Phoenix Ownership - Rob says FTFFA

So having missed the broadcast is the report on stuff accurate??

Oh Gareth,

On behalf of all us pathetic , ignorant halfwits , and all pussies every where.....

Bravo!

An Open Letter to Dr Morgan

Dear Doctor Morgan

I listened with some interest to your recent comments which were broadcast on Radio Sport this morning wherein you described Phoenix fans as a mixture of Pathetic and unsophisticated.

Gareth, I take a great deal of umbrage with those comments.  I have been a football fan now for at least 40 of my forty five years on this planet, with the first game I can recall watching, being the 1972 FA Cup final between Leeds and Arsenal. I have played football  to a fairly high level in New Zealand, in both the Central Leagues and Northern Leagues before a series of injuries stopped my playing days.  I have coached junior teams and now coach a senior team in Wellington. My passion for football has left me at the point where as a forty five year old I have had a total replacement of both of my knees. Two and a half weeks after that operation I was in the stand at Westpac Stadium supporting the team that you and others own but I regard as my team. That Gareth, is what 'pathetic' football fans do.

I have been the holder of 4 season tickets since the second season. The only reason I was not a season Ticket holder the first year was because I was living in Queenstown at the time and simply could not get to enough games. Over the years I have bought every Shirt available, have lost count of the scarves, hats beanies and other bits of merchandise I have purchased. This is nothing unusual amongst the unsophisticated football fans. That again is what Pathetic football fans do. 

This season, I like a number of others have wandered up and down Lambton Quay, stood outside the Railway station, stood waving flags on Motorway overpasses to drum up support for the team, in an effort to bring along more fans to the game you now consider to be pathetic and unsophisticated.  There are many others in the supporters group who do an immeasurable amount more. You call us Pathetic and Unsophisticated, I call it Passionate. 

Do you remember that word Gareth? I recall you using it as a reason why you and the other members of the ownership group took over the running of the Phoenix.... It was the Passion of the fans that you loved.  Now you wish to use that passion as a stick to beat the major stakeholders in the club.

I and many others, are extremely grateful for you stepping in and buying the Phoenix. I love the fact that I am able to watch professional football in my city every fortnight, although it seems you are intent on diluting that too. It is a far cry from watching Stop Out play in the  National League in the mid seventies, so once again thank you for carrying on with the dream started by Terry all those years ago.

Perhaps us Pathetic and Unsophisticated fans do not understand the "vision" you have for the club. Is that a surprise with the mixed messages that come from the club?

Passion Gareth, is what sets apart football fans from just about any other sports fan in the world. It is passion that leads us to wrenching off our beloved Phoenix Tops from our less than athletic bodies to celebrate what we hope to be a looming win. It certainly is not the tropical Wellington Weather. It is Passion that has us singing and supporting our team to the point we can barely talk the following day. It is passion that has us travelling to Auckland and Dunedin and beyond to support our team away from the Ring of Fire.It is passion that has us wanting our team to perform week in week out. It is passion that will have us back supporting our team despite watching a humiliating performance last week.

In summary Gareth, I think you have taken that passion to be an indication of being Pathetic and unsophisticated. Perhaps someone who has been a football supporter for more than two years would understand that. 

Yours in unsophisticated patheticness 

Jeff

seriously this is the smart businessman we have running the club, SACK GARETH please! he is doing more damage to the club and the game in this country than Terry ever did. First he treatens the touring team, then he announces stayle tactics change midseason, now we the fans his biggest supporters know nothing and are pathetic for expecting results, which is what he priomised pre season.

I'm over being threatened and called name, if the welnix crown don't start marketing the nix properly - I still haven't seen anything about this game being our 150th and being important etc, in fact I haven't really heard or seen anthing to say the game is on - I'll be seriouskly considering not renewing my season membership next season.

  This thread needs to be renamed Phoenix ownership - The Gareth Morgan Train Wreck.

This man has done more damage by opening his mouth in the last few months than any previous Doom Post or NZHack article could have done.

he didnt exactly say " the fans are pathetic"

he more said: "people who are expecting the change of style to happen overnight are a bit pathetic"

you need to send that to him via email, to daomey and the doom post. For mine it is time the YF exec starting making some noise against the bullshit that Gareth is spouting.

no he said this.....All some people do is look at the league tables and that's all there is to the game for them. Well, they're pathetic really. direct refernce to us the fans discussing the league table.

this comment says it all really...To me it is all about the bigger picture because we have to make this team sustainable and more successful than just making the playoffs. - has he seen the crowd numbers for the playoff games, a-league clubs live and die by the number of home playoff games they get. Plain stupid comments.

Gareth also finds himself in the unfortunate position of appearing to contradict Rob Morrison when he said in 442 yesterday:

"It's absolutely our aim to make the playoffs. We know it's difficult from where we're currently sitting. But we absolutely want to make the playoffs,"

"Trying to get alignment between short-term objectives and longer-term objectives doesn't always happen," admitted Morrison.

