Mcd says we haven't got any cash....

[facaldaqui]

And yet, in some quarters, SSC is derided for allowing us to be relegated from the Prem. Why were we relegated? Because SJM knew that serious money needed to be invested and he refused to allow the squad to be strengthened. As I have said elsewhere, SJM hates the thought of people he considers socially below him having the ability to drive a flash motor!

I'm not as strident as some in my criticisms of our chairman.
At the end of the day, I know I owe a debt of gratitude to him (and Mr. Tranter, RIP) for saving my beloved team from oblivion.
What irks me are those who spend their lives on here licking his @rse. He may be a successful businessman, but he didn't part the Red Sea.
He, like all humans whose 5hit stinks, makes mistakes, and what worries me is seeing the same mistakes repeated.
My arguement, all through this thread, has been about not what is, but what could be.
You reckon that the reason why we were relegated was because of lack of investment. I agree, but only in part.
In my view, the signing of new players to strenghten the club's assets not only sends out a declaration of intent to the fans, it also, CRUCIALLY, sends the same message to the existing playing staff. In the "Prem years", all we had was our chairman moaning about extortionate players' wages, and our need to live within our means. This changes the playing field. From being a "club that's going in the right direction"-Shorey, it's a club that's treading water.
Let's be silly now. Had we signed Franco Baresi, do you think that might have possibly influenced Sidwell/Shoreys decision to leave a club that they considered would not further their professional ambitions?
Ok, it's a silly example, but the noises coming out from the club nowadays suggest much the same kind of vibe, at a lower (champ), level. How long will our better players want to tread water here? (I include our better academy lads) Take away our better players, and we are back where JM came in.

That, in my view, is a waste. Great big stadium. Iddy Biddy team.

People criticise Madejski for saying he wants to go up. But I don't know what else he could say. You cannot really say "we want to be a mid-table club", because that is not a motivation to anyone. And it is also an odd ambition. There a very few teams who finish each season in a mid-table position having never been in contention for the playoffs or in danger of relegation. The nature of football is that you try to win every game and let that take you where it will. If a club really did set out to be a mid-table club, it would probably be in constant fear of relegation; and we don't want that. That's what would happen if you sold a Sigurdsson every time you had one. In the end, you'd go down.

The model I like is West Brom's. They plan their finances as a yo-yo club. I think Madejski wanted to do that but found it too complex.

[Royal Rother]

I honestly think, that in large part, JM GOT LUCKY

Hmm, just as he got lucky in business I assume?

[sheshnu]

I honestly think, that in large part, JM GOT LUCKY

It wasn't really luck, but it was an unusual set of circumstances that combined that year. If it ever happens again, it'll probably be about as unusual.

[Ian Royal]

I honestly think, that in large part, JM GOT LUCKY

It wasn't really luck, but it was an unusual set of circumstances that combined that year. If it ever happens again, it'll probably be about as unusual.

Luck played it's part in our manner of promotion. But it was all round good management of the team and the club that got got us promoted at all. All on a medium and not short term basis.

If you play the percentages carefully, then sooner or later it's likely to pay off and you'll get a bit lucky and mount one (or more) strong promotion pushes (02/03, 04/05 & 08/09). And sooner or later one of those will work. But you have to be hovering around lower to upper mid-table consistently to be able to do that.

[under the tin]

I honestly think, that in large part, JM GOT LUCKY

Hmm, just as he got lucky in business I assume?

Cheers for quoting out of context.
No he didn't get lucky in business.
Whilst on holiday in Canada, he noticed something that we all subliminally knew.
In the seventies, if you were looking for a secondhand 2 litre Cortina GXL, you went out and bought the Exchange & Mart. This was a national publication, and all too often, the car you wanted was to be found in Blackburn, or rural Lincolnshire. Most make a judgement about how far to go to see something. He copied the Canadian model, in producing a localised publication, and rolled it out, nationally, but with localised publications. Smart move. The rest is history.

[under the tin]

I honestly think, that in large part, JM GOT LUCKY

It wasn't really luck, but it was an unusual set of circumstances that combined that year. If it ever happens again, it'll probably be about as unusual.

Luck played it's part in our manner of promotion. But it was all round good management of the team and the club that got got us promoted at all. All on a medium and not short term basis.

