The Don

Is there any chance of you explaining why you think he is a clown?

 

No

 

Is it just me

That doesn't really know what Don does? Therefore I haven't a clue whether he's good, bad or indifferent at his job. I don't even know what position he holds and I haven't a clue what his duties are.

I can pretty much tell if a player is any good or not. I watch them every other week and make my mind up. Although I must admit I do get it wrong quite often.

With a manager it's a bit more difficult. You can't just judge them on how successful the club is because there's the whole financial situation to get your head around. Even a relatively poor manager can look good if the owner throws enough money at him, while a very good manager may find his team struggles if there's just no cash. And then of course you can get lucky or unlucky with the squad of players you inherit.

But to try and judge Don on what he does I find almost impossible. I wasn't very happy with the arrangement for the Liverpool tickets, but I think it would be wrong of me to judge him on one event. I've no idea what his day to day duties involve or his level competence. I wouldn't know where to begin.

Only bit of advice I would offer him is that before he does an interview he has a chat with Keith Hill about what he's going to say. There's been a few occasions where he has said the exact opposite of the manager or the points of view of the two just don't tally. Best to avoid that if you can and show a united front.

 

Thought not.

 

Will he ever be forgiven for selling all those Liverpool Cup tickets in record time? I get the impression that still rankles with some people.

 

I'm presuming that the Liverpool 'fiasco' being referred to was giving two tickets to people in the higher categories, rather than just one. With hindsight this was not a terribly good idea, but he would have been moaned at if it had been restricted to one as well ("this means that everybody will be sat on their own, etc, etc"). People just love to ruddy moan.

But I've always wondered if the people who gave their extra tickets to their missus or a mate that otherwise doesn't go to games got the stick that Don got? Don/the club, with hindsight, came up with a bad plan of action for that game, but they didn't have much time to come up with an alternative and some of the alternatives mentioned were unworkable at the time and, like I say, whatever strategy they'd come up with would have been moaned at. But in the end it was the people who qualified for the categories that abused it, by snapping the extra tickets up for usually disinterested spouses and mates.

 

It was worse than that.

Three generations of supporters from one family with a total of over a hundred years of season tickets between them didn't get tickets.

Sat in front of me at Anfield were four youngsters under 10 with one set of parents. Two of the young ones (I guess friends) were attending their first ever football match. One of them kept asking when it finished and didn't watch the match after half-time - just played on her DS.

 

Re: And you could all do a better job!

To be fair he's right though.

 

I never suggested I could do a better job. But like anyone I have an opinion on how I think are club should be run, whether its rite or wrong.
I always thought DR was a director? Also I thought he had some sort of job at s****horpe utd. I have no idea if that true.

 

Re: Is it just me

He is the general manager of the club. ie he is officially the very top man running the whole business

 

The Don **** ups in my humble opinion.

Liverpool tickets.
Wembley tickets.
Refusing to acknowledge emails from supporters without full name and postal address details included.
Appearing on the team photo. More than once.
Making a bizarre claim about the cost of a scoreboard despite having already been sent a MUCH lower quote.
Backing and then sacking Rib Noodles
The theme tune fiasco.
Claiming to a supporter that he had no knowledge of TV's being turned off on concourses and saying that he would sort it so that they are on in future which evidently he didn't do, or didn't do properly.
Selling players for next to nowt.
Outsourcing various aspects of the clubs revenue streams without ensuring that supporters would be looked after ('we cant do anything about pricing, its nowt to do with us' etc)
Saying the opposite to the manager.
Banning a supporter and claiming it was on police advice. Completely at odds with what the police said at the time.
Preedy's.


Having said that, I think he is a very good speaker when given time to prepare, I just don't think he handles 'live' interviews very well when given no time to think about it. I also think that a lot of his bad decision making is a direct result of having such a tiny board, I believe a bigger board would have given more chance for somebody to raise the point that 4 tickets per person for liverpool was a stupid idea. Having just him and Barry 'failed board' Taylor on the board doesn't give enough chances of spotting a mistake imo.

 

As a clown, you should know.

Hope this helps

 

Re: Is it just me

I am sure he was made a Director during last season.

 

Re: Is it just me

He was (or the season before). He and Barry Taylor are the sole directors of the club and Don is general manager as well.

 

Re: Is it just me

Multi-tasker you see, impressive stuff.

 

Re: Is it just me

I heard that Hill is lining him up as Vaz Te's replacement.

 

Re: Is it just me

Who got banned and why

 

Re: Is it just me

That fat non-shirt wearing Wendyite I assume.
And yes, Don is the only paid director at the club, and is THE power at Oakwell

 

I think that this is actually a very important point.

 

Its a difficult question as to how good a job he is doing. you have to look at the fact he will have played a part in the recruiting of the last two management teams and the fact the general day to day running of the club appears to be on the surface moving along very nicely. I think in that respect he would be very competent at what he does.
However, I think he does appear to be at times out of his depth and sees the running of barnsley to the running of scumthope. Not disrespect to the iron but its a different kettle of fish at barnsley.
There is also the list of faux pas provided by supertyke and the fact he appears not to be held accountable to anyone. Overall 6/10