"But what is clear is that the short-term goal is that we do want to win football matches.

"There is no excuse for us not winning football matches. Ricki has been told that he has to win football matches.

"We're backing him to win those games and we're backing the players to win those games."

Worth noting that Gareth's interview was apparently recorded before the Sydney game so he wouldn't have known what Rob said. Also, I wonder if the 7-1 drubbing from Sydney would have made Gareth slightly more sympathetic to our point of view!

Well said Jeff, I think you summed up exactly how I feel right now.

Ignore earlier post. Think I might write a similar letter and send to club.

Lets take a look at Morgans latest rant

"The bigger picture is far, far more important than the short term," he said.

Generally true, perhaps he should have quit while he was ahead

"All some people do is look at the league tables and that's all there is to the game for them. Well, they're pathetic really.

"Before we said let's change the style a bit, I thought the fan base was probably 80-20 in favour of a style change because we were never going to win and be persistent winners of the A-League playing the way we played. That's all been forgotten now," Morgan said.

"People expect instant gratification or gain with no pain. It's just pathetic really. I can't think of any activity where you change like that and there's not a short-term cost as you go through the changes.

I don't agree with this. The majority of fans have stuck with the team since day 1. Where was the instant gratification in the first two seasons? I've also got a problem with him implying that the way we are currently playing is an important step to be winning the a-league but I will get to that.

"Fans are a cross section of the public, you know. A lot of them don't know much about the game anyway and certainly, in my view, think only of themselves, not about the future of the club. This club has got a whole lot of stuff to do in order to be sustainable, and that's what we're going to do."

Obviously a cross section of the public but they are a cross section that does happen to be more knowledgeable about the game than he implies. Many of us have played it for years and years or at least watched coverage from overseas teams. And even those who just started supporting the Phoenix because it is a Wellington team are fine as well, there is no need to attack them. Generally those people are not the  ones making the noise.

"If you look at the last two games, for the first half of both of those games, the team actually played extremely well. I think the style of football the Phoenix have been playing, when they have been good in those games, has been very attractive. I can tell that by sitting in the crowd.

"We're on the road, people have just got to be a little more sophisticated in their interpretation."

We played extremely well in the first half against Sydney? I'm staggered. The best I can say about that is that it was not quite as bad as the score indicated which was completely abysmal. Against West Sydney it was far from extremely good either. Yes we had a bit more possession but there were only a couple of good chances created and none of them were finished.

"To me it is all about the bigger picture because we have to make this team sustainable and more successful than just making the playoffs."

Now this is well and good but the real question is whether the way we are going about it going to work. Morgan has mentioned "Total Football" several times but he doesn't know what that means. Does any team in the world play "total football"? Barcelona would be the closest, and most people wouldn't quibble with them being described that way, but even they have a bit more structure than the strict definition requires. And because he has described it this way many people are getting concerned he literally has no idea what he was talking about.

He should have sold it as a change from a direct approach to a possession based approach. He should have talked about getting a more mobile team when in possession prepared to transition it along the ground and a more pressing defence. I think that is actually what he means. To say a team with a direct approach will never win the a-league is wrong, Melbourne Victory, before this season, had a very direct approach. Central Coast, who are top of the the league, have a relatively direct approach.

But even when we have had a bit of possession, I'm not convinced we really have that many ideas how to create goals. That's my biggest concern at the moment. Defence can always be fixed, relatively it is easy. When we actually get into the final third we are looking directionless. If I thought we had a proper plan in how to actually score goals I would be an awful lot more patient with this new approach. You need to be more creative because when you do switch to a possession based approach you generally have to create goals against more defenders because the midfield has more time to get back. But I haven't seen any emphasis put on that at all. 

Instead  we get Morgan ranting at us, saying we are all impatient, telling us we don't understand football, all the while talking about a theoretical approach that no one in the world actually actually plays.

eat a dick gareth

Veitch made a point of saying that the interview was recorded before the Sydney FC game, so he is referring to the Victory and FFANRAMIWSWFC games.

By all means make your feelings known to the club and I suggest, if possible, in private to Gareth, but I would counsel against going to war, in public, with the owners of the club.

That will not have a happy ending and is exactly the sort of material the trolls at the Doom Post feed off.

Somebody really has to take this guy to one side and have a word. All he had to say was something along the lines of "we know the fans are hurting and frustrated but we ask them to be patient. This is a rebuidling phase for the club......blah........blah.......blah".

I've been running around like a madman for the last few days tryin to reschedule things and juggle my life to try and get to Sunday's game. Do you think I'm gonna go to any more effort after reading that bulls**t?

I thought clubs got no revenue from play-off games, with it all going to the FFA?  Unless you mean the home games create great atmospheres which help generate new fans, of which there seems to be evidence of us having lots of new fans and higher attendances the season after home play-off games

what I don't get is why the 9 other business men haven't seen whats happening and "had a word" with gareth.

