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Sad but True 12:51 - Jun 10 with 6616 views

If you have time to listen to the following 2 Podcasts it gives you a great insight into where we have and are going wrong ..... Sad But True

Everyone has an opinion on our CEO & DOF, have a listen to some insights into Brighton & Brentford .

2010 - 2011 Season
QPR - Championship - WINNER
Brighton - League 1 - WINNER - Last Season in Withdean Stadium
Brentford - League 1 - 11th Place - Griffin Park
Luton - National League - 3rd Place - Lost Playoff Final

https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/podcast/paulbarber
E193: Paul Barber, Chief Executive Officer of Brighton

https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/podcast/philgiles
E188: Phil Giles, Director of Football - Brentford FC

2022 - 2023 Season
QPR - Championship - 20th
Brighton - Premier League - 6th Place - Qualified for Europe
Brentford - Premier League - 9th Place
Luton - Championship - 3rd Place - Playoff Winners

@weareqpr

Sad but True on 01:13 - Jun 11 with 5287 views

DejR_vu

Great podcast with Paul Barber. You can see why Brighton are so successful and it really highlights why we are so unsuccessful. Compare him, what he says, how insightful and considered his responses are to Hoos, chalk and cheese.

Very interesting to hear him talk about how he and the owner understand there will be bumps in the road, success isn’t linear etc ie, don’t phone the manager when you drop out of the top six and tell him his job is at risk and then tear it all up when it doesn’t go exactly to plan.

Also interesting listening to him talk about the calibre of David Weir, and how impressive his non-footballing cv is, compared to our DoF, polar opposites.

It really does hammer home the importance of recruiting talented people, who have high standards and expectations. I can’t imagine anyone at Brighton, much less a senior staff member, being in Hong Kong making speeches at the business end of the season when so much is at stake.

It’s so frustrating because it really isn’t that difficult. The owners have to get one decision right, in appointing the person to run the club, and then leave them to do it. I’m not surprised RG or AB are incapable of doing it because they’re not astute, successful businessmen, they’re just spoilt rich kids playing with daddy’s money. I’m more surprised at TF, although that probably had more to do with the fact that the club was a toy and he wanted to play with it; appointing someone to run it would have spoilt the fun. I suspect there’s still a lot of that going on at the moment, so we end up with a puppet of a DoF who couldn’t get the decisions he does actually have to make right if his life depended on it, and is happy to provide a smokescreen for the owners’ continued incompetence.

Everything we see and hear points to the wrong people running the club. Nothing will change until the CEO and, in particular, the DoF are replaced.

Edit: David Weir

https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/my-albion-tv/videos/2689484/david-weir-int

ReInforces the point; calm and considered, detailed, eloquent. I’m sure he can manage to say ‘algorithm’ if called upon to do so. Compare that to Clive’s interview with LF last year.

[Post edited 11 Jun 2023 9:20]

Poll:

Season tickets - who’s renewing?

Sad but True on 07:36 - Jun 11 with 5133 views

bongo_king

Just finishing the Brighton one, fascinating. Looking forward to the Brentford one when time.

Maybe a bit of rose tinting in the pod but it does seem like night and day compared to whatever goes on behind our scenes. Engagement at every level, clear goals and communication to pull the team in one direction, and planning. For a long time I've felt there are many worse owners and boards out there than ours (e.g. Derby, Brum, Reading) but listening to this does bring home just how much our problems start at the top. The lack of engagement of our owners, except when there is a crisis, sets the tone for the whole club. Like choosing one DOF and one CEO on a murky basis about 8 years ago and then just forgetting about it. Compared to Brighton, where there is a constant thinking of "what next / what if" and getting the best people in every position.

Oh well, we can but hope our board wakes up one day...

Sad but True on 08:38 - Jun 11 with 5044 views

Wegerles_Stairs

Sad but True on 07:36 - Jun 11 by bongo_king

We can but hope they sell the club one day...

Sad but True on 09:06 - Jun 11 with 4991 views

DejR_vu

Just listened to the Phil Giles one. Again, just emphasises how much QPR gets wrong. Minutes, 8, 34 and 55, all very illuminating in that context.

It’s so disheartening listening to these and witnessing the utter incompetence at our club.

Poll:

Season tickets - who’s renewing?

Sad but True on 09:07 - Jun 11 with 4989 views

DejR_vu

Great find Garry, thanks for posting

Poll:

Season tickets - who’s renewing?

Sad but True on 10:25 - Jun 11 with 4890 views

DejR_vu

I would implore anyone who has access to go back and re-listen to the LF interview on the Patreon; hasn’t aged well. It’s full of contradictions, littered with excuses, absolutely no answers. It’s worse than I remembered, it’s embarrassing, it’s absolutely damning. No thought in to how those answers might come back to haunt him. Sums him up perfectly, if that doesn’t scream clueless I don’t know what does.

