Port Vale Ownership Soap Opera II

[valefan16]

I notice this topic was starting to dilute the relegation thread so thought it be best to have its own thread for discussion.

The background: Port Vale owner Norman Smurthwaite (Smurf) took over the club in November 2012 following the clubs administration.... this was forced by the fans who starved out the previous incumbents who destroyed the club, financially, unpaid shares etc as the fans ground model failed to see the club invest and progress. Smurf took over with Paul Wildes the PR guru half way through the great promotion of 2012/13 as the Valiants led boyhood fan Tom Pope entertained as they racked up more goals than any EFL club on their way to the first promotion sealed ironically at tomorrow’s opponents Wycombe with Smurthwaite a hero dressed as a smurf! After all but seeing the promotion secured the week before he was in the local pubs completely trashed with the fans singing the Wonder of You...

The club progressed fairly well under Adams back in league one... a decent 9th placed finish as Wildes left and a topsy turvy affair saw the Vale flirt with relegation and the play offs the following season.

The season 2015/16 saw Vale favourites to go down but Rob Pages settled side performed well, at home especially, a league cup defeat of Burnley and a brave Penalty loss to WBA away, along with entertaining wins against Wigan and Sheffield United as Uche and Andoh caused sides problems before Andohs career was pretty much ended at Colchester with rumours of a £2 million bid from Spurs possible...

Then shit hit the fan...

December 2015 the Valiants made the second round of the FA Cup away at mid table league two side Exeter.. great chance to get to round three but a tricky assignment all the same.. we’d made hard work of Maidenhead after all in round 1 and our away form was causing us problems in the league... Vale failed to turn up and were dumped out 2-0... not a great shock but an unpleasant defeat... Smurf loses the plot with an hour long inquest with Page pitch side in front of the press... he allegedly by some fans stormed into the fans coach telling them Page would be gone... before an incredible rant on Sky Sports News saying we would of had Hasslebank but he didn’t offer him the job after Adams as he thought it unfair with the racism in the fan base (there had been one incident with Bradford in his tenure).

He then went on to say he was so wound up at St James Park he thought he was having a heart attack and the club is up for sale for the sake of his health... by now a Page was a dead man walking... Vale in the league continued to have a decent season and were in the play off hunt until the second last game when defeat by Scunthorpe ended that... decent squad lets just add a little bit to it and surely we will progress further and maybe make that step...

Every player by one rejected the contracts offered and Page quit... Smurf then admitted (and again last night) that he had forced him out... but all is well after a call from Jose Mourinho recommending his friend Bruno Riberio... the club now had links with AS Monaco and all these superb foreign lads will be signing... players arrived from Portugal and Holland’s top flight along with some Monaco youth players... we had a friendly at St George’s with Benfica....

Now in fairness it started well enough and we rode high in the league until October before plummeting down... Bruno walks... Michael Brown gets the gig and signs a load more players... relegation isn’t prevented but miraculously Brown stays on... Smurf resigns but will stay owner with zero input and the club must be self sufficient.

His infamous tweets and PR gaffes end as he disappears... Vale have a dire start as you all know, Brown goes and Aspin gets the gig... he pops up around that time but disappears and as the club delves towards non league for the first time in a century fans demand he sells after turning down two decent offers because he wants his investment back... he wants apparently around 6 million for a club that’s worth a quarter of that... he doesn’t want it, won’t sell it and the fans don’t want him...

Thus last nights meeting comes about....

 

[valefan16]

Last nights meeting was a chance to ask the questions and left fans bewildered... angry, upset... pretty much was a farce!

Main points... the club is losing 160k a month, the first instalment of Jordan Hugill sell on clause went to cover Jan-April...

The club will lose 820k between April and July... (CEO said we were self sustaining in January)

When asked how much he will sell the club for “none of your business sit down”

When quizzed over exclusivity payments by prospective buyers he denied stating what he had received... the fan in question pulled up an email he had sent telling her this!

