Ackey

The correct answer is, was and always will be simple: Crowded House. 

Or - here's an idea - both act like adults and save me a load of cocking about deleting messages. 

Please and thank you. 

1 minute ago, nzlatic said:

To go off on a tangent a little, I'd expect one of the main reasons for there being 100s of professional footballers keeping their sexuality secret despite society changing a long time ago is the antiquated attitudes in the game.

Heart breaking to think of the agony those people have to live with every day.

I don't love it, but one thing the Wrexham documentary has really done a great job of is showing the humanity of players. The shit they carry on their shoulders from life when then having to try and perform. It's not wonder at times that the camel's back breaks from being abused by people who don't know you.  

To extrapolate that example - if we've got a player with potential, ability and value to our team club who has a lacking of mental strength we - as fans - have choices...

1. Give them abuse, pile on to their weaker mental strength in the blind hope that it will somehow make them stronger 
2. Give them abuse, pile on to their weaker mental strength in the blind hope they leave the club and are replaced by someone stronger
3. Give them as much support as possible, lift them up away from their weakness in the blind hope that they thrive and improve our football club

The actions we take in Option 3 may result in the same results of Option 1 or 2 of course - they may simply not be strong enough. But surely we want to start at three, not one or two!?

I'll pipe down, as I'm just angry-old-man-shouts-at-cloud now.

17 minutes ago, PeteG said:

Remember speaking to David Wheater a couple of years ago about the negativity from the fans especially at home games and he was just laughing about it, said it's the same everywhere if not worse. Now, I appreciate he was older and a lot more experienced having played at Boro and Bolton in front of much bigger crowds but I do think some of these players who are supposedly being affected by a few moans need to grow a pair or they aren't going to make it in the game.

That's such an antiquated view though. The world (like it or not, right or wrong) isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. The attitudes to mental wellbeing and fitness have changed and we can pretend that we're not part of that (and be wrong) or accept it (and adapt).  

What you're basically saying is that there's a player for Oldham who's weak, so we as fans should exploit and expose that weakness because they are weak. What I am saying is that they are our players - they play for us - why in the living fuck do I want to expose their weakness? It's entirely in my interests to protect them, hide those weaknesses and build them up.

4 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

I'll guarantee one thing. If Lundstram can't get over his personal situation then his career prospects are very limited.

Maybe. But we see at the absolute elite level players who are clearly not entirely comfortable with pressure. Just down the road we've got people like Rashford this season and Sancho too, where their ability is undoubtable but their seasons have had dramatically different trajectories based on circumstances - some perhaps in their control, some out of their control, some they should control but for many reasons can't or won't...

Like I've said a lot on here recently, there's so much nuance and grey area and nothing is black and white. That makes it harder to process, accept, and deal with.

But what's unquestionable is the manager of the team sees a cause and effect and is ultimately asking for our help. Help that is 100% in our own self interest. So I think we should take it as a call to arms - an opportunity - not as a slight or insult, not as a complaint or moan (he was very careful and tactful in how he approached it), and do something to help the team.   

10 hours ago, JoeP said:

It's a weakness in ourselves that we've given up for free!  Acknowledge it as a problem in private, concede it's going to happen and work out how to deal with it might have been better.  

I don't know how you can acknowledge it in private when a core element (not the only one, as you rightly say) is adjusting the behaviour of the 5,000 people in the ground.

Undoubtedly the "play better we won't moan" thing is valid. 100% it is. But we have to accept that there's a quick-to-negative or even pre-baked negative vibe around this club. There just is. It's on here, I know because at times I have to clean up the spillover from that.

Now that negative attitude runs deep, for the club, the town, the country even. We've been in a shit situation for a very long time and that manifests throughout people's behaviour, not just at Latics. But it's real and we can't improve it unless we admit that. 

17 hours ago, JoeP said:

 

Negativity is negativity. 

 

Surely you'd take to heart more from your teammate who's supposed to be your equal than some half-wit in the crowd who's possibly pissed and never kicked a ball in their life?

I don't think that's how psychology works. But I'm stretching the very edges of what little I know, so I won't speak authoritatively by any means.

To me, what sees to happen is that when we make a mistake and someone we know and trust says something, we listen - we take the trust they have built up and know that it somewhat comes from a good place. That truth means it's more tangible - we know we fucked up, they are pushing us to do better from inside a position of trust. 

When someone makes a mistake and people (crowd, online, etc) we don't know attack us that lack of truth, that lack of trust, means we don't think "yeah I should have done better, next thing I will get right" we think "god, they don't even know me and now they hate me for one mistake".

It's perhaps equivalent to the difference between a worry and an anxiety - worry is about something real that you can change ("I am worried about the cost of the holiday") whilst anxiety is worry about something unreal or uncontrolled ("I am anxious that the weather will be bad on my holiday"). 

