David Clowes Support Thread

[macstheman]

Whilst I agree that we need some stability within the structure of the club it is imo equally important that the club and fans are united. At the present there is a clear hiatus in that respect, this is partly due to Warne's style of play, his tetchiness during post match interviews, his public criticism of some players and also of the fans.

DC has given him 4 years but to survive that he needs results, yes we are only part way into our second season in this league and still recovering from the Morris debacle but, if the hiatus (whether justified or not) continues, there is a danger that the situation may become very toxic. DC needs to be aware of that and work with Warne to avoid such a scenario developing.

Fans are a strange breed but lose them and you have problems. Ask Everton and QPR they'll tell you!

[Andy_Faber]

Whilst I agree that we need some stability within the structure of the club it is imo equally important that the club and fans are united. At the present there is a clear hiatus in that respect, this is partly due to Warne's style of play, his tetchiness during post match interviews, his public criticism of some players and also of the fans.

DC has given him 4 years but to survive that he needs results, yes we are only part way into our second season in this league and still recovering from the Morris debacle but, if the hiatus (whether justified or not) continues, there is a danger that the situation may become very toxic. DC needs to be aware of that and work with Warne to avoid such a scenario developing.

Fans are a strange breed but lose them and you have problems. Ask Everton and QPR they'll tell you!

Well put, 'work with Warne'. I'm sure DC hasn't managed to head up a pretty big commercial concern by accident, or by not knowing how to deal with staff members. His 'staff member' PW has IMO the triple failing at the moment that his style of play, the results arising from that, and his public utterences are all landing like a turd on the doormat rather than a perfumed letter, and my hope and expectation is that DC, directly/indirectly/a bit of both is aware of all these and helping PW through them. Mel Morris would have binned him by now, but Mel Morris would also have binned Jim Smith after the Tranmere game and look where that would have left us. .

[ramAnag]

Whilst I agree that we need some stability within the structure of the club it is imo equally important that the club and fans are united. At the present there is a clear hiatus in that respect, this is partly due to Warne's style of play, his tetchiness during post match interviews, his public criticism of some players and also of the fans.

DC has given him 4 years but to survive that he needs results, yes we are only part way into our second season in this league and still recovering from the Morris debacle but, if the hiatus (whether justified or not) continues, there is a danger that the situation may become very toxic. DC needs to be aware of that and work with Warne to avoid such a scenario developing.

Fans are a strange breed but lose them and you have problems. Ask Everton and QPR they'll tell you!

100% agree with that, mac...and if anything Mr. Clowes should be reassured by threads expressing the sentiments we’ve seen on here because I don’t think anyone has spoken out against him and everyone has been sympathetic to the current situation...as far as the owner is concerned.

What we’ve also had on here are a great many questions raised about the football we are producing. Without attributing names to the comments, which would be unnecessarily divisive, we’ve had posters thinking about not attending a match despite being a regular season ticket holder, we’ve had otherwise supportive commentators calling last weekend’s performance ‘sh*te’, we’ve had regularly very positive supporters admitting to having doubts ‘for the first time’, we’ve had suggestions that if we fall into the bottom half (which we have been perilously close to) Warne should go and we’ve had questions raised about team selection, substitutions and the value/fitness of certain signings.

None of those criticisms have been aimed at David Clowes and rightly so. These are all matters that fall into the category of managerial responsibility. Clowes is the committed, amateur benefactor who will, I suspect, become more and more adept as his experience grows. Warne and his team are the experienced ‘professionals’, but I agree 100%...no owner can afford to lose the fans and when even the milder mannered ones, such as ourselves, are expressing doubt the owner needs to be alert to what is happening.

[swaledale]

To an extent thats true, but this is where fans can drive decent well meaning owners out of a club, by their unrealistic and self entitled demands. The guy at Sheff Wed has been there 6 years and it seems the club is back in a dodgy financial situation with the club owing HMRC and under EFL sanctions which could get worse.

