ilkleyram

I would like to apologise to what appears to be a good number of my fellow Rams fans on these pages.  I have driven for about 5 hours today, spent £40 on petrol, £25 on a ticket and another £10 odd on sundries like the best pie I’ve had in ages, parking and a programme. The weather was fantastic, the scenery only matched by the Peak District and the ground was a proper old football ground with, from my seat, the wierdest view in football.
Oh, and although it’s hard to gather from these pages, my, our, team won. 2-0 away from home against a team in good form according to their manager, late of this parish, and with some excellent individual performances, an improved overall team performance, in front of a vociferous and supportive away following.
I’ve had a cracking day. Sorry.

I would like to apologise to what appears to be a good number of my fellow Rams fans on these pages.  I have driven for about 5 hours today, spent £40 on petrol, £25 on a ticket and another £10 odd on sundries like the best pie I’ve had in ages, parking and a programme. The weather was fantastic, the scenery only matched by the Peak District and the ground was a proper old football ground with, from my seat, the wierdest view in football.
Oh, and although it’s hard to gather from these pages, my, our, team won. 2-0 away from home against a team in good form according to their manager, late of this parish, and with some excellent individual performances, an improved overall team performance, in front of a vociferous and supportive away following.
I’ve had a cracking day. Sorry.

Dammit.

Joe Ward must have been brilliant with Barks last night - so brilliant I never noticed him

Joe Ward must have been brilliant with Barks last night - so brilliant I never noticed him

Joe Ward must have been brilliant with Barks last night - so brilliant I never noticed him

Like others before him - Greenwood being just the latest example - Russell Brand is done for except, possibly, on social media.  Which Council or business will hire out their local arena for his stand up show, which employer (BBC/ITV/Sky/BT) will canvass his views or use him, which mainstream media outlet will pay him to write articles or present programmes, which company will employ him as an after dinner speaker?  They will all fight shy of an inevitable backlash if they were to do so. His career is already toast.
And yet.  He has not been found guilty of anything. May not be guilty of anything other than being an odious character making the most of their power like many others, male and female, have done before him.  Perhaps finding four people to tell similar stories wasn't very hard for a very, very promiscuous man (his own words). It was probably a large pool of people to ask. He has been tried and judged by Dispatches and the Sunday Times and found guilty in the court of public opinion.
I still can't see why we can't have, in these cases, anonymity on both sides until guilt is properly established. It protects both sides - how many people are, at this moment, trying to find out who the accusers really are; how much 'fishing' for other accusers are the police currently doing, to add to bonfire; how many people are putting themselves forward as victims who have never actually met Brand; how long will this process of identification and investigation take as others now put themselves forward?
If he's found to be guilty after due process he's fair game.  At that point perhaps others would step forward and have their cases established, or not.  But at the moment in our society in these type of cases guilt rather than innocence is what is presumed.  That should worry us all, imo.

Like others before him - Greenwood being just the latest example - Russell Brand is done for except, possibly, on social media.  Which Council or business will hire out their local arena for his stand up show, which employer (BBC/ITV/Sky/BT) will canvass his views or use him, which mainstream media outlet will pay him to write articles or present programmes, which company will employ him as an after dinner speaker?  They will all fight shy of an inevitable backlash if they were to do so. His career is already toast.
And yet.  He has not been found guilty of anything. May not be guilty of anything other than being an odious character making the most of their power like many others, male and female, have done before him.  Perhaps finding four people to tell similar stories wasn't very hard for a very, very promiscuous man (his own words). It was probably a large pool of people to ask. He has been tried and judged by Dispatches and the Sunday Times and found guilty in the court of public opinion.
I still can't see why we can't have, in these cases, anonymity on both sides until guilt is properly established. It protects both sides - how many people are, at this moment, trying to find out who the accusers really are; how much 'fishing' for other accusers are the police currently doing, to add to bonfire; how many people are putting themselves forward as victims who have never actually met Brand; how long will this process of identification and investigation take as others now put themselves forward?
If he's found to be guilty after due process he's fair game.  At that point perhaps others would step forward and have their cases established, or not.  But at the moment in our society in these type of cases guilt rather than innocence is what is presumed.  That should worry us all, imo.

