They're all a set of wankers at the Lane

[Tyler Durden]

My job on here is to disclose uncomfortable truths and debunk parochial S2/S13 garbage. Many of your contributions feature patent Bladey Claptrap and I have a duty to point it out, lest you think it has the slightest validity by virtue of it going un-mentioned.

You have zero authority to point anything out you S-whatever-the-fuck Derbyshire backwater interloper.

 

[Stretch]

I played along and voted, simply because the Deane / Fjortoft saga was perhaps the biggest 'we couldn't give a fuck about you' to its own fanbase that I have ever seen by a football club. There has probably been worse elsewhere but it's depressing to contemplate how exactly.

All that being said, good times now so let sleeping dogs lie eh?

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

My job on here is to disclose uncomfortable truths and debunk parochial S2/S13 garbage. Many of your contributions feature patent Bladey Claptrap and I have a duty to point it out, lest you think it has the slightest validity by virtue of it going un-mentioned.

They're all a set of wankers at the Lane ... especially those who don't venture into the real world beyond Shoreham Street ... is supping up London Road real world enough for you or is that classed as s2 claptrap too and as for S13 supping suppose I've ballsed it all up today

 

[coaxingstar71]

My top three from that list would be....

1. Selling Deane and Fjortoft on the same day (and then dismantle the rest of one of the best sides in recent history)
2. Selling Deane 1993 and not adequately replacing him
3. Appointing Robson because the side we had that season should have been good enough to get promoted again.

Edwards leaving in 1986 (and 1978) were not actually the boards fault. McEwan fell out with Edwards and wanted to get rid of him and Haslam wanted to sell Edwards and replaced him with Steve Finnieston.

I would also add another which is not giving Jimmy Hagan an opportunity to manage the club as he went onto get Peterborough promoted, breaking records in the process, and became very successful as manager of Benfica.

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

My top three from that list would be....

1. Selling Deane and Fjortoft on the same day (and then dismantle the rest of one of the best sides in recent history)
2. Selling Deane 1993 and not adequately replacing him
3. Appointing Robson because the side we had that season should have been good enough to get promoted again.

Edwards leaving in 1986 (and 1978) were not actually the boards fault. McEwan fell out with Edwards and wanted to get rid of him and Haslam wanted to sell Edwards and replaced him with Steve Finnieston.

I would also add another which is not giving Jimmy Hagan an opportunity to manage the club as he went onto get Peterborough promoted, breaking records in the process, and became very successful as manager of Benfica.

I was going to put not appointing Hagan as a manager but with him being successful at one of the giants in somewhere akin to the SPL then always contentious at how successful he would have been over here.

 

[knowsnowt]

My favourite word is "sausage".

 

[mancunianblade]

My favourite word is "sausage".

Mine is Pamphlet

 

[diode_blade]

My favourite word is "sausage".

Yes and together with tomato and bacon make a nice happy little threesome in between something called bed....oh i mean bread

 

[Pollingtonblade]

Could we even have appointed Clough or Ferguson?

 

[Pollingtonblade]

Oh and selling Kyle Walker for a pittance has to be up there. We didn’t have to sell him.

 

[JJ Sefton]

Accepting an invite to a paddle in Michael Barrymore's jacuzzi.

 

[JJ Sefton]

Slightly odd list. Flogging Jones and Birchenall was suicidal. Imagine Currie playing behind them two. No idea how serious the Clough/Ferguson things were. I don't think we could have held on to Currie if we'd wanted to. Maradona, ok, I'll give you that. Did we miss Sabella? Did Edwards do much after leaving us? Would he have done owt in a Bassett side? Aye, flogging Deane got us relegated, but it kept the creditors from kicking the door down. Flogging Deano/Ffjortoft was a massive bollock dropped. I remember coming home from school and seeing that on Teletext.

I went with hiring Robson, compounded with the vast pile of cash we gave him. We had the core, at least, of a good side and should have walked that division in 2007-2008. Instead we let some failed, gutless old drunk spunk our money away producing shite football. A massive missed opportunity we still haven't recovered from.

 

[davidblade]

Selling Deano/Fjortoft was a shock to the system. I think a lot of those on your list are difficult because they make big assumptions, like the idea that appointing a certain manager would mean we had the exact same success that he had at a different club - or any success. Same with players really. You can say, however, that selling players who were key in a successful team were the reason for failure if that failure immediately followed.

Agreed awful decision to sell both on the same day , but my vote has to the appointment of captain calamity himself. Robson what the fuck was McCabe thinking about. That wanker sent us spiralling down for 10 long years. I don’t who to blame more McCabe or Robson. But McCabe generally has the clubs best interests at heart even though they’re self interests as well and he eventually redeemed himself by the appointment of Wilder.