He will stay if no one comes in until we are back in league one (lol)

He was mentored as set by the EFL by Karl Oyston!

He didn’t interview John Askey for the managers job before Aspin got it (contradicted by other people)

We nearly hired Westley (one thing he got right then)

If the fans want him gone we shouldn’t protest but raise the 820k between the hard core 3000 of us and he will go.

He will cover all losses because he loves the club (but said he was numb to it in October)

Confirmed he did force Page out over the Exeter cup tie.

Saved the club from Administration in 2013-14

Skipped or diverted all questions about his plans for the future of the club and its direction.

Wage budget is higher than some L1 clubs and top ten L2 at £1.6 million

Didn’t keep Gunning as to match FGR would have seen him second highest paid player and would of caused a mutiny with the others.

Synectics bid was lowered as they found out the ticket office is separate from the club and that’s fans fault.

 

[Andy Proctor]

I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. I very much doubt we are losing 160k a month we will most likely be losing money but won't be that much as the club would go bust if that was the case as nobody in there right mind would keep paying them shortfalls up.

 

[valefan16]

I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. I very much doubt we are losing 160k a month we will most likely be losing money but won't be that much as the club would go bust if that was the case as nobody in there right mind would keep paying them shortfalls up.

We were told we were self sufficient in January! So how are we losing 160k when our exec boxes are sold out every week... the wage budget is less than last year and supposedly the off field events are a success?

 

[PaulHaddock]

The parallels between us and Vale are shocking. You’ve obviously had the worst of it over the last couple of years but it’s amazing how badly some L2 teams have been mismanaged (I include Chesterfield in that). The worst thing is, as an outsider, you wouldn’t even know it!

Fenty has been a millstone around the club for a good 15 years. He did save us from administration after the ITV Digital collapse but as a result, he oversaw successful relegations to L2. After a few years of stagnation, we survived on the final day of the 08/09 season because of Luton’s 30-point deduction. Mike Newell had been hired earlier in the season and that set in motion the disaster that occurred a year later.

Newell was sacked after leaving us with a squad of drunks and mercenaries and the job was given to Neil Woods, the YT coach, who’d not a game in caretaker charge. After signing about 20 more players, we didn’t win for 25 games and we went down on that day at Burton.

We finally bottomed out at midtable in the Conference and Rob Scott and Paul Hurst were given the job in 2011 (not before we lost over £1million in 2010!). Our fortunes changed and we made 4 successive playoff campaigns, with a Rob Scott sacking in between, finally getting promotion at the 4th attempt. Things were looking up!

That is, until Paul Hurst left because Fenty wouldn’t allow him a strength and conditioning coach, amongst other things. We then hired Marcus Bignot and then sacked him because Fenty wanted his mate Slade back at the club. Over the course of the summer, we built an aging, squad on the job on the cheap and went about alienating the better, higher paid players from the squad. And so we arrive at this mess of a season...

In the past 12 months, Fenty has done the following:

• Made the club mascot pay to be a mascot, to save about £500 over the season.
• Not backed the fans over the Stevenage Bra-gate incident, whilst almost speaking in favour of it.
• Voted for the Checkatrade format for 2 consecutive years, despite us not winning any of our 6 games!
• Written two statements rubbishing the rumours of a local journo, coming across as petulant and unnecessary
• Setting up the same journo for a tirade of abuse at the Fans Forum, embarrassing himself, the board and some of the rumoured ‘fans’ he hired for the night.
• Sold our best player and only goal scorer on deadline day and loaned a midfielder to a relegation rival, all in the aim to save money.
• Signed yet more journeyman and cheap players in January because we seemed fairly safe.
• Have TWO Votes of Confidence to Slade having not won since December . He was sacked 1 week after the second statement.
• Unknowingly let fans record a private conversation in his car, letting slip his real opinions on Operation Promotion, Marcus Bignot and the fans.