Like others before him - Greenwood being just the latest example - Russell Brand is done for except, possibly, on social media.  Which Council or business will hire out their local arena for his stand up show, which employer (BBC/ITV/Sky/BT) will canvass his views or use him, which mainstream media outlet will pay him to write articles or present programmes, which company will employ him as an after dinner speaker?  They will all fight shy of an inevitable backlash if they were to do so. His career is already toast.
And yet.  He has not been found guilty of anything. May not be guilty of anything other than being an odious character making the most of their power like many others, male and female, have done before him.  Perhaps finding four people to tell similar stories wasn't very hard for a very, very promiscuous man (his own words). It was probably a large pool of people to ask. He has been tried and judged by Dispatches and the Sunday Times and found guilty in the court of public opinion.
I still can't see why we can't have, in these cases, anonymity on both sides until guilt is properly established. It protects both sides - how many people are, at this moment, trying to find out who the accusers really are; how much 'fishing' for other accusers are the police currently doing, to add to bonfire; how many people are putting themselves forward as victims who have never actually met Brand; how long will this process of identification and investigation take as others now put themselves forward?
If he's found to be guilty after due process he's fair game.  At that point perhaps others would step forward and have their cases established, or not.  But at the moment in our society in these type of cases guilt rather than innocence is what is presumed.  That should worry us all, imo.

No reason in principle why not but a lot of things have to go right at the same time from player to manager (and that is NOT a comment about our current manager). And above all we would have to have a lot of luck going our way on everything from referees decisions to academy fruitfulness.
If there’s anything I worry about about David Clowes’ ownership is his relative wealth. He’s clearly a rich man by any stretch of imagination. Good for him.  But he isn’t football rich it seems to me even at championship level never mind PL level. When you have clubs effectively owned by countries rather than individuals then having a couple of hundred million isn’t enough, especially if you then want your club/business to be self sustainable.  
There are reasons why very few (can’t name any but I presume there are some) football clubs are actually self sustainable and genuinely have income greater than expenditure. I doubt any in the PL actually are, nor the championship for that matter and so for us to get there requires someone to spend/gamble enough to make it possible or take a long time (and have a lot of patience). We’re not a club with a lot of patience from top to bottom as these pages often demonstrate.
I don’t know how many years of watching live football I have left.  I’ve done 60 or so. David Clowes’ relative financial weakness is a huge problem for football as a whole and is the result of FFP and TV plus feeble football administration. I live in hope that we will gain two promotions in the next 10 years or so and that I see it,  but I’m not expecting it. We certainly can’t win anything in the top league any more other than individual matches. I am just glad that I have lived through the golden age of football when football life was simpler, fairer and better. And we were good.

Yeah deffo agree to disagree on this one except on the public speaking and accountants claim. I think you're right there 🙂

No reason in principle why not but a lot of things have to go right at the same time from player to manager (and that is NOT a comment about our current manager). And above all we would have to have a lot of luck going our way on everything from referees decisions to academy fruitfulness.
If there’s anything I worry about about David Clowes’ ownership is his relative wealth. He’s clearly a rich man by any stretch of imagination. Good for him.  But he isn’t football rich it seems to me even at championship level never mind PL level. When you have clubs effectively owned by countries rather than individuals then having a couple of hundred million isn’t enough, especially if you then want your club/business to be self sustainable.  
There are reasons why very few (can’t name any but I presume there are some) football clubs are actually self sustainable and genuinely have income greater than expenditure. I doubt any in the PL actually are, nor the championship for that matter and so for us to get there requires someone to spend/gamble enough to make it possible or take a long time (and have a lot of patience). We’re not a club with a lot of patience from top to bottom as these pages often demonstrate.
I don’t know how many years of watching live football I have left.  I’ve done 60 or so. David Clowes’ relative financial weakness is a huge problem for football as a whole and is the result of FFP and TV plus feeble football administration. I live in hope that we will gain two promotions in the next 10 years or so and that I see it,  but I’m not expecting it. We certainly can’t win anything in the top league any more other than individual matches. I am just glad that I have lived through the golden age of football when football life was simpler, fairer and better. And we were good.