 

[metalblade]

Yeah I went for hiring Robson most fans at the time said it would set us back 10 years how right they were, McCabe must have been tripping to hire that drunkard.

 

[Carlton Blade]

The Star letting MM fill the paper up with £3m for Hamilton Ricard rumours after Deane/Fjortoft still makes my blood boil

 

[tomtheblade]

Speaking from in my lifetime, it has to be hiring Robson. Players are always going to come and go, sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it's utterly moronic, but it's part of the game and often not 100% within the clubs control. There are a lot of forces at play.

This is not the case with hiring managers however, particularly when the club is in a relatively good position to challenge for promotion and is therefore an attractive proposition for many good applicants. Hiring Robson was so obviously a terrible move from day one it was flabbergasting. Everything bad that happened in the near decade that followed sprung from that atrocious decision.

In the interests of balance, it gets on my wick when people call the club 'rotten to the core' when, despite some severe problems, it quite clearly isn't. A club such as SISU fits that description, but Utd, say under Adkins were most definitely not. We're now near the top of the championship thanks to the best manager in my lifetime, but the ownership is exactly the same now as it was then, so it can't have been all that bad, even if it seemed that way at the time.

We really do have the fundamentals of a well-run club, we just failed to show it on the pitch for a long time. Luckily that's now turning around.

 

[Woodwardfan]

The timing of this O.P. is odd: very late at night on a day we won 3-0 and got back into the play-off places.

Vulgar, basic, insulting diatribe is inevitable. Morons.

Better in an International Break if it's so vital to you Handsworth.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

Obviously aimed at successive boardrooms at S2, having read today's programme another nugget (Brian Clough) to add to a very long list (I'm sure all the usual club apologists will be along shortly spouting their usual excuses / bile). So here goes:-

Interesting poll and I would bet that the answers so far reflect the age group of those taking the poll.

For me, the last option, "not backing Wilder in the JTW" would be as a big a mistake as any of those previous options, so that's what I voted for, even though it's not actually happened yet, so in that sense, it's not really an option.

I've witnessed all the things in that list btw. I'd say the selling of Jones and Birchenall was a big disappointment, but the sale of TC to Leeds was even greater. I'd put the TC sale first, then in second I'd put the selling of Deano and Fjortoft, then the Jones/Birchenall sale.

But I come back to the option I voted for, "Not backing Wilder in the JTW"...

This is the best chance we have to get back in the Premiership since we left it 10 years ago. No one knows what next season will bring. It's o.k. folks saying, "consolidate", but no-one has any idea whether that's what will happen. We've no idea whether we'll keep our best players throughout the summer, or lose them through injury once next season starts. We've no guarantees whatsoever that next season will be an improvement on this one. None. So, we have to absolutely push the boundaries now if we want to get out of this division. I don't mean spend millions - I mean give Wilder enough to work with for him to turn this team of players that looks capable of a top 6 finish, into one which will look certain of a top 2 finish.

It's probably the most important decision a Sheffield United Board have faced for years. I hope they realise that.

 

[I should coco]

In fairness, we gave him no money whatsoever.

Ched £3m

Darriius 'yellow card' Henderson £2m

The man was an idiot. A reasonable coach, but absolutely clueless as a manger.

 

[Woodwardfan]

Interesting poll and I would bet that the answers so far reflect the age group of those taking the poll.

For me, the last option, "not backing Wilder in the JTW" would be as a big a mistake as any of those previous options, so that's what I voted for, even though it's not actually happened yet, so in that sense, it's not really an option.

I've witnessed all the things in that list btw. I'd say the selling of Jones and Birchenall was a big disappointment, but the sale of TC to Leeds was even greater. I'd put the TC sale first, then in second I'd put the selling of Deano and Fjortoft, then the Jones/Birchenall sale.

But I come back to the option I voted for, "Not backing Wilder in the JTW"...

This is the best chance we have to get back in the Premiership since we left it 10 years ago. No one knows what next season will bring. It's o.k. folks saying, "consolidate", but no-one has any idea whether that's what will happen. We've no idea whether we'll keep our best players throughout the summer, or lose them through injury once next season starts. We've no guarantees whatsoever that next season will be an improvement on this one. None. So, we have to absolutely push the boundaries now if we want to get out of this division. I don't mean spend millions - I mean give Wilder enough to work with for him to turn this team of players that looks capable of a top 6 finish, into one which will look certain of a top 2 finish.

It's probably the most important decision a Sheffield United Board have faced for years. I hope they realise that.

They are extending the ground in anticipation.

BTW I think we might all be somewhat surprised by how little Wilder thinks we need this JTW. Just a hunch.

