Podcasts Wasn't At The Game

Orkney Islands Yellow said:
I hope that Mark isn't invited back onto WATG anytime soon, tried his best to suck the joy out of a great win with a predetermined agenda. Stick to Grace, Janine and the podcast lads please!
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He clearly had an agenda to bring this up, which is fine as it has relevance to many fans. I just think that he pitched it badly and came across unnecessarily whinny.
 
Scotchegg said:
He clearly had an agenda to bring this up, which is fine as it has relevance to many fans. I just think that he pitched it badly and came across unnecessarily whinny.
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Not the time or the place to bring that up...i wanted to hear about the game , fans calling in , talk about the remaining games...Jerome was to polite , he should have have just cut his connection...anyway that conversation has already been had on RadOx.
 
Orkney Islands Yellow said:
I hope that Mark isn't invited back onto WATG anytime soon, tried his best to suck the joy out of a great win with a predetermined agenda. Stick to Grace, Janine and the podcast lads please!
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I agree .
He clearly didn’t read the room - we’d just had a massive win .
Whilst questions need to be asked and answered, his assertion that a large body of fans are unhappy with the CEO Tim Williams and head of commercial A Benson is wide of the mark .
The discussion around the recent EFL embargo has been largely confined to a few on this forum and X.
Whether more should be interested and concerned is another matter.
 
Orkney Islands Yellow said:
I hope that Mark isn't invited back onto WATG anytime soon, tried his best to suck the joy out of a great win with a predetermined agenda. Stick to Grace, Janine and the podcast lads please!
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I expect this won't be popular with some of you, but I thought he was brave to bring it up.

Yes, it could be argued that it was poor timing, after a possibly season defining win, but exactly when is he supposed to bring it up? He's an occasional guest on WATG so probably felt he had to strike while he had the opportunity. I feel Jerome is too passive in these matters and it's pretty bloody obvious that Tim Williams knew all about this when he went on The Dub two weeks ago, but decided to cover it up and tell the listeners (and the presenters, including Jerome) that all was well, and there was nothing to worry about. He'd have been better off delaying his appearance for a week and then he could have been questioned about the embargo. But we all know that he doesn't like that kind of difficult questioning.

I'd have thought, as a fanbase, we would have seen enough things in our club's past to be a little more alert to these matters, but it seems that some would rather pretend nothing has happened and berate a long standing fan who cares about his club rather than the people making these continued cock ups.
 
Yeah just to provide some counter-balance - I really like Mark S on RadOx, and am an advocate of his very forthright and at times bluntly honest appraisals of the clubs dealings both positive and negative.

Perhaps the delivery of his message on Saturday did need a little softening and a clear statement of the counter-arguments for balance from Jerome/Nick etc, (and yeah maybe he did go in a little hard given that he almost ground discussion of a brilliant win for the club to a halt to talk about it…) but the crux of his message (ie that it ISN’T acceptable that club keep making these errors) and his tenacity to hold the club to account and not just toe the corporate line is vitally important. It certainly felt like a more balanced discussion of the recent embargo business than last week which felt very much like an unchallenged ‘the club says it’s no biggie, and we accept that’.

I would be disappointed if he isn’t invited back. He doesn’t strike me as someone who will accept the current OUFC leadership’s guff, corporate soundbites and twaddle without challenge, or public scrutiny.
 
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McXal said:
Yeah just to provide some counter-balance - I really like Mark S on RadOx, and am an advocate of his very forthright and at times bluntly honest appraisals of the clubs dealings both positive and negative.

Perhaps the delivery of his message on Saturday did need a little softening and a clear statement of the counter-arguments for balance from Jerome/Nick etc, (and yeah maybe he did go in a little hard given that he almost ground discussion of a brilliant win for the club to a halt to talk about it…) but the crux of his message (ie that it ISN’T acceptable that club keep making these errors) and his tenacity to hold the club to account and not just toe the corporate line is vitally important. It certainly felt like a more balanced discussion of the recent embargo business than last week which felt very much like an unchallenged ‘the club says it’s no biggie, and we accept that’.
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Oh, brilliant—he hijacked the show to talk about his personal gripe with the UK-based leadership. Because clearly, what we all wanted after a great win was an unsolicited lecture on internal politics. No one asked for his opinion on that, and funnily enough, he wasn’t even there to talk about it.

