Thank you so much for opening our academy, moving us into a new training facility, allowing us to spend funds these past 2 windows and breaking record transfer fees previously set? that would be my email. I get emotions are rather high right now but lets take a step back and look at the good Rice and co have done for our club in such a short space of time
I wonder if that was meant to happen? I believe I got one for Morley & Taylor's recall announcements and for our signings but you would have thought this news was more important? I think I got 2 notifications to highlight GA leaving & Matt starting
Though email may be cathartic not sure it will make much difference. As they say Matt chose to leave...they may be happy about it...but they will hardly take any blame for the decision and will look at the Facebook reaction and be quite happy by the sound if it.
Their job now is to placate the majority of the fanbase with continued success...which will apparently make us all forget this...because as we all know football fans never remember anything that happened months or years ago, do they?
Got one on whatsapp yesterday, but not sure when as I didn't check it til later in the day. Lots of middle finger emojis, red faces and faces with symbols on mouth!
I write with a deep sense of sadness in my heart. I brought both of my children up through their formative and teenage years watching Wycombe Wanderers, come rain or shine. Daddy why cant we be.....Chelsea or Tottenham fans i can hear them cry. However, they went along with me in supporting their local team and whilst they find it difficult to attend the games now as they are all grown up and live away, they still avidly support the Wycombe. I encouraged them to support our team as I wanted to instill in them a sense of pride, confidence,family values and loyalty. Even in the days of Sharky and Couhig it felt like a family club. Now it just feels empty.
I am not so naive as to understand the way football is going and that money is needed to be successful in pure footballing terms, but I was however hoping that the new management team would understand and embrace the values and ethos of the club they had inherited.
Apparently not, and so, we now must move on to the next chapter in the club's long and eventful history. I for one will remain a loyal fan as will many on this forum. Let's just hope that in some small way this loyalty will be reciprocated by the new leadership team.
Neil has moved to a similar role at Newcastle Race Course I believe. His girlfriend lives up there. Reasons beyond the current restructure will have played a part in the move no doubt. Although AP is clearly not the same environment in which he has done so much for the club behind the scenes over the past few seasons
Thank you for posting this #ChairboysBlue. You've expressed my sentiments perfectly, although in our case it was Man U he wanted to support.
Trying to move on from this, but struggling tbh. Losing Matt to at some point was almost inevitable; the manner in which it seems to have happened though is what has left a very sour taste.
Reading this on the BBC News Luton page hasn't helped.
Mick Harford said Luton "didn't really want to disrupt Wycombe" at this stage of the season and thanked them for helping ease the process, which also saw coaches Richard Thomas and Lee Harrison move to Kenilworth Road, along with senior analyst Ben Cirne.
"It happened over the weekend in such a short space of time, normally it's a long process,"
I wonder if Matt still has the imprint of Rice's boot on his backside.
It just felt right. I’d been in the building with Gary (Sweet, chief executive) and Moons (James Mooney, operations director) and the board of directors, who all being Luton fans, all being really caring about the club, wanting what’s right for Luton, were really being integrated in the process.
When I met Gary and the board of directors it was the feel that got me. I felt welcome, I felt wanted.
Was it easy to leave Wycombe? No absolutely not, of course not. It’s a place that holds a big place in my heart as I spent so long there and I’m incredibly proud of the job that we did as a group. I wish the staff, the supporters and the players all the best for the future
No mention of the "ownership team" there.
It was a big deal. We all want to work at a place where we’re wanted, we all want to work at a place where we’re comfortable. That was presented to me very early on that I was really wanted here. I felt really comfortable, I’m big on people, I’m big on trust and respect and I found that in abundance from Gary and the board of directors.
The way they welcomed me and made me feel that way was crucial in my decision
I'm still reading some comments on here with a certain sense of disbelief. When we were sold by Rob to anonymous billionaires what did we think the future was going to look like? Continued losses with someone funding them? No. We all cheered when the academy came along and marvelled at the recruitment of off field (and on field staff). Did people not think that this meant a seismic change behind the scenes?
And now Matt leaves. He clearly felt he wasn't part of the future at the club and the new way things were being run. The owners have their plan and with all due respect to Mr Wycombe he has a choice of getting on board or not. He chose not to. If he chose to then the club would have not said they regretted him going. I am sure the ideal outcome would have been he bought in 100% from top to bottom and embraced change - but clearly his vision was different. This is not Matt being bad or the ownership being bad. It is change and there are always victims of change. Do we think we can carry on losing over £1million a year and still be in existence in 1, 2, 3 years time? No chance. Do we want growth and stability, I guess. There is a price for this change though.
