Right, with calm reflection -

[Stan Doff]

I am no fan of Little Mo's but I have tried to think with a clear head and a fresh slate about the whole situation at our club.

The real reason we won everything was down to the "gang of four" but they in turn were largely led by Maurice. Sadly the way that the club had to structure itself (in terms of the debenture stock) ended up proving to be the longest, and happiest, suicide ever.
The ride during Mo's first visit was amazing. We signed the top talent from all over the world. We won the lot. but best of al it was unbeleivable to watch. the problem as it became apparent later was that we had spent too much money.
Really there were warning signs. When Robinson signed Andy Greg the asking fee was £125,000 yet even though there were several clubs chasing his signature we got him for £130,000. That was a world record but even back then we knew Mo would have bid more! The others on the board must have been aware of how Mo was doing his deals. If he wanted someone who did not want to come the offer keppt getting bigger and bigger till they could not say no!
I do not beleive that the rest of the board did not know how much he was offering and even if they did not i would say that they damn well should have done.
Once things started to alarm the banks though through such things as the building of the boston stand the clubs solution of keeping revaluing the players to make us appear in a much better position financially was only going to lead to one ultimate conclusion. Even if we the supporters did not know it the board should have been aware and Mo certainly was - He was in charge on full time basis dealing with it all day to day.
When he went and it fell to Jack I just do not think he was as capable of the day to day juggling of the problems as Mo had been. Within a very short period of time it was obvious to those who wanted to see that we had real problems. He made some awful decisions at this time but many of them were to do with him struggling to stay afloat.
We would have had the same problem with Mo still there but he was definately better at whealer dealing than Jack proved to be.

I often wonder what would have happened though if Mo had sold his share of the debenture stock to Dave Whelan rather than Jack? All he would have needed to do was clear a few debts and we would have been saved a lot of heartache.

We all know what happened next. Despite our vote at the shareholders meeting - 7 to 1 in favour of Whelans plan to redevelop Central Park and despit telling us that " i won't do anything against the wishes of the share holders" it turned out that Jack had already done the deal to sell to Tesco!
Sadly since at the time he held 63% of the debenture stock it was his to do with as he liked! There was nothing we could do.
We then tried to vote him out as chairman at an EGM. The vote in the room was for him to go but he won due to postal votes. I won't even go into the dead people who managed to vote for him but that was well documented at the time!
The bottom line is that we lost our ground due to two things.
1) Jacks refusal to deal with Whelan
2) Massive crippling debts.
The banks had waited long enough and but for a personal cheque from John Martin we would have suffered the humiliation of being locked out of the ground as the banks repossed it.
Anyone who doubts that should have been there. Unless you are too young you need to ask yourself why you weren't?

Any way, there are many people who need some blame for losing us our ground. Mo cannot say none of it was him. He was our leader. He made us dream then made it happen. It was pure magic but it carried a massive price. So yes some of it was Mo's fault.

When he came back we were in a mess.
Kohn Monie had just quit. Mo as much as I dislike him breathed a new enthusiasm into the town. Goodway had made the JJB like a morgue. You won a prize if you spotted a player with a smile on his face!
He went.
In came Big Frank. He put a smile on everyones face. He was sacked!
Best of all when he was sacked he asked Mo was he replacing him with a better coach for the job?
"No" was Mo's reply. Surely that would be the only reason to replace a coach.
Raper, gone
Greg, Betts, Mildred - all gone!
Now you can beleive if you like that he has not "sacked" them. but personally i think it is a bit of a play on words. Constructive dismisal is another word that gets used for when people have not been sacked. The end result is all that matters they are gone.

When he came riding back in on his white horse he wanted three years. That has been and gone. We are told we are going to get top aussies. You cannot moan at him when people he signs get injured, fair comment, but you can when he insists they play ahead of the youngsters despit them not having regained fitness. We would rather watch the team win with fully fit youngsters rather than lose with unfit aussies carrying injuries.
We have never taken dellivery of the promises he made. we have gone backwards to the state we are in today. Our chairman now has to make public statements reasuring coaches and fans that any new coach will pick the players and choose the team and train them etc. That does not need to be said by any of the other chairman does it?
I find it hard to beleive that anyone really thinks Mo will step away from how he used to do it. Especially when they beleive that cos he said so!
The game has moved on. No longer can we just simply outbid others. Sadly no one will come expecting the cups to be almost a formality and that is what attracted the real big stars we used to get.

