Stephen Bettis live on Football Heaven tonight (6-7pm)

[The Crab]

We have an accountant who lets a poker player gamble our money on players using AI intelligence.......
If 1 in 5 come good we are doing OK.....
What an absolute load of bollocks
These haven't got a clue how to run a football club ....
In my opinion we are only going 1 way .....
The wilder situation tells the whole story ,an absolute fucking shambles
We are in the shit with these clowns

 

[S1268blade]

Insightfull...we have bought some extra land adjacent to the Dore complex so it can be bigger,and the womens team are already training on a pitch ,,, i said this > that has been prepared by ex-pig groundsman

Insightfull...we have bought some extra land adjacent to the Dore complex so it can be bigger,and the womens team are already training on a pitch ,,, i said this > that has been prepared by ex-pig groundsman Tim.

No it hasn't, he has been based completely at Shirecliffe so far to get those pitches upto the standard needed. HSBC is being covered by staff on rotation with no permanent team up there as yet.

 

[The Crab]

People moan that no one from the club speaks out

Then someone does an interview and just about every comment on here finds a negative view on what’s said

Wonder why they don’t speak up often?!

Not from me, fair play for coming on and I don’t have an issue with him.

I just think (not his fault) that he is more the monkey than the organ grinder with COH

 

[Lower Drop Blade]

Asked right at beginning. SB said they’re the new kids on the block (paraphrase!) and will communicate at some stage in future!!

Lordy

 

[Berkshire Blade]

As opposed to letting the board do the signing like they did in August? That worked out well.
At least the vast majority of signing by Wilder promoted twice and we’ve enjoyed the best spell of football for many years.
Give it to the board to do signing and we are bottom.
What exactly do you want?

The AI bloke did the youngsters/ai lot, Selles did the loans and a mix did the others it came across like.

None of which have been a overwhelming success so far.

The bringing up of MGW being offered to us with days to go of a window compared to the utter crap soon to go back crap selles brought in loan was depressing!

 

[Jan Age]

The League 1 wilderness years chapter 2

 

[nopigfansintown]

True. But will they?

The club has needed a DoF or the like for many a year

Somebody off the Kop that takes a middling interest in football would be an improvement. Imagine being on the football staff and they're your 'go to' What happened to Des Taylor?


Further to that... fans wanting people who have no knowledge of the game to interact with fans on a specialism they know diddly about should now park that request. It's a bit like asking your average Blade to hold court with a bunch of rabid Yanks over the finer intricacies of baseball. They/we can only come out of it embarrassing themselves .

The grand revolutionary plans on the way in now look like the height of arrogance and naiveté . They're clueless. Bettis knows it, the football staff know it, we know it, and they may already (have come to) know it. Tbh that was a hell of a lot more worrying than I was expecting.

 

[Rodley]

The AI bloke did the youngsters/ai lot, Selles did the loans and a mix did the others it came across like.

None of which have been a overwhelming success so far.

The bringing up of MGW being offered to us with days to go of a window compared to the utter crap soon to go back crap selles brought in loan was depressing!

The loans have been an utter car crash.

 

[nopigfansintown]

So do you think he covered himself in glory ?
I dont ...
He deserves all the flack he's going to get .....
Its a fucking mess

I thought he was pretty honest. He was more nervous than he's ever been because he's well aware it's a turd that can't be polished. He's probably also aware that going forward the board structure means it's likely to continue on that trajectory. Overall he should've looked after himself and not taken the interview.

 

[Super Furry Blades]

I thought he was pretty honest. He was more nervous than he's ever been because he's well aware it's a turd that can't be polished. He's probably also aware that going forward the board structure means it's likely to continue on that trajectory. Overall he should've looked after himself and not taken the interview.

Probably some truth in your last sentence....
Im not blaming him ,but who got this James Bord involved with player recruitment?
Its a shambles in my opinion

 

[nopigfansintown]

Probably some truth in your last sentence....
Im not blaming him ,but who got this James Bord involved with player recruitment?
Its a shambles in my opinion

The much trumpeted transfer revolution didn't add up to a packet of chips

I think SB was in the position of either lie, avoid the interview, or make yourself look like a twat. To his credit I don't think he lied.

 

[Simple Blade]

Thought he made a decent fist of it tbh, when we’ve amassed all of 3 points by the middle of October! Answered questions directly and straightforwardly. Nothing new, except didn’t know we’d bought the additional land at Dore.

 

[CPB]

Sadly went as I expected. Nothing new of note that's big news.

Most interesting is we got more land at the Dore site.

 

[Cheeky Blade]

Ooh Bettis…

.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I am really shocked that this guy is not being taken to task. His position is CEO. Which means he develops and delivers the strategy that is signed of by the none executive board (owners) so who’s decision was it to sack wilder and bring I someone worse.

