Podcasts Wasn't At The Game

I thought Mark S was right to bring it up again. I appreciate his style was abrasive and can understand the ire he is getting from some (including Jerome who went beyond 'BBC balance' in arguing it the other way) and even disagree on one aspect (paraphrasing 'a board who fans loathe' which seemed OTT and surely impossible to measure - I suspect 8/10 Oxford fans don't give a toss either way about TW, AB, GF etc), but he was right to bring it back up again since it was all too nicey-nicey last week.

There have been mess ups in commercial, ticketing and marketing which will annoy fans. They're the low level stuff that we grumble about between games. Then there are the EFL mess ups which have the entire league administrator looking over you. We have had two happen in the space of a year due to us not getting our house in order and acting professionally. After the first incident happened - which was incredibly serious - the attitude should not have been 'they're dealing with it' from OxVox. It should have been 'Why has this happened again, who is culpable and what are you going to this time to ensure this doesn't happen again?'

If there is a third incident in the next 12 months from now, will it be the same 'Oh, it happens' attitude again? I'm glad Mark S stood up and said something after the win. RadOx were just as responsible for letting it lie as OxVox were last week.
 
BillyTurleys CurlyWurly said:
What agenda is that? Mr OUSP.
Click to expand...
This really isn't the gotcha moment you think it is. The comment that I was replying to was;
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.
Click to expand...
My response to that was;
Scotchegg said:
He clearly had an agenda to bring this up, which is fine as it has relevance to many fans.
Click to expand...
Mark Sennett very clearly came with an agenda to raise this. It wasn't a question he responded to and was out of context with what else was being discussed.

But as I clearly said this "is fine as it has relevance to many fans"

So your "Mr OUSP" comment is irrelevant as I was both talking from a personal perspective and welcoming input from others.

However, personally, I felt that having used this position on RadOx to discuss the issue, Mark didn't present his views as well as he could perhaps have done. As I'd said in a reply to a @Colin B post yesterday, due to personal and work commitments in recent weeks, I'm not as informed as others on the specifics around the embargo and have therefore not passed comment. I respect others know more and am genuinely interested in different views being expressed.

I have shared meetings with OxVox, OUSP and the club and can assure you that things aren't always as cosy as some suggest. I have not always agreed with OxVox, or everyone within OUSP, and its not surprising that they haven't always agreed with me. But I can say that I absolutely wouldn't give up the valuable time I have to just be a mouthpiece for anyone.

This situation has shown that it's far from easy representing others. Some felt that OxVox were too soft. Others felt that Mark Sennett was too blunt. Whereas I prefer to go somewhere between the two. I have been on Union committees at various points over the last 3 decades. I've always tried to pick my battles and work with "management" where possible, and to go into dispite only when absolutely necessary. As a consequence, I have frequently got far more on behalf of individuals I'm representing or the wider membership.

I see my role on OUSP as the same and am proud that I've worked on issues that have affected many (season ticket pricing as one) or individual cases involving supporters who would otherwise not have a voice. There will be a number of people on here who will know that I've raised issues on their behalf that may not make headlines but matter to them.

I have a lot of respect for @Colin B and understand his concerns on this. But I also think that there are many ways to skin a cat, and will publicly take a position that is likely softer than he and others may like whilst also challenging what has happened and why we deserve better.

People may disagree with this stance. That is their right. It's also their right to vote for people they think will represent them differently through OUSP or OxVox. I would always encourage as many people as possible getting involved in any group that tries to make our club better, and if that's at the expense of my role then so be it.

But the personal digs at those who do so already are unnecessary. They actually stop good people from getting involved and distract from the problems at hand.
 
Last edited:
ThatSlopesATwelfthMan said:
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.
Click to expand...
I think you hit the nail on the head with your point about him feeling the need to do it.

This is the second high profile admin cock-up in a year. But it's also god knows how many communication errors.

If the club is going to continue to dodge fans forums and hide behind OUSP and OxVox then they shouldn't be surprised when people grab whatever opportunity they get to make their point.

If fans are irritated at Mark Sennett on this one then it feels like they have their priorities wrong.
 
Osei Yaw said:
I think you hit the nail on the head with your point about him feeling the need to do it.

This is the second high profile admin cock-up in a year. But it's also god knows how many communication errors.

If the club is going to continue to dodge fans forums and hide behind OUSP and OxVox then they shouldn't be surprised when people grab whatever opportunity they get to make their point.

