Good afternoon fellow supporters.
You may have the very dubious pleasure of my views / words on Sportstalk on Tuesday but ahead of that I wanted to respond to some of the points being made. I will do this in bullet point form, not to be "y" but because it's perhaps easier to frame the points that way...
1. We've never made knee jerk decisions on pre-season performance, but that's not to belittle the last two performances. Not good enough, and we can expect a positive reaction when the real work starts.
2. Despite what the cynics might think, we don't get involved in playing side to any extent some may believe. We (as a board) employ qualified managers to carry out their roles. We are equally focussed on the bigger picture and aiming to deliver results and sustainability over the long term, dull I know but someones got to do it.
3. I have learned that it does not pay to get too upset when disaster strikes and not too upbeat when success arrives, have to stay level headed to make informed decisions.
4. We (BoD) are doing a lot of behind the scenes work on improving things commercially and in other areas to give us a better platform for the future. You will see more on that activity soon.....
5. Personally speaking, we have a great bunch of lads and the spirit is top notch. That said, I wonder if the intensity is there (well obviously not at times!) and clearly needs addressing from my inexpert position.
I can't get into Q&A's on all this and WILL NOT speculate on anyones position. We are proud of our track record of trying to give players and coaches opportunities to progress .
We DO have a plan, we are working hard (everyone is) and we are going to make it happen but it won't be over night. I know that's been heard before but it took me 16 years to be this "lucky" in business and so we are in it for the long term unless someone better with the club's interest at heart can help us. It's hard work on all our parts.
Save the "thanks" messages for when we have earned the right to truly enjoy them and in the meantime we are literally busting our proverbial to improve your club.
All I can ask is that you judge us later on and perhaps not today when it hurts. Keep the faith peeps, we have a great club with great support and we never take it for granted. Let's go to war on the cynics, the pundits and the doubters!
Rob

Well said Rob.

Loving your statement 'Let's go to war on the cynics, the pundits and the doubters!'

will look forward to tomorrow nights interview on SportTalk.

Good to hear but lets hope what ever they do it is not to late we can only he is right

I'm sure every club owner/BOD is striving for the same. Seems few achieve it though

I've been at CP when Keighley and Whitehaven ran in 30 odd points and will be there until it's physically impossible. Chris Chester needs some help even if it is only temporary.

What a shame the players didn't go to war in the friendlies. The BOD can come out with these statements trying to be positive but there just papering over massive cracks IMO.

The deficiencies were there for all to see last year but they've done nothing to address them,

Be nice to know what this 'PLAN' is. I'd sure the hell like to know.
And In the real world.....if it wasn't for the doubters, then imagine how more lax the players, coach and club would be in if it wasn't for us fans questioning which way our club is heading.
Good to know he's on sports talk tho, be even better if we had a fans forum.

The only thing I can criticise him for is the use of "your" club when he clearly deserves to use the term "our".

Things aren't great at the moment but as long as Crossland and Hudgell are involved, the future, I believe will always be better than If they weren't.

As fans, we owe an awful big debt of gratitude to those two and they deserve our respect, support and thanks.

Couldn't agree more.

Great sentiments by Rob, eloquently phrased, but sadly lacking in specific detail. Unfortunately this is too much of a relax, feel cool and be mellow message imo. Needs some meat on the bone, which we as supporters will probably only get reactively.

That said, I am glad he and Neil Hudgell run our club.

Sort of says a lot but says nothing bit of waffle really

Sorry Rob but you have to realise that the squad does not have confidence in the coach.

I’m pretty certain that although the tone is one of keep calm that there will be tough words being said behind the scenes. Rob and Neils hard earned cash is going into this and they will want to hit certain targets this year. Now in Chesters defence he hasn’t played a competitive game this year, the signs aren’t good but there may be a whole host of reasons (must admit I’m struggling to see them) why we were so far off the pace.

As is said knee jerk decisions at this point would be foolish, lets get a few matches under our belt and then see how we are. I’m going to try and press a reset button in my head and go for the unfounded optimism route and think it was all a bad dream. Get behind the team and see how it goes, lets face it what other option do we have.