If you play the percentages carefully, then sooner or later it's likely to pay off and you'll get a bit lucky and mount one (or more) strong promotion pushes (02/03, 04/05 & 08/09). And sooner or later one of those will work. But you have to be hovering around lower to upper mid-table consistently to be able to do that.

This was the same chairman that hired Terry Bullivant, Mark McGhee, Pards, and Tommy Burns.
Just as in his business empire, some decisions pay off, others don't. He ain't infallible.
He stated the club's ambition was to get in the Prem, but let's be realistic; he says that every year because he's in the bums on seats business.

For me the true kudos for the Championship winning/8th in the Prem team lies with the scouting/coaching/team management staff, and a group of players who stepped up to the plate, and collectively raised their game a couple of notches.
To suggest it had much to do with the chairman, in my opinion, stretches sycophancy a bit far.

[Stranded]

Using that logic though, surely it's out of order to blame the chairman for the ills of the club when things aren't going so well?

[Alan Partridge]

The proof of the pudding was in the eating, Madejski loved the publicity and the added money the PRemiership brought in....he hated that it all went out again in the added costs. Of course he's going to say how determined he is for promotion and how much he wants to be in the Prem....he doesn't though. It scares him. The money in that league, players fees, agents fees, wages it's all at a level where he can't compete and i imagine it irks him somewhat.

I respect his views on it to be honest, football is completely out of control and in an ideal world everyone would leave within their means, bring it back to some reality but they won't.

I think the majority of RFC fans just want the club to be a bit more competitive, doesn't mean win the league by 20 points again and finish 8th in the Premier League. It all seems a bit of a lie back and accept it case at the minute. Players are going, the manager says he can't even bring in loan players and the basic needs of a squad and he's left short in at least 2 major departments.

You can't stand still in football, that's why Reading went down and if they aren't careful they will continue to slide.

[under the tin]

Using that logic though, surely it's out of order to blame the chairman for the ills of the club when things aren't going so well?

My contribution has only been about trying to give credit where it is due. I do not think that we smashed the league, and finished 8th inthe Prem because of Madejski. We assembled a load of cheap rough diamonds, and the coaching staff polished them, and got them playing together as a team. Credit is due to Madejski for hiring these staff, but as stated before, he also hired the likes of Bullivant.

In regard to the "blame" thing, this has to be looked at in terms of ultimate responsibility.
If McDermott buys crappy players, the team is awful and gets relegated, then it's his fault.
If, however, McDermott is forced into fielding a crap team because of decisions made above???????

[loyalroyal4life]

The proof of the pudding was in the eating, Madejski loved the publicity and the added money the PRemiership brought in....he hated that it all went out again in the added costs. Of course he's going to say how determined he is for promotion and how much he wants to be in the Prem....he doesn't though. It scares him. The money in that league, players fees, agents fees, wages it's all at a level where he can't compete and i imagine it irks him somewhat.

I respect his views on it to be honest, football is completely out of control and in an ideal world everyone would leave within their means, bring it back to some reality but they won't.

I think the majority of RFC fans just want the club to be a bit more competitive, doesn't mean win the league by 20 points again and finish 8th in the Premier League. It all seems a bit of a lie back and accept it case at the minute. Players are going, the manager says he can't even bring in loan players and the basic needs of a squad and he's left short in at least 2 major departments.

You can't stand still in football, that's why Reading went down and if they aren't careful they will continue to slide.

Good points, i think it really comes down to the sale of the club albeit lack of supposed interest. It still puzzles me to this day how Madejski struggled to generate any sort of interest in takeovers when we were in the Prem, did he even bother marketing the club? I have my reservations. Every player who has come into the club has always mentioned how the club is set up right with the correct infrastructure etc and it seems like a good model to want to take forward, something he can't do. I think the price he is asking must be too high for anyone to even consider buying

[Hoop Blah]

Why do we need a chairman with hundred of millions? We just need someone who can invest a small amount into an already very well run club. We don't need a sugar daddy, just someone who can afford a little outside investment. Just like JM used to be able too.