Who’s responsibility is it to make signings late so they are not fit for purpose (dispote his constant drivel about it being out of our hands)

If he was not involved in these decisions then what exactly does he do????

Maybe a good accountant who can deliver financial support which is a CFO,s job

Raging

 

[TJ blade]

I am really shocked that this guy is not being taken to task. His position is CEO. Which means he develops and delivers the strategy that is signed of by the none executive board (owners) so who’s decision was it to sack wilder and bring I someone worse.

Who’s responsibility is it to make signings late so they are not fit for purpose (dispote his constant drivel about it being out of our hands)

If he was not involved in these decisions then what exactly does he do????

Maybe a good accountant who can deliver financial support which is a CFO,s job

Raging

Its painstakingly obvious, he's out of his fckg depth! A bit like the clowns what own us ffs!

 

[Tickhill Blade]

I am really shocked that this guy is not being taken to task. His position is CEO. Which means he develops and delivers the strategy that is signed of by the none executive board (owners) so who’s decision was it to sack wilder and bring I someone worse.

Who’s responsibility is it to make signings late so they are not fit for purpose (dispote his constant drivel about it being out of our hands)

If he was not involved in these decisions then what exactly does he do????

Maybe a good accountant who can deliver financial support which is a CFO,s job

Raging

Since the takeover Bettis is also a director and on the board isn't he? So he is saying that in his role as CEO he had no input into the decision on the manager, and also in his role as director and board member? Unbelievable really. Maybe he was just concentrating on getting the carpark resurfaced

 

[Nelson1889]

Bettis must wake up every day laughing to himself that he's still not been rumbled as an absolute chancer.

I honestly have no idea what he does day to day apart from listen to Wilder on the phone talking about transfers that we'll likely never get done because our CEO is a fucking useless tosspot.

Oh and he's a ssssssnek

 

[Bladesman]

Thought he made a decent fist of it tbh, when we’ve amassed all of 3 points by the middle of October! Answered questions directly and straightforwardly. Nothing new, except didn’t know we’d bought the additional land at Dore.

That's a signal that the owners are still looking to invest. They could have put a pause on the whole lot on the back of not getting promoted (PA would have put a stop to it had he still been owner)

I thought Bettis overall did okay, he pretty much confirmed what most of us suspected especially with regards to McBurnie not coming back etc. These owners are new to the game and they are starting to learn, a shame we had to have chaos of Selles for them to get it but here we are.

Despite what others have issue with, the thing I did have quite an issue with is lack of memorial for George. I get what Bettis is saying in terms of how do you measure him against other players of the past who pass away but George is one of the PL top tenners and a double promotion winner with us. I do think George deserves something to honour him at the club.

 

[Harry's Game]

Very disappointing in terms of information being extracted. Would have preferred Staton who is more probing. Not one of SB's better interviews. Became a mates chat at the end about the football regulator. There were questions in there about structure and the need for a DOF that were avoided.

The first part confirmed the chaos that was prevalent at the Club in terms of deciding whether to dismiss CW. There was an admission the owners don't have football experience so why not bring some into the Board who has? SB was excluded from interviewing Selles. RS was recommended to the owners and they spoke to him. There was no formal interviewing of other candidates so he was the only choice. Shambolic and no amount of "they admit their mistakes" disguises the fact those in power do not possess the tools to effectively to manage the Club.

James Bords influence at owner level was skirted around. He is being employed as a consultant so extra costs will be involved. The justification for his role in recruitment was he may unearth a gem for the future! It was telling that despite the assertion CW will be the final arbiter when recruiting new players all targets will still have to go to Bords team to assess.

Some other nuggets;

Dore will not happen until we get promoted to the EPL.
Parachute payments have been forward funded so there will be less money available next year.
The womens team cost £1.5 mill a year to run. They are training at Dore now.
Targets for January have been identified. The loan market will be used. So some of the existing ones are going back. Seems we will have the last minute rush again as SB referenced players becoming available late in the window. So status quo again.
CW is here for the season at least.
The Owners plan seems to be simply limited to get promoted to the EPL. There are financial fall back positions in place should we go down.
Ruben Selles didn't want McBurnie sounds like Bettis did. Again a prime example of the need for a DOF as SB constantly said he was an accountant and didn't get involved in football matters.

Unlike his last interview with Staton I felt this was a stumbling performance repeating familiar strap lines in terms of recruitment regarding the window.

It was inferred lessons had been learnt but Giddings failed to probe on what exactly these were. The only learning that seemed to come across was we shouldn't have sacked CW and now we've got him back everything in the garden will be rosy.

