Fans Eye

[quote user="LQ"]Surely the issue here is that for a columnist (who, as someone quite rightly alluded to above, should be controversial) he wasn''t controversial at all - much like Richard Balls who went before him. Both effectively played to the perceived crowd - or at least the more vocal of the (particularly) online support. And that''s very easy to do. Dare to disagree or even throw a few facts in the direction of Fan''s Eye on here and you''d receive a stern rebuke via PM. Tut tut! However, it does seem odd that although he could cause an online avalanche of "great column mate" type responses on here there were rarely any letters in the EDP relating to his articles. A quick ask around of fans I know who get the EDP regularly this morning has resulted in quizzical responses when I mooted the question "so, will you miss Adam Aiken''s Fan''s Eye?" A couple of people even had the temerity to say "who?" [/quote] Hi Lisa, I''ll say at the outset that this is going to my only contribution to this thread. I didn''t want to get involved at all, but I want to make a couple of comments about your post. First, I can well handle criticism, and I''m well aware that the likes of you and Purple Canary don''t much care for what I write. Camuldon seems to think I''m a bit of a plonker, too. That''s fine - as I''ve said many times before, if I can''t handle people having a pop at me, I shouln''t write a column in the first place. No one forced me to take on the Fan''s Eye column, after all. I don''t know how many letters are received at the EDP about the column. But what I do know is that becuase my e-mail address is printed alonsgide the column every week - something I asked to be included when I started writing the column in 2006 - I get a lot of feedback via e-mail. A lot of it is supportive (I guess that is down to the "perceived crowd" I play to) but a lot of it is critical. Some of it comes from people such as you, and some of it from Ipswich fans who just like to have a pop for the sake of it. As most of those people (including you) know, I reply to pretty much everyone who gets in touch. What I don''t do is forward all the nice ones to the Letters Editor for publication. But the main thing that I need to put straight here is your claim that if you dare criticise me, you get a stern rebuke via PM. There are probably two dozen people on these boards who I have sent PMs to over the years following critical comments they have made about my column on these message boards. Most of them seem to appreciate the fact that I reply to them - and, in turn, I appreciate the fact that they then often take the time to reply to my response. The private chats we have are almost always cordial. The whole point of sending a PM, I always thought, was to keep that conversation private - not for any ulterior purpose but just because sometimes it seems to be the right thing to do. A few months ago, you posted sopmething on here that I thought was factually wrong. Rather than rant and rave about it in public, I sent you a PM. You sent me a couple of replies - I still thought you were missing the point, but I was under the impression that our exchanges were sent in good faith and I hadn''t realised that the conversation had finished on anything other than good terms. So it is a little surprising now to see that you have publicly turned what I had thought was a cordial, private exchange of messages into "a stern rebuke" - as if I''d ever DARE offer a rebuke to you. Perhaps I should have been more aware that anyone who tries to engage you in a proper debate runs the risk of being accused of attacking you. Still, you''ve only got to put up with another eight days of me. Adam

http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/sport/football/columns/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=FansEyeView&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=NOED07%20Jun%202009%2016%3A17%3A11%3A983

[quote user="london Canary"] i don''t ever remember reading or hearing anywhere that gunn blames the whole of our season on referees! yes we''ve been bad this season and thats down to the poor players we have at our club but at this stage of the season EVERY point counts i don''t care how crap we play if we can nick a point from anybody i don''t care about the reasons behind it So in short a rubbish article...i really wonder who these colomists support sometimes!? Does anyone else agree??? [/quote]   London . . . I don''t believe Gunny is blaming the entire season''s problems on refs, and I didn''t actually say that in the column (although I do accept that phrases like "It isn''t the fault of the officials that we''re in a mess" could be construed that way). The point I was trying to make was that all too often, a couple of ref''s mistakes have been the dominant feature during the post-match analysis, and it happened again after last week''s Wednesday defeat. Yes, it was arguable that the ref made a poor decision, but we''d lost the game a long time before that. PS: In case you are still wondering, I support City!   Joe, Nutty, Gazza . . . Again, I take your points on boad, but I''m not saying Gunny should either slate the players in public, nor is he alone among managers in blaming the refs. Nutty, I agree we''ve had a run of poor refs, but I think pretty much every Championship supporter would say the same thing this year.

