Freeman's Wharfer

He was more or less facing the West Stand when the ball was played in today. The ball was played from the East Stand side of the pitch. It was pitiful defending.

There was something along those lines and a lifetime contract then being dished out. The same type of Hokey Cokey as when Top (allegedly) tried to sack Pearson and then Vichai had to reinstate him.

Unreal Him slapping two pieces of bread either side of Rudkin’s head: “What are you? A Chief Football Idiot Sandwich? Repeat after me…” Watching back a Martin 3-0 defeat with 70%+ possession and telling him to throw all his stale tactics in the bin.

Half time was covered by the club on the night and it was very much “there’s an exciting program coming”. I’ll let you judge if that followed through. My sense, and this is quite wild, is that pre-match and at half-time they don’t want to do anything that could be interpreted by Birch as him being replaced. No one seems to have sat down with him and got the blessing they clearly feel they need to do anything that doesn’t involve him. Just my read.

Following on from my post above, here is a write up (the club don’t take minutes or publish a record of what’s said at Your 90 Minutes so the Trust did it) from the Your 90 Minutes on Home Atmosphere on September 2025. What’s actually been delivered as a result of people taking their time to go along and share this feedback/these ideas?

Yes, the data could be cut to look at how those who attended away games most regularly felt and it was still against (even more so if I recall correctly). I’ve been to these sessions as a representative of the Trust. My personal opinion is that you get a lot of the same types at them (very similar demographic) and the nature of how they run appeals to those who are naturally a bit more interested in what the club have to say rather than those who are more disillusioned/distrusting of the club. This is what makes me even more frustrated when the club’s response to an open survey of thousands is scepticism or puzzlement at how the findings aren’t in line with the small scale sessions they put on. And this type of stance only reinforces that the club don’t really care what fans think, so why make the effort to go to their sessions? Two years in, the FEF has proved a helpful tool for the club to do what they want and just get the cursory nods they need from the same types to push it through. Anything they didn’t want to do before these sessions it’s taken away, can kicked down the road and hope no one ever mentions it again. There’s also something with how things are brought to the table. The club doesn’t come to these sessions and say “there’s a problem with tickets ending up in the wrong hands, how can we fix it?”. They come and say “we want to introduce ID checks to solve a problem with away tickets going to the wrong hands” - minimal evidence, working from the basis that even one instance is one too many and likely something (ID checks) that they want to do for reasons other than just the one presented at face value. I understand the point of “go along and change it” in theory but, honestly, I’ve seen enough evidence already in reality that this isn’t going to change without something drastic.

Such a weird final paragraph that one, almost like AI spat it out and it was just included to pad out the word count. In theory, this sounds like a good move (bringing fresh perspective and expertise in). in reality, if its this lot that are doing the appointment then they’ll just bring in another ‘dominate the ball’ muppet.

Interesting take (but not one I agree with). Some tell you the Trust has no impact and affects nothing, others now think it’s keeping Rudkin in a job!

You did. The Trust asked about in an End of Season Survey completed by thousands and the data showed a trend against it. But I guess if you and a handful of others (many of whom don’t even go away regularly) at a poorly attended Your 90 Minutes session liked the idea and thought it was good then that’s ok. If the club had anything about them, they’d canvass opinions of those are most affected by it and give more weighting to their opinion than those who just like the idea but aren’t going to be inconvenienced.

Still available if anyone wants it. DM me.

Post-match report for The Fosse Way here “What happens to a fanbase when you subject it to disappointment year after year? When there’s no accountability for failure? When poor standards persist and supporters aren’t engaged with? We’re seeing it play out before our eyes”

This. And that sums up the absurdity of how the club runs. Nothing will happen unless Top is here to do it in-person and feel all big and important.

That’s wild. And you could just imagine it’s the kind of thing that’s being said behind closed doors when Martin’s reeling off stats about the number of shots the team has had when he’s engaging with a fan.

Exactly. How could the managerial appointment be the most important priority and then end up being a guy the incumbents were already wanting to appoint?! He’s simply a yes man and what’s the point in having a Sporting Director if you then let the manager just sign all his old mates or you bring in Wes Burns because he’s good mates with Chaplin? Waste of a wage at a time when the club can’t afford to pay people unnecessarily. It was always just a way to look like doing something without fixing the real problem of Rudkin.

So a couple of times now we’ve seen what comms from the club look like when senior leaders are put in front of the press. As Comms Director it’s his job to a) prepare the interviewees on what to say and how to speak and b) dictate how, when and where the comms happen It felt like he was playing chess with those interviews yesterday. Both in terms of who he let do the questioning and the timing of it (and how much time there was to prepare questions).