Would I have liked Matt or even Gareth to stay and lead us to a sustainable future in the Championship? Of course. But we didn't have a sustainable future. This is a new era. Do I prefer it? I will tell you in five years time maybe. Did I love the old era, it was brilliant.
I am sure when Loakes Park was being sold people were faxing each other in similar ways expressing their anger about the identity of the club being ripped up. We evolved, we thrived, we will again.
This is a well reasoned post, though I think the criticism that can be implied from Bloomfield's interviews since being announced as the Luton manager towards the way the ownership group are operating creates concern that they may not be running the club with the goal of maximising the performance of the first team.
I agree that there should be an element of giving the new owners the benefit of the doubt to allow them to establish their methods, though we also have every right to be concerned by events such as Matt Bloomfield seemingly being ushered to the door at such an early stage of their ownership of the club.
At work, I have a team I work with, I love working with them. I also have customers and stakeholders who I love working with. I have the autonomy to work with them in a certain way that I've built up over the years and my line manager let's me get on with it, as long as the business objectives are met.
Sometimes that manager changes and can come in and change the ways of working, take away your autonomy, remove you from decision making processes. It doesn't change how I feel about who I work closely with in my team, doesn't necessarily change the relationship with my customers and stakeholders but it does change how I feel about my job and what's important to me.
After awhile, regardless of everything else, you've just had enough of the new line manager and you hope for your old line manager or that the new one buggers off. If you know they're not going anywhere soon, you make the difficult choice to move somewhere else in the company or go external.
MBs new one is not going anywhere soon, he cannot go anywhere else internally so he's gone external. I don't blame him.
I suspect MB loves the fans, loves the team, loves his staff but couldn't align to the new regime so he's gone to report into someone that has those old values, trusts him to deliver and gives him the autonomy to do so. I do not blame him, I tip my hat to him to be brave enough to leave his true love.
I do hope we see more than the current statement from the club but I won't hold my breath.
The idea that we all welcomed the shadowy ownership group with no worries or criticism and are now wailing pathetically about being tricked is as inaccurate as the idea Rob Couhig was universally loved and no-one except the very, very clever ever raised any concerns. Nobody on here is as entirely stupid as some people like to paint them and we are allowed to be alarmed at the possibility that our presently quite successful manager was eased towards the door.
I don't think it should be considered a stretch to say that many people are simply mourning the end of the "culture" era, and concerned about what might happen to the atmosphere at the club now that one of the main agents of that culture has been made to feel extremely unwelcome.
Yes, of course we will have money, and may get to go to places we have never dreamed of on the pitch. I know we will all be behind a new manager and enjoy the wins. But there are some things people value beyond/besides success itself, and our club culture was very special.
Don't get me wrong, I think we had already peaked in this regard, simply because there was a point where Ainsworth, Dobbo, Bayo, Blooms and JJ were the five guys heading up the footballing side of the club, and I can't think of five finer human beings to combine for culture creation! So that is not to knock any of the excellent characters (such as Grimmer) who have remained from that era, or the great new faces (Kone, Lubala, Udoh, Leahy, etc.) who are characters in their own right.
For anyone banging on about the ownership being within their rights, I don't think anyone is disputing that - for me it just raises massive questions over their wisdom and foresight, to want a very successful club legend to leave. Birmingham were "within their rights" to sack Eustace, and hire Rooney, but no-one would call that a brilliant decision.
Hopefully it all works out for Blooms and for Wycombe, but I think there is a massive amount of risk and hubris being shown by the regime to constructively evict Blooms, though they have played a blinder in the way they did it - they have managed to get many Wycombe fans to turn against him immediately! Not only that, but if the season goes well they take the credit, whereas if it goes badly they blame him for walking out the door and sabotaging it.
Comments
Thank you so much for opening our academy, moving us into a new training facility, allowing us to spend funds these past 2 windows and breaking record transfer fees previously set? that would be my email. I get emotions are rather high right now but lets take a step back and look at the good Rice and co have done for our club in such a short space of time
Yes, Rice not one of my favourites.
Unless it's Basmati Bloomfield of course.
Thanks Dan
Just wondering, did anyone get an app notification yesterday when the club posted / announced the news that Matt & his team had left?
I didn't, but I find the app notifications a bit inconsistent anyway
Of course not.
I wonder if that was meant to happen? I believe I got one for Morley & Taylor's recall announcements and for our signings but you would have thought this news was more important? I think I got 2 notifications to highlight GA leaving & Matt starting
It doesn't really matter at the end of the day. We're hardly going to escape news this big.
