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Few thoughts from me 21:39 - Mar 6 with 15204 viewsColDale

Plenty has been said on here over the past week or so with regards to David Bottomley and his position as CEO at Dale. Having worked with him through my role at the Trust, just thought I’d pen together a few thoughts from the evidence that I’ve seen over the past three months.

For me the role of the CEO is to oversee the running of the club. It’s to take ultimate responsibility for every facet of the club, ensuring that off the field, the club is sufficiently well run to allow the manager the biggest budget possible without threatening the future of the club, ensuring that the club remains at the heart of its community, and embracing the views of all those with a love for the club. I see those being addressed.

There seems to be a questioning towards the appointment DB that his predecessors have been exempt from, even those it has since transpired arrived at Spotland complete with baggage. There were no threads regarding the appointments of James Mason, William Goodwin, Russ Green, Colin Garlick and those before questioning whether they went through the interview process. David was appointed by the Board of Directors, as was presumably the case with those before, he has passed the Fit and Proper Person’s test and having been on the Board himself for the past four years, he takes the position fully versed in the “Rochdale way”.

With regard to his predecessors, I was very enthusiastic about James when he first took over given the comments from the Bradford supporters, but he was working on a part time basis whilst launching a new business elsewhere. You cannot do the job on a part time basis given the ultimate responsibility. William didn’t reply to a single email or meet with the Trust during his time at the top for the two to three month period he was in charge despite us being requested to send everything directly to him. I liked Russ a lot, and supplied a letter backing him for his appeal (which btw was reduced by three months). However, Russ always struck me as someone who had 50 things to do at any one time, but could only get through 40 on any given day. That might be unfair to Russ but he always came across as swamped with the work he had on. Colin was great and incredibly efficient about what he did but was never one to stray from the Colin Garlick way of doing things. When David Gartside was running the Trust, it was almost a running joke about “I’m waiting to hear back from (insert name of CEO of the time here)”. We’ve not had that on any occasion since David Bottomley was appointed.

So with respect to David, we have seen a different way of thinking to what we’ve seen before. There has been a genuine desire to have a running dialogue with supporters throughout and not just some token meeting every now and then. There is consideration to the views of supporters on a level we’ve not seen before. It’s been a big criticism in recent years that the Club pay lip service to the Trust, but we’re not seeing that. Will that continue? Well why not? Like I said, the dialogue between Club and Trust is ongoing even to the extent of contacting us on Monday morning following the dismissal of Keith Hill.

So what has changed in the (almost) three months since David took charge?
- Communication with supporters. Everything’s been asked, and everything has been answered and published.
- Genuine views from supporters are sought, considered and acted on. There’s no arrogance or bullishness that his way is the only way of doing things.
- End of Season Do has been reverted to the Traditional one that we wanted. Not only that, we were offered choices to the format, and they went with our wishes. The pricing etc all met our requests.
- The much maligned fixture board. It’s still not updated quite to the extent that I’d like, but there is no comparison with the three months since the appointment to the three months before the appointment.
- Communication from the club. We told him that communication wasn’t good enough and steps have been taken to address that. Yes the Diary is part of that but it’s an informal way of letting supporters know about stuff behind the scenes. The last one (vote of confidence one aside) informed fans about the way the players ran out (maybe not groundbreaking news but it was something fans had asked about), a report on the work that Tony Ellis has been doing with the Academy and details of an arranged meeting with the Jenkins’ family. Of course some will have had no interest in that but its fresh stuff out there that there didn’t exist a platform previously to do so.
- Injury news. We all know Hilly treated injury news like it was absolutely top secret but we communicated this to the club through David as did other fans at the Forum, and if truth be told, we saw a difference in this from January onwards. All of a sudden, injured players were being spoken about (probably through much gritted teeth).

During the last three months, I've spoken to three different people who work for the club and have asked their thoughts on DB, all of whom have spoken very highly of him. They speak of a man who is ambitious for the club and looking to see improvements in all facets. When asking, it’s been through conversation rather than anything more formal, and replies from the staff have been incredibly genuine in their praise rather than giving me an answer that they are well aware will get back upstairs.

So why’s he not suitable for the role? He’s a fan of the club, seen the working of the club close up over the past four years, been involved in the running of the club for the past four years, and has an employment history in business management. I don’t get some of the criticisms. If the big smoking gun is an interpretation of a 2001 court case at a Toy Company, then does that really have relevance to the running of our club 18 years later? Might well be worth remarking that Russ Green received far less criticism on these pages when found guilty by the FA for an offence two years earlier for the role he went on to do at Dale(and I still maintain Russ was harshly treated).

In terms of supporting the Trust, I think I’m right in saying that he was the only member of the Board last season to join the Trust and has been instrumental in ensuring that most of the current Board have done so this season. He has supported our events on numerous occasions, long before he was appointed CEO.