PurpleCanary You’re not the first one to point out that I’m not very bright. It’s not for me to comment either way, but you may well be right. But I’m pleased you had a laugh at the column. Thanks for reading it.   I don’t want to get into a debate about the quality of the EDP’s journalism. Being a journalist there myself, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that I disagree with your views.   But the point here is that whatever your views are of the EDP’s journalism, my column was making no comment on it. I was simply pointing out that Peter Cullum’s own comments from the summer and from more recently don’t fit comfortably together. All the EDP has done is report his comments from now and from last week. Like I say, you’re obviously entitled to your views about the EDP’s journalism, but it doesn’t strike me as being poor journalism to report someone’s comments in June and then report his latest comments now.   And for what it’s worth, the questions you pose about Cullum are ones that I too would like answered. Having never spoken to the man, I don’t have any more information about the situation than you do.   One last thing – in your post, you accuse me (an EDP writer) of slagging off Archant’s journalism in the EDP, but you end by saying that the EDP has not challenged Cullum. Which is it – are we all in cahoots with him or not?   BGG&YPOS Saying that Ipswich is in Essex is indeed incorrect. And deliberately so. In the same way that chanting “You’re a small town in Portsmouth” to Southampton fans is also incorrect.   PurpleCanary has already made the point that I’m not very bright – but take it from me that I did know that Ipswich is not really in Essex. I promise . . .   Count Chopula My point was simply that if our league form continues as it is now, we could be in a dogfight at the end of the season with teams such as Forest (and probably not Palace). Therefore, the most important games to win are the six-pointers. When you’re at the bottom of the league, it’s vital to beat the teams around you.   Of course, I agree with you that if we ultimately stay up, it doesn’t matter who we have beaten to do so. But we’re not in that position yet, so to give ourselves the best chance of achieving safety, beating the teams around us is the most important thing.   Fleggy I am not – and never have been – EDP business editor. But even if I had carried out the latest Cullum interview (which I didn’t), I would still have raised concerns in Fan’s Eye (as a fan as opposed to a journalist) about what he is saying.   And once again, I am well aware that Ipswich is not really in Essex!   Jetstream I was never listed as business editor.   Last week I didn’t share the same office as the colleague who wrote the story. I was away from the office all week. It’s a bit hard to ask someone a question across the desk when you’re 360 miles away from that desk.   Even if I had been in the office, you totally miss the point of the Fan’s Eye column. Whether you like the column or not (you clearly don’t, which is fine), its aim is to raise issues that I as a supporter think are important. In my role as a columnist, I’m not interested in what my colleagues on the EDP think. I’m interested in Peter Cullum’s public comments about our club.   As far as the “prickly” exchange of messages over the summer, I think it should be put into context. As you know, that exchange came after someone you know very well contacted my editor and threatened to make comments about me which – if they had been repeated publicly – would have constituted slander or libel. As far as I’m concerned, that matter is closed. I mention it here purely to put your comment into context.   For what it’s worth, I’ve had many PMs over the years regarding my column – some positive and some negative. No one else seems to have had a problem with my tone, though. Most seem grateful for a reply – even if I am not very bright!