It’ll be interesting to see how much ‘Chrissy Willock’ is sold for.

You have to question why he hasn’t been sacked or why he hasn’t resigned.

I guess apathy breeds apathy.

[Post edited 11 Jun 2023 14:05]

Poll:

Season tickets - who’s renewing?

Sad but True on 08:04 - Jun 12 with 4587 views

Northernr

Crikey I didn't realise it was going to subject me to Jake Humphreys and his monster mindset that enabled him to conquer the world/discover podcasts/present some football on BT...

... but anyway I do agree Garry, very interesting listen. I did the Paul Barber one on my run this morning (what Jake might call "world class basics") and it was both illuminating and depressing.

The two bits that stuck out. Near the start, talking about getting the club 'Premier League' ready. From the standard and stock levels in the club shop and the whole merchandising operation, to the ticket office and ticketing systems. "do our staff know and understand our fans enough to make sure the ground is full every game" a very intertesting comment. "do they know our fans enough to make sure the atmosphere is the best it can be to give the team and extra edge" again very interesting. At QPR we've currently got a shop website you can't buy anything from, a ticketing website that nobody can work, an 18,000 ground we filled twice last season and an attitude from top to bottom that "if the team is winning the crowds will be big and the atmosphere better and if it's not then it won't be".

These successful people are always about finer details. This was a big strength of LH when he came here but it really does feel like we've slipped, and the finer details are missed. Somebody put on Twitter towards the end of last season a photograph of the waiting room the disabled people shelter in before going out to watch the game and it was disgusting, basically a store cupboard, with the ceiling falling in, paint peeling. QPR Operations were straight on it "we'll sort this out" but how do QPR Operations not already know it's like that?

I do also think we've crossed the fine line between trying to educate the fans into why we can't just "sign a fcking striker" into basically being defeatist about the limitations and restrictions we face. Brighton were talking about getting 'premier league ready' when they were at the withdean, and as Barber says on this podcast he said to them at the start "some of you will be with us all the way through, some of you for some of the time, and I can tell by the look on a few faces that some of you won't be here very long at all" because they thought all Brighton could and ever would be is a Championship club.

However, on the flip side, he did say when he first met Graham Potter "he interviewed us" which made me smile. One of the things Fernandes gets beaten up with the most is the "he interviewed us" line about Mark Hughes, and here's wonderful, successful Brighton saying the same thing. Football's a funny thing. Early on in that Hughes season we had a couple of goals disallowed, nearly beat Chelsea at home last minute, desperately unlucky not to win at Spurs, how different it all might have been with a couple of things swinging the other way...

This post has been edited by an administrator

Sad but True on 09:18 - Jun 12 with 4504 views

Lblock

Sad but True on 08:04 - Jun 12 by Northernr

But "Routines Never Change"........

Cherish and enjoy life.... this ain't no dress rehearsal

Sad but True on 09:43 - Jun 12 with 4448 views

daveB

For all the great planning and these great visions there is a lot of luck involved, Brighton were clinging onto staying up for a few years before Potter came in and as Clive mentioned quite a few sliding doors moments in our time in the prem especially under Hughes but also under redknapp/Ramsey a few last minute defeats and those Austin missed penalties v West Ham and Hull, small things like that made a massive difference in the end.

Sad but True on 10:02 - Jun 12 with 4390 views

terryb

I've never understood the moaning about the Hughes "he interviewed us" scenario. I can't believe that this doesn't apply to all of our appointments.

Every interview, especially jobs, is two way. I never attended an interview where I would accept the position no matter what. Part of the process was for me to decide if they were a company that I wanted to work for.

I admit that I wasn't very good at doing this as I normally ended up working for corporations I came close to despise!

Sad but True on 10:06 - Jun 12 with 4384 views

hubble

Sad but True on 09:43 - Jun 12 by daveB

This sounds like just another excuse to me Dave. The point Clive's made above, and that is obvious in the podcast, is that attention to detail at every level is what makes the difference. It's nothing to do with sliding doors moments.

When Beale came in that was what excited me most, because it seemed like at last we had someone who would address all of the rotten systemic issues at our club, not just on the pitch.

What seems clear - and this was true during Warbs tenure - is that the core issues lie with the way this club is run and the far too cosy culture, for which the DoF, Hoos and the board are responsible.

Poll:

Who is your player of the season?

