Ron Martin speaks to Chris Phillips

[wakes123]

I did like the honesty from Ron, and to be fair I agreed with a lot of it. It's just all far too late.

 

[Barling Magna]

W

Who?

Ian Holloway, of course. Showing my age by typing Hutchinson...... doh!

 

[kentblues]

Ron has once again managed to convince enough people, that he is wearing a flesh coloured body-stocking, and that the emperor is not in fact, naked.

He’s very craftily taken aim at Brown, Powell, Bond, Harry Redknapp, some players, The Academy, Ben Clarkson, Sol & HMRC.

However, not a single one of those persons/entities sets or manages the budgets within this business. Ron does.

So don’t go worrying about those big, unpaid debts racking up against our club, just focus on blaming our problems on one of those things from the list above.

- £600k minimum payment required? Nevermind that, don’t you know that Chris Powell signed a big, bollockless Frenchman, which is the reason for our downfall.

- Unpaid wages? Yes, but let’s not forget that Phil Brown lost the dressing room a few years ago.

- The club is minus £200k every month on the balance sheets? Forget that, we should have never gotten rid of those unmanageable players.

And to top it off, this has been going on for the the better part of a decade. Same man, same problems. How? Just how is that possible?

How do you sit down in the summer to do your budget forecasts, and see that you’ve got X amount to spend, but actually ignore that figure & simply spend whatever you like. What a load of Bollocks.

Anyone here manage to overbudget themselves on a monthly basis? Every month? For 10 years?

—————————————————————

Now let’s get to the odds parts of that.

- Sol & Larsson were the top two candidates for the job. Lols. Why did Millwall block AB’s move then? If we were never interested in him & Tilly taking the reigns, Millwall wouldn’t have had to block it. Load of cobblers.

- Chris Powell only wanted players he could manage. Wait, that’s a bad thing? The fact that we’re currenty the laughing stock of English Football isn’t because of that man’s recruitment, it’s because we’ve been plagued by those **** unmanageable attitudes since the days of Phil Brown.

- Perhaps Bondy could have departed a game or two before he finally did? Sure, although that would have meant Ron cutting his month-long holiday short. Honestly, just think about that. Your business - as Ron likes to refer to it - is in clear and obvious decline, but you couldn’t possibly drag your pasty backside away from your deckchair long enough, to address the problem. Get ****ed.

- “We paid off HMRC in January, but they got us embargoed again”. Once again, it’s HMRC’s fault. How many times over the last decade is that now? Don’t get me wrong, I despise the taxman as much as the next person, but us being under an embargo has got **** all to do with them. They’re not biased. They’re not out to get us. We’re just ran terribly.

- Five weeks the Larsson saga dragged on. Five. Anyone still believe it all fell apart because of some coach not wanting the job? The sooner this stadium fiasco is sorted, the better. Only then will we see any kind of change at this club.

We get you don’t like him- but what’s the alternative- that’s the question we are left with? What’s your cunning plan?

 

[kentblues]

We may well go under, with him.

But there’s a chance we won’t..

 

[wakes123]

We get you don’t like him- but what’s the alternative- that’s the question we are left with? What’s your cunning plan?

Unless theres some multi millionaire fan out there, were unfortunately done without Ron.

 

[WESTY_SUFC]

What's plan B if the council don't approve? 20+ years and still no answer.

 

[Chairman Trigg]

No mention of what contract Sols on and implications of relegation.
Also the mess in Jan was as a result of Ron and the clubs financial plight so 8 players left ,nobody signed and we lost the really important games .
So Ron's decision to wave the white and welcome league 2 football is firmly at his door.
What really upsets me is I feel nothing after reading this....It really shows that the passion has gone

 

[GBJ]

We get you don’t like him- but what’s the alternative- that’s the question we are left with? What’s your cunning plan?

There is no alternative. I’m fully aware of that. I know full well that protests, boycotts & abuse aimed at the man, won’t solve or change anything.

Hence why I ended my diatribe with the statement “The sooner this stadium fiasco is sorted, the better. Only then will we see any kind of change at this club”.

But look, I get it, if you want to be positive (and to your credit you’ve been consistently positive during this entire period) that’s also fine. We all choose to display our feelings & emotions In different & subjective ways.