After all this, he wants £2million back that he has put into the club. For all his faults, he is a true fan and would never hurt the club by asking for his money back immediately. On the flip side, it means that no one has the capability to release his stranglehold on the club and even if they did, I doubt he’d give it up!

The board is full of Yes-men and are worth about 10k collectively. He picks who joins it. He holds all the cards but none of the knowledge required to run a football club. And now he’s on the brink of being the first owner (I have no idea if this is true but I can’t think of another example) to a club out of the EFL twice. And now a rookie manager with 6 months of management experience has 8 games to save him. The fans won’t give him a second chance after this.


Sorry for stealing your thread but this seemed like the place to get that off my chest. For what it’s worth, I hope Vale stay up as I enjoyed my trip there this season.

 

[Bartonyellow]

How the fuck do you lose £160k a month?
You must be such a poor run club then.
We make an operating profit on gates of 4,500-5,200.
Someone has their fingers in the till - or you have massive overheads.

 

[valefan16]

How the fuck do you lose £160k a month?
You must be such a poor run club then.
We make an operating profit on gates of 4,500-5,200.
Someone has their fingers in the till - or you have massive overheads.

To be fair you have a much smaller ground to operate and much higher revenue in terms of Away fans, TV money etc...

But the fact remains the figure doesn’t add up... and that’s what’s worrying the fans.

 

[Dave-Vale]

Port Vale Park Circus. Roll up, roll up!

 

[Dave-Vale]

The parallels between us and Vale are shocking. You’ve obviously had the worst of it over the last couple of years but it’s amazing how badly some L2 teams have been mismanaged (I include Chesterfield in that). The worst thing is, as an outsider, you wouldn’t even know it!

Fenty has been a millstone around the club for a good 15 years. He did save us from administration after the ITV Digital collapse but as a result, he oversaw successful relegations to L2. After a few years of stagnation, we survived on the final day of the 08/09 season because of Luton’s 30-point deduction. Mike Newell had been hired earlier in the season and that set in motion the disaster that occurred a year later.

Newell was sacked after leaving us with a squad of drunks and mercenaries and the job was given to Neil Woods, the YT coach, who’d not a game in caretaker charge. After signing about 20 more players, we didn’t win for 25 games and we went down on that day at Burton.

We finally bottomed out at midtable in the Conference and Rob Scott and Paul Hurst were given the job in 2011 (not before we lost over £1million in 2010!). Our fortunes changed and we made 4 successive playoff campaigns, with a Rob Scott sacking in between, finally getting promotion at the 4th attempt. Things were looking up!

That is, until Paul Hurst left because Fenty wouldn’t allow him a strength and conditioning coach, amongst other things. We then hired Marcus Bignot and then sacked him because Fenty wanted his mate Slade back at the club. Over the course of the summer, we built an aging, squad on the job on the cheap and went about alienating the better, higher paid players from the squad. And so we arrive at this mess of a season...

In the past 12 months, Fenty has done the following:

• Made the club mascot pay to be a mascot, to save about £500 over the season.
• Not backed the fans over the Stevenage Bra-gate incident, whilst almost speaking in favour of it.
• Voted for the Checkatrade format for 2 consecutive years, despite us not winning any of our 6 games!
• Written two statements rubbishing the rumours of a local journo, coming across as petulant and unnecessary
• Setting up the same journo for a tirade of abuse at the Fans Forum, embarrassing himself, the board and some of the rumoured ‘fans’ he hired for the night.
• Sold our best player and only goal scorer on deadline day and loaned a midfielder to a relegation rival, all in the aim to save money.
• Signed yet more journeyman and cheap players in January because we seemed fairly safe.
• Have TWO Votes of Confidence to Slade having not won since December . He was sacked 1 week after the second statement.
• Unknowingly let fans record a private conversation in his car, letting slip his real opinions on Operation Promotion, Marcus Bignot and the fans.

