Answers We Need
After Saturday’s humiliating defeat at the hands of Blackburn Rovers, and the all too familiar thread that follows season after season, I feel answers are needed. Firstly, this is not a knee jerk reaction by a fed-up supporter who suffered yet another bad Saturday night. Hopefully readers will recognise that. My concern is that we loyal Blues followers have witnessed more than a decade of serious decline now, even if….so far…we have not dropped through the trapdoor and into League One.
Season after season we sit in virtually the same place, at almost the same time each year, nestling in seventeenth spot in the table. We then enter the New Year with half a season left and the same sole target of avoiding relegation. Often, we change the manager in the hope of a survival bounce, and usually we get away with it. This year of course we have Derby County and Reading to thank for having had points deducted, a circumstance which gives us a cushion that we really do not deserve.
But for how much longer must this go on? I urge the club to come clean about why we continually struggle for any type of progress, both on and off the field.
From the outside it appears we are a club which is skint. A club working from hand to mouth, getting short term loans and signing older players not demanding huge wages. Younger and more talented players are sold without so much as a blink of the eye, and the possibility of building a successful team with any sort of medium to long term future is denied.
Question is are we skint? I am not so sure. We have owners who have kept us afloat and I am grateful for that, especially after the calamities of the Redknapp experiment. As long-standing Blues supporters, we can usually accept anything thrown at us and, well worn as we are, we can still take more. So, should it be that our hierarchy state that our financial situation is deeply concerning and responsible for where we are currently at then fine. Equally, if we are told that high earners need to be moved on then, again, fine. Indeed, statements made following the defeat on Saturday that Harlee Dean is on the transfer list give a big indication that this is in fact the case. He may well not be the only one.
But we desperately need a clear message from the club as to what the way forward is going to be. We need openness, clarity and honesty. History keeps repeating itself, season after long season, and it is getting weary and tiresome. We are now entering a new year replicating the last decade and, should this ownership continue and its policies remain, there has to be a day of reckoning eventually.
We will all have opinions on the situation, I’m sure. My view is that should we have been in or around seventh or eighth spot by Christmases past, then the Board would most likely have pumped money into a second half push for promotion, whoever the manager. Seventeenth spot is a killer however and, therefore, survival has to be the target. Again. My opinion.
Our current squad of players is clearly not equipped for any type of upper table push. Ok, that is hard and frustrating to accept, but it is what it is. My question, though, is how much longer must we wait for any kind of change? The club has stagnated for ten consecutive seasons now, without any real hope of a brighter future. The owners should at the very least explain their thinking and how they see things being for us in the next season or two.
Mitchell Bray
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19 Comments
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Excellent article by Mitchell. It sums up the Blues plight accurately and frustratingly it shows little endeavour on the part of the owners. I feel for Lee and his staff who are doing their best under difficult circumstances. The future looks bleak unless the club is sold to new owners who want success.
The club, in my opinion, is slowly dying.
The women’s team appear to be a luxury our owners choose not to afford.
The ground is at present, one of the worst in the championship, with no sign of repair, let alone improvement.
The men’s squad has not one player who excites me, there is no pace in the team and not that much fight either.
Is it time for some kind of organised protest against the current regime, before it’s too late.
Agree totally ,these owners must sell now
Yes we are skint and it looks like no work is going on with the stands .
The ground has been sold and half the team are loan players and the training ground is rented, the club are are a shell and have been asset stripped..
Whilst I agree with the sentiments of your article, what you want would need owners who know what tney are doing and, more importantly, have an interest in the club.
Unfortunatly, we don’t have that.
Well said. My take is that since we dont effectively know who owns the club because thats how they want it to be then to me that means theyre not interested in us. We have become a laughing stock
Until these Dog **** Owners are gone nothing will change.I was at the ground yesterday getting my tickets for Fulham game and I looked at the stadium and it’s a disgrace.
Poor owners who have zero interest in the blues.I was collecting my Fulham tickets yesterday and noticed how run down the stadium looks.They just don’t care.
Spot on Mitchell, your article echoes the feelings of many Bluenoses.
I think your right, the club appears to have severe cash flow problems,
like many others l’m still waiting for the refunds for the seat disparity while Club Class was closed. We’re still being served up a sub standard programme in an attempt to save a few quid, and apart from a new paint job in the gents the stadium urgently needs some TLC. The atmosphere amongst supporters is generally downbeat, yes the lads try and normally you can’t fault the desire and endeavour, but season after season any early optimism has normally evaporated by the turn of the year. I feel for Lee, like us he’s had the rug pulled from beneath his feet, and was diplomatic enough not to use the words lies or liars.
