It would seem that in different guises everyone agrees that the way Ron has handled the past 12 months isn't on, the treatment of staff, fans, players, the once good name of SUFC have all been hammered in one way or another.
Now we also know that we are stuck with Ron, so my question is, How do we stop it happening again or how do we at least influence it not happening again. This isn't an Anti or Pro Ron slagging match, i am genuinely interested what we can do? As i believe we do need to do something?
I suggested campaigning hard to get the Shrimpers Trust on the main board with voting rights, what are your suggestions so we dont go through it again? Before anyone says it, i know Ron holds all the cards but that is the defeatist attitude, lets have a brainstorm
CONTROVERSIAL POST ALERT
KS, whilst I admire the sentiment, you may as well ask "How we can get Ronaldo and Rooney to play for Southend?"
As fans, I think we all have to know our place in the football pyramid.
In the olden days, Fathers and sons populated the terraces to watch their local heroes play once a fortnight. Admission was (relatively) cheap and players played for the team they signed for. They got little financial reward and put their heart and soul into every match. Pride was they key but generally the most talented team won. However, other circumstances like pitches proved a leveller, and very often the lesser team would manage to hold or beat their more illustrious visitors because skill didn't count for much on mudbath pitches or when everywhere except the touchlines and penalty areas was covered in snow.
Players had short careers and were financially exploited by the club owners. The players earning capacity was over by mid 30's, and then many became just ordinary bods doing menial jobs to survive. Occasionally good players would go into management or coaching but many ended up on the dole and died poor.
Quite rightly, this wasn't fair and so the maximum wage was abolished and along came the scourge of the modern game; the agent. In the early days of representation, agents would pit player against player, player against club and club against club in order to secure the best deal for their client. The (usually) poorly educated player would just sit there and then go off to wherever his agent said he would and money became the driving force.
Bosman screwed the transfer system which was how lower league clubs survived; they had to find other ways of staying in existence and clearly many clubs have found it difficult. The fashion to spend spend spend and hope it all works out used to work because clubs could go into administration, get out of the debts they had incurred and start again. It became almost a deliberate tactic and eventually, after Leicester went into administration mid season but still got promoted, the authorities decided this was unfair and imposed penalties by way of points deductions. After Leeds flouted that rule by taking the points deduction when they were already relegated, the rules changed again to prevent clubs doing this. In League 2, there is a wage cap. In my opinion, before too long, this will apply across the board.
But then we all know that actually, as fans, our presence is not really wanted that much at grounds. SKY put the money into the game, so they want us to watch football on the TV. Over the last few years, ticket prices have gone up to levels that make it very expensive for Fathers and sons to go to every game and the introduction of all seater stadia has cut capacity everywhere. No longer do you have several division 1 attendances of 50,000 and over, the old Valley once held 77,000 for a game, West Ham regularly topped 40,000, but now the police bills are expensive, clubs are made responsible for their own fans trouble and actually many club owners would be deleriously happy if their matches were watched by everyone in an Executive box as this will be the way they extract most money from our pockets.
I've said before, Football is riding for a huge fall and this current trend cannot continue indefinitely. As a club, we could not compete in the CCC last time around because our competitors were in a different league. The first time we got there, we were able to survive because the other teams in that league included Cambridge United, Port Vale, Tranmere, Oxford, Swindon, Grimsby, Brighton, Bristol Rovers and Plymouth. That's 9 clubs of approximately the same size or smaller. In addition, there was Blackburn who were at the beginning of the Jack Walker era (prior to him they were typically a Division 3 team) and Derby, Sunderland, Middleborough, Leicester, Millwall and Barnsley who were still in their old or undeveloped stadiums.
When we last got to the CCC we only had Colchester, Plymouth and Luton who were anywhere near us in size, and Col U had their new stadium in the offing whilst Plymouth had greatly improved Home Park.
Even then, Col U won't be able to compete at that level again unless Cowling keeps stumping up cash as their ground only holds a few thousand at it's full capacity, which isn't enough to generate the income needed to survive at that level.
So, as fans like me, who have supported the Blues for over 40 years, we are the most loyal things in the game. We are also the least important. The game will go on whether we watch it or not. If we shun our club, our club dies; simple as that.
In short, the only metaphorical voice we have is to vote with our feet. Some may feel that principled to do so but I don't. There are times when I am more enthusiastic than others to go to a match but generally speaking the club has been a big part of my life since I was 8 and there have been several owners, managers and players that have come and gone. I haven't.
The biggest thing as fans we can do is accept that we are purely spectators and we have no rights at all over what happens with the club we support.