I'm sorry but even when i calmed down i still think that we have all seen Mo do what he has done before. Its almost like watching a good magician drawing your eyes away from the secret of his trick.
Noble will come in and who knows we may do fantastically under him.with everyone fit again i think we will be OK but it will not change the underlying problems.
We produce youngsters that are good enough to play against us and be getting rave review by everyone in the game but apparently they are not up to our standard and need to make way for big name imports.

Contrary to popular beleif Mo does not have a major share in the club. Dave Whelan owns 89%. Having a board again is a move in the right diresction only so long as it is a real board and not just to keep us quiet.
How real a board is this? Only time will tell.
For some reason Mr Whelan will not involve himself in the running of our club and leaves it all up to Maurice. I only hope that one morning he wakes up and thinks is the faith he shows producing what he expects of Wigan Rugby League club.

Personally I think it is time for a change at the top.

[Stan Doff]

I'm glad thats of my chest!
Is there a record for the longest post?

[welsh pie eater]

...dunno, but there should be...and that was definitely a winner right there...

Well put though..

[mike binder]

you not meet chris a fraggle jinkin jimmy yet thats a small post but a good 1

[GeoffN]

I was there, too, Stan, and yes, I'd agree with most of that brief analysis!

I'm looking forward to a "detailed" reply from DaveO, though - now that WILL be a long post!

[Stan Doff]

If you were there Geoff then we must know one another.
I can say that because despite all the talk from people about how they felt about what went on and how much they loved CP there was only a couple of hundred at best who did anything.

I wish we had been blessed with the internet before all that happened. with this to spread information I honestly beleive that things could have been different.

[jinkin jimmy]

Nice post Stan. You provided a lot of info that I wasn't aware of and you put it together well. You could simply have said "Maurice out" and saved your typing fingers. Thank heavens you didn't! :eusa2:

[Fraggle]

jinkin jimmy posted:
Nice post Stan. You provided a lot of info that I wasn't aware of and you put it together well. You could simply have said "Maurice out" and saved your typing fingers. Thank heavens you didn't! :eusa2:

Seconded, and Stan - you must really be getting into this internet thingy now with typing such a long post!

I've been disputing most of the "Maurice Out" threads simply because they almost all accuse him of lots of things he can't possibly have done, or seek to put all the blame for the club's problems onto his shoulders alone without any consideration that others might be to blame, and I hate that kind of post even I generally agree with the sentiments that people are trying to put across. But I can't argue with any of what Stan's written. Lots for most of us to learn, I think.

[GeoffN]

Stan Doff posted:
If you were there Geoff then we must know one another.
I can say that because despite all the talk from people about how they felt about what went on and how much they loved CP there was only a couple of hundred at best who did anything.

I wish we had been blessed with the internet before all that happened. with this to spread information I honestly beleive that things could have been different.

I still always felt that what we were doing was going to be wasted effort, though. Couldn't believe it when nothing came of the vote-rigging case, even though they'd resigned by then.

[cpwigan]

I think what people must understand is that whole sum was greater than any one part. As a foursome, they were fantastic because they balanced each other. Lindsay the high roller/gambler; Robinson the frugal penny pincher and two moderate men with common sense and rugby knowledge in Rathbone and Hilton.

Hilton was a lovely man BTW, owned a sports shop in Standish for several years.

Funniest meeting I ever had with Jack Robinson and this is a few months before the Tesco sell out. His car broke down in my street, so realising who he was I invited him in to give him a grilling. What came across was how obsessed he was with balancing the books etc. I came to the conclusion that Lindsay and Robinson pulling at opposite ends of the spectrum with two other directors to offer balance was perfect. However, A Lindsay or a Robinson on their own was wrong and could not work.

During the gang of 4 era, the big mistake and partly this was timing more than anything was the Ground developments like undersoil heating and the Whitbread Stand. The stand in particular was a financial disaster after problems of mine shafts led to costs nearly doubling (do not have the exact figures to hand) Such developments funded solely by the club came at a time just before central government financing started to become available for such schemes. The man left to deal with the debt was Scrooge and he went into penny pinching mode.

The bad finances, the feud between Robinson and Whelan led to awful decisions on playing staff. Farrar signed owing to being cheaper than Miles; player after player let go when they should have been kept and become the foundation stones of future squads. Players lost due to the SL war and professional rugby union. You can really find cracks and holes appearing from 96 possibly 95 onwards and of course the low point was the dreaded threat to remove Wigan RLFC to Bolton.

At the time when we had to have our eyes on the ball we took them off and paid the price. Salary cap / 20/20 makes improvement far more piecemeal and slower.