Seems we've reverted back to plate spinning and innovative change has been parked for now.

 

[FH Team]

If anyone missed the show and would like to watch or listen back, the links are still active:

Watch on the @BBCSport website https://bbc.in/BettisSW

Listen on @BBCSounds https://bbc.in/BettisSounds

 

[JohnDenver]

Baffled to hear him say we "lose" 1.5+m per year on the women's team. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding the latest accounts, the women's team had a gross loss of less than nine thousand pounds in 2024...?

We SPEND around 1.5m on the women's team looking at that. It also generates about the same.

I thought his tone with regard to the women’s team wasn’t ideal. But there’s no question the hierarchy have improved on supporting the team since last season’s nonsense.

Since you mention the numbers, I’m curious as to where £1.5m of income comes from? Is it largely subsidised by the league?

 

[Bladesman]

I thought his tone with regard to the women’s team wasn’t ideal. But there’s no question the hierarchy have improved on supporting the team since last season’s nonsense.

Since you mention the numbers, I’m curious as to where £1.5m of income comes from? Is it largely subsidised by the league?

Probably because he is an accountant and anyone with half a brain can spot the women's game is making next to fuck all at the moment. It may change as he says in the next 4 or 5 years but considering that a non-league club like Lewes FC can barely afford the mad idea of paying their women's team the same as their men's proves the women's game has a long way to go.

So his tone is suggesting the numbers don't add up and if it was his money he probably wouldn't want to be losing close to £2 million a year when many Championship clubs lose around £10 million plus a season just standing still.

 

[The Crab]

Probably some truth in your last sentence....
Im not blaming him ,but who got this James Bord involved with player recruitment?
Its a shambles in my opinion

A card player involved in transfers? Let’s get some more pub game players involved.

What’s Jocky Wilson up to these days?

Who is the world dominoes champion? Let’s get them sorting the JTW.

Next fans forum will be at the Wheeltappers and Shunters club. Pie and pea supper, bingo starts at nine sharp. Meat raffle tickets available from 7pm

What a fucking clusterfuck. At least Bettis knows the club, just a shame that COH are holding his lead

 

[PageHallBlade]

Sadly went as I expected. Nothing new of note that's big news.

Most interesting is we got more land at the Dore site.

the dore site was it specified what bit as here was a piece of land that been sat on for years and never succeeded in planning permission for houses wonder if its that

 

[Varkanoid]

Despite what others have issue with, the thing I did have quite an issue with is lack of memorial for George. I get what Bettis is saying in terms of how do you measure him against other players of the past who pass away but George is one of the PL top tenners and a double promotion winner with us. I do think George deserves something to honour him at the club.

Easy answer is put it to a fans vote and it will be obvious which way the vote would go. So another thing the Management are clueless over - what the fans want.

 

[The Crab]

If anyone missed the show and would like to watch or listen back, the links are still active:

Watch on the @BBCSport website https://bbc.in/BettisSW

Listen on @BBCSounds https://bbc.in/BettisSounds

Cheers for putting it on

 

[Beans]

I thought his tone with regard to the women’s team wasn’t ideal. But there’s no question the hierarchy have improved on supporting the team since last season’s nonsense.

Since you mention the numbers, I’m curious as to where £1.5m of income comes from? Is it largely subsidised by the league?

From what I understand the second tier receives 25% of broadcasting and central sponsorship of both WSL and WSL2 combined, which I assume is split equally twelve ways but might be tied to finishing position? Not sure. The Premier League also loaned WPLL (the league body which covers the top two tiers) 20m fairly recently which I think yeah, we can take as subsidizing the league(s).

But yes, from United's point of view the women's team all-but pays for itself unless we're sweating over spending 0.01% of a Tom Cannon on it annually. It's not like closing down the women's team would suddenly free up cash for the men's, which I imagine some people will think from Bettis' words earlier.

Edit: to be fair, the league did also raise the financial requirements for a license this year which is why Blackburn (who were paying 9,000 a YEAR to players) dropped out, while we were willing to meet the requirements. So it's likely we ARE spending more on the team this season - but I imagine it's still exceedingly paltry compared to the overall outgoings by the club.

 

[Ned the Donkey]

Bought more land at Dore but there will be no work on the site this season.

Hedged a bit when asked if there would be any work there without promotion to the Premier League.

They're working on it right now. Well not right now because it 11pm, but it was a building site when I went past the other day.

 

[FriethBlade]

Not from me, fair play for coming on and I don’t have an issue with him.

I just think (not his fault) that he is more the monkey than the organ grinder with COH

Id prefer the CEO to be an organ grinder. Haven't listened to it yet but anyone more confident we wont be doing a Luton after listening?