I couldn’t tell you about any NDA’s or anything like that (because I don’t know about any) but I can tell you that I spoke to Stephen for about ten minutes, about an hour before the event. I had a similar chat with Paul earlier in the day. It was more to make sure they understood the timings and format. So there certainly wasn’t any rehearsing between us. 
Personally my prep was about as limited as it gets, given that the format was primarily questions from the floor, plus the handful we had in advance. I started with a couple from me just to get things going - in my experience it can take an audience a while to warm up, and I wanted it to start with a bit of momentum.
Hope that helps. 

I think we’ll probably have to agree to disagree @Leeds Ram.
But perhaps I can say this. The club including Pearce and @Owen87ITK, will (I would guess) have spent hours and hours preparing for the forum and very deliberately aimed to make something of a statement of intent right at the beginning, knowing that SP’s continued involvement was an issue amongst some of the fan base. His comments, which he reverted to when they got the question they were expecting, were clearly rehearsed and (again I guess) were couched in the way they were mainly because of the NDAs in place and because they all want to move on - club, Clowes and SP himself.  So the chances of us getting any more are, I think, remote at best. There’s no appetite for it.
Fwiw I don’t think that SP is particularly confident in an open forum on camera. He comes across as over prepared and nervous, unlike Warne who’s the opposite. In my experience most accountants aren’t often good public speakers, able to talk human and quick enough to find the right words to satisfy an audience. It’s why they’re accountants. A sweeping generalisation I appreciate. As CEO you would ideally want him to be a better public communicator but that’s not, in my view, his skill set. Hopefully in smaller groups amongst the staff he’s leading he is better and more confident.

I think we’ll probably have to agree to disagree @Leeds Ram.
But perhaps I can say this. The club including Pearce and @Owen87ITK, will (I would guess) have spent hours and hours preparing for the forum and very deliberately aimed to make something of a statement of intent right at the beginning, knowing that SP’s continued involvement was an issue amongst some of the fan base. His comments, which he reverted to when they got the question they were expecting, were clearly rehearsed and (again I guess) were couched in the way they were mainly because of the NDAs in place and because they all want to move on - club, Clowes and SP himself.  So the chances of us getting any more are, I think, remote at best. There’s no appetite for it.
Fwiw I don’t think that SP is particularly confident in an open forum on camera. He comes across as over prepared and nervous, unlike Warne who’s the opposite. In my experience most accountants aren’t often good public speakers, able to talk human and quick enough to find the right words to satisfy an audience. It’s why they’re accountants. A sweeping generalisation I appreciate. As CEO you would ideally want him to be a better public communicator but that’s not, in my view, his skill set. Hopefully in smaller groups amongst the staff he’s leading he is better and more confident.

At the risk of starting some sort of Yorkshire in fighting I don’t want an apology from Stephen Pearce or Mel Morris for that matter. It would be as meaningless (to me) as the government apologising for slavery or nicking the Elgin marbles or any other historic ‘failure’. What happened happened and a ‘sorry’ achieves nothing for me. What’s more important is what happens now and in the future.  Clowes knows the guy and his work and clearly thinks he’s the right person for the job now and that’s his choice not mine. I trust Clowes with the whole club so why not with his choice of CEO?
 I would love an explanation and to know who said and did what, when and to whom but that’s just out of personal curiosity and nosiness.  It’s never going to happen in a month of Sundays. Everyone has signed up to the NDAs and will be worried about legal action if they break them. That suits the club as much as it does all the individuals involved because it prevents all the coals being endlessly raked over and allows club, owner, CEO, EFL, administrator and everyone else to move on. Perhaps we all should too because nothing’s going to change.