Ultimately all of that said, it's a personal experience - some people will react well, poorly, indifferently to both types of external inputs.

Double-Ultimately if the man charged with leading the team is saying it's a problem - it's a problem. We either try and be more positive or we don't, but we can't deny the role we play, that's just daft. 

Edit-to-add-Ultimately, we should also not forget many of these players are young (even the old ones are younger than 90% of this board these days - time flies!) and have very little experience of the real world. They've not worked in McDonalds being shouted at for nothing, for 10 years an office with an overbearing boss, etc. etc. In many ways they are very naive. The manager/club should be working on that (and seemingly are - we hired that psychologist guy). But why not try and encourage ourselves to play our part too?

1 hour ago, JoeP said:

This is how footballers talk to and about each other (admittedly this is going back a bit..), yet a couple of fans groan at a missed placed pass and that's the thing that destroys our players confidence...

You're comparing apples and wombats. They are two different things entirely. 

30 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

By all accounts a massive bellend with the ego to match.

Not many, if any, people become millionaires without stomping over people along the way. I am sure there's plenty out there who'd say similar about Frank, yet he's our saviour. 

8 minutes ago, BP1960 said:

Please can someone let me know the success rate of DUs stats bombs?

Sadly, I don't think so. That's not because Statsbombs is bad, or using it is bad, it's because our application of it is bad. I am not saying we did it well. I am saying we should try and do it well, as opposed to pretending the world isn't moving forwards and relying on tech that's outdated.

For Example

House-phones were the market leader in voice communications. Then mobile phones happened. But mobiles were a bit shit, not everyone used them. They evolved and Blackberry became the market leader in mobile phones. It dominated the business market especially. Then Apple released a touchscreen phone. Blackberry failed to modernize (though they did adopt a touchscreen). They lagged. And now they're gone.

[Blue = Apple / Light = Samsung / Dark = Blackberry]

It wasn't that Blackberry suddenly didn't compete or have the right people or technology. It was that they failed to modernize, they didn't adapt. They tried to keep doing things on their terms.

I could give you 100's of examples like this. You're picking one example - little old Oldham - as yours. You're not wrong - Oldham did it badly, we need to learn, grow and modernize. If not we're on a very bad road that leads to what happened to Blackberry - we simply stop competing, and we stop existing. 

18 hours ago, BP1960 said:

I was in Boots at Rochdale the other day and it was all self service tills, not one human check out, nor any security staff, and they wonder why shoplifting is at an an all time high.

They don't wonder why, actually. You may, and some of the papers like to write about it.

But in reality they use computers (the electric kind, not the old human ones from the 50s) and a data model to analyse the cost-benefit of their losses. They worked out that it's more profitable to accept a level of loss to theft than pay people to stand in the doorway and do pretty much nothing whilst that theft occurs. The continue to analyse that cost-benefit over time and adjust their behaviour according to the information they can deduce from the data. 

19 hours ago, BP1960 said:

Stats can tell you only so much, they are a tool that can be used as indicators of past history, however, as far as footballers are concerned they can't tell you of the future potential of lower level players, which is what I look for.

You use experience (based on data) to make the judgement call you're describing. Your brain takes the billions of learned experiences you have and makes a calculation on which you guess about future potential. You're right how many times? 50%? 75% 10% I don't know - maybe you do.

Humans are simply better at that than data-driven robots right now. We won't be forever, and indeed a blended human-robot model is already better than either on its own.

You know how I know that? Because there are dozens of billion-dollar companies doing it in sport (football, baseball, American football), media (Disney, Meta, Google), business (Amazon, Shell, BP)... the list is endless. You think those companies, which run the world, don't have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in data-driven decision making? You think they are still just a bunch of old men sat around a boardroom table smoking and shouting "BUY BUY BUY" in to a phone?

This very website - little old OWTB and our 100-150 Oldham fans - is advertised on entirely based on data. Our Ad partners know more about all of us than our wives, husbands or children ever, ever will!

I'm ranting, I don't really know why. I suppose I'm just passionate about looking forward not backwards.

1 hour ago, JoeP said:

The improvement it's made to our recruitment is negligible at best.  If you have to work that hard to get it to work for you, I doubt it's worth the time and effort.

 

I see there's talk of VAR being scrapped.  Maybe some of these new-fangled technologies aren't as good as we're told.

Or maybe we're just ill-equipped to use them? 

If we're putting in technology in place of people - mistake. If we're putting in people and ignoring technology - mistake. We need someone who can understand the blending of the two and lead the organisation as a whole through that modernisation and tweak things to get the best of the people supported by technology, or the best of the technology to eventually replace people. You can't just shout "STATSBOMB" in to an empty room and get a team, equally to ignore what technology can do and claim to be better without it will leave you behind.

