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Berwick Rangers 2018/2019 Thread


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This is getting painful on and off the field, the team looks like its going to carry on through to the play-offs with no change in management or direction, they possibly could they be lucky and retain their league status, however, at this time it is clear the board seem happy sit tight or at least two thirds of the board are.

That my friends is a gamble they have chosen to take, it's a brave one, because, as everyone knows it could and would spell the end of league football in Berwick Upon Tweed.

I understand the magnificent four are chairman elect Bell, Matthewson, Exley and Beresford with current chairman Eyre and Parkin wanting changes, these four a playing Russian roulette  with the future of the football club.

There is nothing the average supporter can do to change this, therefore, the clubs fate is in their hands and their hands only, if it blows up in their faces they should walk away and never darken the doors of Shielfield again, unless its called Sammy Reid Close or David Smith Place etc.

Regardless, a new season is coming and we will be where we will be, the club needs to rebuild from the bottom up, clearly the supporters club / supporters trust model doesn't work and there needs to be significant investment, hopefully by local businessmen, putting in their own hard earned cash and having the drive to see progression, whilst  the current incumbents are on the whole good people, they have little or no financial investment of their own, in the club, that makes a significant difference in any decision processes.

The supporters club and trust should, but I suspect won't, relinquish their shares, they should for the good of the club sell them for an agreed sum to an investor or a group of investors on the provision that the money raised is invested in the team and only the team alone.

As most football supporters understand, you are only as good as your team on the park, if the team is not doing well and you don't have a future strategy together with benchmarks, set by the directors, the club doesn't do well, that's the  basic fundamentals. We all want to see BRFC survive but ego's of directors using money from the masses is not the answer, the value of the club is diminishing daily, if it was a stockmarket floated club, the shares would now be valueless.

So all you people hiding your identities JH, JB, GE, IB, GM, LE. WP included, take a good look at yourselves, look at where you have taken the club, you've got it all wrong and are threatening the very existence of the football club, Lowland League Football is not the answer, you know, deep down you can't justify that, you need to respect that the club is bigger than any individual and hopefully it will be there for the next generation (unless you've already f*cked it completely). You should advise your supporters club and trust membership that this is the only way forward for the club, if you want your group's to survive you should hold only a nominal  shareholding.

I know I'll get slaughtered for this post, but the truth hurts, white elephant stadium, Lowland League at £12 per head, your in cloud cuckoo land, do you think the supporters will follow this model? as stated by someone else on this forum, the incoming chairman never once has waivered in his beliefs, that goes for the stadium, the ego of setting up and fronting the trust, ITS TIME FOR A CHANGE AND THEY ALL KNOW IT! 

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Amazed to see Cowden fans offering their well wishes here after the bombardment the Berwick lads have given them over the last couple of years.  Too saft. Get the boot in lads.

I couldn’t sink as low as them. I want to but I can’t.
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Berwick Mad and Dougster both make plausible arguments, but I'm not wholly convinced that the current board should be so tightly linked to the slow demise of the past 5 years. No wait, hear me out.... 

True, the vessel has been leaking for years but the plug really came out last summer with that pathetic attempted coup and the associated tying of Robbie Horn's hands behind his back. The response to that was - most agreed at the time - a huge relief, with the supporters organisations stepping up to make it happen. It did for Robbie though, and we had a shit team as a result, so again most were happy to get a new manager with a better budget and wait to applaud the results. 

But that is where the criticism of the new Board really begins. Seduced by Harvey's enthusiasm and his record in lower leagues, they went for inexperience. Once again there were only a few raised eyebrows at the time but since then it has been a horror show of inadequacy with a series of crap signings, desperately poor loan signings and gruesome results. The Board's biggest error was to fail to admit they got it wrong, and sack him many weeks ago. 

Now we are reduced to announcing 4 signings for next year in a desperate attempt to show that the players don't all hate the gaffer. 

So, for me, criticism of the Board comes down to one big mistake. I can't really link it to past years or even current overall strategy. Took years to sink, so it will take years to get it right again too, and their desire and ability go change the club culture has barely begun. Just a pity they cocked up big style with the current boss. If we were getting close in games I'd defend them for sticking by their man, but getting relentlessly hammered and not doing anything about whilst hovering over the trapdoor is just baffling. 

 

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20 hours ago, BerwickMad said:


You’re entitled to your opinion, but unsurprisingly I’m going to disagree.

I am/was totally supportive of the supporter ownership model until a few years ago. I’m a member of both the SC and the Trust, and support the general aims of both. I never went along with the few on each side who seemed to see it as a competition. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but both have done good things over the years, usually when working together. From forcing the clubs hand over Crease, to stopping that nonsense in the summer.

The talk of a refusal to relinquish power at the top is nonsense in my eyes, especially when pointed at the SC. What I will say though, is that there has been a reluctance to ‘relinquish power’ to what could be described as John Bells vision of a football club. A vision that he’s entitled to have but that certainly don’t believe the majority of supporters want to see. I’m not criticising John for that vision btw. He’s held it for nearly two decades and hasn’t moved from it one inch. However for as long as I’ve been involved in the SC, I know that the aim hasn’t been to consolidate power at the top. If anything we’ve been desperate to see people come into the club with ideas and investment. I think you could ask people who’ve invested, people like Monty or Neil Templeman, a multi-millionaire who was put off at the first sign of resistance. He didn’t need it. In the post chairman vote meltdown there was even an attempt to throw Monty off the board, while at the same time just attempting to get anyone on there to replace him. Jonny Fairbairn’s dad? Seriously? With the SC theres been attempts to bring people in, TRFC, the seniors, younger fans, to help influence the club. I don’t get the sense that there’s been much ‘compromise’ or a search for new ideas in the John approach. More, ‘come on board to back me up’. And btw, I’m not denying the faults of the SC of which there are many (including publicising what we do) and is why I believe new blood is needed more than ever.

I know John too and nothing I say is personal against him. He has many skills that would make him a great chairman. He’s approachable, he speaks well and he’s done a lot in the community. I actually slightly favoured him for the chairman role when it came up and said so at the SC meeting. That despite what I’d seen in the past as a member of the trust board. But the reaction after was dreadful. The arrogance that a picture on a piece of paper and a PowerPoint presentation was enough to blow everyone away. The stadium plan was never feasible and the £12k for a feasibility study couldn’t even be reached. It got people’s hopes up in the town, unrealistically. Have a look at the site. It doesn’t take a feasibility study to realise it would cost millions to get it ready before a brick would even go down. My opinion is that the aim was probably more wrapped up in taking some SC influence away as leaseholders of the stadium. My hope for Lenny was that at least he’d be able to listen and wouldn’t block ideas and potential investment.

The post chairman vote meltdown continued. Board leaks (by we all know who) on players, what people were saying in meetings, the Robbie Horn debacle when Coughlin was manager, desperate attempts to replace directors, met with an attempt from the other side to look for new people themselves. The ‘keep this to yourself’ in a room full of fans. No, unprofessional I’m afraid. So much energy used up when the club should have been moving forward together. It wasn’t allowed to, which is why at the end of Coughlins full season I said I wanted totally new people to take the club forward and had come to the conclusion that they’d all failed. Totally sick of the supporter ownership model which put too much power in the hands of people with little financial risk.

Now I want investment and change. I’m desperate for it. Not the magic beans I was wrongly accused of in the ‘keep it in the dressing room talk’, a realisation from everyone that we need it. To make the club as attractive as possible for potential investors. Not the ‘we only want investment for facilities’ line the forum, suggesting the way forward is now settled under John, the strategy ideas by Mathison swept under the carpet.

I’ve suggested that the SC and Trust should offer up as enough shares to give someone, or a group a controlling interest to invest and take the club forward. However to claim that the idiots last summer were ‘proven correct’ is bizarre. To this day, nearly a year on they’ve said nothing. They made absolutely no attempt to say what they were doing or what their aim was. They seemed to be deliberately agitating, from the stair lift to Tweedmouth Rangers. Little more than one line statements causing upset without consultation. The slashing of the wage bill in an attempt to break even immediately despite the club having money in the bank and the excuses for it. See at the bottom for a sample of the nonsense that Watkins spouts, from today. The action last summer wasn’t just an attempt to keep power, it was vital to stop an absolute disaster at the time and unsurprising supported by both supporters groups. It’s no wonder everyone came together against it. It was something that looked far worse than anything that had gone on before. I’d be delighted if someone like Graham Bell who I’ve known for years and don’t dislike to actually came out and explained what the aim was. They’ve said nothing and make no mistake, the fact that Robbie only had his budget put back up to a normal level in August contributed massively to our terrible start to the season.

Though I am going to say, this has little to do with the current scenario. The gradual drift, the infighting, the egos, the energy that’s been zapped out of the club, all less important than our current inaction on the manager. He was dealt a shit card, we get that. The fans understand that. Very few were calling for his head in the first few months. But it’s been clear for a long time that he’s had to go. I’ve talked about a gradual drift and incremental failure in the past rather than huge errors, but I’d class the lack of action now as a huge error. It shouldn’t have been too difficult to stay up this season, but we’ve utterly bottled it and failed. This, imo is the worst decision/non-decision I’ve seen since supporting the club.

 

Re-reading your post, may I ask you a question

Where do the supporters club stand now in relation to the current manager and do they think he is the man to lead us in whatever league we find ourselves next year? 

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Re-reading your post, may I ask you a question
Where do the supporters club stand now in relation to the current manager and do they think he is the man to lead us in whatever league we find ourselves next year? 

There isn’t a position on that at the moment. The last meeting was nearly a month ago so it could be raised in the next one.

The way it works is that anyone on the committee can raise an issue in the meeting. It might be their view or one that’s come from other fans. There will be a discussion, then if there’s general agreement there’ll be a discussion on what to about it. If, for example, the committee decide they want to stress an opinion to the board of the club, then that will be taken by the representative to the board who can then provide feedback to the committee. We could decide to be stronger, release a public statement, or whatever. We could decide to ask the Trust if they agree too and do something together.
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Been reading some of the posts on here and find some of the Berwick fans a bit deluded. 

You have been poor for years, coming 10th was always going to happen soon. 

Get behind your team and try and win the play off. There’s nothing else for it at the moment.

 

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22 minutes ago, BerwickMad said:


There isn’t a position on that at the moment. The last meeting was nearly a month ago so it could be raised in the next one.

The way it works is that anyone on the committee can raise an issue in the meeting. It might be their view or one that’s come from other fans. There will be a discussion, then if there’s general agreement there’ll be a discussion on what to about it. If, for example, the committee decide they want to stress an opinion to the board of the club, then that will be taken by the representative to the board who can then provide feedback to the committee. We could decide to be stronger, release a public statement, or whatever. We could decide to ask the Trust if they agree too and do something together.

Thanks, would you not say this current situation merits a statement of intent now? We need to do something before the play offs or it will be too late 

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I think the way Phillips celebrated first and second goals tell you what he thinks of our current manager! I would imagine these thoughts are shared even amongst current players. The w****r is putting his relationship/spats with players before our very existence. I can guarantee Wilson and Brennan weren’t injured and brown is probably our best player at the moment. I think that’s clear example of current dressing room unrest. Also was a big fan of Barr when he arrived but he hasn’t kicked a ball for weeks, hopefully he can find that form again next 3 weeks. 
Apparantly Phillip's had a falling out with Harvey and headed a list of players told they could leave in January, Phillip's sorted a deal with rovers, when Harvey found out he started demanding a fee from rovers who told him no, Phillip's told Harvey he would be going to the pfa (hebwas the pfa rep at berwick) if he wasnt allowed to join rovers on a free Harvey had to relinquish
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I'm pretty sure 'deluded' is the last thing you could call Berwick fans at the moment; we've all been realistic about the position the club is in, and aware of the downward curve the club had been on a while. If you go back to the first two pages you'll find a post or two that mention being chuffed if we got 8th or 9th this season.

No one could have foreseen a run of form quite like the one we are on right now (7 points from 66 if I recall correctly), delusion it is not.

Also, if what @Chris_the_rover says is true (and I have no reason to doubt him), we have another piece of evidence pointing towards Johnny Harvey not being cut out for management in League football (or LL football for that matter).

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On 29/04/2019 at 17:25, Bring Your Own Socks said:

Well at least we know how this OF Colts pish started then. Shocker!

To be fair to Stranraer, it's not really a reserve team - it's for local (mostly young) players. Almost no movement between the sides bar the very occasional stint on the bench for some kids. Annan operate a similar set-up but the standard of their side is woefully weak.

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9 hours ago, big al said:

Obviously we have survived the play off, and believe me there’s no celebrations. 

Horrible games to watch.

I was at the Montrose v Brora game in 2015 and there were huge celebrations at the end when Montrose won.

Maybe it was the novelty of the first playoff, maybe it was the come from behind nature with Garry Wood scoring a cracker and big Marv popping up when required.

I just couldn't see anything to celebrate if Berwick won this year.

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Your all deluding yourselves with your "we own the club attitude" its almost, but not quite sunk, your only chance is very faint, in that you might win the play-offs. most on here are trust members, who think they are the only ones who control the club and back the incoming chairman, even after the manager he signed has been shite, the reality is that in a couple of weeks you'll reap what you sow, Lowland League and the demise of a once great club. Good Job Guys!!

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30 minutes ago, mid-table said:

I was at the Montrose v Brora game in 2015 and there were huge celebrations at the end when Montrose won.

Maybe it was the novelty of the first playoff, maybe it was the come from behind nature with Garry Wood scoring a cracker and big Marv popping up when required.

I just couldn't see anything to celebrate if Berwick won this year.

You want to celebrate and then you realise you haven't won anything and then you feel a bit sorry for the other team. It's more relief than anything else.

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I was at the Montrose v Brora game in 2015 and there were huge celebrations at the end when Montrose won.
Maybe it was the novelty of the first playoff, maybe it was the come from behind nature with Garry Wood scoring a cracker and big Marv popping up when required.
I just couldn't see anything to celebrate if Berwick won this year.
Think is was the nature of the win. Garry Woods screamer coming as we were settling down after Marvs header. 15 minutes from Highland League.
Went on the pitch at the end in a state of euphoria but reality struck a minute later and felt deflated.

It doesn't need me to say that this Berwick team and board is in a bigger state of disarray than any of the 3 other SPFL teams that have been present in the playoffs. And your club are seemingly doing f**k all about it.
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