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Steve Gibson


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Bulkhaul is a pretty big outfit these days mostly all I ever see around Tillbury and on the motorways is Bulkhaul.

You know I have always wondered why Gibson and his partner have never sponsored Boro (or have they and I missed a season or two).  Or perhaps he is not allowed to sponsor his own club under the bent FA rules.?

Back to AK he may have thought he had the run of the club but he also suffered like most Boro managers  with the higher management buying players he had no use for as for his defensive style of play I believe he played to the strength of the team he had.  I can take pretty football  or leave it but I also would take the dirty scraps every week as long as it yielded 3 points.

I know he never wanted Downing from the off when Downing turned up at that first Spanish  training session pre-season. AK's face stood next to him could have turned a churn of milk sour. I liked Downing but truth be told he was well over the hill when he came back. If I had to chose a ex player as manager I would have by passed Woody and selected Downing just because I am pretty peed off at seeing a centre back as a manager at Boro.. 😄

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Just had another look at the table, we currently sit below teams like Preston and Charlton (who are in and around the playoffs), Brentford, Blackburn, Luton, Millwall, Wigan and Hull.  I don't se

It’s the standard ‘one or the other’ paradox most boro fans seem to have, ‘WE NEED A DEFENSIVE MANAGER WE CANT KEEP A CLEAN SHEET!!!’ ‘NOW WE NEED AN ATTACKING MANAGER, WE CANT SCORE!!’ What we n

Sorry, but I can't agree with this. The vast majority of Boro fans recognise Gibson is a fan first and foremost. He loves the club so much he - with help from others - saved it in 1986, and he's earne

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An interesting article in the Sun ( yea I buy it) regarding Simon Jorden his time as chairman at Palace.

One day he was a hero for saving the club from administration the next he was a monster.  Said fans use to ask for his pictures with their kids, but after any defeat fans saw him as wanting to eat their kids they were so fickle. He pumped in loads of cash but it became expected. He said he once reimbursed fans after a terrible away performance but then every time Palace lost he would get demands for refunds, he just couldn't win.

He goes on to say the fans are the most important people at the club, at any club but they don't understand how difficult it is being a club owner particularly expectations when you have to rein in the spending all of a sudden it can become intolerable, threats to family members and the like.

He said when he bought palace he went on a fans forum and the fans were saying lets see if he puts any money in and then judge him. He put 10 mil straight in to pay of the debts and began a spending spree. The same forums then pulled him to bits when results went the wrong way and soon forgot all he had done, but as he says its the fans club and no matter what had gone on before they owned no loyalty to him.

It was kind of a thankless task.

I thought this is almost a mirror image of our club and gibbo, one min a hero the next a villain. With some fans staying loyal due to the past while others simply say that's done and dusted time to move on- we owe nothing to the owner

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I don’t think any of us doubt it will be an almost impossible job and full of all sorts of things a fan would never even consider.

however I don’t see the comparisons with that article as my concerns have always been about decision making rather than the amount of money spent.

Its what I find annoying about when you try to criticise Gibson, it always ends up going to money ‘oh you just want a billionaire’ etc, we’ve been better funded than some premiership teams the last few seasons, my issue isn’t and never has been about how much money Gibson does or doesn’t put in. It’s HOW he chooses to spend it and who he chooses to spend it that is my issue.

We have constantly got it wrong and if anything we spent to much, it all just points to people not doing their job properly and still being in that job.

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I think it wasn't so much the money with Jorden it was the fact that in his opinion fans didn't realise how difficult it was to run a club and some decisions had to be taken without fans understanding of why but harping on about the glory days so to speak.

With Gibson its the same. For as long as I can recall with Gibbo in charge we have had expectations of promotions, cup finals, top players and challenging at the top end of leagues because that is what we were use to and of course that should be the aim for all clubs.

At some point the expectation can not be met and have to restructure just to survive which is Boro. Gibson has made some shocking decisions over those same seasons but he's also made some fantastic ones. AS Jorden said those good ones are soon forgotten when things don't go to plan and you soon become the no 1 person to blame but as he also said the Fans are the club and they have to be heard. If that means bitterly walking away then so be it.

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It's like the Harvey Dent quote in Batman "You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain".  Unfortinately I think this seems to be happening with Gibson. I think Linojo hits the nail on the head though. His financial support over the years cant be criticised however his footballing decisions over the past few years certainly can be questioned. In modern football, money has a massive influence but teams ie Norwich have shown having good footballing people making the decisions can be a success for non elite clubs.

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21 minutes ago, ballyclover said:

I think it wasn't so much the money with Jorden it was the fact that in his opinion fans didn't realise how difficult it was to run a club and some decisions had to be taken without fans understanding of why but harping on about the glory days so to speak.

With Gibson its the same. For as long as I can recall with Gibbo in charge we have had expectations of promotions, cup finals, top players and challenging at the top end of leagues because that is what we were use to and of course that should be the aim for all clubs.

At some point the expectation can not be met and have to restructure just to survive which is Boro. Gibson has made some shocking decisions over those same seasons but he's also made some fantastic ones. AS Jorden said those good ones are soon forgotten when things don't go to plan and you soon become the no 1 person to blame but as he also said the Fans are the club and they have to be heard. If that means bitterly walking away then so be it.