After all this, he wants £2million back that he has put into the club. For all his faults, he is a true fan and would never hurt the club by asking for his money back immediately. On the flip side, it means that no one has the capability to release his stranglehold on the club and even if they did, I doubt he’d give it up!

The board is full of Yes-men and are worth about 10k collectively. He picks who joins it. He holds all the cards but none of the knowledge required to run a football club. And now he’s on the brink of being the first owner (I have no idea if this is true but I can’t think of another example) to a club out of the EFL twice. And now a rookie manager with 6 months of management experience has 8 games to save him. The fans won’t give him a second chance after this.


Sorry for stealing your thread but this seemed like the place to get that off my chest. For what it’s worth, I hope Vale stay up as I enjoyed my trip there this season.

That nightmare sounds like our previous nightmare being owned by fans with an insane chairman and a board that were basically hand picked.

Some proper mental stories from that period.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

Anyone else bar Port Vale i’d feel real sympathy for the real football fan should let’s be honest most lower league clubs have been through the same or similar to some extent but.... it’s Vale they have an accepted scum element

So, instead I laugh. We should all laugh to some extent and stop accepting the knuckledraggers

 

[valefan16]

Anyone else bar Port Vale i’d feel real sympathy for the real football fan should let’s be honest most lower league clubs have been through the same or similar to some extent but.... it’s Vale they have an accepted scum element

So, instead I laugh. We should all laugh to some extent and stop accepting the knuckledraggers

An accepted scum element? No more so than most clubs and let’s be honest only ones that come out the woodwork at big games where likely to get something back.

Notts County have them too... doesn’t take more than a few seconds to find that out:

http://boards.footymad.net/showthread.php?t=38162994

Strange obsession with the Vale you have.

 

[valefan16]

That nightmare sounds like our previous nightmare being owned by fans with an insane chairman and a board that were basically hand picked.

Some proper mental stories from that period.

Ice Creams and the Blue Sky thing... show me the beef baby...

Although it cost us a play off shot never been as proud to be Vale as that night against Burton an hour or two after going into administration. We’d got them out! And the last ten minutes against Burton non stop stand up if you love the Vale.. scored during it too.

Add that and the almost unbelievable tenure of Jim Gannon we’ve had more entertainment off the pitch than on it.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

The word obsession is flung around and overused more than legend on here lol.

Not obsessed and if you think Vale have no more scum than most clubs in L2 you are living in a dream world. Of course everyone has some, but Vale more than most as many a you tube clip, newspaper article, and personal experience shows.

Let’s call it karma. Let the scum suffer a little seeing as the club have done so little for so long to address it

Laughing from London

 

[valefan16]

The word obsession is flung around and overused more than legend on here lol.

Not obsessed and if you think Vale have no more scum than most clubs in L2 you are living in a dream world. Of course everyone has some, but Vale more than most as many a you tube clip, newspaper article, and personal experience shows.

Let’s call it karma. Let the scum suffer a little seeing as the club have done so little for so long to address it

Laughing from London

Ahhh so you got on the end of an idiot and that means we’re all ‘scum’. I got into a dodgy situation with Darlo fans on a train back from Vale few years ago... still donated a fiver to their survival bid. One experience doesn’t make the rest bad.

At Huddersfield last year after our spanking in the cup a Vale fan saved the life of a Town fan who had collapsed by giving him CPR... scum? Deserves it?

Grimsby have three times the banning orders we have as do Lincoln, at 11 we have less than Carlisle, Cambridge, Luton, Mansfield, Coventry, Chesterfield and Swindon, level with Crewe and Newport...

We all have them but far from the worst... but yeah the genuine long suffering Vale fans that make up 99% of the fan base deserve to face losing their club because it’s ‘karma’ for the actions of a tiny minority...

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

You know, I know , we all know that’s more cherry picking and wrong

You have way more the average than the average L2 club.

Say you haven’t ?! Go on I dare you .....