 

[Selly]

I went for Deane/Fjortoft when I read only the thread title, then read the options and discovered I'd completely forgotten about appointing Robson.

The Deane/Fjortoft thing was gutting at the time, but we had already started being inconsistent ever since Ainsworth did Whitehouse. We were far from guaranteed to even get in the top two had we retained them. A cup run masked significant issues in the second half of that season.

The Robson thing. FML. An opportunity to turn into a yo-yo club and eventually consolidate with a team that was relegated by the smallest possible margin in the most controversial of circumstances. Despite the job Blackwell eventually did getting us to a PO final, every bad thing in the last 10 years, including the L1 wilderness years, can be tracked back to that decision.

 

[bladesmanluke]

Ched £3m

Darriius 'yellow card' Henderson £2m

The man was an idiot. A reasonable coach, but absolutely clueless as a manger.

Not during his final summer as the claim went that he spent all our transfer budget and then we sacked him. He didn’t spend anything that summer.

 

[Bayingblade]

At the risk of being vilified I think the record needs putting straight about the Deane/Fjortfoft debacle. It was the players who wanted the moves. Deane was offered a chance to play for one of the biggest clubs in Europe and simply wanted to go. The board gave him the choice to stay or leave and he chose the latter. As he says in the book Blade Runners, "what do you do when a club like Benfica wants you to sign?".

Fjortfoft was a little more complex. It was a world cup year and he wanted a chance to get into the Norwegian world cup squad. His only chance to do this was to play in the PL which would give him the exposure he needed (at his age at the time, it was his last chance). Barnsley, in their one PL season, came along with the offer and again, it was him that chose to take it.

Yes, the board could possibly have blocked both offers but it would have been left with two pretty pissed off players. The timing was as bad as it could have been but to put the total blame on the board for these sales is unfair and to suggest the board actively sought the sales is totally untrue. It could even be argued that the board acted honourably in letting both players know of the offers and allowing them to make the decision.

 

[PittsburghBlade]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, the board have to make decisions and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. Don't get me wrong they've fucked us on a few occasions but hindsight regret leaves you always wanting something more whether its life or football.

 

[coaxingstar71]

I was going to put not appointing Hagan as a manager but with him being successful at one of the giants in somewhere akin to the SPL then always contentious at how successful he would have been over here.

The Benfica containing the great Eusebio and he also got them to the European Cup Semi Final in 1971/72, only losing to an Ajax side with Johan Cruyff in it? Yeah, just like Celtic or Rangers

 

[coaxingstar71]

The timing of this O.P. is odd: very late at night on a day we won 3-0 and got back into the play-off places.

Vulgar, basic, insulting diatribe is inevitable. Morons.

Better in an International Break if it's so vital to you Handsworth.

TBF, I believe the OP was inspired by an interesting piece in the matchday programme about John Hassell. Among other things, it mentions that Clough was considered for the manager job just before Furphy was appointed, but the board were not prepared to accept his list of players demands. Many of whom, of course, would end up winning the European Cup with Forest.

 

[Woodwardfan]

TBF, I believe the OP was inspired by an interesting piece in the matchday programme about John Hassell. Among other things, it mentions that Clough was considered for the manager job just before Furphy was appointed, but the board were not prepared to accept his list of players demands. Many of whom, of course, would end up winning the European Cup with Forest.

WOW!!

Brian Clough one of just a handful of my all time heroes.

Thanks Coaxing.

Handsworth. I want to change my vote please!!!

 

[west_yorks_blade]

My job on here is to disclose uncomfortable truths and debunk parochial S2/S13 garbage. Many of your contributions feature patent Bladey Claptrap and I have a duty to point it out, lest you think it has the slightest validity by virtue of it going un-mentioned.

Who gave you that job?
What an ego!

 

[blade too long]

it never ceases to amaze me how some fans think we of the 92 clubs are the only club to sell players

All clubs sell their players

logic dictates its their better players as no one wants the shit ones
the opening post has a dozen examples in 50 years

pathetic , some clubs sell that many in one season

and you forgot to mention of the 10 players the board sold 9 the board had bought in the first place

get a fucking grip

man utd sold stam backham ronaldo cole yorke and loads more , all better than any we have sold

 

[Hamburg Blade]

it never ceases to amaze me how some fans think we of the 92 clubs are the only club to sell players

All clubs sell their players

logic dictates its their better players as no one wants the shit ones
the opening post has a dozen examples in 50 years

pathetic , some clubs sell that many in one season

get a fucking grip

There's a difference between selling your players, even your best ones, and ripping the heart out of your team, leaving it to flounder and fail. The list of "a dozen examples in 50 years" isn't the only sales we've made, just some of the more significant ones. And yes, every club sells, but you may have noticed that the more successful ones also buy.