Saturday should’ve been about celebrating a big win and getting excited for what’s next. But no—he had a pre-packaged agenda ready to go, like he was just waiting for any platform to unload it, and let’s be honest, it wasn’t the time or the place.

It's not that the point doesn't matter—it does. But there are fan groups, proper forums, and even RadOx when that’s actually the topic. Instead, we got a one-man show, completely derailing what should’ve been a positive and football-focused chat.

Oh, and just to top it off—he clearly Wasn’t At The Game.
 
witney50 said:
Oh, brilliant—he hijacked the show to talk about his personal gripe with the UK-based leadership. Because clearly, what we all wanted after a great win was an unsolicited lecture on internal politics. No one asked for his opinion on that, and funnily enough, he wasn’t even there to talk about it.

Saturday should’ve been about celebrating a big win and getting excited for what’s next. But no—he had a pre-packaged agenda ready to go, like he was just waiting for any platform to unload it, and let’s be honest, it wasn’t the time or the place.

It's not that the point doesn't matter—it does. But there are fan groups, proper forums, and even RadOx when that’s actually the topic. Instead, we got a one-man show, completely derailing what should’ve been a positive and football-focused chat.

Oh, and just to top it off—he clearly Wasn’t At The Game.
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Maybe it's because none of those fan groups have properly addressed the situation, nor Radio Oxford, that he felt the need to speak up!

And remind me, when was the last Fans' Forum???
 
It was perfectly right and fair that Jerome put the counter argument to Mark Sennett’s points, which he did in a very robust way. However it was also noticeable the previous week when Paul Peros was playing down the suspended transfer embargo, Jerome was not nearly so vociferous in a counter challenge, in fact he was more or less agreeing with him. That’s not being balanced in my view.

Now I love and appreciate RadOx’s coverage as much as anyone, but on this one they’ve definitely taken the club line.

I think @Colin B point about Tim Williams failing to bring up the embargo when he had the ideal opportunity to on his RadOx piece is very telling. He clearly didn’t want to be questioned about it.
 
Colin B said:
I expect this won't be popular with some of you, but I thought he was brave to bring it up.

Yes, it could be argued that it was poor timing, after a possibly season defining win, but exactly when is he supposed to bring it up? He's an occasional guest on WATG so probably felt he had to strike while he had the opportunity. I feel Jerome is too passive in these matters and it's pretty bloody obvious that Tim Williams knew all about this when he went on The Dub two weeks ago, but decided to cover it up and tell the listeners (and the presenters, including Jerome) that all was well, and there was nothing to worry about. He'd have been better off delaying his appearance for a week and then he could have been questioned about the embargo. But we all know that he doesn't like that kind of difficult questioning.

I'd have thought, as a fanbase, we would have seen enough things in our club's past to be a little more alert to these matters, but it seems that some would rather pretend nothing has happened and berate a long standing fan who cares about his club rather than the people making these continued cock ups.
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I thought you would.
 
Colin B said:
Maybe it's because none of those fan groups have properly addressed the situation, nor Radio Oxford, that he felt the need to speak up!

And remind me, when was the last Fans' Forum???
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They have addressed it, but not in the way he would have liked — or perhaps not in a way that truly does the issue justice. But that’s another conversation. The point here is whether Saturday’s program was the right time and place to bring it up — and in my opinion, it wasn’t.
 
witney50 said:
They have addressed it, but not in the way he would have liked — or perhaps not in a way that truly does the issue justice. But that’s another conversation. The point here is whether Saturday’s program was the right time and place to bring it up — and in my opinion, it wasn’t.
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Maybe it wasn't the perfect time, and I've acknowledged that, but when is the perfect time? None of the outlets you mentioned have done it justice, and there's a danger of it fading away from public scrutiny (which I'm sure is what certain people within the club want), so I don't think he had much choice.

