I hate Rugby League

[The 4 of Us]

I don’t by the way!

If the “energy” coming from the top of the club is anything to go by, I suspect that Widnes are going to have an interesting year. 
 

 

[RigbyLuger]

People should stay off social media.

[Dunbar]

He has written that on LinkedIn by the looks of things which is a strange platform to vent those feelings as that isn't a platform that he will be using to connect with fans.  He will be on LinkedIn to progress his career and that isn't a particularly attractive post for a future employer to come across.

Never a good idea to post emotional messages in a professional capacity, no matter how justified you feel.

[JohnM]

9 hours ago, RigbyLuger said:

People should stay off social media.

Irony.

[M j M]

I have no idea about internal politics at Widnes. However regarding the love/hate bit, some context might be appropriate: the top line is the same format every week depending whether Widnes win, lose or draw.

 

 

 

Edited February 6 by M j M

[marklaspalmas]

Same person who used to own/run Oldham?

[Fevrover]

Yes it is.

[BIFFO61]

Ran oldham into the ground , you need to get shut of him .

[OriginalMrC]

This whole statement is a really weird and if I was a Widnes fan wouldn't inspire any confidence at all. Really sad that a club of Widnes stature is in such a bad place. 

[JohnM]

Mini-Degsie?

[Griff]

Thought this was one of Deano's threads.

[Tre Cool]

wow his LinkedIn posts are unprofessional, no wonder they're losing if he's in charge of anything, who's his boss? 

[DI Keith Fowler]

I was willing to give him a chance when he came in but it looks like everything Oldham fans were saying about him was correct.

I think the only positive thing which has happened was the profit sharing deal with the council over drinks and the fanzone being set up. But I understand these bring in a relative pittance.

In the negative column, despite promises the playing budget wouldn't be cut we've got a worse and no doubt cheaper squad than last year who look more likely to be relegated than make the play offs. 

Social media and marketing has gone from being one of the best in the division to one of the worst, no doubt due to budget cuts. Bluntly I think he's doing all the rudimentary/off brand graphics himself as well as penning all the social media posts. The writing style is way off the mark combined with spelling and grammatical errors. 

Sponsorship we now have a literal bailiffs as main sponsor, and we've moved to a less premium kit manufacturer with all that entails (all the merch is plain with iron on badges).

And as you can see the fanbase is being alienated by bizarre Linkedin posts. Not forgetting the misspelling of the town motto on the new shirt to no acknowledgement with the mistake continually replicated on social media graphics. Mistakes get made but it's gotten to the point where I can only assume that the lack of apology or correction is out of stubbornness. 

I've spoken to a lot of people who haven't renewed their season ticket this year, and the mood around the club is as low as I can remember. It wouldn't be fair to say this is all strictly down to him, as I think he was brought it to cut costs by a board that don't have the resources to maintain the club at the previous level, but at the very least it'd be good not to have to hear the guy moan about how unappreciated he in doing this. 

[DI Keith Fowler]

27 minutes ago, Tre Cool said:

wow his LinkedIn posts are unprofessional, no wonder they're losing if he's in charge of anything, who's his boss? 

Well there's a board and Chairman above him, but they're not especially monied up and don't want to deal in the day to day running of the club so he's been brought in as a bit of a one man band. 

[JonM]

13 minutes ago, Tre Cool said:

wow his LinkedIn posts are unprofessional, no wonder they're losing if he's in charge of anything, who's his boss? 

He was appointed by the board to run the club, as a full-time employee. There's been a fair bit of staff turnover, both playing and non-playing, since he joined. From the outside, it's hard to know whether he's done the right things or not, but he certainly seems to have a knack for making enemies, and I think it's probably correct to say that this season Widnes will be looking more to beat Dewsbury, Whitehaven, Swinton etc. and avoid relegation rather than vying with York, Batley, Halifax etc for one of the lower play-off spots.

There are some great RL people on the Widnes board with pedigrees that would warm the hearts of expansionists on here. Roger Harrison has an MBE for services to schools RL; he was taking Widnes u-11s teams to play in London 40+ years ago. Rod Steele who used to post on here set up an amateur team in Colne and so on. But being a retired primary school headmaster presumably doesn't give access to huge amounts of money or much experience of running a professional sports club. I'm very reluctant to criticise the board at all though. They stepped up with their life savings to rescue the club - a thankless task to some extent - and I suspect I'm financially much better off than some of them.