Though email may be cathartic not sure it will make much difference. As they say Matt chose to leave...they may be happy about it...but they will hardly take any blame for the decision and will look at the Facebook reaction and be quite happy by the sound if it.
Their job now is to placate the majority of the fanbase with continued success...which will apparently make us all forget this...because as we all know football fans never remember anything that happened months or years ago, do they?
Got one on whatsapp yesterday, but not sure when as I didn't check it til later in the day. Lots of middle finger emojis, red faces and faces with symbols on mouth!
Literally a Brave New World.
Which I’ve always found much more disturbing than 1984.
Some are trying hard to forget what happened yesterday.
1984: People can't read books
Brave New World: People don't want to read books
and as a bonus from my 'literature in a short sentence' series
Lord of the Rings: WWI with elves.
You missed out -
Farenheit 451: people want to read books but they've all been burned.
The Matrix: Keanu Reeves is the Duracell Bunny
I write with a deep sense of sadness in my heart. I brought both of my children up through their formative and teenage years watching Wycombe Wanderers, come rain or shine. Daddy why cant we be.....Chelsea or Tottenham fans i can hear them cry. However, they went along with me in supporting their local team and whilst they find it difficult to attend the games now as they are all grown up and live away, they still avidly support the Wycombe. I encouraged them to support our team as I wanted to instill in them a sense of pride, confidence,family values and loyalty. Even in the days of Sharky and Couhig it felt like a family club. Now it just feels empty.
I am not so naive as to understand the way football is going and that money is needed to be successful in pure footballing terms, but I was however hoping that the new management team would understand and embrace the values and ethos of the club they had inherited.
Apparently not, and so, we now must move on to the next chapter in the club's long and eventful history. I for one will remain a loyal fan as will many on this forum. Let's just hope that in some small way this loyalty will be reciprocated by the new leadership team.
Neil has moved to a similar role at Newcastle Race Course I believe. His girlfriend lives up there. Reasons beyond the current restructure will have played a part in the move no doubt. Although AP is clearly not the same environment in which he has done so much for the club behind the scenes over the past few seasons
Thank you for posting this #ChairboysBlue. You've expressed my sentiments perfectly, although in our case it was Man U he wanted to support.
Trying to move on from this, but struggling tbh. Losing Matt to at some point was almost inevitable; the manner in which it seems to have happened though is what has left a very sour taste.
Reading this on the BBC News Luton page hasn't helped.
Mick Harford said Luton "didn't really want to disrupt Wycombe" at this stage of the season and thanked them for helping ease the process, which also saw coaches Richard Thomas and Lee Harrison move to Kenilworth Road, along with senior analyst Ben Cirne.
"It happened over the weekend in such a short space of time, normally it's a long process,"
I wonder if Matt still has the imprint of Rice's boot on his backside.
Interesting article here with some choice Blooms quotes: https://www.lutontoday.co.uk/sport/football/luton-town/bloomfield-reveals-it-took-him-a-couple-of-seconds-to-say-yes-to-luton-town-job-offer-4944106
It just felt right. I’d been in the building with Gary (Sweet, chief executive) and Moons (James Mooney, operations director) and the board of directors, who all being Luton fans, all being really caring about the club, wanting what’s right for Luton, were really being integrated in the process.
When I met Gary and the board of directors it was the feel that got me. I felt welcome, I felt wanted.
Was it easy to leave Wycombe? No absolutely not, of course not. It’s a place that holds a big place in my heart as I spent so long there and I’m incredibly proud of the job that we did as a group. I wish the staff, the supporters and the players all the best for the future
No mention of the "ownership team" there.
It was a big deal. We all want to work at a place where we’re wanted, we all want to work at a place where we’re comfortable. That was presented to me very early on that I was really wanted here. I felt really comfortable, I’m big on people, I’m big on trust and respect and I found that in abundance from Gary and the board of directors.
The way they welcomed me and made me feel that way was crucial in my decision
Bloomfield is the ultimate professional, and for him to be this close to being openly critical things must have been very bad indeed.
I'm still reading some comments on here with a certain sense of disbelief. When we were sold by Rob to anonymous billionaires what did we think the future was going to look like? Continued losses with someone funding them? No. We all cheered when the academy came along and marvelled at the recruitment of off field (and on field staff). Did people not think that this meant a seismic change behind the scenes?
