24Charlie

4 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Gaining advantage using a loophole is not 'sneaky and underhand'! 

It’s certainly not sporting, which is what football is supposed to be.

Gone are the days when the batsman “walked” mores the pity. 
 

In the context of the make up of the championship it seems the only way to compete with parachute payment clubs is to seek out and take advantage of loopholes.

Is this good or bad? 

I’ve moved my season ticket from SW upper to the North Stand this year because I’m taking my 5 year old grandson. 
I would equate the SW Upper to the old C Stand at the BBG. There’s a good atmosphere, loads of swearing, but Rammie never visits.

There’s a lot more children in the North Stand and Rammie hangs out there a lot.

Obviously I’m thinking about the season as a whole as I believe Rammie  is still on furlough.

I thought the idea of an international was to not disadvantage teams who have international players.

Jamaica are away to Costa Rica at 2am Thursday morning.

So with Jozwiak unlikely to feature and Ravel Morrison even less likely to be available then I believe we are being severely compromised by this Friday night kick off.

27 minutes ago, Sean said:

Worth noting Jozwiak didn't get off the bench tonight vs San Marino

He’ll be starting v England then.

4 minutes ago, Bianoic said:

I have nothing concrete to back this up TD, but my gut feeling is that, quite some time ago, Mel has decided that enough is enough and that he was no longer prepared to fund anything else at the club, other than the absolute, rock bottom, bare minimum needed to keep it ticking over. I don't think its a question of Mel not being able to afford stuff, he remains a very wealthy man. But he has decided : no more, its time to stop. After a £200m + investment has got him nowhere.

Again, I have no evidence, but I suspect that both Stephen ( the ex FD, now CEO ) and Mel went through an exercise some time back literally reviewing every possible expense in the organisation on a line by line basis. With a ruthless and determined approach to challenge each and every single cost with an aggressive attitude of : can we exist without it or can it be done in another cheaper or non-cost way ? 
 

So, from what we see as supporters  :

No ticket office - can be done online

No concourse tv and other facilities - not necessary

Reduction in back office staff other than ticket office - find another way. eg if you report bad supporter behaviour to the club, you are now directed to the police in the first instance, rather than the club taking the lead in investigating. Notice that all the signs  in the concourses and even loos ,previously encouraging fans to confidentially report unacceptable behaviour to the club, have now disappeared.

I dont know Mel, and I have never met him, but from what I have seen and heard, he certainly seems to be the rare type of individual who has the character and bloody mindedness, to carry out this kind of approach. 
 

Again, just to be clear, this is just my personal theory from what I have observed. Complete conjecture on my part. 

I can see this line of thought in some respects but I don’t see that cutting off an obvious revenue stream like the ticket office helps to save Mel money.

We can tell from anecdotal evidence on here that people simply haven’t been able to get tickets online or have no access to printers or just prefer dealing with a person face to face. These people haven’t gone or even haven’t renewed their season ticket because of it. Some even see it as a slight to fans. Rather than making things easy the club have made it hard, which many have seen as disrespectful to the loyal and the faithful.

Why do DCFC want to earn less money?

I’m not an accountant or a tax lawyer or a liquidator so I have no idea how deliberately wanting to earn less money benefits DCFC. Maybe it doesn’t maybe it benefits Mel.

14 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

I agree with everything you say as it's totally logical so do you accept then there might be some greater forces (not the EFL btw) behind the reason not to open the ticket office?

After all, if it's so much of a no brainer then why aren't they doing it?

Clearly it’s unfathomable to the sensible eye.

Unless Mel has turned in Chief Inspector Dreyfus diabolically playing the organ shouting bring me the EFL or I’ll kill Derby County.

8 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

Have you given serious consideration to the possibility that the closure of the ticket office is intrinsically linked to the other off field issues which the club is unable to comment about?

And if the club were to come out and give the true reasons behind the ticket office not opening then that would cause widespread dismay and panic amongst supporters so they are deliberately trying to suppress the release of that information?

No matter what the other issues are it does not seem sensible to not allow the club to make money through the normal revenue streams that every other club would consider essential. So why should it matter that the other problems are on going.

The cost of employing staff would be easily outweighed by sales.

The club may not be able to answer questions related to ongoing disciplinary issues but they can certainly explain the decision to shut the ticket office.

This decision is so stupid that it defies belief. It is purely a club decision which has had a hugely negative affect on attendances and therefore income.

If we get a answer to this question we may be closer to getting to the bottom of what is really going on.

How can the same news cause such differing opinions. We have literally got people saying we’re bang to rights take our medicine and move on to those who believe we’ve done nothing wrong and should not accept any punishment whatsoever.

What we have is people making up their own minds based on a hunch. We have no facts here but the speculation is polarising opinion.

The Club must come out with something tangible to explain everything from ticket sales to transfer embargo.

The Club’s reputation amongst fans is in the bin and only the Club can change that.

Do something about it DCFC!

41 minutes ago, jono said:

I don’t know the precise reasons, calculations and what not, but Luton got done for 40+ points over 2 or 3 seasons on accounting, admin and other punishments following the back handlers to agents thing.  They ended up none league … but they fought their way back. 
 