Of course, some will dismiss this in its entirety. Put it down to lip service, blowing smoke up each other’s back side or whatever. I guess if you’ve made your mind up, it’s made up.
But it isn’t some chummy, chummy relationship. As we mentioned at our own AGM, relations between the club and the Trust were strained to say the least at the back end of last season but a lot of work has been put in to repairing that on both sides. But there’s now a great working relationship which allows openness, honesty and disagreements when necessary.

If concerns are genuine and not just innuendo, then might I suggest one of the following:
- Go and see him. He’s not a monster. Speak to him about your worries and give him that opportunity to offer his response. Drop him an email and arrange a time where you can go down and speak to him. I know many supporters have took the opportunity to do so already.
- Write to the Chairman and tell him your concerns. At the end of the day, he’s the club’s biggest shareholder, he’s the man at the top and he’ll have headed up the board that appointed David. It’ll have more impact that posting a reply on here.
- Raise things at the AGM in a couple of months’ time. Many Dale supporters are shareholders and there will be that opportunity as there always is for an open forum and to raise these concerns and have them answered directly.

At the end of the day, if the concerns are of that level, do something about it rather than posting it on here. As things stands, it is as I said before mainly innuendo and assumptions and there comes a time where the legal implications for me and this website need to be considered.

We had it when the Manchester Evening News published the story about the reduction in the ground capacity. “We’ve received a leaked letter” the journalist said to me on the phone when he tried bigging up the story suggesting mischief on someone’s part, after all the true story was last Summer when the capacity was cut to just over 7,000 not now when it’s been raised back up to 400 or so short of what it was before the cuts.

We’ve raised people’s concerns off here and we’ve asked them directly. It’s clear that as a Trust, our response are not considered good enough by everyone. But what I’ll say is that I think we’ve took pretty much every single concern off here and asked them all face to face, and published every single answer without censure. I doubt there is another club / Trust in the country that would go through each and every rumour like we have and publish the responses that we have. I do not believe there is another club in the country with the level of transparency we have now.

Time will tell everything, and I know when it looks like we’re heading for the drop, it’s very difficult to try and claim that everything is hunky dory. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with criticism, but some of the stuff that has been posted on here has crossed a line and become personal and gossippy. There’s plenty more work to be done at the club, things need improving but that work will get done and things will keep improving, and if we as a Trust have to keep asking questions, then we will. If we have to remind the club to do stuff then we will. There’s plenty we still want to see improvements on, and feel free to raise any concerns by emailing info@daletrust.co.uk

I’m sure there’s plenty of whatabouttery that can be stuck in reply to this, but from reading these pages, you’d think that we’ve got the next Owen Oyston at the helm and the truth is a million miles from that. We’ve got someone who many have backed up as being a genuine Dale fan who throughout his short tenure has shown real genuine desire to deal with fans concerns, whether that be meeting supporters after the Bradford troubles, listening to me list off rumour after rumour, meet fans concerned with the first team or many others. It’s been said repeatedly, his door remains open to supporters as many have took advantage of so you don’t have to rely on my take on it.
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Few thoughts from me on 00:32 - Mar 8 with 2246 viewskiwidale

Few thoughts from me on 20:10 - Mar 7 by sweetcorn

Only you didn’t ignore me..


Im only trying to help you lad. Throw that book of bullshit away and start thinking for yourself.

This is not the time for bickering.

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Few thoughts from me on 15:04 - Mar 8 with 1983 viewsfitzochris

I’ve just had a very lengthy conversation with David Bottomley about a great many things, all of which will remain confidential.

However, I will say I’m satisfied that the OFT issue can be put to bed and will be making no further posts about it.

Blog: Rochdale 2018/19 part three: Getting points on the board

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Few thoughts from me on 15:10 - Mar 8 with 1961 viewsSuddenLad

Few thoughts from me on 15:04 - Mar 8 by fitzochris

I’ve just had a very lengthy conversation with David Bottomley about a great many things, all of which will remain confidential.

However, I will say I’m satisfied that the OFT issue can be put to bed and will be making no further posts about it.


Fair comment. That's issue is dead in the water now then.

“It is easier to fool people, than to convince them that they have been fooled”

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Few thoughts from me on 15:17 - Mar 8 with 1927 viewsjudd

Few thoughts from me on 15:04 - Mar 8 by fitzochris

I’ve just had a very lengthy conversation with David Bottomley about a great many things, all of which will remain confidential.

However, I will say I’m satisfied that the OFT issue can be put to bed and will be making no further posts about it.


Put to bed it is then.

Cheers.

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Few thoughts from me on 15:25 - Mar 8 with 1883 viewssweetcorn

Wtf is OFT?

Leader of the little gang of immature cretins.

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Few thoughts from me on 15:28 - Mar 8 with 1865 viewsrochdale_ranger

I still don’t know who handcuffed Dunphy to a lamppost stark bollock naked on the stag do.
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Few thoughts from me on 15:29 - Mar 8 with 1857 viewsTVOS1907

Few thoughts from me on 15:25 - Mar 8 by sweetcorn

Wtf is OFT?


