occasions in the last century were circumstances even worse than they are today.

Hardly the greatest endorsement of Palios's tenure at the club is it ?

On the basis of a hundred years Palios is our second safest owner. We have had no financial crises. A cursory look at our history and our peer group among small post industrial clubs. Those you may cherry pick as better placed today will doubtless end up the Burys of the future.
But you have made this personal as have others, we haven't got an independent report of financial good health for no reason! One aspect must be a historically strong physical support.

 

[bigmart]

Spot on Alun. And the costs for clubs just to stand still, never mind progress, are spiralling. Somebody has to pay for it at the end of the day. Which leads in to…


Leaving aside the fact you’ve told us previously that Oldham would actually have a bigger budget than us, you do realise that all four clubs you mention (and more besides) are in hock to the tune of millions to their owners?

So what do you mean by ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’? How much money do you think they need? Or do you really mean we don’t need owners with a lot more money than Palios has put in? In which case you’re just taking a few million for granted.


The fact that relegation from the FL was only introduced in 1987 obviously has a lot to do with that, as does the absence of any points deductions when we went into administration in the 80s. The underlying performance of this club pre-Johnson warranted several relegations from the FL under current rules.

And, unless somebody’s willing to keep ploughing in enough millions in the future, it will no doubt see more non league football in the years to come. And that’s before considering the inevitable introduction of three down.

A relatively apathetic Wirral and a supporters trust that’s more Sunday League than FL means this club is always going to be relying on somebody’s millions in order to satisfy the demands of its fan base. Even if a new stadium does eventually enable it to finance itself.

Thanks Mark

 

[O4anotherplayoff]

Thanks Mark

bigmart ducking the issues again? I’m stunned!

Let’s have another try:

What do you mean by ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’?

How much money do you think they need?

Or do you really mean we don’t need owners with a lot more money than Palios has put in? In which case you’re just taking a few million for granted.

If you can’t answer any of that then your claim that ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’ is not only meaningless rhetoric, but also shows even you don’t know what you mean!

 

[bigmart]

bigmart ducking the issues again? I’m stunned!

Let’s have another try:

What do you mean by ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’?

How much money do you think they need?

Or do you really mean we don’t need owners with a lot more money than Palios has put in? In which case you’re just taking a few million for granted.

If you can’t answer any of that then your claim that ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’ is not only meaningless rhetoric, but also shows even you don’t know what you mean!

You don't know how much money Palios has put in.

We don't need to have a playing budget that is on a par with the top budgets in the league.

As for meaningless rhetoric, you are the absolute master of this.

 

[O4anotherplayoff]

You don't know how much money Palios has put in.

Really? The independently audited accounts year on year are consistent with his own claim a year or so ago that he’d put in around £7m - a mix of capital and loans - up to that point.

We don't need to have a playing budget that is on a par with the top budgets in the league.

Nobody’s saying we do. But that’s very different to saying ‘we don't need to have owners with a lot of money’. To sustain a mid table budget this club undoubtedly does need an owner with ‘a lot of money’, unless you think a few million of other people’s money isn’t ’a lot’.

The four clubs you named, and many other clubs at our level, are reliant on millions put into them by their owners. Look at their independently audited accounts.

As for meaningless rhetoric, you are the absolute master of this.

I’d ask you to show us examples but I know you can’t. Meanwhile, you still won’t answer those straightforward questions.

 

[O4anotherplayoff]

But you have made this personal as have others, we haven't got an independent report of financial good health for no reason! One aspect must be a historically strong physical support.

Indeed. Even Mellon used to labour the point. But we’re now at the stage where even independent experts are dismissed by the trash talkers who think they know better. I noticed recently one of these experts, the respected-throughout-football (but apparently not in parts of Birkenhead) Keiran Maguire, defending himself from the Twitter rabble’s ludicrous accusation that he’s just Palios’ mate and mouthpiece! Said he’d only ever met him about four times in his life!