There will never be a shortage of fans that want an owner to match THIER ambitions with HIS money , I've seen it at Leigh , I've seen it posted countless times on these boards

I remember seeing the opinions passed on this board a couple of years ago of your previous owner and his million pound ' investment ' , I was disgusted with some of them

I regret that Mr Green will most likely suffer similar now , for doing nothing other than tipping money in , doing his best and telling it like it is

Exactly

Most of yesterday, once the gloating rumour generators had gained momentum, I couldn't think straight for worrying we were going to disappear.

They love it don't they, specially the likes of Ratty Schofield.

That statment needed to be made and its a good one as far as I am concerned.

Ross Heppenstall described it as a "diatribe" - so whats his problem then? There is nothing there that did not need to be said.

As for the abuse of Directors and drinks in the face of a player - just not on..

So yes - I am more than grateful to Marc Green for keeping the club going.

I did not intent to watch the pointless shield games - but on the back of that statement - I will go to them all now just to put my money in and continue my support.

So we need to park this season (even though it is only July). And we need to park last season because we got to the MPG, despite the fact that a lot of the performances dire. And we had to park the season before because we had a six point deduction for going into administration. I daresay you are expecting to say that we really can't expect much next season as there will be so many new players that they need time to play together. We may as well park that.

God, I'm terrible at parking as well.

I like Green, and agree with most of his comments. I think a lot of us would be more onside if someone would just own up and say, "Yes we got some things wrong, particularly with some signings, and the scrum half debacle" However its done now. Will be there for the next home match, daft as a brush but still supporting, and might I add, grateful to Marc Green for keeping my club going.

Tend to agree with this. I am disappointed that there appears to be a complete lack of acknowledgment from the players that they have utterly loved up this season.

I've only seen Mellor and Addy and Chev say something but it was more playing the victim card. "we're hurting just as much as you" Can't stand when people play the victim in a situation they created themselves.

Not seen one comment like "we've not been good enough. Sorry etc" Actions speak louder than words, but at least an acknowledgment would have been nice.

This. I'm actually very happy with Marc's comments, and am currently looking for ways of making myself poorer in order to benefit the club, in solidarity with Marc's own efforts. It's possibly foolish on my part, but I [ido[/i trust the guy, which is more than can be said for all of the previous leaders at the club since I started watching in over 20 years ago.

Marc is undoubtedly a better person to be in charge of the club than Omar Khan, Ryan Whitcut or Mark Moore. Which admittedly is like saying someone is a better babysitter than Jimmy Saville would have been, but nevertheless, it's a positive.

Personally, my jury is still out on him. But I am under no illusions that we're better off with him than a lot of the clowns that we've had (or nearly had) recently.

Well indeed. People involved in professional sport are generally pretty dodgy. The fact that Marc appears to be generally trustworthy, broadly open, and is not promising anything unrealistic, puts him a cut above the usual rabble. That doesn't mean I think he will be able to lead us to greatness, and given the millstone that is Odsal that is round our necks, I still think it's fairly likely that we will go out of existence in the next few years. I do however trust that Marc will do a good job with what he has at his disposal and will perform with integrity. I don't think there's much more we can ask, beyond someone with the same qualities but more money.

I honestly can't see where Marc is supposed to be blaming the fans. All he is doing is pointing out the obvious; this is a business where the majority of income comes from the fans. Without the fans providing that income the business cannot survive with its current expenditure.

Regarding players, he has answered a question people have been debating all season; who had the final say on recruitment? Apparently Jimmy did and turned down players who would have been very useful to the team. I think the fact that there has been a sharp improvement in the quality of recruits filling the change of coach, despite Ferres still being in place, pretty much backs this up.

I don't often go on about what I do for a living but this could all have been sorted with some pretty simple crisis management principles. Any written statement or piece to the camera following a negative incident can be dealt with as follows -

PITY - I feel desperately sorry that we didn't make the play offs. Everyone is bitterly disappointed. We just didn't perform on the day and credit to Featherstone who did.

PRAISE - I'd like to thank the supporters for following us in such big numbers. Your contribution is huge. Nothing would be possible without you. Players and directors come and go but supporters stay true through thick and thin as you have demonstrated these past few seasons.

PROMISE - I promise the club as a whole will learn lessons from this and be better. We will be fully professional next year and I promise as Chairman that we will be doing everything we can to improve on this year's performances.

You can write statements like this in advance for all kinds of scenario. I've done it many times. It provides a comment which is so important in this day and age. Leaving a communication vacuum is the worst thing you can do. Rumours develop and fill it. Before you know it a poopstorm has developed needlessly. People love to speculate - just look at the news - most of it is speculation. Social media adds another dimension. You can head a lot of it off with some decent prepared statements that can buy you time.

Damn. You must have to say sorry a lot.

PITY - I'm sorry you are not satisfied.
PRAISE - You were ace though. It's not you, it's me.
PROMISE - I'll go see the doctor tomorrow.


Hey, this works. Mind if I nick it?

Feel free.

It comes with the territory



If you listen to the news you'll hear every chief exec or senior person use this formula when answering questions. Questioners try to put them off their stride by asking the whys and wherefores and you then hear the person reply by saying "First can I say how sorry I am...."

Then they go into the rest of it and repeat until end of interview.

This is a brilliant blog and an extremely good read summarising Sunday to today (I think)

[urlhttp://wobblyheadedbull.tumblr.com/post/148015837798/dont-look-back-in-anger[/url

What you think?

See that's all it would have taken.

If anyone from the club is reading I can do all this for you ready for the next big disaster so this fallout doesn't happen again. Free of charge.

I've followed this guy on twitter for a while now. I don't think he uses this forum though. But yeah he's been doing that blog ever since we were relegated (I think) and it's always a great read. I've seen a few RL journalists mentioning it on twitter today so I'm pleased for him.

I've also read the blog since he started it, and I agree, it's an excellent read almost every time.

Russ who writes it tends to have a very good knack at summing up exactly how you feel about a situation, often with plenty of humour injected in there to make it entertaining as well as emotive. I may not agree with every point he makes (and nor should anyone), but I tend to find I agree with most of them.

Brilliant piece on Sunday's game. Sums it up perfectly. Somebody buy that lad a beer.

I too remember that scrum. It did truly say it all we needed to know.

If only you had been asked to write the statement (rather than having to plough through Marc Green's 'diatribe')

I think every player who turned out for us on Sunday should be made to read that...

Yes, "diatribe", it was a strange choice of words from Ross and wholly pejorative in that context. So much so that I can't help but wonder what lay behind the use of it.

If the statement had, in any shape or form, actually been a 'diatribe, then it would have been fair comment, but it wasn't. Not even close. If Marc had taken longer over it and thought about it a wee bit morer he might have changed the tone, if not the message, but it was no diatribe. There seems to be some friction there, which helps neither the Bulls nor the T&A, imo.

There's been friction for a while between Ross and the club. I guess it was born out of the breakdown in the relationship between Ross and Lowes. I suspect the club supported Lowes during these times and it's coloured Ross's attitude a bit. I'd have hoped things would smooth over after Lowes went.

I agree that "diatribe" was an odd word to use. Either Ross has an axe to grind (in which case he needs to wind his neck in) or he doesn't know the meaning of the word.