This is really important, and if it spoils a few peoples' listening experience for ten minutes, then I think that is a small price to pay.
 
witney50 said:
They have addressed it, but not in the way he would have liked — or perhaps not in a way that truly does the issue justice. But that’s another conversation. The point here is whether Saturday’s program was the right time and place to bring it up — and in my opinion, it wasn’t.
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Programme please, unless you are American or referring to computing. :)
 
witney50 said:
Oh, brilliant—he hijacked the show to talk about his personal gripe with the UK-based leadership. Because clearly, what we all wanted after a great win was an unsolicited lecture on internal politics. No one asked for his opinion on that, and funnily enough, he wasn’t even there to talk about it.

Saturday should’ve been about celebrating a big win and getting excited for what’s next. But no—he had a pre-packaged agenda ready to go, like he was just waiting for any platform to unload it, and let’s be honest, it wasn’t the time or the place.

It's not that the point doesn't matter—it does. But there are fan groups, proper forums, and even RadOx when that’s actually the topic. Instead, we got a one-man show, completely derailing what should’ve been a positive and football-focused chat.

Oh, and just to top it off—he clearly Wasn’t At The Game.
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Totally respect your opinion. It just isn’t one I share though and wanted to point out that whilst I understand this perspective, there are those of us for whom Mark S was very much speaking for and voicing valid concerns.

I was at Hillsborough, I was utterly elated at the result as I got up WATG on my phone to listen to my on my drive home. And yet I felt like the discussion of the (latest) embargo situation was far more robust, pointed and direct than the previous week, where my own perspective was that ‘celebrating a big win’ somewhat glossed over a relatively flimsy piece of broadcast scrutiny on what is a(nother) serious error on the part of those in charge of operations at OUFC.

(Also pretty sure Mark S is/has been on here if he was that desperate to defend himself, but didn’t he specifically point out that he was going to the game on Saturday, but only didn’t go because RadOx asked him to appear on WATG?)
 
Whilst Mark's bringing up of the mistakes being made on the admin/management side of the club was more than a little jolt and did derail the euphoria of the win somewhat, I thought he was *entirely* right to bring it up. It's no good just letting these things slide and if neither RadOx nor OxVox want to bring up such matters in anything other than a 'there was a bit of a problem, but nothing to see here' way (at least in public) then him raising it was both quite brave on live radio and necessary.

I thought Jerome's *very* spiky response was quite enlightening - almost as if he'd been told to play it down...
 
It is fair to say Mark S came across as a little bit blunt in his communication, which might be a personal style. However, it doesn't detract from the context in which he made his comments which I think was perfectly legitimate eg we have won a key game, the playing squad are trying to fulfil their potential, but the administration of the club is lacking.

That is a very reasonable point to make.

The previous week saw the issue dealt with rather weakly on air, quite possibly because we had just beaten Sheffield United and Paul P and maybe others were concerned about how criticism of the club would look, tonally, at that time.

Tone matters, of course, but it is not the most important thing here, which is the substantive issue. I cannot imagine hearing Mark's comments upset any personal celebrations at a great win, it certainly didn't for me.

Supporters are often accused of focusing on the short term entirely and not questioning on issues which are uncomfortable, so I think it is good that someone spoke up (and in so doing the BBC satisfied it's remit for diversity of views).
 
ZeroTheHero said:
I thought Jerome's *very* spiky response was quite enlightening - almost as if he'd been told to play it down...
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Mmm. Not sure who would tell Jerome what he can say?
I thought that Jerome gave the other side of the story which is his perogative ( and he probably knows far more than I do as to the background of the mistake and the implications)
I am not sure that MS's comments were well timed, but think that again he is entitled to give his view.
 
Morris Oxford said:
However it was also noticeable the previous week when Paul Peros was playing down the suspended transfer embargo
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And Grace (who is/was involved with OUSP) on this weeks WATG said possibly the most worrying thing and I quote it verbatim below.

Let the things happen off the pitch happen off the pitch and yeah, some fans won't like it but what can we do. All football clubs have issues and I think we just have to leave it to the professionals that know what they're doing and carry on supporting those 11 players on the pitch.

I mean, if this is the position that OUSP take then we truly are fucked should anything more serious happen. "Let the professionals that know what they're doing carry on", where are the professionals? Let them carry on making basic mistakes that only the clubs we call tinpot on here are making?