Edit: Whilst we’re here, let me ask you, do you like Ron? Your opening statement was to identify that I so clearly don’t like the man, so may I now ask for your unfiltered opinion of him?

 

[GBJ]

But there’s a chance we won’t..

Well we can’t continue to operate as we currently do. You have to agree with that part, right?

 

[GBJ]

What's plan B if the council don't approve? 20+ years and still no answer.

At a guess, Plan B will be a continuous effort to re-jig the plans, until the Council finally accept.

However, Should that all fail, Ron could either sell the club, as it is (which would require an almighty fee) or he could wind the Club up & try and recoup as much money as possible.

 

[Jai]

Read it with interest, but if he's going to throw anyone else under, he's going to need a bigger bus.

 

[LBBlue]

Full of contradictions and no responsibility. No other person impressed him enough in eitherApril May or September and he still got it wrong.

 

[Strykr]

I have no problem with that interview, about as honest as any ceo would get to his customers. I take exception to the unprofessional tone and indiscretion, but then if he hadn't been unprofessional and indiscreet in his statement it wouldn't have actually revealed anything. I often wonder if he conducts his property business in this sort of ad hoc del boy manner....

He's spent 20 plus years of his life trying to get this stadium built, and as dodgy as he is at times you cant say he is a quitter.

beleive him or not, there are only two real possibilities, we have ron, or a zillionaire appears out of nowhere and buys the lot, and whose to say that zillionaire wouldnt be as dodgy as he is at times.

despite his many mistakes, and conveniently not telling the truth most of the time. he only wants success for the club, as its inexplicably linked with his success.

Plus its getting to the stage where SUFC is his lifes work. what happens will define his legacy.

im gutted as the next man about going down to the dirge of league 2 again. just bloody sucks. but im genuinely looking forward to this nightmare season being over, who knows what will happen next year, but perhaps together we can all cling on to that lower league fans pre season hope and cheer up a bit.

 

[Blue Streak]

I stand by my other post #60

After 22 years you would like to think he wouldn't get us in this mess. Having worked for 2 very large PLC's over the last 25 years, I could not imagine the chairmen, directors etc getting away with a 10th of what RM has.

Big difference between being a Chairman of a PLC and being a Chairman of Southend United FC Limited. PLC Chairmen are accountable to shareholders (their investors) and if they need additional capital they raise it through the shareholders. They tend not to fund it themselves. Maybe we should become a PLC and then we can all chip in as shareholders ? And have a voice and have collective influence ?

 

[onceknownasrab]

Thought it was a good interview and I agreed with most everything he said.

 

[flangejackrabbit]

Shown this to a few people and in general they think it's one of the most interesting and in depth insights into running a club at this level you'll generally get. Sure a few things to pick at and there's a lot on the table.

 

[KiwiRob]

Thought it was a good interview and I agreed with most everything he said.

I also liked the interview but I wish the Chairman could be clearer on some crucial points. Why do Southend have to pay an additional $600,000 to get the embargo lifted? Is the club definitely going to pay the outstanding amount next week so that we can sign the three players that have been lined up?

 

[Special Blue]

I would much prefer "We're Fxxxxd" and have done with it.
Ron You have some of the most loyal fans in the country! so why not just be upfront about everything.
I know somethings are business sensitive but don't treat us like idiots.
We all want the same thing and know we have to achieve this within our means,
Lack of a CEO is most evident from a statement that tell us what We want to hear.

 

[stuey26]

I thought it was a fair interview.

We can all bitch and moan about him, but none of us has the cash to buy him out and several people on here saying not going to renew etc which is not backing the club which he clearly is as we are still in existence.
He is clearly committed given the 22 years even if he is waiting for a so called payday of FF/ RH redevelopment.
I liked the honesty about previous managers I don't get to see many games due to living the other side of the world nowadays but its clear form games I've seen CP didn't really have the team playing for him and as for Bond ruddy hopeless. At least Campbell has the team fighting for him and seems to have got them moving in the correct direction (this is tough for me to give Campbell credit given what he did to Tottenham).
The one thing I would have liked is comment about the waste of air that Ridgewell was.

 

[RHB]

It’s either that or buy a flat cap, be eternally miserable and practice saying “I don't belieeeeve it”..

Oi @kentblues, ease off on the flat cap victimisation, I've got two.