At the risk of starting some sort of Yorkshire in fighting I don’t want an apology from Stephen Pearce or Mel Morris for that matter. It would be as meaningless (to me) as the government apologising for slavery or nicking the Elgin marbles or any other historic ‘failure’. What happened happened and a ‘sorry’ achieves nothing for me. What’s more important is what happens now and in the future.  Clowes knows the guy and his work and clearly thinks he’s the right person for the job now and that’s his choice not mine. I trust Clowes with the whole club so why not with his choice of CEO?
 I would love an explanation and to know who said and did what, when and to whom but that’s just out of personal curiosity and nosiness.  It’s never going to happen in a month of Sundays. Everyone has signed up to the NDAs and will be worried about legal action if they break them. That suits the club as much as it does all the individuals involved because it prevents all the coals being endlessly raked over and allows club, owner, CEO, EFL, administrator and everyone else to move on. Perhaps we all should too because nothing’s going to change.

At the risk of starting some sort of Yorkshire in fighting I don’t want an apology from Stephen Pearce or Mel Morris for that matter. It would be as meaningless (to me) as the government apologising for slavery or nicking the Elgin marbles or any other historic ‘failure’. What happened happened and a ‘sorry’ achieves nothing for me. What’s more important is what happens now and in the future.  Clowes knows the guy and his work and clearly thinks he’s the right person for the job now and that’s his choice not mine. I trust Clowes with the whole club so why not with his choice of CEO?
 I would love an explanation and to know who said and did what, when and to whom but that’s just out of personal curiosity and nosiness.  It’s never going to happen in a month of Sundays. Everyone has signed up to the NDAs and will be worried about legal action if they break them. That suits the club as much as it does all the individuals involved because it prevents all the coals being endlessly raked over and allows club, owner, CEO, EFL, administrator and everyone else to move on. Perhaps we all should too because nothing’s going to change.

I think we’ll probably have to agree to disagree @Leeds Ram.
But perhaps I can say this. The club including Pearce and @Owen87ITK, will (I would guess) have spent hours and hours preparing for the forum and very deliberately aimed to make something of a statement of intent right at the beginning, knowing that SP’s continued involvement was an issue amongst some of the fan base. His comments, which he reverted to when they got the question they were expecting, were clearly rehearsed and (again I guess) were couched in the way they were mainly because of the NDAs in place and because they all want to move on - club, Clowes and SP himself.  So the chances of us getting any more are, I think, remote at best. There’s no appetite for it.
Fwiw I don’t think that SP is particularly confident in an open forum on camera. He comes across as over prepared and nervous, unlike Warne who’s the opposite. In my experience most accountants aren’t often good public speakers, able to talk human and quick enough to find the right words to satisfy an audience. It’s why they’re accountants. A sweeping generalisation I appreciate. As CEO you would ideally want him to be a better public communicator but that’s not, in my view, his skill set. Hopefully in smaller groups amongst the staff he’s leading he is better and more confident.

At the risk of starting some sort of Yorkshire in fighting I don’t want an apology from Stephen Pearce or Mel Morris for that matter. It would be as meaningless (to me) as the government apologising for slavery or nicking the Elgin marbles or any other historic ‘failure’. What happened happened and a ‘sorry’ achieves nothing for me. What’s more important is what happens now and in the future.  Clowes knows the guy and his work and clearly thinks he’s the right person for the job now and that’s his choice not mine. I trust Clowes with the whole club so why not with his choice of CEO?
 I would love an explanation and to know who said and did what, when and to whom but that’s just out of personal curiosity and nosiness.  It’s never going to happen in a month of Sundays. Everyone has signed up to the NDAs and will be worried about legal action if they break them. That suits the club as much as it does all the individuals involved because it prevents all the coals being endlessly raked over and allows club, owner, CEO, EFL, administrator and everyone else to move on. Perhaps we all should too because nothing’s going to change.