Horses became cars. People became computers. We still have people and horses, we just don't use them the way we did before, nor in the same volume. 

26 minutes ago, GlossopLatic said:

Always thought it would be a good hobby to take up if time and money were no object to me.

18 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

Like most hobbies golf can cost as little (within reason) or as much as you want it to

I played a lot during lockdown (only sport left, basically) and agree with Dave - I spent about £30 on stuff from Facebook/eBay that was more than good enough. I accidentally bought a very good driver in the collection (clearly the seller didn't know), so I sold that for a profit and bought a trolly. I've somewhat given up, now I can play football and stuff again, but it's certainly more accessible than it first seems if you genuinely wanted to take a crack at it. 

It's a time sink though, that's for sure. I used to play the 9 holes more, as they were easier (I'm terrible) and less of a time commitment. 

50 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

I suspect we'd struggle to get promising but not especially young players to step up from part time clubs.  Age old problem - do they give up whatever their day job is for a short term contract that means they'll probably see a drop in income.  Big decision which to a large degree may depend on personal circumstances.

That, or MM just won't bloody listen (or reply)!!

12 hours ago, Littlemoor Lad said:

@BP1960 for director of football 

All those in favour say aye 

But who will he complain about ignoring his emails then?!  

On 4/27/2024 at 10:08 AM, Frankly Mr Shankly said:

A division of physical cloggers against a division of entitled, wrapped-in-cotton-wool kids. 

 

It'll last a season, tops. BIN.

This is why I am all for it - bring the little shits in to the real world and have a bunch of NL teams kick the living piss out of them!

19 hours ago, League one forever said:

Well- Mellon says they are. 
 

They’re lovely people, but. . . 
 

Or maybe you’re right (I agree with you) and the picture Mellon paints is nowhere near as bad as he’d have us believe. 

Or maybe he's trying to deflate the market. We've spent money recently. If everyone around us thinks we've got bags of cash laying around then every fee is higher, every salary is higher, etc.etc.

He could just be being smart about it.

He's not perfect and we've fucked this season up dramatically, but the worst-case mentality of fans (not you LOF, just in general) is not helping. 

4 hours ago, LightDN123 said:

I don’t know if you do this or how you record the financial side of things. 

 

Have you consider reporting the deficit each month ? Im sure people would be willing to donate more if they had a clear picture of the cost/shortfall each month. 

Happy to help with this, if needed. 

I actually talked to Matt about something just like that the other day. Reality is it's probably more hassle than it's worth. We're managing to keep the lights on. When we get properly low down we go rattle the tin-can in the 'What is OWBT worth' thread and hope we get a few people chipping in.

We have a tiny percentage (literally less than a 10 people) who contribute monthly. We have maybe 10-15 who chip in on a one-off basis when we rattle the can. We then have Matt who occasionally keeps things moving himself. That's it. Given the hundreds of active users it's not many people who are able to help. We respect that, times are tough. But if we could get some decent numbers we could possibly consider pulling the ads back even further. 

12 hours ago, latics22 said:

Why was this locked and then unlocked 

10 hours ago, Wardie said:

Ackey had a senior moment.

Indeed - we try to prevent duplicate threads because we pay-per-click and that can just cause more costs (we are still barely breaking even each month, even with the Ads that went rogue recently), so the less we have people clicking on the same thing twice the better. However, I wasn't thinking and didn't realise this was the season-long "who we got...?" thread and not a repetition of the other "we are shit and need new players" ones elsewhere. 

3 hours ago, Ackey said:

Indeed.

 

(my bad!)

Indeed.

Whilst I appreciate that making a decision on the present based on the alternate is not ideal, I am left with "if not him then who...?"

We've tried novice (Unsworth), we've tried seasoned (Shez), we've tried novel (Selim), we've tried proven (MM), we've tried homegrown (Wild, Scholes)... we've tried a fuckload of managers and we've been consistently shit. Some have had pennies, some pounds.

I will keep asking - are poor results a direct result of a string of 20 shit managers, or symptom of a deeper root cause? 

Frank's put right a lot (LOT!) of things, but changing from a culture of expected failure to one of patient winning is hard.

We seem to want (expect) to exist in an impossible place...

Quote

It's not you, it's me. 

At what point do we have to look at a guy who's been a serial winner at this level and wonder if he's the problem (some of the criticism above is very reasonable and fair), or if it's us.

Something has to give. Is changing the manager changing every 12-18 months the answer? Has it ever been?

Are you suggesting the quality of a fullback should be based on if they have enough shots?

Kitching is flawed (he's playing in non-league, they all are) but surely he's been a better player than almost all the others this season?