Paul Barber in last night's programme

[Green Cross Code Man]

Sat in my seat Tuesday garguing on my pies and no Gully Girls. Was pissed off but what I also noticed was thete wasnt no Sally or Gully, have they been saked as they could be peodo's as well as they lark about with the children. Whats happend to them?

Gully was dressed in a Christmas outfit.

 

[El Presidente]

If they want to become pole dancers or strippers?

......or fire breathers, nothing wrong with ANY of those professions though TBH.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

You make that sound as if it is a bad thing though. The Albion have lost a lot of money in recent years, some fans go into apoplexy at paying an extra 50p for a pie, yet berate the club (which is ultimately TB's plaything, and he wants it to be self financing), for not signing player X or Y who costs a lot of money.

I'm not sure to be honest in terms of it being a bad thing, of course the club needs to achieve at least financial balance, but at what cost in terms of alienating fans....... Perhaps Dick's Bar will be leased to a different provider, how would fans feel about that.

I'm quite surprised Gus was allowed to sign some of the players on deadline day, if we are struggling financially - especially given that we had a number of midfielders already.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Agree with what you say. His role though is to maximise profits, whether we are making or losing money now. When we make money, it'll be to make more. I'm ok with it but i understand why others wont be.

The more we make, the more we will have to spend on new players which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I notice it tends to be the moaners on here who are the ones regularly saying we need to spend more (changing / buying new players, etc) and get promotion, they also seem to be the ones who seem opposed to the notion of the club needing to raise this extra money to be able to do what they want (the club should only be spending what they can afford, especially as new financial fair play rules are coming in very soon)

 

[Withdean Wanderer]

Yeah right, OK Mark, I fell for it. You are, of course right to carefully select one sentence from each response and use it to justify your thoughts on Barber.

Sorry I'm not as angry or gratuitously confrontational as you.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

You carry on and fill your boots.

No Ian, you're right, there's no need for me to be so confrontational.

But have another read of the article, put your sceptic's hat on. The ticket exchange could probably be considered a non-issue. It's illegal, he doesn't really need to justify it further with his spin.

But the other points, it's all codswallop. He doesn't address the issue of consulting the fans over Gully's Girls, and he doesn't address the fact that the girls are all upset about being binned. He says he's not cutting costs by scrapping them - well, had anyone accused him of it? he's cut everything else, but plainly not that.

Re:ticket cheap tickets only being available with a couple of days to spare, he repeatedly says they are being made available at the earliest opportunity. He doesn't say "we're working with away teams to address this, to clarify allocations early so we can sell more tickets to our supporters". He just flatly refuses to budge. And there's no mention of Newcastle pricing at all, which was the main gripe surrounding ticket prices.

Yeah, I shouldn't be allowed on here after matches as I'm a knob, but the complete lack of compromise and attempt to appease fans with this blatant PR really hacked me off.

Perhaps it's just me. If our finances are really bollocksed, then they might as well be open about it and release the figures telling us that (hey'll no doubt window dress the accounts when they are eventually released in March) , then we could accept all these little cuts and lack of consultation - but the fact that we've signed Vicente, Lopez, Kuzcsak, Bridge, Hammond, Dobbie and Crofts from the highest level, along with £1m+ Buckley and £2.5m CMS the previous summer only raises expectation further, especially when we can afford an increadible new stadium and training ground.

Oh, and I too had spotted the thinner programme. I figured it best not to mention it as they might accuse me of overdoing the moaning...