Absolutely mental position to take on the situation, no wonder Tim and co aren't feeling the heat if that is the sort of scrutiny that OUSP and OxVox are providing. But I guess we should follow hers and the supporters groups lead and just stick our head in the sand, it'll all be well in the end, won't it?

Edit: And this is by no means a post directly criticising Grace, from what I see she seems to genuinely care about both the supporters and the club, but there needs to be a fair but robust critique of the club management from time to time. Clubs die when there isn’t.
 
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Carpy said:
And Grace (who is/was involved with OUSP) on this weeks WATG said possibly the most worrying thing and I quote it verbatim below.

Let the things happen off the pitch happen off the pitch and yeah, some fans won't like it but what can we do. All football clubs have issues and I think we just have to leave it to the professionals that know what they're doing and carry on supporting those 11 players on the pitch.

I mean, if this is the position that OUSP take then we truly are fucked should anything more serious happen. "Let the professionals that know what they're doing carry on", where are the professionals? Let them carry on making basic mistakes that only the clubs we call tinpot on here are making?

Absolutely mental position to take on the situation, no wonder Tim and co aren't feeling the heat if that is the sort of scrutiny that OUSP and OxVox are providing. But I guess we should follow hers and the supporters groups lead and just stick our head in the sand, it'll all be well in the end, won't it?
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And this, people, is why we are where we are, with an administration that can make cock up after cock up and yet remain bereft of criticism from our supporters' groups.

As long as they aren't questioned they will keep on doing it, as we have seen last week.
 
Constantly bringing up the whole ‘we’re still catching up being a Championship Club’ thing, is also starting to wear a bit thin. When it comes to embargoes, ticketing issues, communication etc, how long will this excuse be used for?

Yes, on the field I can understand it, we went up through the playoffs, we were catching up with other teams a bit. On the whole we made a pretty decent fist of recruitment, not perfect, but a lot of work was put in last summer by the recruitment team.

But off the field it’s different, we’re not restricted to making the changes that are needed by narrow transfer windows, we’ve had an almost clear 12 months since our Wembley victory.

The Matete incident all came to light last June, then rumours of extended gardening leave. Have we not learnt from our mistakes?

When Liam Manning left early November 2024 we were 2nd in the table and looking strong candidates for promotion, the alarm bells should’ve been sounding in the boardroom 18 months ago that promotion was a real possibility, not suddenly taken by surprise.

There appears to be a worrying mindset that somehow the board is above criticism whilst planning for the new stadium drags on, or it can’t be held to account after a rare away victory.
 
I'd rather listen to Mark and other infrequent guests (Simon Hathaway and a few podcast hosts) than the platform given to OxVox in recent months to offer personal match analysis and then fluff around another serious administrative error because they are too scared to call it out for what it is.

Mark was brave and it was relevant, he was direct and even Jerome ended with accepting that 'these mistakes' cannot continue to happen. I would suggest after the previous WATG where Paul the OxVox chair went out of his way to defend in his car crash interview, Mark showed why he was a good OxVox Chairman, along with other very good chairman of the past, Colin and Jem.

I'd also add that I suspect BBC Radio Oxford were expecting this topic to be brought back up, with a completely opposing view to the week before.

Mark is like marmite, plenty don't like him and he doesn't care about upsetting people, he cares about his and our football club.
 
Carpy said:
And Grace (who is/was involved with OUSP) on this weeks WATG said possibly the most worrying thing and I quote it verbatim below.

Let the things happen off the pitch happen off the pitch and yeah, some fans won't like it but what can we do. All football clubs have issues and I think we just have to leave it to the professionals that know what they're doing and carry on supporting those 11 players on the pitch.

I mean, if this is the position that OUSP take then we truly are fucked should anything more serious happen. "Let the professionals that know what they're doing carry on", where are the professionals? Let them carry on making basic mistakes that only the clubs we call tinpot on here are making?