Rent-a-mob

Although Grimbo are not much better

 

[Dave-Vale]

We have a very small, old school hooligan element that turn up to certain games where trouble is likely. Other than that, the majority of our fans are alright and will happily sit and have a pint/chat with you.

 

[valefan16]

We have a very small, old school hooligan element that turn up to certain games where trouble is likely. Other than that, the majority of our fans are alright and will happily sit and have a pint/chat with you.

Spot on Dave. After we’ve pillaged and trashed your town of course

In all seriousness though put it this way the ones at Grimsby and will likely be seen at Crewe weren’t at Vale on Saturday or Barnet mid week last week...

If a club wants trouble then our dickhead element will oblige... otherwise they won’t be seen and most have a relaxed day out. We had some issues because Sjoke banned a lot and tightend up their issues and guess some clung on to us. Recall the trouble at home to Wolves were lads that hadn’t even been to the game and came from the top of Hamil Road.

We possibly have more than some clubs but less than others. Working class clubs generally as a whole have an element I guess.

 

[Randolph Haggerty]

I wasn’t at the forum, and have only read the reports, I was amazed that some people still support him, it beggars belief really.
The man lies and lies, lots of pertinent questions weren’t asked, who benefits from the ground and club being split? Pvfc or NS?
How could the administrators runs us at break even on the same crowds when now we are losing 160k a month? Bullshit.
Why has commercial income only just started coming into the club?
I know first hand a few things about his selling of executive boxes, but as his mentor is the guardian of integrity that is Oyston i’d Best keep that to myself.
This man will kill this club, of that I have no doubt.

 

[Crewelad87]

Have to agree Vale seem to have a higher % of months than most, and I don't think I'm that mean to wish relegation on them, meaning administration and relegation to the northern league. I can' possibly wish Port Vale onto quaint little clubs like Nantwich Town, Sutton Coldfield And Whitby Town. In all seriousness despite the number of months following them I don' know a couple of decent fans personally that follow the Vale everywhere, So I feel for them abit for what poppa Smurf is doing to the club, but on the same hand im revelling in telling them I told you so, after lording him as the messiah not all that long ago.

 

[valefan16]

Interesting financial report for last season considering we were told we were losing money hand over fist....

Actually made £466k profit arguably the best for years!

100k for Anthony Grant and 250k for Jak Alnwick helped along with 100k in exclusivity payments from potential buyers.

Begs the question with a windfall of 1.9 million (all be it in three instalments) this January from Jordan Hugill sale to West Ham from PNE which is many times bigger than the money we got last year how could we possibly lose 80k a month now?

 

[Soz]

The only decent thing about our hooligans is that they come out for games where the other team has hooligans and don't worry about the others.

Grimsby being a prime example. I knew weeks in advance that it would kick off there, there were blokes going to that game who have probably been to a handful of games since the 90s.

Crewe another example, but you only have to look on youtube to see their stewards and fans assaulting Vale players to realize that it's not a PVFC problem.

I've never been in any real trouble at football games. I think the majority of times you would need to actively go looking for it to find it.

 

[Trapdoor]

Pretty laughable that losing to us was the final straw. It's not like you lost 3-0 to Curzon Ashton...

 

[valefan16]

Pretty laughable that losing to us was the final straw. It's not like you lost 3-0 to Curzon Ashton...

This is where the lack of football knowledge really bites our chairmans ass!

 

[Buxton Vale]

And now there's a mysterious buyer popped up from nowhere. Of course it's just another fantasy.

 

[valefan16]

And now there's a mysterious buyer popped up from nowhere. Of course it's just another fantasy.

And Smurf may come back to the day to day side!

 

[Buxton Vale]

And Smurf may come back to the day to day side!

Hopefully he will take note of the poll currently on OVF where over 80% want him gone!

 

[Dave-Vale]

Didn’t believe at first that he was siphoning off money but I’m now 100% certain the little blue cretin is.