Flew back from China for that...

[Islington Hibs]

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Thanks to you and to the small number of people above who have read this thread and offered words of encouragement.

I have a bit of sense that I'm flogging a dead horse, pretty much on my own. None of the things I've talked about above are going to happen. Nothing that matters is going to change. But I'm not done yet.

Nailrod there is so much gnashing of teeth (understandably). It is great to have some really constructive and well reasoned posts. Hopefully yesterday's changes will start to bring a new approach, only time will tell but certainly mediocre Rod's time has to be up.

Hibs claim around 8000 season tickets I think, down from a peak of 11000. I guess that over the last 10 seasons perhaps as many as 15000 different people have had a season. I have no idea how many different 'Hibs' supporters attended at least one game this year but if we had over 16k for Malmo and similar home support for Hearts plus others attending the odd game here and there I would guess over 20k different people have worn a green scarf at Easter Road. Quite a big 'warm' market. Further the club do know who many of these people are as they increasingly book on line.

Numbers are well down, and will almost drop further, for very obvious reasons, until there is some entertainment/winning but your points about engaging with former 'customers' and finding out what it would take to entice them back are, in any industry outside football, common sense. Very little attempt has been made to engage with these groups. Given most weeks we have 10000+ empty seats there must be targeted initiatives that could be.

However the big issue is that going to Easter Road is increasingly an aggressive/ frustrating and apathetic experience. The employees are a revolving door, almost no player/ manager is with the club for more than a couple of seasons, the supporters are angry (understandably) and it is frankly becoming the sort of negative experience one could do without.

To break this vicious circle the club must regain the trust of the very disillusioned support with a serious love in and not cheap marketing gimmicks . Equally games are more enjoyable when the crowd is 'up for it.' I hope Dempster makes a difference here but the route must be to nurture players, like Stanton, and hopefully Harris, and turn them into players who stay for a good number of years who have a real affinity with the club, supplementing our home-grown talent with 4-6 more seasoned pros. Further the club needs to make defeat unacceptable and address the culture of second best failure and the expectations of defeat that have become endemic. The first task of the manager must be to 'dominate Edinburgh.' Given that the league title is beyond everyone outside Celtic those games are most supporters cup finals. There also has to be an emphasis on entertainment. Football can not be guaranteed, but attempting to play positively should be a core requirement of a manager. Further use the excellent facilities better and make it more of a carnival atmosphere. (easier said than done!). People need to feel they have had a good day out and are not exploited.

[Nailrod]

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Hundreds and thousands? lol dream on son. You flew all the way over from where? aw diddums, am sorry pal but no matter where you came from your hurt is no greater than me or joe bloggs from niddrie. The brown nosing you have received on your pishy posts only goes to reiterate the clique that exists on this *****hole

I've made several attempts to answer your post but I keep running into the need for a word of more than one syllable.

Fundamentally you're right though. How dare I - one of the 'wee folk', trying to analyse what's gone wrong and come up with some ideas as to how to put it right! Who the hell do I think I am?

Oh and just for the record - none of my posts on the thread were actually about this. It's just the heading I chose for the thread:

You flew all the way over from where? aw diddums, am sorry pal but no matter where you came from your hurt is no greater than me or joe bloggs from niddrie...

[Nailrod]

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Which leaves us with only one last thing.

We need a leader to turn our fortunes around. We need a leader to drag us out of the slough of despond. We need somebody to rid us of the Golem Effect.

We need somebody who is an inspiring figure, a person of vision, a great communicator, an original thinker who comes up with creative solutions to intractable problems.

Rod is none of these things. He's an apparatchik. His 'live within our means and ignore the fact they're getting smaller with every year that passes, sack the manager and by the way squander a bit of money in the transition process' really has now been tested to destruction as a 'strategy'.

So what Rod really needs to be spending all his time on right now is scouring the planet for somebody who is all the things he isn't, who thinks of all the things he's never thought of, who is willing to try all the things he's never tried, and who can make some of them work.

When he finds somebody like that who is willing to have a go at Hibs, then all he needs to do is hand over the reins, withdraw discreetly, and never be seen again.

Dear Rod,

The bit in bold is every bit as important as the rest. Just thought I would let you know.

Nailrod.

[Islington Hibs]

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Dear Rod,

The bit in bold is every bit as important as the rest. Just thought I would let you know.

Nailrod.

Therein lies the conundrum. Is the new CEO really the CEO or is Rod doing the back seat driving? Part1 in place. Now part 2 time for Rod to, as you say, discretely disappear.

[emerald green]

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lol

What's funny? Have I missed something?

[Nailrod]

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Therein lies the conundrum. Is the new CEO really the CEO or is Rod doing the back seat driving? Part1 in place. Now part 2 time for Rod to, as you say, discretely disappear.

There isn't any point in making this type of appointment if Petrie is going to insist on lurking in the background like Shelob in her lair.

We desperately need a new broom that's going to sweep clean. A new broom can't sweep clean if there's an old broom hanging around saying "No hang on you can't sweep there because that's my corner ok you can sweep there but I'll have to show you how it's done because it's not as simple as it looks no hang on a minute just let me tell you how to sweep this bit..."

The fact of the matter is that when it comes to success in running a football club Dempster has ten times the credentials that Petrie has. The only thing that she or Hibs need Petrie to do is GTF.