Stuff it. As long as there is pride park and 11 players in the shirt, I am a supporter. The machinations of the “industry” get more boring by the day 

This 100% this.

From what I understand this forum has gone into meltdown because we have not paid an instalment of a transfer fee.

On the back of this news we are now, according to many, in line for a massive points deduction and administration.

Is this correct?

Because I'd hate to leap to any conclusions

2 minutes ago, Taribo said:

Any footage? I can’t find the replay anywhere 

If you recorded EFL on Quest it's on there.

I think you can do a catch up on the dplay app.

I'm happy to go with what we've got. We have to beat 3 other teams that's all. We are in better shape on the pitch than last year especially at the back with basically 3 experienced centre halves that we didn't have last year (I'm counting Davies) and a cohesive game plan.

We'll have injures but so will everyone else. We've have to replace Waghorns goals which is hardly difficult and I think Baldock and Stretton can easy exceed that. We have our youngsters who are 1 season older and wiser and we more to come through. We don't have a lot of depth but neither do a lot of teams in this division and as we aren't competing for promotion we don't need much. But we have Beliek, CKR and Knight to come in.

We may have a points deduction which could derail things but maybe we won't.

4 minutes ago, Wignall12 said:

More chance of plaiting fog 

I used to wonder about being a superhero whose superpower was the ability to plait fog.

However I couldn’t come up with a scenario where it would be of any use.

Even if we weren’t in an embargo we couldn’t afford a 20 goal a season striker.

Vydra cost us a packet from Watford but he didn’t get 20 til Rowett played him as a 10.

Brentford keep digging them up for peanuts but when we try, ie Marriott he doesn’t fulfil his potential and Duncan could even hold a place down in the U23’s

In my opinion, as we cannot afford a season championship operator, we may as well persevere with Stretton rather trying to find a pearl from lower leagues.

26 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

Thanks Bruce.

I prefer Frederick to Bruce if I’m honest.

7 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

we have looked good so far. But it’s a long season and a points deduction seems likely. So I think we need more depth 

We are doing ok and with a Turkish international a Polish international and an Irish international to come back.  I think we have a lot more depth than many other teams

Fozzie underrated 

Our longest serving pro. He’s seen off every challenge at left back dispite some horrendous injuries.  I get annoyed when he gets criticised because it’s usually when he’s filling in at centre half. He has great vision and a sweet left foot.

And yesterday with Buchanan playing in front of him for the last 10 mins I thought there could be something in that going forward.

I don’t have a players’ name on the back of my shirt but if I had to have one it would be Forsyth.

We have Beilik Knight CKR and Baldock to come back. 
 

Not fussed if we don’t sign anyone. The goal is survival and we have enough for that

I was at the game in the SW Upper and didn’t get the replays.

Fozzies alleged stamp drew no reaction from anybody apart from the player who was tackled who refused to get up until eventually the ball ended up with Samba and the ref was forced to stop the game to allow him to be treated. As everyone expected including the Forest fans and the ref the “injured” player was on his feet again in no time.  Nothing in this one. No foul.

I had a clear view of Worral’s hand ball and he should have walked leaving us with a pen for 2-0 and facing 10 men. Absolutely shocking decision. The linesman had a clear view too so why it wasn’t given is a mystery. It’s not up to the ref to think that applying the rules leaves one team in a virtually impossible position but that’s what I think he did.

Curtis right at the end was another shocking decision. These aren’t touch a go calls that we aren’t getting they are clear, unambiguous and easy.

To be honest he was lucky to get a move to the Prem in the first place because his form in his last season for us was abysmal.

21 minutes ago, Chester40 said:

Its the same principle as any other business surely, they make parting with your cash as easy as possible and let you feel as happy about it as they can. 

Even basic shops.. don't have to provide baskets or have friendly staff willing to show you where things are or display prices clearly or have parking for you or clean the place or have a toilet...but it makes you more likely to shop there, so they do. Why give people a reason to go for another option? If you're buying a big item, a nice filtered coffee is a pittance compared to what you're buying but those touches are just basic sales techniques.

Recently DCFC seem to have the attitude of 'If you want to come, then you will'. Most fans just suck it up but fringe fans are drifting away already because of the myriad of other reasons, so I can't understand why we aren't going the opposite way and making buying tickets as easy, cheap and desirable as possible. 

Some people will undersatand but they had to sign an NDA.

39 minutes ago, David said:

Fans from other clubs are replying questioning why the EFL are even discussing/negotiating with us on the punishment.

It's a valid point, why are they?

The answer is pretty obvious at this point, they haven't got a leg to stand on and all this is a face saving exercise to please some fella up in the North East that's beyond tedious now.

Isn’t it incredible that other fans are reacting to Percy as though what he’s reporting is fact. Other fans are up in arms over us negotiating with the EFL when no one knows if that’s happening. It’s been like this all the way through with other fans just believing the speculation and condemning us out of hand.

You’re right it’s tedious.