Because JM is worth hundreds of millions and he can't afford it. Therefore you need someone with much more money. Certainly to take us to the next level. Very few (reliable) investors are going to be willing to put large proportions of their money into the club. And I doubt there are a great many multi-millionaires out there at the moment with large amounts of liquid capital.

You don't need someone worth more than Madejski, you just need someone with more free cash lieing around and/or more desire to spend a greater chunk of it on a football club.

Madejski might be worth £250m or whatever it is these days but very little of that is in spare cash or assests he can afford to use as security to further bankroll the club.

There will be plenty of people out there who are more cash rich than Madejski, although I'd still trust his judgement on handing over to someone who's going to look after the club as well as throw money at it.

From what we can see from the outside, we definately need an injection of investment to address the shortfalls within the squad.

[brendywendy]

I love the people who seem to think that saying you have an ambition to get back to the Premier League automatically means your entire plan is to do it this year or next year by spending bucket loads.

Madejski's stated ambition 15 years ago was to get us to the Premier League. And he did it in 2005. And kept us there for a nicely successful season as well. That is not the actions of a man who is all wind and doesn't want us to go up. An accusation that was also made against him prior to 2005.

^^^^^ this

of course its our ambition to go up.

if anyone translated that into "i will bankroll the club by spending millions of my own money on players" and bought a season ticket on the back of it then you have no one to blame but yourselves, and not only that, you are a moron.

[brendywendy]

Its about time the local press/radio started asking some serious questions to Hammond/Madejski. I only see the on line versions as am not local any more but both papers seem to shy away from asking difficult questions.

Every other side just about in our league is signing or has signed players in the last month - I seriously think the club have made large budgetary mistakes somewhere along the way and maybe promises made to banks that cannot be fulfilled - possibly they were reckoning on shipping out more players this window to repay borrowing.

I am not sure what other explanation there is for not getting anyone on loan in.

oh for christs sake.
the loan window is open for ages.
the end.

[brendywendy]

Investment in the club is not just for the acquisition of players but also in the fabric and infrastructure. If the way forward for the club is to become more self sufficient, then why not invest more in the coaching side of things within the Academy? Over the years, Tottenham, Arsenal, Southampton and Man Utd have regularly produced a steady stream of talented youngsters. The only one of the youngsters that we have seen that can be adjudged to be quality is the Sig. There is nothing special about the likes of Church, Pearce and Karacan. Shirley the logical approach would be to produce the best youngsters that we possibly can.

you've just named three of the biggest clubs in the country, f course they produce better youth than us. They have the absolute pick of everyone.

An academy can't just be judged on whether it produces Premier League players. The fact that we've produced / developed loads of players who are or have got plenty of games in the top two divisions is testament to how well put together our academy is, and the longterm investment that involved.

Sigurdsson, Tyson, Henderson, Ashdown, Cox, Henry, Pearce, Church, Karacan, Robson-Kanu...

Then you have the likes of Hamer, Andersen, Taylor, Bignall, Bell-Baggie, McCarthy, Kelly...

We have invested massively on the non-player side with the Media Centre, Academy, Stadium, Training Ground and all those other things. We're a club that's built for the long term, and I find that exciting and refreshing.

That doesn't mean things won't go wrong, or we won't make mistakes (this is the real world after all not some computer game), just that those mistakes shouldn't (or won't be allowed to) jepordise the long term future of the club.

My point is that the bulk of our youngsters struggle to stand out AT THIS LEVEL. There is either something not right with the scouting network or the coaching that the players get here is not as good AS IT COULD BE. I would much rather see money spent on quality coaches than on fancy-dan Billy Big-Bollocks who meander through games - eg Rasiak.

an academy is judged on the karacans and peaarces it produces, not the Sigs. a sig comes along once every ten twenty years.
our academy is clearly working well, and producing players that are good enough for this level.
that we are possibly now producing players like our three young keepers, jake taylor, and the sig who could play premiere league standard, or international standard means we are over achieving by a long chalk
the point is is they are young, and may still need more games and experience to reach their peak

[brendywendy]

Why did they come in the first place?
Because our Chairman is lucky?
Or is it that he lets the decent people within the club get on with their relevant job with no interference?

Why did they come in the first place?
Because most of them had careers that were going nowhere, playing in the reserves, or at lower league clubs.
For the Irish lads, it was a shot at the big time.