At the risk of starting some sort of Yorkshire in fighting I don’t want an apology from Stephen Pearce or Mel Morris for that matter. It would be as meaningless (to me) as the government apologising for slavery or nicking the Elgin marbles or any other historic ‘failure’. What happened happened and a ‘sorry’ achieves nothing for me. What’s more important is what happens now and in the future.  Clowes knows the guy and his work and clearly thinks he’s the right person for the job now and that’s his choice not mine. I trust Clowes with the whole club so why not with his choice of CEO?
 I would love an explanation and to know who said and did what, when and to whom but that’s just out of personal curiosity and nosiness.  It’s never going to happen in a month of Sundays. Everyone has signed up to the NDAs and will be worried about legal action if they break them. That suits the club as much as it does all the individuals involved because it prevents all the coals being endlessly raked over and allows club, owner, CEO, EFL, administrator and everyone else to move on. Perhaps we all should too because nothing’s going to change.

This.
Don't apologise. Make a committment not to do it in the future. Embed it in Law not to allow slavery or nick any marbles, not just Elgins!
 
I've never forgiven a scutty stokie who nicked me marbles at school in 1970. Even if he apologised now i'd still t*** him.

I’m in my late 60s and was lucky enough to be able to retire 10 years ago. After a difficult couple of years getting over not working I love my life - exercise every day, never felt fitter, though bits are dropping off - my hearing needs aids, my eyes need glasses, my joints creak, I’m on medication (low level) for cholesterol and blood pressure and my hair is largely a distant memory. I do find myself thinking about my mortality fairly frequently  though not morbidly. Death is the last great secret I have to experience. I  know I have long since passed the halfway mark in my Rams watching season tally.
In my youth 65 was old and people often died soon after retirement. Now I’m there I want to keep going but I am a deathist - never heard that expression before. I want to keep on going so long as life is comfortable and my body is not giving out. I’ve no interest in the far future - I expect it would look terrifying to today’s world, just as today’s world might be terrifying to people born 300 years ago. I’ve no interest in rounds of surgery to replace my heart or organs for the 5th time - you would end up like Trigger’s broom on its 20th handle and 10th head or whatever it was.
What I would like is the opportunity to pick the moment I go and in the UK. But that’s another debate.

I’m in my late 60s and was lucky enough to be able to retire 10 years ago. After a difficult couple of years getting over not working I love my life - exercise every day, never felt fitter, though bits are dropping off - my hearing needs aids, my eyes need glasses, my joints creak, I’m on medication (low level) for cholesterol and blood pressure and my hair is largely a distant memory. I do find myself thinking about my mortality fairly frequently  though not morbidly. Death is the last great secret I have to experience. I  know I have long since passed the halfway mark in my Rams watching season tally.
In my youth 65 was old and people often died soon after retirement. Now I’m there I want to keep going but I am a deathist - never heard that expression before. I want to keep on going so long as life is comfortable and my body is not giving out. I’ve no interest in the far future - I expect it would look terrifying to today’s world, just as today’s world might be terrifying to people born 300 years ago. I’ve no interest in rounds of surgery to replace my heart or organs for the 5th time - you would end up like Trigger’s broom on its 20th handle and 10th head or whatever it was.
What I would like is the opportunity to pick the moment I go and in the UK. But that’s another debate.

I’m in my late 60s and was lucky enough to be able to retire 10 years ago. After a difficult couple of years getting over not working I love my life - exercise every day, never felt fitter, though bits are dropping off - my hearing needs aids, my eyes need glasses, my joints creak, I’m on medication (low level) for cholesterol and blood pressure and my hair is largely a distant memory. I do find myself thinking about my mortality fairly frequently  though not morbidly. Death is the last great secret I have to experience. I  know I have long since passed the halfway mark in my Rams watching season tally.
In my youth 65 was old and people often died soon after retirement. Now I’m there I want to keep going but I am a deathist - never heard that expression before. I want to keep on going so long as life is comfortable and my body is not giving out. I’ve no interest in the far future - I expect it would look terrifying to today’s world, just as today’s world might be terrifying to people born 300 years ago. I’ve no interest in rounds of surgery to replace my heart or organs for the 5th time - you would end up like Trigger’s broom on its 20th handle and 10th head or whatever it was.
What I would like is the opportunity to pick the moment I go and in the UK. But that’s another debate.