[quote user="sxcanaree"][quote user="Mark .Y."] There have been many postings on the legal requirements and caveats that the board have to meet as a PLC but I don''t think I have ever heard of the situation whereby the board of a company issues information in a private gathering to a group of people who may or may not be shareholders but does not keep the vast majority of shareholders informed. [/quote] I''ve just looked at the one and only statement issued by the Board - it does not say that they will be revealing more to the SCG nor does it mention the meeting. I would guess that the meeting on Tuesday was not cobbled together as a reaction to Archant''s manipulation of "public opinion" but had been arranged some time in advance. As explained by Trev above the club staff gave as much as they knew regarding the Peter Cullum offer and the Board''s reaction and as many whingers on here have stated as they are "not a representative body" one can assume that personal opinions were proffered in response. Having berated everyone else for conjecture I am now going to add my own, my current employers operate a policy of transparency and have a "council" where the senior management discuss the direction they want to take the company and the challenges they face in doing this. Whilst the minutes are recorded there are often points where the managers may go "off piste" and provide personal insight on the blockers to some of the changes which are not to be minuted nor repeated outside the meeting. The individuals at the meeting are trusted not to reveal that part of the meeting but are able to challenge and discuss the points. It is accepted that from the point that any one of the council members repeats that data that level of transparency will disappear and the meeting will revert to discussing the colour of the coffee cups and whether the drinks machine should sell Coke or Pepsi - my guess is that the SCG was established for the latter but has grown to encompass some of the former and we should respect that position. As to whether the SCG is representative I do not think that that is relevant - if the prime puropse is to discuss the bells and whistles that make NCFC the "football club of choice" then it needs to be selective in its membership as it needs to encompass fans who utilise the peripheral services and not the man with the loudest voice. We have to remember that despite the shares not being listed they are a tradeable commodity and with 32% of them in the hands of other investors the club are not allowed to release price sensitive data which would include any new investment, loan re-structure etc. as even though there is a limited market for the shares they are traded at the price that the individual investor wishes to sell for. So my message is back off! If the SCG know anything on a confidential nature respect that confidentiality. There is obviously "something" going on and try as they might Archant cannot find it so they are spinning their one interview and email from Peter Cullum as much as they can. On Saturday "Fans eye view" takes up a whole page in the newspaper and contains not a single fact and what is more intriguing is how this quote from this "Fan" from his article of 23rd June   fits in with the rest of the article which is a review of our season and the player recruited to date:. "We''re still well below par and there needs to be a substantial investment if we are to avoid another grim season next time around." There is no mention of finance before or after this point yet the title of the article is "Investment needed to avoid repeat season"  beforehand the "fan" is praising what Roeder achieved and in the next complaining of his treatment of Huckerby/Adams! Perhaps this "fan" spent a week "tapping his nose, winking and dropping hints that they know more than most of us do" whilst Archant planned how far and how much they were going to spin this non story.   [/quote] 1 If your implication from this is that the latest Fan''s Eye column is part of an Archant campaign, you couldn''t be mroe wrong. No column I have ever had published has been written by anyone other than myself, and no column of mine has ever been tailored to fit in with a greater editorial position. 2 You call it a "non-story". It''s your call as to whether you agree with what has been said or whether you are at all interested in it, but it certainly isn''t a "non-story". In fact, the discussions taking place here and elsewhere suggest it''s one of the biggest Norwich City stories in a long time. 3 I don''t see how the quotes you highlighted are at all contradictory. A) Roeder achieved wonders last season. B) His treatment of Huckerby was, in my opinion, wrong. C) We need investment in the team. Three points of view that, again, you may disagree with, but that are not contradictory.

[quote user="jetstream"]I''m sure many of you are NCISA members and will know that John Tilson is a strident critic of the Club at times - hardly "in the board''s pocket". John Tilson is also on the SCG. I can''t see he would be happy to be described as a being part of a "cosy chat" with the Club about the whole Cullum affair. Not least by Adam Aiken, one of Mr Tilson''s best friends.[/quote] You''re right - John Tilson is a friend of mine and is also on the SCG. Just in case there''s any doubt, I have no criticism of the existence of the SCG nor of John''s (or anyone else''s, membership of it). I do have some concerns over how the SCG is run, but that isn''t my criticism here. What I do object to (as do so many other people, if the feedback to my latest column is to be believed) is the briefing of the SCG over an issue such as this. We should all be told what the state of play is.