Sad but True on 10:49 - Jun 12 with 4321 views

w7r

Thanks for posting - looking forward to listening to these pods.
I work with a Brighton supporter who knows Paul Barber and is well fairly well connected at BHFC. He enjoys reminding me what a brilliant CEO and impressive guy Paul Barber is, seems he's held in very high regard by people connected with Brighton and beyond, the guys done certainly done an impressive job there over the last 10 years or so. It's hard to begrudge Brighton their success - seems they are a very well run club.

Sad but True on 11:04 - Jun 12 with 4280 views

wombat

Sad but True on 10:49 - Jun 12 by w7r

lets face facts , we arent allowed nice things anymore.

suppirsed at the latest announcment that season tkts are up compared to this time last year , are we all tht mad ?

Poll:

which is your favouite foot

Sad but True on 11:09 - Jun 12 with 4271 views

daveB

Sad but True on 10:06 - Jun 12 by hubble

Not really making an excuse for anyone

Those 2 clubs do of course stand a far better chance of succeeding due to the work they put in I wouldn't dispute that at all but I'm partly of the Danny Baker school that football is chaos and no matter how much work you do how many right things you do there is a lot of luck involved, there are far too many variables in sport to plan for everything and one result going for or against you can change a clubs direction very quickly.

QPR went from last year looking like they'd plucked the next big thing manager out of nowhere and were heading for promotion after a decent last few years to the place being on fire and lucky to stay up within a couple of weeks. Southampton have gone from club everyone outside the prem should want to be 2/3 years ago to a shambles pretty quickly whilst Forest went from shambles to Premier League quite quickly. The vast majority of clubs outside the big 5/6 are walking a tightrope most of the time

Sad but True on 11:25 - Jun 12 with 4219 views

hubble

That's all true Dave, but nevertheless, unless you plan for success in the way Brighton did, you are unlikely to achieve it. Sure, chaos, luck, they all play a part, and maybe more so in football that in other walks of life, but the point I'm making is that at QPR, the systemic issues that have led us to this current position have not been addressed, and even if Beale had not proven to be a shyster, the same issues would have remained.

Poll:

Who is your player of the season?

Sad but True on 12:20 - Jun 12 with 4122 views

DavieQPR

Loads of 'smaller' teams have their few seasons in the sun then can't maintain it. Just look at the original Prem league members.

Sad but True on 13:38 - Jun 12 with 4008 views

bongo_king

Sad but True on 10:25 - Jun 11 by DejR_vu

[Post edited 11 Jun 2023 14:05]

Yep... LF's answers did not age well (the questions did though!) Particularly now Luton are in the prem (question on why Luton's season hasn't crashed when they were in the same position as us in Nov).

Just finished the Brentford one. Largely insider confirmation of what we already know - it's a very well run club. One interesting insight in the context of our chaos is the discussion starting around 33 mins on player character - regardless of how talented a player is, they won't take them if the character is wrong because one single bad egg will bring the whole team down. I've felt for a while now that we have assembled a critical mass of bad eggs which brings the team (which I really think does/did have some good players in it) as a whole down... with several of these bad eggs arriving on the scene under Beale. That said the character aspect seems to have entirely escaped our recruitment team for a while otherwise how do we end up e.g. with Bonne and someone who decides to tie his laces when the balls 5m away.

Going forwards I suspect the good news is we will only sign good characters under GA. The bad news is that all the other criteria (stats ana, age/potential etc) might go out the window and if GA does the signings we're continue on the MWMG roundabout (mgr wants mgr gets). If only our hierarchy could work out they need to put all the pieces together, not just two or three!

Sad but True on 13:54 - Jun 12 with 3965 views

JordanFoster

This is such an interesting topic and a conversation that's probably overdue especially where the club is at the moment.

I think Dave said something about luck and small margins, I know Phil Giles is very quick to say that luck plays a much larger role than people often think. He believes around 70% which is probably another conversation altogether.

But he caveats that with, are you doing the most with the remaining 30% to give you the best advantage?

The comparisons with Lee Hoos' recent interviews is day and night. Theres an excuse for everything. But it's not even sprinkled with self-awareness, I think Clive said earlier LH basically writes it off to "team do well, crowds are good, teams do bad, crowds are bad".

There doesn't even seem the be the ability or effort to try anything different, everything seems completely tired and I'm amazed so many have stayed in their jobs. It feels like everything needs freshening up.

Toto Wolff tells a story of when he went for his first interview at Mercedes, whilst he was waiting to be called in he noticed old coffee cups still on the table and the newspapers were all out of date by a few days. It was one of the first thing he mentioned when he went through to his interview and was quizzed what that had to do with engineering. He said it's about everything , them small things, which seem inconsequential often aren't and very quickly add up as across the board standards slip.

I think one of the most recent interview with either Les Ferdinand or Lee Hoos used one of the exec boxes overlooking the pitches. All you could see what dirty finger marks on the windows. Who thought putting that out, knowing the views it would get, thought it was a good idea?

The media op putting up the camera would have seen the marks, the interviewer would have seen them and then when rewatching to cut anything its noticeable again. But it's still put out.

Sad but True on 13:57 - Jun 12 with 3952 views

Northernr

Sad but True on 13:38 - Jun 12 by bongo_king

What I would like to dig into a bit more is exactly what they mean by that and how they identify it.

"No bad eggs" or "no bad characters" or "no dickheads" which I believe was a policy started by the All Blacks is a really easy thing to say. Steve McClaren had the 'no dickheads' thing here as part of his Quality Professional Relentless powerpoint bullsht. But I'd like these people to be asked to quantify that. Brentford signed Pontus Jansson who'd been bombed by Bielsa for being a dickhead, he was a great signing for them. They've since signed Ivan Toney, who's now banned for eight months for betting. I'd love them to give me an example, without naming names, of a player they got a little way down the track with and then decided nah (sorry if this is on the Brentford one I haven't got to that yet). What is it that a player says, does during the process that makes you think not for us?

Because every club says it really. Les says it in the interview referenced above, when I pushed him on the players downing tools he refused the notion, said not with this group, previous groups here maybe but not this lot.

Sad but True on 14:05 - Jun 12 with 3940 views

EastR

Sad but True on 11:25 - Jun 12 by hubble

Indeed. Goes back to the old adage - the more effort I put in, the luckier I get - or words to that effect

Poll:

Is time up for Ainsworth?

Sad but True on 14:35 - Jun 12 with 3888 views

bongo_king

Sad but True on 13:57 - Jun 12 by Northernr

Yeah Toney did kind of cross my mind when I listened. Though maybe an argument can be made that he's a bit of a character and maybe not the sharpest, rather than a complete bad-un. He's always struck me as a player with an aggressive winning mentality... just a bit lairy.

As for how to check character... appreciate we're talking about footballers so its not as easy as it is for "real world" people. But from my limited experience of having to choose people to work with... I'd guess the same principles apply... questions on strengths and weaknesses, discussing experiences and what went right/wrong... (I've always learnt a lot about people from these questions, particularly about how they see responsibility)... references to the extent possible. Its an art not a science and may well be alien e.g. to LF who's lived life in the footy world but surely someone like Hoos who should have years of experience hiring and firing should be able to provide some guidance, one would hope.

Sad but True on 14:49 - Jun 12 with 3852 views

LongRanger

Football is always unique, but Hoos appears to have spent all his career in football, Barber for example, was a senior exec in major banks before football. Personally I think that experience in the real world, is a massive help. Football is full of cliques, in no other industry would LF get such an important senior role, he's not got the understanding, he's basing everything he does on experience of big clubs in the 90's, and picked up all the bad habits
Bad characters are easy to spot for some, others have a blind spot, so make sure you have someone who can spot one, as its so important. Issue is, if the CEO and DoF aren't the right characters, the wild fire is already burning when some of these players walk in the door.

Sad but True on 15:08 - Jun 12 with 3804 views

WatfordR

Sad but True on 14:05 - Jun 12 by EastR
Indeed. Goes back to the old adage - the more effort I put in, the luckier I get - or words to that effect

I remember Richie Benaud being asked what makes a successful captain. "Well, I'd say it's 90% luck and 10% skill. But I wouldn't want to try it without that 10%".

The points being touched upon about attention to every detail are absolutely correct. As a small business owner, I never sodding stop looking at every aspect of what I do, making sure that I am 100% satisfied with what my customers are presented with; produce, labelling, dressing and cleanliness of my "shopfront", how I look. Keep my suppliers happy, keep trading standards and environmental health happy, and so on. I work on the basis that you should never give a customer a reason not to come back again and again.

I think it's fair to say that the club is miles away from these sorts of standards. Ticketing, catering, facilities, club shop, all just so poor. And now we are likely to have caveman standard football as well, all dressed up under the woeful guise of underdogs overachieving every time we get a point out of a game.

If the owners and the people running the club really start to believe this sort of old cr@p is where it's at, we are just waiting for everyone else to go past us. It isn't good enough as a business of any sort.

Sad but True on 15:51 - Jun 12 with 3700 views

charmr

Disappointing listen, never mentioned ponchos for fans in exposed areas, water pressure or the complexities of purchasing and the cost of a cup of tea.

Sad but True on 15:55 - Jun 12 with 3694 views

highleverhoopL

I am sure an A1 bot could teach itself to screen players by scraping their all their past social media posts. We wouldn't of course understand how it was doing it.

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