Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:13 pm
Posts: 176
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[quote="WellDon"] THE MELTDOWN – GILLINGHAMOn Saturday morning at 9-00am I sat in my kitchen waiting for my lift to arrive, tickets purchased, and in my head I was looking for excuses not to go, but I confess that’s me done now for the foreseeable future regarding away days, and I would imagine I won’t be the last, and I’m certainly not the first, simply put, I’ve had enough, wasting my time, my money, and my emotions. I did over 5 seasons going to every game, home and away, but my enthusiasm is just drained from me now.
I spoke to so many people on Saturday, and as usual I court opinion on what’s going on in their minds regarding the club, and the overwhelming feeling was that people were only going to games because of their mates, a weekly catch up, a few beers, a few laughs, hardly one mentioned the atmosphere at games, the results…or lack of them.
Everyone had an opinion on what was going on when I pressed them for their take on everything MK Dons, and the constant themes were about the poor players, the manager, the decline of the club and of course Pete, and by and large it was time for him to go. Too many mistakes, poor appointments, lack of investment, selling players and replacing them with has been’s or never will be’s, kids, anyone really to fill a shirt and give an appearance that we had tried to replace like for like.
One or two rattled off names of players that had passed through our fingers, some even I had forgotten, estimated values because of course the club hide behind the “Undisclosed Fee” because they don’t want us to know how much money has been banked or how little had been spent on the replacement, it was a pitiful tale of how badly this club has been run, and if you set out to make a bigger mess of it, you probably wouldn’t have got it to this level of decline, it is a bloody mess from top to bottom.
Our fans are largely superb, with the odd exception of those with delusions of grandeur, and I salute you, how you’ve kept your humour, and faith is remarkable, we all deserve better, but that will never come whilst those that are prepared to excuse and forgive everything that has gone on, or is going on, still walk amongst us, those people want to blame the boo boys, but I’m sorry, if you make excuses for this club, call for more gel time, you just give the club more time and reasons to serve up poor product for maximum money, how long does it take people to realise what is going on.
Year after year some people defend what’s going on, and largely they get it wrong, and the next season undeterred by the fact they got is so badly wrong before, off they go again with the same rubbish and excuses…it blows my mind…even today I have just read “Surely there are two teams worse than us”, well I wouldn’t bet on it.
The problem with the team is, or the building of it is you cannot every season sell off the best players, and then expect to build on it and improve it with the little money we are prepared to throw at it, last season told you that in spades.
Regular readers of this highly acclaimed weekly journal will know I called GA out after the second game, I’m no Mystic Meg, but I could see the writing on the wall back then, and yes I have to say it, so did Lord Filthy of Filthy Towers.
There is something …. sorry, everything wrong at this club, and the problem is nobody knows how to stop the spiral of decline as it is virtually running out of control, and how they are going to turn it round I don’t know, and I honestly do not rule anything out, the issue is, this has to be unsustainable, and you know what that could mean, AFC could get their wish and we do go broke.
You have to ask how much lower this can go, well we could see on Saturday at home to Barrow where I expect the attendance to be 5,000 or less, I wonder what the bean counters think when they glance at the away end and realise they gambled and lost those big away followings, nothing probably, it won’t be their fault, it never has been.
I have no doubt sooner or later somebody or other will bring a video out and tell you that we have a massive budget in an attempt to deflect criticism away from the board, and bigger than last season, but what they will fail to fully explain is that budget covers everything, from sugar sachets in the hotel and Alexander s hair gel, to footballs and grass seed, it does not mean just the playing budget, that is a very different thing, do not be fooled, but you probably will be, or those that hang on every word the club says.
Should Alexander go, well yes I think the time is about right to throw another manager under the bus, Pete will tell you it’s all his fault, and you will probably feel sorry for him…I won’t, he will tell you he feels let down, and waffle on for so long you will lose the will to live, but the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter who we get in as our next gaffer, the behind the scenes culture will carry on, and until that is addressed nothing will change and it will continue in decline.
People will keep on saying we cant keep sacking managers, and they are right, but fail to ask themselves why we are continually sacking managers, when you can answer that truthfully or work out the common denominator in the repeated failures only then will things change.
Let me see if I could make this easier for you, if you managed to get Pep as the new gaffer, and you gave him a Sunday League team, would you blame him for not winning the Premiership, if you asked Lewis Hamilton to drive a Fiat Punto in the British Grand Prix and he came in last, would it be his fault, can you see what I’m getting at.
I suppose I better finish up for the time being, but I will say that I don’t believe Manning was a bad manager, surely he has proved that this season so far, financial backing and players have put Oxford up the sharp end of league 1 and Oxford are getting good crowds of around 10,000. Jackson was a good manager, he just never got the help he needed from the club, and I just wonder how many would prefer him now over Alexsander, the majority I would guess.
I will leave you then with this “it’s a failed football experiment”, remember that after the Burton game, well it is becoming increasingly harder to deny that week after week that is about the wisest thing that anybody has ever said about this club.
Just one thing more…. if we win against Barrow and anyone comes out and says, “where are all the haters now”, consider yourself to be the biggest ladybit that ever graced our stadium.
One more final thing, thank you to every one that entertained me in the Dons Action approved Fleur De Lys pub on Saturday, and also thank you to those that educated me on AI journalism…. I never knew such a thing existed, the offers of pints and the respect….. I think…. shown to me as a silly old bugger was very humbling, but very much appreciated, makes me think in times of skirmish, I know you would have my back.
Until next time…. I might even mention the game.[b]  WD[ Tbh , even working on matchdays there has become depressing and a chore, I didn't do it for the money , just for some social contact as I work from home. I'm contracted to work basically one match a month. , last 2_years I was doing all of them , the list of regular stewards gets smaller each game too, I feel for the ones who have paid for money to support the club
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but it needs something to galvanise this club and show once again what it could potentially be. Declining support in the ground is jeopardising any chance of that currently.