Office of Fair Trading

Undoubted knowledge? Or just the application of common sense and using my brain?

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Few thoughts from me on 15:32 - Mar 8 with 1842 viewssweetcorn

Few thoughts from me on 15:29 - Mar 8 by TVOS1907

Office of Fair Trading


Yeah i had a google and discovered, still none the wiser about how it relates to the CEO.

Guess we’ll never know. Just wish the obsession with posting snippets of things without any intention of revealing them would go away.

Leader of the little gang of immature cretins.

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Few thoughts from me on 15:33 - Mar 8 with 1835 viewsrochdale_ranger

Few thoughts from me on 15:32 - Mar 8 by sweetcorn

Yeah i had a google and discovered, still none the wiser about how it relates to the CEO.

Guess we’ll never know. Just wish the obsession with posting snippets of things without any intention of revealing them would go away.


But if they didn’t do that they wouldn’t have anything to feel important about.
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Few thoughts from me on 15:39 - Mar 8 with 1806 viewsShun

Few thoughts from me on 23:44 - Mar 7 by rochdale_ranger

He’s had plenty of time to reply in the meantime has he not? Why are you his spokesman anyway?


I’m not, I don’t know who she/he is. I just thought it was a silly thing to do to mock someone for not replying after just 2 early morning hours had passed.
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Few thoughts from me on 15:56 - Mar 8 with 1737 viewsrochdaleriddler

Few thoughts from me on 15:33 - Mar 8 by rochdale_ranger

But if they didn’t do that they wouldn’t have anything to feel important about.


There are some proper oddballs on here, I know yes me included, people who love to argue, people who think that have a monopoly of football ‘knowledge’. People who think they know the inner dealings of the club(not one predicted Monday’s news). People who get a hard on if they know some snippet of gossip that no one else does. People who fear change, fear newcomers, have longstanding grudges, people who take this forum seriously ffs. I imagine some on here are relatively normal and can go out unaided, not sure who they are though

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Few thoughts from me on 16:05 - Mar 8 with 1715 viewsJimmyRustler

Few thoughts from me on 15:56 - Mar 8 by rochdaleriddler

There are some proper oddballs on here, I know yes me included, people who love to argue, people who think that have a monopoly of football ‘knowledge’. People who think they know the inner dealings of the club(not one predicted Monday’s news). People who get a hard on if they know some snippet of gossip that no one else does. People who fear change, fear newcomers, have longstanding grudges, people who take this forum seriously ffs. I imagine some on here are relatively normal and can go out unaided, not sure who they are though


I've just had a chat with DB and he agreed that you are an oddball. Naturally, the rest of what we discussed will remain confidential
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Few thoughts from me on 16:11 - Mar 8 with 1682 viewsJames1980

Few thoughts from me on 15:56 - Mar 8 by rochdaleriddler

There are some proper oddballs on here, I know yes me included, people who love to argue, people who think that have a monopoly of football ‘knowledge’. People who think they know the inner dealings of the club(not one predicted Monday’s news). People who get a hard on if they know some snippet of gossip that no one else does. People who fear change, fear newcomers, have longstanding grudges, people who take this forum seriously ffs. I imagine some on here are relatively normal and can go out unaided, not sure who they are though


I get from deepest darkest Sussex to Spotland unaided. Always amazes me how I do it though

'Only happy when you've got it often makes you miss the journey'
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Few thoughts from me on 16:21 - Mar 8 with 1653 viewsrochdaleriddler

Few thoughts from me on 16:05 - Mar 8 by JimmyRustler

I've just had a chat with DB and he agreed that you are an oddball. Naturally, the rest of what we discussed will remain confidential


Itk

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Few thoughts from me on 16:31 - Mar 8 with 1622 viewskel

Few thoughts from me on 15:10 - Mar 8 by SuddenLad

Fair comment. That's issue is dead in the water now then.


Suddenlad has spoken. Stand down everybody.
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Few thoughts from me on 17:52 - Mar 8 with 1520 viewsYorkshire_Dale

Few thoughts from me on 16:31 - Mar 8 by kel

Suddenlad has spoken. Stand down everybody.


Consider it done!

One last word for the OP though.......I have no idea who Col is and I have certainly never met or spoken to him, but I do find that he is the One Voice of Reason on here and tend to read and digest his posts more than any other.

Keep up the good work young fella and thank you.
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Few thoughts from me on 18:11 - Mar 8 with 1476 viewsalderleydale

Few thoughts from me on 15:56 - Mar 8 by rochdaleriddler

There are some proper oddballs on here, I know yes me included, people who love to argue, people who think that have a monopoly of football ‘knowledge’. People who think they know the inner dealings of the club(not one predicted Monday’s news). People who get a hard on if they know some snippet of gossip that no one else does. People who fear change, fear newcomers, have longstanding grudges, people who take this forum seriously ffs. I imagine some on here are relatively normal and can go out unaided, not sure who they are though


Brilliant post, and very accurate.
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