These are not football people … they have no idea of our traditions and values.They only have the club for reasons that we don’t know but without slanderous **** slinging most of us suspect is not for football reasons. The players we have got are by and large really just not very good if they were they could string more than 3 passes together before hoofing it .some of them are stealing a living in a division they are not suited for. I see other clubs without household names that I wouldn’t class as Big clubs playing a different game to us .. they pass the ball to the same colour shirt .. they look comfy with the ball..the skill level is better and they aren’t blowing out of the arse after an hour. Money we have had has been squandered and the ground is a tip and quite frankly an eyesore and a poor reflection on the club to visitors but as stated earlier these people do not have our values and love for the club..
Lee Bowyer’s comment this week about ‘transition’ is interesting and perhaps encouraging. However, supporters really need more from our actual owners especially what the ‘transition ‘ actually means for the club as a whole. Emerging talents from within(if any) or future policy on recruiting players capable of lifting the club up the table etc. All we really glean from LB is offloading the high earners. Not much to hang your hat on.
Agree with everything said,financial situation can only get worse what with Stadium shutdown and Covid.Unfortunately it will be harder to get promoted in a few years because l am convinced the Premier League will be cut to 18 teams because of expansion of Champions League in a couple of seasons opening a way to a Premier Div 2,that will filter more money down to clubs in Div 2 but will Blues be there ???
Another great piece Mitchell. Pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as I’m concerned.
Disappointment this time around is a bit more acute though, because I had thought…foolishly, naively…that things might start to pick up this season with LB at the helm and Dong gone. Steady progression on and off the pitch was all I wanted to see.
Ok, we are slightly better off points wise but the pantomime that is our club just continues. I’m still fully supportive of LB but I despair of the owners and those making key off field decisions. Their continued refusal to engage with supporters is nothing short of disgraceful.
Smithy’s reference to “transition” is important. I noticed that comment from Lee Bowyer at the weekend too and wondered if he was signalling that things might have to get worse before they get better. Clearly problems run very deep and we might well have to suck things up for a bit longer before blue skies start to appear.
Really good article from Almajir yesterday…Regime Change. If you’ve not yet read it you should. He concludes by saying that he cannot hold the owners to account by himself. He’s absolutely right. If we want change, we need to give ourselves the best possible chance of achieving it by coming together and speaking with one voice. And the sooner the better in my view.
On that note, Merry Christmas and seasonal greetings to everyone at Blues Trust and to all Blues supporters near and far.
KRO
I think you have hit the nail on the head when you refer to our position in the Championship. For a time we were looking like genuine play off contenders. Then the players for some reason switched off and have become an inconsistent rabble. We cannot blame the Board for that – the only player who seems to give his all in every game is McGree and we will lose him very soon. He has ably filled the void left by the injury to Chong. We don’t know what support LB was to receive from the Board but would assume it was performance based. If so 17th would not inspire a financial input!
I was reading some interesting stuff by Dan Ivery about Mr King and Pech being related which proves that he owns the club by proxy. As a shady character on the run from the Chinese authorities I feel the noose is closing and they are getting ready to cash out. There’s hardly any assets left to strip and they’ll probably lose the HKSE listing so they’ll sell it maximizing their profits. I can’t see us as an attractive prospect to buyers though with no ground and serious debts.
Altogeter the daily mirror quoted the Blues as being in the red to the tune of £120 million?
So lets be honest who would go near a club in that much debt? ,then, add on the repair costs to the ground , then the rebuiding of a squad fit for a premier league push.
Im not sure we will have investors or buyers queuing up, do you?
Any blues fan 5-105 could of written the above article.But perhaps we have ourselves to blame do we honestly think if blues still had the two Davids in charge we would be were we are now not much better than when they took over all those years ago.We will still be blues supporters if we do a Bury.Keep calm and carry on it can only get better pray for a Christmas miriacle.There is someone out there who will invest in the “Sleeping Giant”.
It is very evident that the club is heading for a continued downwards slope…very quickly, and is a complete embarrassment to the city’s name!
Completely void of money, commercial commitment, no communication with Supporters, ground not only hazardous but also out dated, a squad worthless and in my opinion the worst since the McKay/Pendrey days.
We have lost a generation of Supporters to either Villa or bigger PL Clubs.
After over 50 years of supporting BCFC I am now resigned to accepting that we will not get our deserved new ownership,and are simply another version of our Black Country neighbours Walsall only slightly bigger in stature…at present!!!
Some very interesting replies which not only gets Blues supporters actively involved but demonstrates how much we care. Seasoned followers worried about a lost generation and ground conditions highlights just two issues. Paul Champ likening us a little higher in status to Walsall also interesting. New owners with a vision and openness can be the ultimate answer but overall please let whoever emerges arrive from the West- preferably rich US based. East I am afraid has taken it’s toll on all us.