Chairman Backing

[brendywendy]

says the man who called me numbnuts

[sandman]

As a joke.

[brendywendy]

how less or more jokey than calling you a dick?
although ill grant you, it is a funnier word
aplogies. ill replace dick with knucklehead

[Royalee]

Just LOL at having to renew by 28th April - I for one will not be renewing my season ticket John - you treat the fans like shit and the club are going nowhere until you swallow your pride and sell up. I would have thought a businessman of your so-called standing would realise that in these tight economic times that such a move would put people off anyway, but then again you do seem increasingly a desperate man. What a shame that after 16 years of brilliant work done at the club, you've pissed it all away thanks to your ego and greed. I used to have mountains of respect for you as a success story and the brilliant work you had done for the community, but myself and others can see through you now. Please find a buyer soon.

[brendywendy]

Just LOL at having to renew by 28th April - I for one will not be renewing my season ticket John - you treat the fans like shit and the club are going nowhere until you swallow your pride and sell up. I would have thought a businessman of your so-called standing would realise that in these tight economic times that such a move would put people off anyway, but then again you do seem increasingly a desperate man. What a shame that after 16 years of brilliant work done at the club, you've pissed it all away thanks to your ego and greed. I used to have mountains of respect for you as a success story and the brilliant work you had done for the community, but myself and others can see through you now. Please find a buyer soon.

you dont "have" to do it at all though royalee

[Royalee]

Just LOL at having to renew by 28th April - I for one will not be renewing my season ticket John - you treat the fans like shit and the club are going nowhere until you swallow your pride and sell up. I would have thought a businessman of your so-called standing would realise that in these tight economic times that such a move would put people off anyway, but then again you do seem increasingly a desperate man. What a shame that after 16 years of brilliant work done at the club, you've pissed it all away thanks to your ego and greed. I used to have mountains of respect for you as a success story and the brilliant work you had done for the community, but myself and others can see through you now. Please find a buyer soon.

you dont "have" to do it at all though royalee

I know that thanks, I won't be renewing, along with many others.

[brendywendy]

excellent news.
im not having a go. i think its good you are willing to back up your negativity with action.
your passion should be commended, and i can guarantee that madejski is already worried about people like you. hence this early ST push, before selling off half the team inthe summer no doubt.....

[sandman]

how less or more jokey than calling you a dick?
although ill grant you, it is a funnier word
aplogies. ill replace dick with knucklehead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSHaCzb3yYk

Good for you, call me whatever you want. I don't really care what some faceless person on an internet forum thinks of me. You obviously feel differently and calling you numbnuts hurt you deeply but that's not my problem.

[brendywendy]

lol- i was joking then too.and i apologised.
my only excuse for my initial spikyness was that ive had a very long weekend staying with my mother.

[sandman]

fairy nuff

[facaldaqui]

Its time we accept the fact that our glory days are now behind us. Just like Neil Armstrong, we went to space and now we're back, and nobody gives a sh*t.

There are always some glory days ahead--it's just a matter of when: who knows, this year we are still in the FA Cup.

Promotion to the premier may seem like a one off, but, were it not for the fact that only one team was automatically allowed up that year, we could have gone up under Quinn and Gooding, when we came second in this league. After that it was all downhill for a bit, but, lo and behold, we eventually won the championship ... with a similarly unheralded team.

We have to face the fact that a good Reading team will only come along once every so often. The way we are run means it won't arise due to spending but due to good management and selection. In the meantime, we have to enjoy football the way most fans do, watching a team that blows hot and cold, from time to time depressing us, from time to time giving us hope. There's nothing doomy in my book about being mid-table in the Championship (at least we haven't had the fright that we had last year): it's a solid springboard from which to progress.

[Once were Biscuitmen]

It's only the freaking internet people, it's not real life.

Anyway the problem with this topic is a bit like 24 hour rolling news reports. The facts don't really change but everybody feels the need to carrying on discussing.

The accounts are freely available, nobody is buying Championship football clubs (see nobody taking on Palace for the 'price' of their debt), and we are still attempting to do the financially sane thing in a insane world, and occasionally it costs us in terms of relative on-field performance.

Obviously we are still no less than five posts away from, "Where did the Premiership money go?"

Wibble.

[RoyalBlue]

It's only the freaking internet people, it's not real life.

Anyway the problem with this topic is a bit like 24 hour rolling news reports. The facts don't really change but everybody feels the need to carrying on discussing.

The accounts are freely available, nobody is buying Championship football clubs (see nobody taking on Palace for the 'price' of their debt), and we are still attempting to do the financially sane thing in a insane world, and occasionally it costs us in terms of relative on-field performance.