It seems to me that there is a section of fans who think "Everything is fine, we have an owner who can just throw money at the club in order to keep them happy and if they are not doing that we will throw our toys out of the pram"

Any sensible owner will take into account the response from the fans, but will also realise that when in a rough patch then a vocal minority will call for the manager to be sacked or for unrealistic transfer fees to be paid for players. Then when that doesn't work out they will demand the same again, yet they apart from the ticket price don't have to find the money to do all this.

This is why I find it astonishing that some , including the odd individual on here who surely have some grasp of the costs of running a football club can so glibly call for Warne to be sacked and ignore the financial impact.

IF Derby were out of contention for a top 6 place and sinking like a stone, I'd see the logic, but at this moment in time they are still in touch.

Warne is clearly frustrated and his strength clearly isn't that of the politician whereby he can smile and deliver platitudes which are at odds with reality. But it clearly isn't easy having a few thousand self proclaimed experts whose experience in management is limited to a Sunday pub team at best, shouting abuse. Yes I know it comes with the territory.

As for Clownes, he is now discovering, though he was probably well aware beforehand, that fans are as fickle as ****, hero worshipping you one minute but being abusive when things aren't going well!

In the circumstances, the club is faring well, its fans expectations that need a dose of realism.

Derby are actually better placed than I thought they would be given the constraints they are working under, there are clearly issues around the ability of this squad to dig in against teams that "bully" them. One has to question Warne's team management and tactics, why he keeps swapping players around in positions is puzzling. hardly helps consistency.

Maybe rA was right, Sibley and Smith are better in defence than midfield??

[Andy_Faber]

Maybe rA was right, Sibley and Smith are better in defence than midfield??

Off the DC hero worship topic I know but I agree with that. As full/wing backs they were both totally unspectacular yet reliable last year. Neither demonstrate the same in other positions. Its easy to say, because we don't know the workings of the transfer windows, but maybe putting every ounce of effort into getting an outstanding midfielder and leaving the defence well alone would have been a better option than the 'quanity is quality' approach PW seems to have gone down

[Geoff Parkstone]

Maybe rA was right..........

Doubtful

[swaledale]

I do like the sly digs calling Clowes an "amateur" benefactor. So there is a category of people who are "professional owners then? I would love to be enlightened as to who this pool of people are.

Its utterly patronising to continue to call Clowes "inexperienced" or "amateur" and shows a complete lack of class and understanding as to how football generally works.

Most owners are amateurs, Morris was, the Glazers are, unless the owner is a company that specialises in sports club management, therefore that epithet is needless and can only be included as a sly dig!

Warne and his coaching staff are not experienced professionals in running the club, they are responsible for managing and coaching the team, the days when a manager did anything other than coach the team, and identify and sometimes sign the players have long gone for most clubs.

So based on rA's comments, when Clowes has gained the gift of hindsight, he will leave in place an inexperienced coach ad ignore any advice from people with experience on who to recruit as a manager? laughable!

Given there is ample examples of owners who have been in the game a long time making clearly odd decisions on managers, player recruitment and finance, what matters is whether the owner can run a business, is financially astute, is able to balance the often unrealistic demands of fans with the reality of running a football club, is able to be supported by trustworthy people who can offer sound advice on football matters and is not prone to knee jerk reactions in order to be popular!

In any sensible persons book, Clowes has all these characteristics, signing Warne wasn't a mistake, it was decision made on a sound football basis that hasn't as yet and indeed may not produce the results expected. These things happen even to the most professional of owners whoever the **** they might be!!

[ramAnag]

I do like the sly digs calling Clowes an "amateur" benefactor. So there is a category of people who are "professional owners then? I would love to be enlightened as to who this pool of people are.

Its utterly patronising to continue to call Clowes "inexperienced" or "amateur" and shows a complete lack of class and understanding as to how football generally works.

Most owners are amateurs, Morris was, the Glazers are, unless the owner is a company that specialises in sports club management, therefore that epithet is needless and can only be included as a sly dig!

Warne and his coaching staff are not experienced professionals in running the club, they are responsible for managing and coaching the team, the days when a manager did anything other than coach the team, and identify and sometimes sign the players have long gone for most clubs.