[quote user="canarytim"] CANARY TIM So we are now only 3 points off the last relegation place. But its worse than that because we have to play the team that occupy that said relegation place.....away ! And they crucially have a better goal difference. To me now it is straightforward  we must beat QPR on saturday, and I note alot of much wiser scribes than myself seem quite confident of this (Mr Aitken for one). But I am sure  Southampton fans thought a Burnley team with nout to play for was their banker, as did Leicester supporters regards Colchester at home. The truth is this is one of strangest leagues of all time WBA will win the league but will be way off our points total the year we won it, and  the phrase anyone can beat anyone in this league is truer than ever. The truth is we could already be safe, and it is true that some of the teams below us do have hard games left but to ensure we do not rely on others victory against QPR is  essential. The nightmare scenario of needing a point at Sheffield Wednesday ( Fulham anyone) must be avoided at all costs, to be honest I do feel if we are not safe this coming Saturday then we will be down or reliant on others, which when you consider the job Roeder has done to get us into this position (remember October/November) will be more than a crying shame. Qpr away was probrably one of the worse moments in 40 years of supporting City, yes worse than the Lol Morgan era or even Bryan Hamilton`s time so if that was the agony lets make Saturday the ecstasy with 3 points and safety. PS We do not want Crofty or Shacks et al coming out in the loacal papers saying we want revenge for last time v QPR, lads do your talking on the pitch !   [/quote]   CanaryTim, I have never said we will beat QPR on Saturday. In fact, on the contrary, I have often become frustrated at the number of games over the past few months that have been marked down as guaranteed three-pointers. What I have said is that I think we''ll stay up, but it will be very close. And if we do survive, it will be as much down to other teams'' ineptitude as down to our own efforts.

It does indeed show how far we have come. What Glenn Roeder and his team have achieved has been nothing short of outstanding. That column was written just after our defeat away at Plymouth, and we did look doomed at that point. Full marks to Roeder for grasping the problem by the scruff of the neck and sorting things out so quickly. Tonight we are 13th, and climbing the table rapidly. I''m still not convinced that we should focus ALL our attention on the teams above us, but things are certainly looking pretty good at the moment.

[quote user="clblue"]Fans Eye, I read your article yesterday and I found it very bitter and very deluded! You are clearly a bitter and twisted man who can''t handle the fact that you are years behind ITFC both on and now off the field! Your article annoyed me so much I felt it appropriate to reply with my own article on the Ipswich rivals site as I am a columnist there. It should be online this afternoon/tom so please feel free to read it! The one question I have for you though is why do you feel that we should have a ten point deduction? That ONLY applies to sides who go into admin, since we are not in admin why do we deserve that? I admit we were perhaps a tad fortunate that this ruling wasn''t in place when we went into admin a few years back but it wasn''t so why should we care about that?[/quote] I''m not bitter. I may be deluded - that''s a matter of opinion, though. But why should you have lost 10 points? You''re right to say that the penalty only applies to clubs that go into administration. That was the whole point of my column. - the rules need to be tightened up. Here''s why: 1) The 10-point penalty was introduced to penalise clubs that spent irresponsibly. The aim was to stop them gambling everything knowing that they could simply wipe out any losses if the gamble didn''t pay off. 2) Morley - part of Aviva - was owed a lot of money by Ipswich, but Sheepshanks was told that a buyer (Evans) would only come in if that debt could be negotiated downwards. 3) There is no evidence (so far as I know) that you were facing administration if you couldn''t find a buyer, but such a scenario must have been a possibility. Morley is not a charity and would surely not have agreed to cut the debt if it thought the alternative wasn''t going to be even worse. 4) So in order to facilitate what was (presumably) a necessary sale of the club, your main creditors wiped out much of what you owed them. 5) Return to point 1 above - that is exactly the reason a 10-point penalty was introduced in the first place. I''m not saying your club should have been penalised under the rules as they stand now. I''m simply saying that the rules should be tightened so that all clubs (whether via formal administration or not) should be punished for wiping out their debts in this way.

[quote user="Kathy"] A little bird told me you boycotted a Norwich Union business lunch to protest against there financial support for the Scum. Is that true? If so top bloke I say. [/quote] News does travel, doesn''t it? Your source isn''t quite correct, but not far off. The press team at Norwich Union (who are top people, by the way) invited me to an annual event for some of the local media, in my capacity as a business reporter. Although what happened at Portman Road was down to Morley rather than NU, they are both part of Aviva, and I was uncomfortable at the idea of being a City columnist enjoying Aviva hospitality so soon after the announcement of the Ipswich situation. What happened at Ipswich annoyed me immensely, and I thought my presence would be hypocritical. To call it a boycott would be going a tad far - I just didn''t think it appropriate at the time. But we''re all still friends, and the press team will be supplying me with their usual column for my personal finance pages this Saturday (which I know is your second favourite weekend read, after Fan''s Eye).

[quote user="andy larkin"][quote user="locket45"] As a fan i should be happy that we now have the money to get promotion but i''m not. [/quote] Maybe its because you are one of just a few Ipswich fans that actually feel just a wee bit guilty about the way your ''chairman'' treated your suppliers. One of my mates went out of business as a result. Have to say it makes a change to read a posting from a Tractor Boy that doesn''t come out with all the usual sh*t… after all this is our forum! Clblue… look and learn matey, look and learn![/quote] Actually, I think there are more I****** fans than you think who are not entirely comfortable with what is happening to their club. After my EDP column last weekend, I had 11 e-mails from south of the border in response to what I said about the shenanigans at Portman Road. Five of the 11 said they didn''t like what was happening, and three of them agreed that if they''d been docked points, they''d have deserved it!

[quote user="maninyellowslacks"] An interesting view from Adam but are his comments made a jounalist or as a fan. I took the piece as being written by him as a fan and therefore removing the important part which is those tough questions actually being asked of the board. I may be hair splitting a little here but what media follow up is intended from this article or is it the case that there will be none at all. Clearly the board will not need to answer what has not been asked [/quote] The column was written by me as a fan, not as a journalist. Although my day-job is as a journalist, I deliberately steer clear of writing any objective news stories on the club. There has been a deliberate separation of the sports reporters and the likes of Steve, Richard and me, who write opinionated columns as opposed to factual stories. In that light, my column this week was not part of a wider campaign that will necessarily be followed up by my colleagues. Having said that, the sports writers on the EDP and the EEN may indeed ask the same questions of the board - and nothing stops other fans and shareholders asking the same questions at next week''s annual meeting, too.

Just for the record, no Archant columnist is a NCISA committee member. NCISA has its own column in the Pink Un, which obviously appears under the NCISA banner, but none of the columnists that I assume Truthseeker is talking about (Balls, Gedge or me) has anything to dowith the NCISA committee. Neither are we members of the UK Independence Party, we aren''t Avon Ladies, and none of us - as far as I am aware - is into Scottish folk dancing. I am, however, a member of the Rabbit Welfare Fund - but I assume that TS will have no problem with that. Or will he?

[quote user="Stevie Wonder"][quote user="Evil Monkey"][quote user="ryan85k"] He didnt mention Earnie. [/quote] I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that Shackell was part of our promotion winning side, but you have a point also! Shocking reporting, AIKEN OUT!! [;)] [:P] [/quote] or even more bl**dy obvious a certain Mr Huckerby is missing!!!!!!!!! [/quote] Sorry - last post was referring to this point!

Click on the link and read it again - a certain Mr Huckerby wasn''t missing. http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/commentary/FansEye.aspx