And now Matt leaves. He clearly felt he wasn't part of the future at the club and the new way things were being run. The owners have their plan and with all due respect to Mr Wycombe he has a choice of getting on board or not. He chose not to. If he chose to then the club would have not said they regretted him going. I am sure the ideal outcome would have been he bought in 100% from top to bottom and embraced change - but clearly his vision was different. This is not Matt being bad or the ownership being bad. It is change and there are always victims of change. Do we think we can carry on losing over £1million a year and still be in existence in 1, 2, 3 years time? No chance. Do we want growth and stability, I guess. There is a price for this change though.
Would I have liked Matt or even Gareth to stay and lead us to a sustainable future in the Championship? Of course. But we didn't have a sustainable future. This is a new era. Do I prefer it? I will tell you in five years time maybe. Did I love the old era, it was brilliant.
I am sure when Loakes Park was being sold people were faxing each other in similar ways expressing their anger about the identity of the club being ripped up. We evolved, we thrived, we will again.
[No inside knowledge was cited in this post]
This is a well reasoned post, though I think the criticism that can be implied from Bloomfield's interviews since being announced as the Luton manager towards the way the ownership group are operating creates concern that they may not be running the club with the goal of maximising the performance of the first team.
I agree that there should be an element of giving the new owners the benefit of the doubt to allow them to establish their methods, though we also have every right to be concerned by events such as Matt Bloomfield seemingly being ushered to the door at such an early stage of their ownership of the club.
@TheAndyGrahamFanClub I advise you stop reading posts on this thread. You'll feel much better.
To be fair to the new owners, they did make it abundantly clear at the outset that the Academy was their priority.
Well, that’s a bolt from the blue!
May I ask how you feel about the current state of affairs at the club, @wingnut ?
Exactly this.
At work, I have a team I work with, I love working with them. I also have customers and stakeholders who I love working with. I have the autonomy to work with them in a certain way that I've built up over the years and my line manager let's me get on with it, as long as the business objectives are met.
Sometimes that manager changes and can come in and change the ways of working, take away your autonomy, remove you from decision making processes. It doesn't change how I feel about who I work closely with in my team, doesn't necessarily change the relationship with my customers and stakeholders but it does change how I feel about my job and what's important to me.
After awhile, regardless of everything else, you've just had enough of the new line manager and you hope for your old line manager or that the new one buggers off. If you know they're not going anywhere soon, you make the difficult choice to move somewhere else in the company or go external.
MBs new one is not going anywhere soon, he cannot go anywhere else internally so he's gone external. I don't blame him.
I suspect MB loves the fans, loves the team, loves his staff but couldn't align to the new regime so he's gone to report into someone that has those old values, trusts him to deliver and gives him the autonomy to do so. I do not blame him, I tip my hat to him to be brave enough to leave his true love.
I do hope we see more than the current statement from the club but I won't hold my breath.
This is the most naïve post in the entire thread. Impressive.
The idea that we all welcomed the shadowy ownership group with no worries or criticism and are now wailing pathetically about being tricked is as inaccurate as the idea Rob Couhig was universally loved and no-one except the very, very clever ever raised any concerns. Nobody on here is as entirely stupid as some people like to paint them and we are allowed to be alarmed at the possibility that our presently quite successful manager was eased towards the door.
I don't think it should be considered a stretch to say that many people are simply mourning the end of the "culture" era, and concerned about what might happen to the atmosphere at the club now that one of the main agents of that culture has been made to feel extremely unwelcome.
Yes, of course we will have money, and may get to go to places we have never dreamed of on the pitch. I know we will all be behind a new manager and enjoy the wins. But there are some things people value beyond/besides success itself, and our club culture was very special.
Don't get me wrong, I think we had already peaked in this regard, simply because there was a point where Ainsworth, Dobbo, Bayo, Blooms and JJ were the five guys heading up the footballing side of the club, and I can't think of five finer human beings to combine for culture creation! So that is not to knock any of the excellent characters (such as Grimmer) who have remained from that era, or the great new faces (Kone, Lubala, Udoh, Leahy, etc.) who are characters in their own right.
For anyone banging on about the ownership being within their rights, I don't think anyone is disputing that - for me it just raises massive questions over their wisdom and foresight, to want a very successful club legend to leave. Birmingham were "within their rights" to sack Eustace, and hire Rooney, but no-one would call that a brilliant decision.
Hopefully it all works out for Blooms and for Wycombe, but I think there is a massive amount of risk and hubris being shown by the regime to constructively evict Blooms, though they have played a blinder in the way they did it - they have managed to get many Wycombe fans to turn against him immediately! Not only that, but if the season goes well they take the credit, whereas if it goes badly they blame him for walking out the door and sabotaging it.