Here here.  YF was never started to be a Phoenix cheerleaders group.  Whether this is done in the media or behind the scenes someone needs to contact the club and tell them how damaging this is, and actually, in a way this is pretty hurtful.  Some people pour their heart and soul into this and because he's got the cash to invest he thinks he's most passionate about it.  It's condescending, and arrogant and I think it reflects really poorly on his judgement

Banner for the next game.

"Someone shut Gareth up"

I agree.

I don't actually have a problem with a lot of what Gareth is trying to say ("be patient" effectively), and I even undertand some of his own frustration, but there's no excuse for his language. Calling anybody pathetic is just... well, pathetic really.

Also, when he says there has to be pain for long term gain.  Can he point to a single thing, other than two halves of football in which we didn't score, to point to this great leaps forward?

Fucking joke.  

I think we should be contacting all of the other owners of the club and asking them if this represents their views.  Cause if it doesn't then they're the ones who will be embarrassed - this is just undoing all the work they will have gained by being associated with the club in the first place!

 I've supported the change in Vision - especially as it appears to be coming from Ricki. I also think Gareths passion is great, but boy does he need to think before he speaks.

This and the cat thing - is he trying to be public enemy number 1?

I think he just needs to step back from the spotlight a bit and let everything blow over.

JD - if that interview was recorded before the Sydney game then it was probably the same day he made very similar comments on his blog in answer to your question - which you also took great umbrage to at the time!

Wow. This really is a sh#t time to be a Nix supporter. Owner hates fans, fans hate owners, fans hate coach, coach doesn't think (some) players up to it, players hate coach, coach hates life.... And just generally more angst than an entire Radiohead collection.

I do miss the days where everyone seemed to be friends. Even in 07/08 when we were losing lots there seemed an air of positivity and optimism to what was going on. You know the days where we loved our players, and the players and Terry used to go on about how we had the best supporters in the league... *sigh* But now we seemed to be stuck in a death spiral of doom and despair.

But, in the end, I'll still be there to support the boys on Sunday. Cause Phoenix Till I Die doesn't mean Phoenix until we start losing and the owner calls us names. But I admit that it's not easy at the moment...

Dear Phoenix Owners,

 Jazz Jr and I would like to suggest you give one of your colleagues a wee gift.

Is there not someone on the Welnix board who can make/ask Gareth Morgan to step back from the spotlight for a while? His off-the-cuff comments are starting to make him look a fool and hurting the club because of his media profile

. One of the great rules of football ownership is you don't air any dirty linen in public and you respect your fan base because it's they who turn out in all weather and pay at the turnstyle. 

To brand the Phoenix supporters as "unsophisticated" and use the term "pathetic" indicates he speaks before he thinks. Whether it's arrogance or impulsiveness I don't know, but he should show you guys some respect. Gates of 6,000 odd might not be good enough to break even but Wellington is a pretty small population base of about 300,000 so my guess is you must have one of the higher attendance per head of local population in the A League. Perth has over a million people and could only draw 7,000 for the high profile game against Victory recently.

If Morgan wants a lesson on how to manage a football club he should look at ACFC. You never see public airing of dissatisfaction from the board. City too is a club trying to play a more tiki taka possession style mostly with players who often aren't suited to it and there's quite a few in the club frustrated by its overly defensive nature. But you'd never hear a Morgan-type outburst from City's classy chairman even if the results go bad. At the moment we're winning the games we need to but I think Waitakere are playing the better more direct football that suits the ASBP.

Gee, I'm beginning to feel sorry for Herbert now.

yep and my mood hasn't improved.  Look I understand the idea he has about patience but look at the reality - it's not surprising people aren't buying into this change of style.  It's just an absolute disaster by any measure isn't it??  Isn't it??

Only glanced through the DP article, Haven't listened to the Veitch interview.

I think that DP is doing a good trolling job and Gareth is rarking everyone up to generate discussion and passion.

We do angst well, but I think that DP will be having a wee chuckle in it's "without fear or favour" dept (sports).

Oh , and Jr and I will be at the game . Our love for the game and passion for the Nix has nothing to do with Morgan or the other owners.The highlight of my week for years now has been the 3 hours that going to a home game with Jr entails. No-one is going to spoil that for us .We always have a great time , and fully intend to do so this Sunday. Jr now suggests as soon as we get to the Stadium that I go get a beer because he says it calms me down a bit. Heaven!!

Not sure you can point this at the DomPost.  This one is Gareth opening his mouth and jamming both feet in.

I do believe it has been suggested he might tone down his views, but this interview was (apparently) done before that discussion.

Having said that he's buggered off to China leaving the trail of destruction behind him.

Actually J82, I don't think the DP are trolling at all, they've just written down exactly what Gareth has said. I think their article is a fair reflection of what Gareth said.