If fans are irritated at Mark Sennett on this one then it feels like they have their priorities wrong.
Click to expand...
Yes I was irritated by him and his attitude on the show, that doesnt make me wrong, and who are you to question fans priorities. I dont think it is acceptable to keep making errors, but that wasnt the time to do it...also if you think the supporters panels are not performing in the role then address that with them, im sure they will value your feedback or even invite you in to take on a role.
 
witney50 said:
Yes I was irritated by him and his attitude on the show, that doesnt make me wrong, and who are you to question fans priorities. I dont think it is acceptable to keep making errors, but that wasnt the time to do it...
Click to expand...
The problem then is: when is the right time to do it? There are no fans forums and the phone-in time after games is pretty restricted. So if Mark S had not raised it, when would it have been aired and who would have done it in a public facing way? Rather than blame him for the uncomfortable listen (and I do agree that it *was* pretty uncomfortable), blame the club for firstly making the cock up and secondly for not fessing up ASAP. There is (as far as I can see) not a single mention of it - what it was, what the sanction is, how they intend to improve things etc - on the OWS. An honest and open club management would have done *at least* that.
 
witney50 said:
Yes I was irritated by him and his attitude on the show, that doesnt make me wrong, and who are you to question fans priorities. I dont think it is acceptable to keep making errors, but that wasnt the time to do it...also if you think the supporters panels are not performing in the role then address that with them, im sure they will value your feedback or even invite you in to take on a role.
Click to expand...
I started typing a response to your point that 'that wasn't the time to do it', but then I saw @ZeroTheHero has said exactly what I was going to say.

And then on the second point you made regarding OUSP and OxVox... well I'm not sure you've actually read or understood what I said. I said:

'If the club is going to continue to dodge fans forums and hide behind OUSP and OxVox then they shouldn't be surprised when people grab whatever opportunity they get to make their point.'

That in itself isn't a criticism of either OUSP or OxVox. It is a criticism of the club (that is, the senior management) in hiding behind those fan groups. It's weak leadership to do that and it's a recurring theme. The problem we now have is that fans are getting annoyed at OxVox, OUSP and people like Mark Sennett. Really, the problem here is the management of the club. If these mistakes weren't happening, or if they were happening but there was decent confidence in them not happening again, then we wouldn't have had a call like Saturday.

Rather than calling out fans who have the best interests of the club at heart, we should be directing everything at the senior management at the club. However it feels like they have deliberately structured things so that they are protected from the worst criticism, which again is poor leadership.
 
Last edited:
Morris Oxford said:
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.
Click to expand...
Even the on-field stuff doesn’t really wash. We had one of the biggest budgets in the division last season (as well as the season before), and while still chasing automatic promotion in January dropped £400,000 on a striker (which rose to £500,000 within a few months), close to another quarter of a million on Owen Dale, and paid good money to loan the likes of Cumming and Matete. Or at least we were meant to be paying good money for Matete, but then forgot to. LOL!

Combined with the signings made the previous summer and the money invested in doing so, I really don’t buy this “promotion caught the club by surprise” narrative. Clubs that don’t believe they have a chance of promotion, even after spending several months in and around the top two having spent an awful lot of money in pursuit of exactly that sort of outcome, don’t follow a summer of heavy spending by laying down even more hefty wedges in January if they suspect they’ve got next to no chance.

If anybody at the club genuinely got caught short, it really says a lot more about their lack of competence and ability to plan than it does the reality of the situation. Because I don’t know about anyone else, but when we spent virtually the entire season in the play-offs, I quite often found myself thinking, “Gosh, we might get promoted if this carries on!”
 
RyanioBirdio said:
If anybody at the club genuinely got caught short, it really says a lot more about their lack of competence and ability to plan than it does the reality of the situation. Because I don’t know about anyone else, but when we spent virtually the entire season in the play-offs, I quite often found myself thinking, “Gosh, we might get promoted if this carries on!”
Click to expand...
Absolutely, the argument that we got promoted and then only had 2 months to plan for life in the Championship is for the birds, IF that WAS the case, then that to me shows the club management to be even more incompetent than I had anticipated.

As a business, you plan for every eventuality, and if you've spent the last 5 season attempting to get promotion, and spending big to get it, you might think you have a ready baked plan of what it is you'll have to do once you get there. This doesn't just apply to player recruitment, but also legal and league obligations you would have hoped.
 
unification said:
After the first incident happened - which was incredibly serious - the attitude should not have been 'they're dealing with it' from OxVox. It should have been 'Why has this happened again, who is culpable and what are you going to this time to ensure this doesn't happen again?'
Click to expand...
Absolutely. In fact, some fans might even expect their independent supporters' trust to go even further and declare a public position of no confidence in the current Chief Executive, considering this is now the second serious regulatory breach to hit the club in less than 12 months, with the second occurring when we are still serving a suspended transfer embargo that would have a significant impact on our future viability as a club if it resulted in a relegation, should it be reinstated.

I don't advocate for somebody losing their job lightly, but at some point the question has to be asked of what the line is that Tim Williams needs to cross before our board consider his oversights as a threat to our football club's position as a Championship club, and therefore their investment in it.

If an independent trust can't hold the club accountable in public and ask valid questions of those responsible for serious incompetence, don't be surprised to see individual supporters pick up the mantle themselves and use public platforms to air their concerns.
 
I much preferred Mark Sennet's questions/comments compared to the official OxVox ones the week before, where it seemed all was fine because the club phoned Paul Peros before telling Radio Oxford to tell the fans via twitter or whatever.
It's a shambles from the club - we're still under a transfer embargo as I understand it? No rush lads.

I was (for possibly the only time) disappointed with Radio Oxford as well, saying that making mistakes with admin is the same as players making mistakes on the pitch is disingenuous. Players are up against another set of players trying to stop them doing what they need to. As far as I'm aware there's no-one in the Pompey back room team who are trying to stop us making sure we meet our EFL regulatory requirements.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom