An open letter to the Club

davywap

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 10, 2010
6,130
4,199
on a chair
AFL Club
Collingwood
As a near 20 year member of BigFooty and former Collingwood Board Moderator, I hope you will allow me this therapeutic indulgence:



Dear Collingwood FC,


DISCLAIMERS
We understand that we need to further replenish the top 6 talent that can win you flags and that Grundy, De Goey and Moore need more friends in this regard.

We appreciate the pointy end of the draft usually gets you these players.

I’d suggest that the trading team expected much more than what we got.

We acknowledge that the trade period is not yet over and we’ll still shift picks around.

We know the players traded out had flaws (defensively especially), that footy is a business and that they weren’t untradeable.

We note that the list sizes have shrunk and as has the player cap.

We acknowledge that moving on these players will clear up space for potential trades or free agents.

We also get that there may have been mitigating circumstances with regards to ‘HUB life’ that may have made some positions untenable and that there are simply things that we cannot know.


SO THEN WHY ARE WE SO ANGRY?
Because the above justifications aside, you simply cannot trade out so negligently below market value!

The current deal has seen us trade out Treloar, Stephenson, Phillips and Atu effectively for a mid to late first round pick (14) and a future second round pick (say in the mid to late 30’s). The Pick 65 for Phillips carries practically no points and we won’t use it. There isn’t a Collingwood supporter alive who thinks this passes the pub test!

In the past, we’ve had times to trade out players for behavioural concerns in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, such as Tarrant and Shaw, but we got fair compensation by way of Pick 8 and Taylor Adams respectively.

But us getting horribly below market value on Thursday has actually been a slow-moving train wreck in the making. Our more recent trades in the Ned Guy era have been with Sam Murray 2017 that inexplicably involved a second round pick in the future for an NEAFL standard player who couldn’t get a game at Sydney, the loss of two first rounders in getting an ageing Beams with concerns, a pedestrian 2019 period with lots of noise and now the biggest fire sale in the history of trading. Our negotiations have been particularly weak since the 2015 trade period, which coincides with the Gubby Allen period and Ned Guy’s arrival.

There were recent claims that the recent Geelong final has prompted the sudden need to push contracted players out for draft and/or salary cap gain, but last year we had last year we had contracted players in Scharenberg, Phillips, Cox and Aish getting the tap on the shoulder from the Club, with Aish ultimately being traded. There were also murmurings of trading Treloar to the Gold Coast for a high pick just after the ink dried on his contract.

The claims that this is a sudden pivot are demonstrably false.

With regards to getting clearing cap space for potential FA / trades next year, we’ve been told this all before, yet have watched the likes of Charlie Dixon, Tom Lynch and Jeremy Cameron walk on by to other clubs despite the fact that we haven’t had a decent key position forward for close to 10 years.
Given the extremely low value of the recent trades, I’m interested to know how we trade in this ‘big fish’ given that we’ll likely need high amounts of capital for drafting Nick Daicos. They’ll presumably need to be unrestricted free agents only.

And on Tom Lynch, we know for a fact that Ned Guy was at his parents’ house and that Nathan Buckley caught up with him, so it is disgraceful for Geoff Walsh to claim that we never had any interest. Then Guy and Walsh continually feeding the spin that that we’re well positioned with “two first round picks” as though we just picked up both Pick 14 and Pick 16 is nothing short of pathetic.
Treating us like idiots right now isn’t helpful to your cause!


LIST MANAGER
Ned Guy was brought in in 2017 to ironically fix our salary cap issues and yet all of the current contracts causing issues relate to players that we’ve tried to get off our list in the past 2 years. Mason Cox’s trigger, Treloar’s massively back-ended contract, Stephenson’s back ended contract, Phillips getting paid miles over his worth, are all one his watch. As is the Beams into 4 years renegotiation.

As for Guy’s negotiation ability, that’s been covered above, but the desperation conveyed by Ned and his team was palpable and ultimately resulted in one of the biggest lose-win negotiations across 3 clubs in history.

Were he let go, there would be no suitors for his services as a list manager in opposition teams. His position is untenable.


GENERAL MANAGER
Geoff Walsh has given us tremendous service over the years and once upon a time nutted out some great trade results. Unfortunately his past 4 years involved in trading have been extremely poor and he seemingly has one foot in retirement. His disrespect to Collingwood fans on Ed’s breakfast show was unacceptable.


COACH
It is an indictment on the coach that I believe both Stephenson and Treloar with regards to the calls suggesting that they seek a trade and in the case of Treloar, that the players don’t want him there. He has form with his treatment of Heath Shaw.

On top of that behaviour, he is a coach that was appointment without due process, who has been afforded one of the longest stints of any coach without a Premiership. Most fans would acknowledge that he has strengths, but also significant weaknesses, particularly by way of being an exceedingly poor match day coach, who is not helped by having a bevy of best mates who are ‘yes men’ and never bring any ideas to the fore.

We will likely go into 2021 with diminished expectations with a probable and subsequent contract extension and the same ol’ same ol’ coaching staff who offer no contrary ideas or solutions.


PRESIDENT
When Ed came to us with the motto “Only the best”. We didn’t realise that he actually meant, “only the best mates”. The appointments of Buckley and his hand-picked team of mates, Geoff Walsh post the ‘Captains Call’ of Gubby Allen and of Ned Guy who had literally no list management experience before joining Collingwood, are all appointments by the President and were undertaken without due process.

For all the good that Ed did for us from 1999 and into the current century, we are and continue to be at the behest of the President and his many Captains Calls. Whilst the Board is an impressive list of business leaders, there would be a query over if there could possibly be sufficient numbers to question one of McGuire’s decisions.

So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2021, with the coach coming out of contract at year’s end. We’ve traded out two definite starting 22 players, potentially 3, so then we have our President with an excuse to justify another 2 or 3 years into the 2020’s for his mate Nathan as we “rebuild”, meaning that Buckley will end up become the longest serving coach in history not to have won a flag.

Another major issue is McGuire’s desire to fully comply with the soft cap. There’s nothing wrong with paying some tax for quality football requirements if we run a bit over and it brings competitive advantage. We are not a ‘for profit’ entity.

We were on seemingly track to good processes after Peter Murphy’s review, but regressed to type rapidly thereafter.

We need to bring in the process that makes the “only the best” motto an actuality with particular regard to the list manager, football manager and coach. If that requires a new President, then now is the time for that change.


CONCLUSION
We the members and fans are mortified at recent events, evidenced by a similar pattern of recent ineptitude and with a sense of powerlessness as we stand by and wait for more of the same. If you're taken aback by the fact that we ain't falling for the usual spin, then please re-read the above and take action.


FIGJAM (aka. JtP from EB&W)
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epistemology

Draftee
Feb 2, 2013
14
95
Melbourne
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
None
Long time watcher, first time posting. Club member for 15 years, legends member for the last decade.

I've spent 25+ years working for large corporates and multinationals in finance, risk management and corporate governance.

The reasons for this epic mess are to me quite simple, and the spin from the club merely confirms it.

The club either does not have or has not has adhered to its own risk management and governance processes around recruitment, player trading and contracting. If they have a strategy (doubtful as there is no evidence of one) they have not followed it. It is blindingly obvious that decisions made are not being appropriately reviewed or approved - the place is being run by cowboys who act on a whim.

The way forward has to be a full mea culpa, run the place professionally (personnel changes required) and correct the stuff up with risk management, governance and operations functions. Publicly atleast it does not appear they are moving in this direction.
 
Aug 17, 2018
1,186
3,116
AFL Club
Collingwood
The only redemption for this trade 'haul' is that we have potentially softened up North and the Bulldogs.
Offer 14, 16 and a future first and trade for pick 1 or 2 with these picks.
If we bid on Jamarra UH, we've already secured him for the Bulldogs with the return picks we handed for Treloar. No harm, no foul.
Both Adelaide and North could do with 3 good picks as part of an accelerated rebuild. They are a long way back and North has emptied the cupboard.
Adelaide have pick 9 too (for Crouch) and it would create 4 good players (3 this season) who could come through together along with their first rounder next season making 5.

If we don't pick up a highly credentialled key forward (McDonald or Thilthorpe) then this bizarre play this week will be close to the single worst trading a club will have made in the history of the AFL.
 

Trickster

Cancelled
Jul 27, 2014
2,076
2,229
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
New Orleans Saints
Long time watcher, first time posting. Club member for 15 years, legends member for the last decade.

I've spent 25+ years working for large corporates and multinationals in finance, risk management and corporate governance.

The reasons for this epic mess are to me quite simple, and the spin from the club merely confirms it.

The club either does not have or has not has adhered to its own risk management and governance processes around recruitment, player trading and contracting. If they have a strategy (doubtful as there is no evidence of one) they have not followed it. It is blindingly obvious that decisions made are not being appropriately reviewed or approved - the place is being run by cowboys who act on a whim.

The way forward has to be a full mea culpa, run the place professionally (personnel changes required) and correct the stuff up with risk management, governance and operations functions. Publicly atleast it does not appear they are moving in this direction.
Interesting post and welcome aboard. I would've hoped the 2017 review would have addressed some of these issues. Getting so close in 2018 and being smashed in the midfield by Shuey seduced them in going all out for Beams and back-ending contracts to accommodate him. With no one of note leaving in 18 and 19 (Aish if you can consider him noteworthy), I think the club made a deliberate chips all in decision to win a flag and then hope a few would retire or be moved on. That hasnt worked and weve continued to re-sign and overpay most players, or at least pay them market value.
 
We really need to start trading players out that want too much money.

If they want success they need to take a hit.
Thats exactly it. Geelong and Hawthorn have been brilliant at it and we need to emulate them by having a bit more system to things. No more of this 'write your own cheque' stuff. If players don't want to live with that, trade them out.
 

Cyclops

Brownlow Medallist
Oct 25, 2001
12,982
9,956
Northern Suburbs
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
IOM Gyms, Preston Nth End
The Beams deal is the reason we are in strife. Multi year deals to player that Eddie likes, followed by someone other than Eddie carrying the can, are the order of the day. He has done a great deal of good, but he is trading that 9 the good work and the goodwill) out the door with Phillips and Treloar.
 

Civilest

Cancelled
May 14, 2012
610
743
Melbourne
AFL Club
Collingwood
After Ned Guy spoke my BS meter exploded and I went down to Bunnings for new one. Didn’t even have that one 24 hrs and it caught fire after Walsh’s statement. Now I’m on my third, noticed it was smoking a bit during Anderson’s damage control speech. Still working but I think I’ve voided the warranty.

This is what I’d like to hear from the club....

After coming close in 18 we let ourselves be seduced by the possible return of Beams as a missing piece to go one better. We didn’t do sufficient due diligence on that deal. We also wanted to help him personally but that hasn’t worked out. As it turns out the deal wasn’t good for Dayne or good for the club and it has hurt our salary cap significantly. We made a big error.

When negotiating Grundys deal we panicked at the idea of losing him so we caved on a long term overpriced contract. This was a big error which has significantly hurt our cap space.

These contracts as well as paying overs for Wells and Mayne put us in a position of back ending contracts to stay under the cap. That was an unsustainable strategy and we regrettably had to trade 4 players to create cap space. We would have kept them if not for the salary cap relief we needed. It was wrong to raise the issue of family separation in the case of Adam as the reason for the trade. We are not happy with the picks we got in return and we are not happy with the suite of picks we hold.

This has been a dark period and we hope by owning up we can win back respect and turn it around. We are sorry for the hurt caused. We have learnt hard lessons regarding the dangers of large value, multi year and backended contracts. We hope by showing some humility we can be seen a destination club and avoid a bad culture setting in.

PS I’m stepping down for the good of the club ....Eddie
 
Aug 29, 2005
30,284
26,908
Adelaide
AFL Club
Collingwood
Basically I agree with everything the poster says. It reminds me very much of Adelaide FC blowing up after their grand final loss to Richmond. I view our loss to Geelong much differently - hub life, exhaustion after the West Coast and the quarantining and travelling back to Queensland and the injuries during the season and Sidebottom's loss due to the birth of his child, all finally catching up with us. In my view the football department has completed overreacted to the Geelong loss. Adelaide did a similar thing after the Richmond loss. Richmond now have a further two premierships to show for it so why subject the Adelaide FC to a mentally straining training camp just to rub salt into the wounds after the Richmond loss? Collingwood should have learned from the Adelaide situation but they seem not to have. Instead the football department is intent on blowing up the club just like Adelaide did. Of course if we win again next year all will be forgiven but I doubt it with the loss of two elite players and the best we have to show for it is a number 14 draft pick in the national draft. It's my view that there are three people in the football department whose positions are now untenable - the coach Nathan Buckley, the football manager Geoff Walsh and head of the list management team, Ned Guy.

That wasnt the first time we have had that style of loss and physical ineptness over the last 2 years.

Once can be written off but not when a pattern emerges across two years when met "physically" by opposition.

Had a block of games starting from norf in 19. Had a few games in 2020 too.
 
Oct 7, 2014
10,484
13,259
AFL Club
Collingwood
As a near 20 year member of BigFooty and former Collingwood Board Moderator, I hope you will allow me this therapeutic indulgence:



Dear Collingwood FC,


DISCLAIMERS
We understand that we need to further replenish the top 6 talent that can win you flags and that Grundy, De Goey and Moore need more friends in this regard.

We appreciate the pointy end of the draft usually gets you these players.

I’d suggest that the trading team expected much more than what we got.

We acknowledge that the trade period is not yet over and we’ll still shift picks around.

We know the players traded out had flaws (defensively especially), that footy is a business and that they weren’t untradeable.

We note that the list sizes have shrunk and as has the player cap.

We acknowledge that moving on these players will clear up space for potential trades or free agents.

We also get that there may have been mitigating circumstances with regards to ‘HUB life’ that may have made some positions untenable and that there are simply things that we cannot know.


SO THEN WHY ARE WE SO ANGRY?
Because the above justifications aside, you simply cannot trade out so negligently below market value!

The current deal has seen us trade out Treloar, Stephenson, Phillips and Atu effectively for a mid to late first round pick (14) and a future second round pick (say in the mid to late 30’s). The Pick 65 for Phillips carries practically no points and we won’t use it. There isn’t a Collingwood supporter alive who thinks this passes the pub test!

In the past, we’ve had times to trade out players for behavioural concerns in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, such as Tarrant and Shaw, but we got fair compensation by way of Pick 8 and Taylor Adams respectively.

But us getting horribly below market value on Thursday has actually been a slow-moving train wreck in the making. Our more recent trades in the Ned Guy era have been with Sam Murray 2017 that inexplicably involved a second round pick in the future for an NEAFL standard player who couldn’t get a game at Sydney, the loss of two first rounders in getting an ageing Beams with concerns, a pedestrian 2019 period with lots of noise and now the biggest fire sale in the history of trading. Our negotiations have been particularly weak since the 2015 trade period, which coincides with the Gubby Allen period and Ned Guy’s arrival.

There were recent claims that the recent Geelong final has prompted the sudden need to push contracted players out for draft and/or salary cap gain, but last year we had last year we had contracted players in Scharenberg, Phillips, Cox and Aish getting the tap on the shoulder from the Club, with Aish ultimately being traded. There were also murmurings of trading Treloar to the Gold Coast for a high pick just after the ink dried on his contract.

The claims that this is a sudden pivot are demonstrably false.

With regards to getting clearing cap space for potential FA / trades next year, we’ve been told this all before, yet have watched the likes of Charlie Dixon, Tom Lynch and Jeremy Cameron walk on by to other clubs despite the fact that we haven’t had a decent key position forward for close to 10 years.
Given the extremely low value of the recent trades, I’m interested to know how we trade in this ‘big fish’ given that we’ll likely need high amounts of capital for drafting Nick Daicos. They’ll presumably need to be unrestricted free agents only.

And on Tom Lynch, we know for a fact that Ned Guy was at his parents’ house and that Nathan Buckley caught up with him, so it is disgraceful for Geoff Walsh to claim that we never had any interest. Then Guy and Walsh continually feeding the spin that that we’re well positioned with “two first round picks” as though we just picked up both Pick 14 and Pick 16 is nothing short of pathetic.
Treating us like idiots right now isn’t helpful to your cause!


LIST MANAGER
Ned Guy was brought in in 2017 to ironically fix our salary cap issues and yet all of the current contracts causing issues relate to players that we’ve tried to get off our list in the past 2 years. Mason Cox’s trigger, Treloar’s massively back-ended contract, Stephenson’s back ended contract, Phillips getting paid miles over his worth, are all one his watch. As is the Beams into 4 years renegotiation.

As for Guy’s negotiation ability, that’s been covered above, but the desperation conveyed by Ned and his team was palpable and ultimately resulted in one of the biggest lose-win negotiations across 3 clubs in history.

Were he let go, there would be no suitors for his services as a list manager in opposition teams. His position is untenable.


GENERAL MANAGER
Geoff Walsh has given us tremendous service over the years and once upon a time nutted out some great trade results. Unfortunately his past 4 years involved in trading have been extremely poor and he seemingly has one foot in retirement. His disrespect to Collingwood fans on Ed’s breakfast show was unacceptable.


COACH
It is an indictment on the coach that I believe both Stephenson and Treloar with regards to the calls suggesting that they seek a trade and in the case of Treloar, that the players don’t want him there. He has form with his treatment of Heath Shaw.

On top of that behaviour, he is a coach that was appointment without due process, who has been afforded one of the longest stints of any coach without a Premiership. Most fans would acknowledge that he has strengths, but also significant weaknesses, particularly by way of being an exceedingly poor match day coach, who is not helped by having a bevy of best mates who are ‘yes men’ and never bring any ideas to the fore.

We will likely go into 2021 with diminished expectations with a probable and subsequent contract extension and the same ol’ same ol’ coaching staff who offer no contrary ideas or solutions.


PRESIDENT
When Ed came to us with the motto “Only the best”. We didn’t realise that he actually meant, “only the best mates”. The appointments of Buckley and his hand-picked team of mates, Geoff Walsh post the ‘Captains Call’ of Gubby Allen and of Ned Guy who had literally no list management experience before joining Collingwood, are all appointments by the President and were undertaken without due process.

For all the good that Ed did for us from 1999 and into the current century, we are and continue to be at the behest of the President and his many Captains Calls. Whilst the Board is an impressive list of business leaders, there would be a query over if there could possibly be sufficient numbers to question one of McGuire’s decisions.

So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2021, with the coach coming out of contract at year’s end. We’ve traded out two definite starting 22 players, potentially 3, so then we have our President with an excuse to justify another 2 or 3 years into the 2020’s for his mate Nathan as we “rebuild”, meaning that Buckley will end up become the longest serving coach in history not to have won a flag.

Another major issue is McGuire’s desire to fully comply with the soft cap. There’s nothing wrong with paying some tax for quality football requirements if we run a bit over and it brings competitive advantage. We are not a ‘for profit’ entity.

We were on seemingly track to good processes after Peter Murphy’s review, but regressed to type rapidly thereafter.

We need to bring in the process that makes the “only the best” motto an actuality with particular regard to the list manager, football manager and coach. If that requires a new President, then now is the time for that change.


CONCLUSION
We the members and fans are mortified at recent events, evidenced by a similar pattern of recent ineptitude and with a sense of powerlessness as we stand by and wait for more of the same. If you're taken aback by the fact that we ain't falling for the usual spin, then please re-read the above and take action.


FIGJAM (aka. JtP from EB&W)
Well done, FIG.
 
Jun 10, 2005
8,332
6,222
Melbourne
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
collingwood
Our issues have been off field for some time. We don’t take injuries seriously and we don’t take list management seriously. It costs us dearly year in, year out.

Richmond have comparatively had limited injuries over the last 4 years and it has netted them 3 premierships.

I love Eddie, but if he has to go he has to go...he’d be the first to put his hand up. The question is, who is the alternative and what is their plan...change doesn’t necessarily make things better. Saying Eddie must go with out a clear understanding of what is next is irresponsible in my opinion.

Ned I’d be happy to move on without much further thought, hasn’t really done himself any favours that’s for sure. Walsh I’m not so sure, players tend to want to stay at the club and it’s generally a pretty positive vibe coming out of the club. Injuries are on his head though, as are the coaching issues with it’s the assistance and line coaches I think.

Buckley stays until such a time as the players don’t play for him anymore. His match day nouse and strategy needs to improve by bringing better people in to support him. He’s in my mind still the man to lead the players.
 
Last edited:

LuckyLee

Premiership Player
Mar 23, 2019
3,647
8,644
AFL Club
Collingwood
As a near 20 year member of BigFooty and former Collingwood Board Moderator, I hope you will allow me this therapeutic indulgence:



Dear Collingwood FC,


DISCLAIMERS
We understand that we need to further replenish the top 6 talent that can win you flags and that Grundy, De Goey and Moore need more friends in this regard.

We appreciate the pointy end of the draft usually gets you these players.

I’d suggest that the trading team expected much more than what we got.

We acknowledge that the trade period is not yet over and we’ll still shift picks around.

We know the players traded out had flaws (defensively especially), that footy is a business and that they weren’t untradeable.

We note that the list sizes have shrunk and as has the player cap.

We acknowledge that moving on these players will clear up space for potential trades or free agents.

We also get that there may have been mitigating circumstances with regards to ‘HUB life’ that may have made some positions untenable and that there are simply things that we cannot know.


SO THEN WHY ARE WE SO ANGRY?
Because the above justifications aside, you simply cannot trade out so negligently below market value!

The current deal has seen us trade out Treloar, Stephenson, Phillips and Atu effectively for a mid to late first round pick (14) and a future second round pick (say in the mid to late 30’s). The Pick 65 for Phillips carries practically no points and we won’t use it. There isn’t a Collingwood supporter alive who thinks this passes the pub test!

In the past, we’ve had times to trade out players for behavioural concerns in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, such as Tarrant and Shaw, but we got fair compensation by way of Pick 8 and Taylor Adams respectively.

But us getting horribly below market value on Thursday has actually been a slow-moving train wreck in the making. Our more recent trades in the Ned Guy era have been with Sam Murray 2017 that inexplicably involved a second round pick in the future for an NEAFL standard player who couldn’t get a game at Sydney, the loss of two first rounders in getting an ageing Beams with concerns, a pedestrian 2019 period with lots of noise and now the biggest fire sale in the history of trading. Our negotiations have been particularly weak since the 2015 trade period, which coincides with the Gubby Allen period and Ned Guy’s arrival.

There were recent claims that the recent Geelong final has prompted the sudden need to push contracted players out for draft and/or salary cap gain, but last year we had last year we had contracted players in Scharenberg, Phillips, Cox and Aish getting the tap on the shoulder from the Club, with Aish ultimately being traded. There were also murmurings of trading Treloar to the Gold Coast for a high pick just after the ink dried on his contract.

The claims that this is a sudden pivot are demonstrably false.

With regards to getting clearing cap space for potential FA / trades next year, we’ve been told this all before, yet have watched the likes of Charlie Dixon, Tom Lynch and Jeremy Cameron walk on by to other clubs despite the fact that we haven’t had a decent key position forward for close to 10 years.
Given the extremely low value of the recent trades, I’m interested to know how we trade in this ‘big fish’ given that we’ll likely need high amounts of capital for drafting Nick Daicos. They’ll presumably need to be unrestricted free agents only.

And on Tom Lynch, we know for a fact that Ned Guy was at his parents’ house and that Nathan Buckley caught up with him, so it is disgraceful for Geoff Walsh to claim that we never had any interest. Then Guy and Walsh continually feeding the spin that that we’re well positioned with “two first round picks” as though we just picked up both Pick 14 and Pick 16 is nothing short of pathetic.
Treating us like idiots right now isn’t helpful to your cause!


LIST MANAGER
Ned Guy was brought in in 2017 to ironically fix our salary cap issues and yet all of the current contracts causing issues relate to players that we’ve tried to get off our list in the past 2 years. Mason Cox’s trigger, Treloar’s massively back-ended contract, Stephenson’s back ended contract, Phillips getting paid miles over his worth, are all one his watch. As is the Beams into 4 years renegotiation.

As for Guy’s negotiation ability, that’s been covered above, but the desperation conveyed by Ned and his team was palpable and ultimately resulted in one of the biggest lose-win negotiations across 3 clubs in history.

Were he let go, there would be no suitors for his services as a list manager in opposition teams. His position is untenable.


GENERAL MANAGER
Geoff Walsh has given us tremendous service over the years and once upon a time nutted out some great trade results. Unfortunately his past 4 years involved in trading have been extremely poor and he seemingly has one foot in retirement. His disrespect to Collingwood fans on Ed’s breakfast show was unacceptable.


COACH
It is an indictment on the coach that I believe both Stephenson and Treloar with regards to the calls suggesting that they seek a trade and in the case of Treloar, that the players don’t want him there. He has form with his treatment of Heath Shaw.

On top of that behaviour, he is a coach that was appointment without due process, who has been afforded one of the longest stints of any coach without a Premiership. Most fans would acknowledge that he has strengths, but also significant weaknesses, particularly by way of being an exceedingly poor match day coach, who is not helped by having a bevy of best mates who are ‘yes men’ and never bring any ideas to the fore.

We will likely go into 2021 with diminished expectations with a probable and subsequent contract extension and the same ol’ same ol’ coaching staff who offer no contrary ideas or solutions.


PRESIDENT
When Ed came to us with the motto “Only the best”. We didn’t realise that he actually meant, “only the best mates”. The appointments of Buckley and his hand-picked team of mates, Geoff Walsh post the ‘Captains Call’ of Gubby Allen and of Ned Guy who had literally no list management experience before joining Collingwood, are all appointments by the President and were undertaken without due process.

For all the good that Ed did for us from 1999 and into the current century, we are and continue to be at the behest of the President and his many Captains Calls. Whilst the Board is an impressive list of business leaders, there would be a query over if there could possibly be sufficient numbers to question one of McGuire’s decisions.

So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2021, with the coach coming out of contract at year’s end. We’ve traded out two definite starting 22 players, potentially 3, so then we have our President with an excuse to justify another 2 or 3 years into the 2020’s for his mate Nathan as we “rebuild”, meaning that Buckley will end up become the longest serving coach in history not to have won a flag.

Another major issue is McGuire’s desire to fully comply with the soft cap. There’s nothing wrong with paying some tax for quality football requirements if we run a bit over and it brings competitive advantage. We are not a ‘for profit’ entity.

We were on seemingly track to good processes after Peter Murphy’s review, but regressed to type rapidly thereafter.

We need to bring in the process that makes the “only the best” motto an actuality with particular regard to the list manager, football manager and coach. If that requires a new President, then now is the time for that change.


CONCLUSION
We the members and fans are mortified at recent events, evidenced by a similar pattern of recent ineptitude and with a sense of powerlessness as we stand by and wait for more of the same. If you're taken aback by the fact that we ain't falling for the usual spin, then please re-read the above and take action.


FIGJAM (aka. JtP from EB&W)

You should have mentioned Grundy’s 7-year, $7 milllion deal. That’s the deal that sunk us. That’s the one that blew our salary cap to pieces (and every subsequent contract extension - Moore, Daicos, etc - pushed us further into the red). And at the time Grundy’s deal was strict, our list management team knew, or should have known, that the deal would destroy our salary cap. Yet they negligently pushed ahead with it anyway.

The dreadful deals that we struck on Stephenson, Treloar and Phillips were inevitable. Our salary cap was in tatters, and opposition clubs were smart enough to realise that we were desperate and would accept cents in the dollar as the deadline drew close. It’s not the deals themselves that were the problem - it’s that we screwed ourselves so badly through earlier gross mismanagement that we had no choice but to accept those shitty deals when offered.


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Basically I agree with everything the poster says. It reminds me very much of Adelaide FC blowing up after their grand final loss to Richmond. I view our loss to Geelong much differently - hub life, exhaustion after the West Coast and the quarantining and travelling back to Queensland and the injuries during the season and Sidebottom's loss due to the birth of his child, all finally catching up with us. In my view the football department has completed overreacted to the Geelong loss. Adelaide did a similar thing after the Richmond loss. Richmond now have a further two premierships to show for it so why subject the Adelaide FC to a mentally straining training camp just to rub salt into the wounds after the Richmond loss? Collingwood should have learned from the Adelaide situation but they seem not to have. Instead the football department is intent on blowing up the club just like Adelaide did. Of course if we win again next year all will be forgiven but I doubt it with the loss of two elite players and the best we have to show for it is a number 14 draft pick in the national draft. It's my view that there are three people in the football department whose positions are now untenable - the coach Nathan Buckley, the football manager Geoff Walsh and head of the list management team, Ned Guy.
The board and Ed remain?
 
Long time watcher, first time posting.

Welcome

... legends member for the last decade.

Do you attend CFC AGM’s? Thoughts?

The club either does not have or has not has adhered to its own risk management and governance processes around recruitment, player trading and contracting.

It’d be interesting to know if this was picked up as part of the 2017 review, and if so what corrective action was done about it, and whether we’re sticking to it.

If they have a strategy (doubtful as there is no evidence of one) they have not followed it. It is blindingly obvious that decisions made are not being appropriately reviewed or approved

I’ve had concerns about this too. Having the List Manager, the Coach, the Footy Manager, the CEO, the head recruiter, and the President all sit around the table at list management committee is not how a review and approval process works. That’s how it was done before the review, dunno if that has changed.

... the place is being run by cowboys who act on a whim.

IMO Geoff Walsh is a wise greybeard who is old school and is not really a process guy.

Sure, it’s concerning that we’ve just offloaded players who were on 5 and 3 year contracts ... but credit where it’s due and the club have clearly made some tough decisions they needed to make. If we knew the full facts we’d probably see that it would have been an easier and worse decision to keep the players and deal with even worse consequences further down the track.

IMO the problem was not this trading period. The problem was in the past when we made decisions that led us to this predicament.

The way forward has to be a full mea culpa, run the place professionally (personnel changes required) and correct the stuff up with risk management, governance and operations functions. Publicly atleast it does not appear they are moving in this direction.

We had a review back in 2017 and governance was in scope. We got a new CEO and we’ve had three new board members since then (including Peter Murphy, the person who did the review)
 
Feb 2, 2001
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You should have mentioned Grundy’s 7-year, $7 milllion deal. That’s the deal that sunk us. That’s the one that blew our salary cap to pieces (and every subsequent contract extension - Moore, Daicos, etc - pushed us further into the red). And at the time Grundy’s deal was strict, our list management team knew, or should have known, that the deal would destroy our salary cap. Yet they negligently pushed ahead with it anyway.

The dreadful deals that we struck on Stephenson, Treloar and Phillips were inevitable. Our salary cap was in tatters, and opposition clubs were smart enough to realise that we were desperate and would accept cents in the dollar as the deadline drew close. It’s not the deals themselves that were the problem - it’s that we screwed ourselves so badly through earlier gross mismanagement that we had no choice but to accept those shitty deals when offered.


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Yeah, forgot the Grundy mega deal.

He’ll at least be back next year though.
 
Agree with some things in the OP, disagree with others ...

I’m mostly holding my fire until after the draft period when the rest of the puzzle will look complete.

The things I’d take issue with now ...

- Why are we offloading players who we had recently signed to long term deals? I get that circumstances change, but to offload a player with 5 years left on his contract means that we missed a target by a very wide margin.

- Dayne Beams had been very open in public about his mental health issues before he returned to Collingwood, and full credit to the club for looking past those, and seeing his potential value to us. Sure, it didn’t work out, that’s a shame, but recruitment is a gamble and sometimes it doesn’t pay off. But a four year deal? That made no sense!

- Ned Guy’s recent media performances, eg: suggesting that it was Kim Ravillion’s return to Firebirds that was the trigger to trade out Treloar. Dumping that on the shoulders of a player’s partner is poor form. We are not savages.

- Geoff Walsh’s recent media performances, eg: taking issue with Stephenson’s comments. Sure, Stephenson probably did have conversations throughout the year about what he needed to do to find his best, and that likely was reinforced at his exit interview. Stephenson himself has said that too. But reasons for trading him out? Walsh might see it as the same thing ... but the club’s own player clearly doesn’t.

- General PR strategy. Where’s the post trade mailout to members? Geoff Walsh seems to think that the club are answerable to the supporters and members, and not the media. But in the absence of any direct communication to the members and supporters, the media IS the proxy for the members and supporters.

The club have one job, and one job only, and that is to bring pride to its members and supporters. The club haven’t been doing a very good job of that over the last week.
 
Sep 19, 2011
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You should have mentioned Grundy’s 7-year, $7 milllion deal. That’s the deal that sunk us. That’s the one that blew our salary cap to pieces (and every subsequent contract extension - Moore, Daicos, etc - pushed us further into the red). And at the time Grundy’s deal was strict, our list management team knew, or should have known, that the deal would destroy our salary cap. Yet they negligently pushed ahead with it anyway.

The dreadful deals that we struck on Stephenson, Treloar and Phillips were inevitable. Our salary cap was in tatters, and opposition clubs were smart enough to realise that we were desperate and would accept cents in the dollar as the deadline drew close. It’s not the deals themselves that were the problem - it’s that we screwed ourselves so badly through earlier gross mismanagement that we had no choice but to accept those shitty deals when offered.


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The Grundy deal is the one deal that really worries me and frankly unnecessary- if he has another average year, we may see ( I hope so) another name pushed out. Ruckman are a dime a dozen and highly over rated


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You should have mentioned Grundy’s 7-year, $7 milllion deal. That’s the deal that sunk us. That’s the one that blew our salary cap to pieces (and every subsequent contract extension - Moore, Daicos, etc - pushed us further into the red).

Critiquing contract lengths is fair enough because they’re publicly known ...

... but ...

... it’s totally pointless to smash the club over the $$$ of deals.

The club can, will, and quite reasonably bat it away with “we don’t talk about contracts” and at a pinch in a member’s forum you might get “It’s been way overstated in the media”.

Consider where the reports of player $$$ are coming from and why.

Is it from the club? “Pssst, we just signed Grundy to $900k p/a over 7 years, how cool is that!!!” ... Why would they do that?

Is it from the player? Sure, there’s the occasional dickhead who will skite to their mates down the pub “Oi, I just signed a $900k p/a deal for 7 years ... btw, whose round is it?” ... but would have thought that’d be rare, and that doesn’t explain how it gets into the media.

My guess is it’s all being leaked by the player managers. They’re on commission, they need to attract business, it’s their livelihood. So if they can signal to the market “I got a $$$X deal over Y years for player Z” then that’s the best advertising they can get for the services they offer. And there’s no incentive whatsoever to get the facts straight, and it’s guaranteed that nobody will even try and set those facts straight. For all we know, Grundy could be on $600k/a for the first six years, and then $875k in the 7th year after the TPP has gone through a bunch of inflationary increases. Let’s round that $875k up to an even $900k, and hey presto, somebody in the media reports that Grundy is on $900kp/a for 7 years!

And just as a sanity check, add up all the $$$ that players are reportedly getting, and you’ll get a total that is way, way above the salary cap.
 
Last edited:

epistemology

Draftee
Feb 2, 2013
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Cheers
Do you attend CFC AGM’s? Thoughts?
No, never been. Other commitments usually and for me the Pies have always been a matchday thing. It would be interesting to attend though and understand the dynamic first hand, particularly how they respond to questions.

IMO the problem was not this trading period. The problem was in the past when we made decisions that led us to this predicament.

In full agreement there. I think what has happened this week is the cascading effect of multiple bad decisions over several years. The doubt in my mind is whether they can turn it around; adhere to or implement the risk management processes and governance structure they need.

Hopefully the events of last week does the trick. Time will tell, and we'll know the answer in 12 months.
 

bellpark

All Australian
Aug 18, 2009
775
2,313
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Geelong
Just a couple of observations - putting aside the list structure/ cap issues, on a purely human and cultural level, how does a club not clearly articulate to players till right before a trade week that they are for the high jump? Robs them of the ability to properly consider their options - not cool. Not directly telling them rather hinting to their managers and expecting that feedback during the year means they should have “known” they were up for trade - not cool. Leaking to the media that it’s clear to them Treloar won’t cope with his wife’s move without telling him- threat was a killer backstab that everyone read for what it was and it just piled more misery on someone who was doing their job well in good faith - very not cool. Finally, do I recall correctly that the other bloke traded to North is somehow family with Joffa ? I thought he looked really good in is early games. Overall the opposite approach to culture to the tigers, cats, etc. We are often called weak at the Cats during trade time, but we get players where they need to go, if it’s agreed and we pay up to get the players we need. Constantly called weak but look at our list and compare it for example to the bombers where they make a career of overvaluing their players and lowballing the ones they want to get in. I would strongly argue listening to your players and working together is strong not weak because you have a lot of uncomfortable conversations but you work it out together. Here, it looks like management makes the calls and it’s a surprise to everyone. Apparently this is the new professional approach like US sports. Don’t buy that spin, it’s rubbish and an excuse for not dealing with conflict directly - it is passive aggressive. It’s no foundation for alignment of anything. You Pies fans are spot on in not being treated like suckers this time and you are the future of the club - more power to you to get involved and help confront uncomfortable truths. You support a great great club, don’t quit on it but make yourselves heard.
 

LuckyLee

Premiership Player
Mar 23, 2019
3,647
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AFL Club
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Critiquing contract lengths is fair enough because they’re publicly known ...

... but ...

... it’s totally pointless to smash the club over the $$$ of deals.

The club can, will, and quite reasonably bat it away with “we don’t talk about contracts” and at a pinch in a member’s forum you might get “It’s been way overstated in the media”.

Consider where the reports of player $$$ are coming from and why.

Is it from the club? “Pssst, we just signed Grundy to $900k p/a over 7 years, how cool is that!!!” ... Why would they do that?

Is it from the player? Sure, there’s the occasional dickhead who will skite to their mates down the pub “Oi, I just signed a $900k p/a deal for 7 years ... btw, whose round is it?” ... but would have thought that’d be rare, and that doesn’t explain how it gets into the media.

My guess is it’s all being leaked by the player managers. They’re on commission, they need to attract business, it’s their livelihood. So if they can signal to the market “I got a $$$X deal over Y years for player Z” then that’s the best advertising they can get for the services they offer. And there’s no incentive whatsoever to get the facts straight, and it’s guaranteed that nobody will even try and set those facts straight. For all we know, Grundy could be on $600k/a for the first six years, and then $875k in the 7th year after the TPP has gone through a bunch of inflationary increases. Let’s round that $875k up to an even $900k, and hey presto, somebody in the media reports that Grundy is on $900kp/a for 7 years!

And just as a sanity check, add up all the $$$ that players are reportedly getting, and you’ll get a total that is way, way above the salary cap.

I agree with you that the LENGTH of the Grundy deal (and the Treloar deal before that) is the bigger of the two problems but let’s not kid ourselves, he’ll be on huge dollars too ($800K+) even if not $1 million per season. So its a big burden to deal with, whichever way you look at it.


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Lefthanded

Premiership Player
Sep 9, 2013
3,621
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Critiquing contract lengths is fair enough because they’re publicly known ...

... but ...

... it’s totally pointless to smash the club over the $$$ of deals.

The club can, will, and quite reasonably bat it away with “we don’t talk about contracts” and at a pinch in a member’s forum you might get “It’s been way overstated in the media”.

Consider where the reports of player $$$ are coming from and why.

Is it from the club? “Pssst, we just signed Grundy to $900k p/a over 7 years, how cool is that!!!” ... Why would they do that?

Is it from the player? Sure, there’s the occasional dickhead who will skite to their mates down the pub “Oi, I just signed a $900k p/a deal for 7 years ... btw, whose round is it?” ... but would have thought that’d be rare, and that doesn’t explain how it gets into the media.

My guess is it’s all being leaked by the player managers. They’re on commission, they need to attract business, it’s their livelihood. So if they can signal to the market “I got a $$$X deal over Y years for player Z” then that’s the best advertising they can get for the services they offer. And there’s no incentive whatsoever to get the facts straight, and it’s guaranteed that nobody will even try and set those facts straight. For all we know, Grundy could be on $600k/a for the first six years, and then $875k in the 7th year after the TPP has gone through a bunch of inflationary increases. Let’s round that $875k up to an even $900k, and hey presto, somebody in the media reports that Grundy is on $900kp/a for 7 years!

And just as a sanity check, add up all the $$$ that players are reportedly getting, and you’ll get a total that is way, way above the salary cap.
I agree with all this and had similar thoughts eg IF we were willing to offer Grundy 5 years at $1m per season but for whatever reason Grundy would only take a 7 year deal ANY reasonable negotiator that concedes the 7 years then gets Grundy to concede on the $$. Maybe for the two extra years he only gets $300k per year (some clubs like Hawks seem not to offer multi year contracts to players over 30 yet we are giving multi year contracts to players like Grundy and Treloar that take them well into their 30s), making the total deal worth 5.6M and they structure the individual year amounts how they can fit them. Given our original offer was reportedly only 3 years I'd hope the 5 year offer was less than $1m per season too.

Unfortunately with other issues of seeming incompetence coming from the club I lose substantial faith that we negotiated like this.

If Grundy was getting offered $1.4M per year from Adelaide (as reported) I think we'd all rather (partially the benefit of hindsight) trading him last year for a draft hand worthy of such a monster contract (imagine if it had included the then future first round pick for 2020 which turned out to be pick 1!), rather than the mess we've seen with player trades for little draft return this year.
 

peter9789

Club Legend
Aug 25, 2009
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As a near 20 year member of BigFooty and former Collingwood Board Moderator, I hope you will allow me this therapeutic indulgence:



Dear Collingwood FC,


DISCLAIMERS
We understand that we need to further replenish the top 6 talent that can win you flags and that Grundy, De Goey and Moore need more friends in this regard.

We appreciate the pointy end of the draft usually gets you these players.

I’d suggest that the trading team expected much more than what we got.

We acknowledge that the trade period is not yet over and we’ll still shift picks around.

We know the players traded out had flaws (defensively especially), that footy is a business and that they weren’t untradeable.

We note that the list sizes have shrunk and as has the player cap.

We acknowledge that moving on these players will clear up space for potential trades or free agents.

We also get that there may have been mitigating circumstances with regards to ‘HUB life’ that may have made some positions untenable and that there are simply things that we cannot know.


SO THEN WHY ARE WE SO ANGRY?
Because the above justifications aside, you simply cannot trade out so negligently below market value!

The current deal has seen us trade out Treloar, Stephenson, Phillips and Atu effectively for a mid to late first round pick (14) and a future second round pick (say in the mid to late 30’s). The Pick 65 for Phillips carries practically no points and we won’t use it. There isn’t a Collingwood supporter alive who thinks this passes the pub test!

In the past, we’ve had times to trade out players for behavioural concerns in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, such as Tarrant and Shaw, but we got fair compensation by way of Pick 8 and Taylor Adams respectively.

But us getting horribly below market value on Thursday has actually been a slow-moving train wreck in the making. Our more recent trades in the Ned Guy era have been with Sam Murray 2017 that inexplicably involved a second round pick in the future for an NEAFL standard player who couldn’t get a game at Sydney, the loss of two first rounders in getting an ageing Beams with concerns, a pedestrian 2019 period with lots of noise and now the biggest fire sale in the history of trading. Our negotiations have been particularly weak since the 2015 trade period, which coincides with the Gubby Allen period and Ned Guy’s arrival.

There were recent claims that the recent Geelong final has prompted the sudden need to push contracted players out for draft and/or salary cap gain, but last year we had last year we had contracted players in Scharenberg, Phillips, Cox and Aish getting the tap on the shoulder from the Club, with Aish ultimately being traded. There were also murmurings of trading Treloar to the Gold Coast for a high pick just after the ink dried on his contract.

The claims that this is a sudden pivot are demonstrably false.

With regards to getting clearing cap space for potential FA / trades next year, we’ve been told this all before, yet have watched the likes of Charlie Dixon, Tom Lynch and Jeremy Cameron walk on by to other clubs despite the fact that we haven’t had a decent key position forward for close to 10 years.
Given the extremely low value of the recent trades, I’m interested to know how we trade in this ‘big fish’ given that we’ll likely need high amounts of capital for drafting Nick Daicos. They’ll presumably need to be unrestricted free agents only.

And on Tom Lynch, we know for a fact that Ned Guy was at his parents’ house and that Nathan Buckley caught up with him, so it is disgraceful for Geoff Walsh to claim that we never had any interest. Then Guy and Walsh continually feeding the spin that that we’re well positioned with “two first round picks” as though we just picked up both Pick 14 and Pick 16 is nothing short of pathetic.
Treating us like idiots right now isn’t helpful to your cause!


LIST MANAGER
Ned Guy was brought in in 2017 to ironically fix our salary cap issues and yet all of the current contracts causing issues relate to players that we’ve tried to get off our list in the past 2 years. Mason Cox’s trigger, Treloar’s massively back-ended contract, Stephenson’s back ended contract, Phillips getting paid miles over his worth, are all one his watch. As is the Beams into 4 years renegotiation.

As for Guy’s negotiation ability, that’s been covered above, but the desperation conveyed by Ned and his team was palpable and ultimately resulted in one of the biggest lose-win negotiations across 3 clubs in history.

Were he let go, there would be no suitors for his services as a list manager in opposition teams. His position is untenable.


GENERAL MANAGER
Geoff Walsh has given us tremendous service over the years and once upon a time nutted out some great trade results. Unfortunately his past 4 years involved in trading have been extremely poor and he seemingly has one foot in retirement. His disrespect to Collingwood fans on Ed’s breakfast show was unacceptable.


COACH
It is an indictment on the coach that I believe both Stephenson and Treloar with regards to the calls suggesting that they seek a trade and in the case of Treloar, that the players don’t want him there. He has form with his treatment of Heath Shaw.

On top of that behaviour, he is a coach that was appointment without due process, who has been afforded one of the longest stints of any coach without a Premiership. Most fans would acknowledge that he has strengths, but also significant weaknesses, particularly by way of being an exceedingly poor match day coach, who is not helped by having a bevy of best mates who are ‘yes men’ and never bring any ideas to the fore.

We will likely go into 2021 with diminished expectations with a probable and subsequent contract extension and the same ol’ same ol’ coaching staff who offer no contrary ideas or solutions.


PRESIDENT
When Ed came to us with the motto “Only the best”. We didn’t realise that he actually meant, “only the best mates”. The appointments of Buckley and his hand-picked team of mates, Geoff Walsh post the ‘Captains Call’ of Gubby Allen and of Ned Guy who had literally no list management experience before joining Collingwood, are all appointments by the President and were undertaken without due process.

For all the good that Ed did for us from 1999 and into the current century, we are and continue to be at the behest of the President and his many Captains Calls. Whilst the Board is an impressive list of business leaders, there would be a query over if there could possibly be sufficient numbers to question one of McGuire’s decisions.

So here we are, staring down the barrel of 2021, with the coach coming out of contract at year’s end. We’ve traded out two definite starting 22 players, potentially 3, so then we have our President with an excuse to justify another 2 or 3 years into the 2020’s for his mate Nathan as we “rebuild”, meaning that Buckley will end up become the longest serving coach in history not to have won a flag.

Another major issue is McGuire’s desire to fully comply with the soft cap. There’s nothing wrong with paying some tax for quality football requirements if we run a bit over and it brings competitive advantage. We are not a ‘for profit’ entity.

We were on seemingly track to good processes after Peter Murphy’s review, but regressed to type rapidly thereafter.

We need to bring in the process that makes the “only the best” motto an actuality with particular regard to the list manager, football manager and coach. If that requires a new President, then now is the time for that change.


CONCLUSION
We the members and fans are mortified at recent events, evidenced by a similar pattern of recent ineptitude and with a sense of powerlessness as we stand by and wait for more of the same. If you're taken aback by the fact that we ain't falling for the usual spin, then please re-read the above and take action.


FIGJAM (aka. JtP from EB&W)
Excellent letter FIGJAM.

I am also a Legends member and expressed similar sentiments as this, to the club, and directly to Mark Anderson. I hope they read the feedback and take it on board - I truly do.

You see I'm not one of these supporters who can turn a blind eye to this gross incompetence. Some on here say we should be ashamed of the way we feel (club loyalty and all that). But to me the real argument is I wont stand by and let this go. We need to expect more, demand more as members as I believe as a collective we owe to ourselves and the club to expect an elite environment off the field, as well as on.

Maybe a letter isn't much - but it's a damn side more than saying nothing.
 
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