That’s exactly my point though, we now have to ‘restructure to survive’ because of our own recklessness, other clubs seem to manage fine without throwing money around yet we can’t even with an owner of 30 odd years experience in football. Also when was the last ‘fantastic decision’ he made? They haven’t been forgotten there just haven’t been any for ages.

Its only recently his decisions have come under scrutiny, since Agnew/monk/pulis, that’s about 30 years of full backing by our supporters which I think your not giving credit for in your argument.

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1 hour ago, ballyclover said:

An interesting article in the Sun ( yea I buy it) regarding Simon Jorden his time as chairman at Palace.

One day he was a hero for saving the club from administration the next he was a monster.  Said fans use to ask for his pictures with their kids, but after any defeat fans saw him as wanting to eat their kids they were so fickle. He pumped in loads of cash but it became expected. He said he once reimbursed fans after a terrible away performance but then every time Palace lost he would get demands for refunds, he just couldn't win.

He goes on to say the fans are the most important people at the club, at any club but they don't understand how difficult it is being a club owner particularly expectations when you have to rein in the spending all of a sudden it can become intolerable, threats to family members and the like.

He said when he bought palace he went on a fans forum and the fans were saying lets see if he puts any money in and then judge him. He put 10 mil straight in to pay of the debts and began a spending spree. The same forums then pulled him to bits when results went the wrong way and soon forgot all he had done, but as he says its the fans club and no matter what had gone on before they owned no loyalty to him.

It was kind of a thankless task.

I thought this is almost a mirror image of our club and gibbo, one min a hero the next a villain. With some fans staying loyal due to the past while others simply say that's done and dusted time to move on- we owe nothing to the owner

A very good point to remember.

I know its a very old and oft-repeated statement, but without Gibson, we might now be supporting Billingham Synthonia or something.

Also, outside of transfer spending, the club's parent company Gibson O'Neill still provides financial support.

 

I suppose the big question is can the chairman actually afford to pump big bucks into the club, like he has in the past? Even assuming he can...maybe the recent financial problems have scared him off doing so? Maybe he is trying to get the club to a point where it is largely self-sustaining and no longer dependent on external support.

 

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1 hour ago, SouthernSmoggie said:

Gibson doesn't need to go, he just needs to take a step back and employ some people who know how to run a football club.

He needs to let go of his ego, admit that football has moved on since the 90s, and seek advice from outside his bubble. 

Exactly this, I think the majority of sensible fans just want better decisions to be made off the pitch. It's not about wanting Gibson to just keep pumping million after million into the club. 

The club has lost a lot of money in the last few years because of his bad management, for his own sake I don't understand why he wouldn't make some changes behind the scenes. 

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I've said time and time again, Gibson is happy surrounding himself with yes men , he doesn't want someone to come in and rip up the  Boro script book, he doesn't want anyone to  change it, and there lies the problem. Been chairman of a football club doesn't make you a good judge of football and I believe Gibson comes into that category.

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56 minutes ago, Duvel said:

So according to a new Gazette article this morning Gibson is putting in a million a month. 

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steve-gibsons-1m-month-makes-17167426

Gibson putting in loads of money would always mitigate his poor decision making in my eyes, however, as he has continued to make awful decisions in appointing unfit individuals into key positions of power within the club, that mitigation is now pretty meaningless. It's him employing the likes of Woodgate, Gill, Bevington (whatever he is even doing?), Bauser and co that is resulting in massive inefficiencies. The historic awful decision making that results from the individuals within key positions has wasted many tens of millions of a raft of shambolically expensive signings like Gueudiora, Gestede, Saville & Fletcher. Even under Pulis, the self proclaimed money saving expert, was given too much freedom to rely on short term fix's and allowed to spend £8 million on yet another CM when we were well stocked with CM's and already poorly balanced due to lacking wingers and #10's.

If we're ever going to stop needlessly wasting money then Gibson needs to stop giving jobs to his mates and start appointing people upon their merits; like an actual proper business that strives for the best. Only then will we stop wasting so much money and start being properly run. The PR spin from the Gazette is deflecting a lot of valid criticism of what Gibson is doing wrong behind the scenes.

I've been saying about him for ages, and he is well out of our reach now, but years ago we should have been doing everything possible to appoint Stuart Webber as our Sporting Director/Director of Football. He has turned Huddersfield and Norwich around behind the scenes and led to them getting promoted on a budget. It's people like him who we should be appointing based on their merits, instead of appointing loads of Teessider's.

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50 minutes ago, Duvel said:

So according to a new Gazette article this morning Gibson is putting in a million a month. 

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steve-gibsons-1m-month-makes-17167426

He is only having to put that amount of money in to cover the mistakes he has previously made. 

Sounds like the club are preparing fans to not expect anything to be spent in January 

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Yeah I agree with both of you and this article kind of backs up what a lot of us on here have been saying. 

Not many people are questioning his dedication but his own poor decision making has largely put himself/us in this position. 

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Well it's exactly what he had to do before we got promoted. We got out of the requirement to do that and literally the minimum time we could fall back into it, we did. Relegated first season, parachute payments gone 2 years after. Said it on Twitter, I'm grateful that he will cover up the losses he has incurred from a position of relative strength, that in a sense is more responsibility than some owners would ever take on. However, the Gazette running a sympathy piece for the chairman can get in the sea. Completely tries to cover up whose fault this is.

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