[Tre Cool]

5 minutes ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Well there's a board and Chairman above him, but they're not especially monied up and don't want to deal in the day to day running of the club so he's been brought in as a bit of a one man band. 

oh dear

[Tre Cool]

3 minutes ago, JonM said:

He was appointed by the board to run the club, as a full-time employee. There's been a fair bit of staff turnover, both playing and non-playing, since he joined. From the outside, it's hard to know whether he's done the right things or not, but he certainly seems to have a knack for making enemies, and I think it's probably correct to say that this season Widnes will be looking more to beat Dewsbury, Whitehaven, Swinton etc. and avoid relegation rather than vying with York, Batley, Halifax etc for one of the lower play-off spots.

There are some great RL people on the Widnes board with pedigrees that would warm the hearts of expansionists on here. Roger Harrison has an MBE for services to schools RL; he was taking Widnes u-11s teams to play in London 40+ years ago. Rod Steele who used to post on here set up an amateur team in Colne and so on. But being a retired primary school headmaster presumably doesn't give access to huge amounts of money or much experience of running a professional sports club. I'm very reluctant to criticise the board at all though. They stepped up with their life savings to rescue the club - a thankless task to some extent - and I suspect I'm financially much better off than some of them.

Hamilton's obviously been appointed for his experience which I guess is reasonable, although Oldham seemed to be barely surviving under him and playing in terrible facilities from what i remember? Posts like that on LinkedIn aren't good at all imo if you're running a business.  If he's like that on a public/professional forum what's he like away from it? 

[JonM]

Just now, Tre Cool said:

Hamilton's obviously been appointed for his experience which I guess is reasonable, although Oldham seemed to be barely surviving under him and playing in terrible facilities from what i remember? 

Probably Oldham fans are more familiar with the situation than me, but my understanding is that he put a certain amount of money from his accountancy business when he started there 25 years ago and then transitioned to it being his full-time job/ source of income. And the situation with the ground/ playing squad reflected the lack of anyone putting money into the club. Whereas Mike Ford and the new owners have been able to put significant amounts of new money in. 

[Spidey]

12 hours ago, The 4 of Us said:

I don’t by the way!

If the “energy” coming from the top of the club is anything to go by, I suspect that Widnes are going to have an interesting year. 
 

 

He’s been like that since appointed. He uses Widnes’ official linked in page as his soundboard. Still not decided if I’m getting a season ticket this year. League only starting in march has given me extra time to make a decision

[Tre Cool]

33 minutes ago, JonM said:

Probably Oldham fans are more familiar with the situation than me, but my understanding is that he put a certain amount of money from his accountancy business when he started there 25 years ago and then transitioned to it being his full-time job/ source of income. And the situation with the ground/ playing squad reflected the lack of anyone putting money into the club. Whereas Mike Ford and the new owners have been able to put significant amounts of new money in. 

The job of running a pro sports club is to find investment/sponsors - it's not just a thing that happens by luck. You need contacts and skills.

[roughyed8]

2 hours ago, JohnM said:

Mini-Degsie?

without the money to back it up!

[The 4 of Us]

2 hours ago, BIFFO61 said:

Ran oldham into the ground , you need to get shut of him .

Oldham appear to have improved in all regards since he was pesuaded to let go of the wheel.

Had it on fairly good authority at time that RFL wanted to ensure funding didn’t just cover salary of those running the gig and move away from one man band clubs, hence push to increase media presence, community involvement etc as set out in IMG stratedgy.
 

From what I read here, it appears that Widnes may manage to cut their clothe but go in a different direction in respect of those things that will matter most.  

[JonM]

11 minutes ago, Tre Cool said:

The job of running a pro sports club is to find investment/sponsors - it's not just a thing that happens by luck. You need contacts and skills.

That's one part of the job, yes. I'm sure we can all think of clubs that have had plenty of investment that hasn't produced success.

There's clearly many other areas that someone has to run - the whole matchday operations in terms of getting games played - pitch, kit, ground safety, drugs testing etc, the spectator matchday experience, ticketing, marketing/promotional/ media stuff and that's before you think about player & coach contracts, running teams for women, disability, wheelchair and so on. 

[moorside roughyed]

I just hope the new board at Oldham can rebuild the club after it was run into the ground by the previous administration.

[The Blues Ox]

40 minutes ago, moorside roughyed said:

I just hope the new board at Oldham can rebuild the club after it was run into the ground by the previous administration.

Certainly doing a good job so far, they should walk the league this year and to be honest I think the team they have this year would have avoided relegation in the Championship.