Or is it that he lets the decent people within the club get on with their relevant job with no interference?
Please don't give me the selective memory thing.
He was chairman, and didn't interfere when we signed Jim Crapintyre, Sean Evers, the rest of the "magnificent seven", Greg Halford, Uwe Hartenburger, et al.
Madejski got lucky because in 2005-7, we had team where the whole added up to more than the sum of the parts.
This is borne out in the frankly silly money that was paid for some of the component players, when they were sold, but none, bar Doyle, have pulled up trees since they moved on.
For relatively bugger all outlay, and a canny little scouser, virtually every "punt" came off.
Just think: Doyle could have made as big an impression as Mooney, Sonko = Bennett, etc etc

he hired them, and his leadership enabled coppell et al to do their jobs. you dont get 106 points by luck, and you dont finish 8th in the prem by luck, and you dont lead a business to those kinds of results by luck.
or if it is luck, then every success in football is luck driven

[brendywendy]

I would actually like to know what the club are doing about getting shot of Cummings. He was taken on to go straight into the First Team, so I would assume he's not on peanuts, but pre-season line-ups make it pretty obvious that he's at best 6th choice for RB, so staying at RFC with little hope of playing does no good for him or us.

someone has to want him first
he will e one of the names on the list of 6 to go

[under the tin]

Why did they come in the first place?
Because most of them had careers that were going nowhere, playing in the reserves, or at lower league clubs.
For the Irish lads, it was a shot at the big time.

Or is it that he lets the decent people within the club get on with their relevant job with no interference?
Please don't give me the selective memory thing.
He was chairman, and didn't interfere when we signed Jim Crapintyre, Sean Evers, the rest of the "magnificent seven", Greg Halford, Uwe Hartenburger, et al.
Madejski got lucky because in 2005-7, we had team where the whole added up to more than the sum of the parts.
This is borne out in the frankly silly money that was paid for some of the component players, when they were sold, but none, bar Doyle, have pulled up trees since they moved on.
For relatively bugger all outlay, and a canny little scouser, virtually every "punt" came off.
Just think: Doyle could have made as big an impression as Mooney, Sonko = Bennett, etc etc

he hired them, and his leadership enabled coppell et al to do their jobs. you dont get 106 points by luck, and you dont finish 8th in the prem by luck, and you dont lead a business to those kinds of results by luck.
or if it is luck, then every success in football is luck driven

My contribution has only been about trying to give credit where it is due. I do not think that we smashed the league, and finished 8th inthe Prem because of Madejski.

We assembled a load of cheap rough diamonds, and the coaching staff polished them, and got them playing together as a team. Credit is due to Madejski for hiring these staff, but as stated before, he also hired the likes of Bullivant.
Repeated for emphasis.
Madejski did not score a single goal, make a single save. He also had absolutely no idea whether the cheap imports were going to turn out as they did. To be fair, nor did Coppell, because if he got it right every time, Bennett and Mooney would be full internationals at Prem clubs right now.

Leadership? "rally round the flag"
Walk round the pitch like the conquering hero....Pffffft

[brendywendy]

in which case he cant be blamed for anything when it gioes wrong either.



hes tin charge, its his job to hire the staff, and create the resources, and atmosphere in which they can flourish.
if they flourished, hes done his job.and deserves the credit

[PieEater]

I think the Prem is vastly overrated anyway, I'm more than happy for us to stay in the championship as long as I can go to games and hope we can get something from it.

I have to laugh at these people who clearly live at home and don't have to fund their own lifestyle going on about "ambition" and "investment". A football club is generally a pit your throw your or someone else's money into, the clubs who are "investing" have someone who's bankrolling them and there are not too many of these mugs around who are happy to throw away their millions. We are fortunate enough to have his Madj who will keep us in check with financial reality but keep us solvent if we don't quite manage it.

[Royal Rother]

I honestly think, that in large part, JM GOT LUCKY

Hmm, just as he got lucky in business I assume?

Cheers for quoting out of context.

Sorry. The context was your analysis of the reasons why we achieved promotion to the PL. Your conclusion was, quite clearly, as highlighted above. YOUR capitals, not mine.