Obviously we are still no less than five posts away from, "Where did the Premiership money go?"

Wibble.

No we're just a few more bad results away from 'F*ck off Madejski! ' - incredibly well run club my *rse!

If the performance/position of a PLC had crashed as quickly and badly as that of RFC, you could be pretty sure that the shareholders would have had the head of the person at the top, regardless of how well (s)he might have done in the past.

Problems elsewhere in his business empire suggest the man may not be as 'great' as some like to think so I fail to understand the blind faith that some still have in him when it comes to what is best for RFC.

[Once were Biscuitmen]

But it's not a choice between Mr M and the Saudi royal family coming to buy us Wayne Rooney is it?

How has our position "crashed" exactly? Given this club has spent the majority of its existence in the 3rd tier of English football and below I'd still call this progress. Or perhaps you mean, "no longer in the Premiership," a height we would never have reached with MR M and SC anyway....

[Z175]

- Madejski would love to sell to a sheikh, a billionnaire or an American debt management company.
- A business that needs to lose £5m a year to sustain its market share is worth nothing as an investment. Therefore only a billionnaire playboy would buy such a club, and we're not going to attract him. Only Con men would bother.
- You can buy a club like Blackburn for £20m, a fee which would not guarantee promotion if you spent it on Reading.
- Only QPR, Leicester and Hull are spending other peoples money. You don't have to out run a cheetah you just need to outrun the guy next to you - Some 15 odd clubs in this league have wagebills higher than turnover. You don't need the warnings of doom coming from the FA, the media and government, most league chairmen, HMRC, the courts and most poignantly, the plight of Preston North End, Southampton and Palace, to realise that a lot of our current rivals are destined for league 1.

I understand that Madejski has no right to be chairman, the name of the stadium etc if he does not put in money - Theres probably a few astute fans who could run the club just as well. But he did pay for the ground, rescue us from oblivion, and invest for 10 years to get us into the PL so I suggest this honorary role can be justified.

If its not going to be fan ownership with a similar strategy of breaking even, then I don't want some lunatic with delusisons of grandeur taking over.

And even if by some bizarre coincidence some Uzbek gunman or Thai mafia boss wants to invest billions - would i rather watch the likes of the Sig devlope, Pearcey give his all, the beast give a twirl, or watch Ballotelli with his hot water bottles or even Tevez's genius knowing he despises my club?

[Svlad Cjelli]

..... No we're just a few more bad results away from 'F*ck off Madejski! ' - incredibly well run club my *rse!

.....

Again, the assumption that a "well-run club" is one which is doing well in the league. In fact, the opposite is most often true.

A well-run club is one that is in existence, balancing the books and competing despite the scarcity and inequality of financial resources.

Under football's current financial model, it's the badly-run clubs that are successful - but they can only be successful for a short while, then they crash and burn (qv Portsmouth) - although occasionally you do get an anomaly like us in 2006 and Blackpool.

But, for the n millionth time, money does not guarantee success - it just makes it more likely. But whilst others are also throwing money at their clubs, the likelihood of success is less and less.

[Bucks Dave]

Woah Z175 and Svlad. Too much commonsense for one thread.

Of course SJM should sell and look how easy Watford are finding it. They had two bidders until one turned out to be run by a conman. Then the Watford Observer investigated the other to find out he was a bankrupt who lost his money running a hotel, changed his name and in 2007 was living on benefits. There are loads of people out there with money wanting to put it into our club.

Meanwhile last year SJM didn't charge us a penny interest on his £25M loan and didn't take a penny out of the club as a director via dividends or emoluments. I'm not going to another match because I'm a true fan who hates this sort of behaviour.

And our current debt is £50M by the way.

[Gordons Cumming]

Always remember that the grass maybe greener on the other side, but it still has to be mown.

HTH

[Tony Le Mesmer]

Has anyone stopped to consider the £25 odd million that we lost from 1990-2006?

Reading fans have been spoilt rotten under JM and as a whole we are totally ungrateful for the ride we've had. much of our support are now acting like spolit kids whose mum's decided not to let them have sweets anymore.

[Terminal Boardom]

The thing is, every business, regardless of the industry, needs continual investiment. Not just to keep up with the opposition, but to be more successful. Yet, what we see with RFC plc is a perceived lack of investment from the custodians of the club. As I see it, what investment there is comes from the media, supporters, corporate and LI.

Would, or indeed does, SJM run his other businesses in this manner? I would think not. What I would like to see is for the club to be seen to be competitive. I just can't see this happening in the near future.

That said, it could well be interesting to see over the next 2 years or so the direction football in this country takes. L2 has a salary / revenue cap and this may extend elsewhere.