So based on rA's comments, when Clowes has gained the gift of hindsight, he will leave in place an inexperienced coach ad ignore any advice from people with experience on who to recruit as a manager? laughable!

Given there is ample examples of owners who have been in the game a long time making clearly odd decisions on managers, player recruitment and finance, what matters is whether the owner can run a business, is financially astute, is able to balance the often unrealistic demands of fans with the reality of running a football club, is able to be supported by trustworthy people who can offer sound advice on football matters and is not prone to knee jerk reactions in order to be popular!

In any sensible persons book, Clowes has all these characteristics, signing Warne wasn't a mistake, it was decision made on a sound football basis that hasn't as yet and indeed may not produce the results expected. These things happen even to the most professional of owners whoever the **** they might be!!

Okay...taking you - probably temporarily- off ‘ignore’ for the first time in weeks, and rather wishing I hadn’t, I see you’ve aimed thousands of words at me knowing full well that I’m unlikely to respond or even be aware of them. Seems particularly stupid to me but, as regards your latest ‘missive’...as I imagine you well know I haven’t indulged in any ‘sly dig’ at Mr. Clowes. Furthermore I have done nothing other than defend Mr. Clowes and offer my support to those on here who initiated that call for such support.
Read the thread, stop reading into it things which exist only in your own head, and you will see that to be categorically true.

You get very over excited about two particular words that I have used to describe Mr. Clowes. The first was ‘rookie’ which you have determined to be some sort of insult. It is nothing of the sort. It is a term which describes an inexperienced person in a new role. That is exactly what Mr. Clowes was when he took over at Derby and generally speaking, in my opinion, people make better decisions as they become more experienced in all walks of life, from parenthood to work to sport.

The latest is ‘amateur’ - which despite you later suggesting that ‘most owners are amateurs’ (as I said) - you have then decided is a further insulting and ‘patronising sly dig’. Again it is nothing of the sort. Of the two, Clowes and Warne, the former is an inexperienced amateur benefactor (fact) while the latter is an experienced, hard bitten professional. Mr. Clowes is an enthusiastic and well heeled supporter of DCFC who has put his money where his mouth is. As I have repeatedly said, he deserves great credit for that, but his area of expertise and professionalism is property development. Warne, on the other hand, is the footballing professional, the alleged expert employed to achieve promotion. I wouldn’t seek advice from PW about which house to buy or how to build up my portfolio but, where football is concerned, he is Mr. Clowes’ hired professional and, at the moment, imo he isn’t doing much of a job.

I’ve demonstrated elsewhere examples of how the owner’s money has, imo, been best spent since he took over the summer before last and PW doesn’t appear to come out of that particularly well. I also note that there have been comments from others about how the wrong areas of team development have been concentrated on but that doesn’t appear to wind you up in the same way as it does when I dare to mention it.

Now, if you’d care to explain how the words ‘rookie’ and ‘amateur’ are insulting and ‘patronising sly digs’, rather than statements of fact, I’d be interested to hear your reasoning.
Likewise...if you’d like to argue the case about the returns we’ve had from the spending of Mr.Clowes’ money and team building pre and post PW I’d again be interested to hear what you have to say.

If on the other hand you just want to try and score rather senseless and all too often personal points then you’re only likely to find that you’re talking to yourself again.

[ramAnag]

Most owners are amateurs,

And Mr. Clowes is no exception...not in a derogatory way, but just as I said. So we can leave it there or just ignore each other.

[swaledale]

And Mr. Clowes is no exception...not in a derogatory way, but just as I said. So we can leave it there or just ignore each other.

I just wonder why you label him as such but never did with Mel Morris who arguably acted in a much more amateurish manner, promising big things, sacking ump**** managers, going into the dressing room to speak to players spending millions on so so players?

Clowes doesn't merit that label, everything he has done has been professional, have all his decisions produced the results fans crave? No not yet, but theres time.

Anyway leave out the unnecessary label and I shall say no more on the subject.