Absolutely mental position to take on the situation, no wonder Tim and co aren't feeling the heat if that is the sort of scrutiny that OUSP and OxVox are providing. But I guess we should follow hers and the supporters groups lead and just stick our head in the sand, it'll all be well in the end, won't it?
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To be fair, I think in her defence part of this is being thrust on the radio and not having the experience or broadcasting know-how to consider a thought provoking answer when quizzed on such things. Mark is a much more confident communicator and if you're not from that 'world', it's tricky if you're unable to think on your feet and articulate some kind of reasoned response so I take what she said with a pinch of salt.

The vast majority of guests likely just don't want to rock the boat and don't have the requisite communication props to challenge Jerome and raise valid points other than agreeing with everybody else. In most cases the pressure of radio makes the guests waffle and say just about anything that'll help as 'filler' (barring Mark). Heck, Grace even made reference that she thought that Sheffield Wednesday maybe needed to research Will Vaulks long throws (or something to that effect)... Ignoring the fact he was their bloody player of the year last season!

ZeroTheHero said:
I thought Jerome's *very* spiky response was quite enlightening - almost as if he'd been told to play it down...
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Interesting you say that as I picked up on this also. Jerome is normally spot on but I thought this was strange. I understand working for the BBC you need to be balanced, however I thought his defence (and he did caveat at the end of his piece that he was playing devils advocate), but it struck me as a staunch defence of the club. I thought Mark was right to bring it up and I have no issue with it.
 
witney50 said:
Oh, brilliant—he hijacked the show to talk about his personal gripe with the UK-based leadership. Because clearly, what we all wanted after a great win was an unsolicited lecture on internal politics. No one asked for his opinion on that, and funnily enough, he wasn’t even there to talk about it.

Saturday should’ve been about celebrating a big win and getting excited for what’s next. But no—he had a pre-packaged agenda ready to go, like he was just waiting for any platform to unload it, and let’s be honest, it wasn’t the time or the place.

It's not that the point doesn't matter—it does. But there are fan groups, proper forums, and even RadOx when that’s actually the topic. Instead, we got a one-man show, completely derailing what should’ve been a positive and football-focused chat.

Oh, and just to top it off—he clearly Wasn’t At The Game.
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Completely disagree. It's not just his personal gripe. It's a problem with potentially major damaging effects for the club, which is not being addressed. It needs to be aired and discussed in public. We can't just ignore it because we've had a good result. It's classic management obsfucation to say everything's just fine, let's just look at the results on the field.
 
I listened back just now and all in all I thought the whole debate was pretty well balanced and came quite a way into the programme after much positive discussion.

As a more general point I much prefer it when our brilliant fans come on and speak rather than relying on the guests to give depth. Maybe there is a technical reason why this doesn't always happen.

It's so hard for me to judge Tim Williams, he always comes across very well and says many of the right things but who knows if there is substance behind that or he is just brilliant at corporate bs
 
Most fans don't care about behind the scenes stuff until it has a direct impact on the playing side - that's fine. It's also fine for OUSP to say 'not our remit'. What isn't fine is for this latest cockup to be brushed under the carpet and for the leadership team to be actively praised for 'proactively communicating' it a few hours before it hit the public domain.

It's pretty obvious this isn't just a simple admin error and also obvious the EFL aren't treating it as such. It seems we offered to provide a draft set of interim accounts and projections but the EFL (rightly) declined. That's an admission that either we didn't have the numbers ready on time (bad) or the reporting work was done but revealed something unpleasant (badder).

If the club's assertion that it was just an admin oversight is true we'd have found a stamp / got the right email address and filed the report well before action was taken and certainly by now. We also wouldn't have had Tim Williams popping up on a podcast the week before randomly talking about debt/equity minutia or referencing problems with Companies House after the issue came to light. This is about EFL reporting for compliance monitoring not formal submission to CH.

Mark didn't get the tone right on WATG and his ramblings about angry fans online were especially unhelpful but if others with greater opportunity and access had been more diligent he wouldn't have felt the need to do it. Probably won't be asked back now unfortunately.

It's now 14th April and we're *still* under embargo. Lessons from OUFC history: mistakes happen and can be rectified, hiding behind bullshit is a choice that usually ends badly. The spin is actually more worrying than the cockups for me.
 
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