The Twe12th Man Website

Season Ticket Renewal At Xmas?

Having lost my faith in Steve Gibson over the past couple of seasons, I E Mailed the Twe12hman with an article entitled "why should I renew" during the close season, I have to tell you, there wasn't anything said from the Boro P.R. Machine, which includes, the Evening Gazette, Radio Brownlea etc, that convinced me to invest another 400 pounds of hard earned into Gibsons & O'Neils Company. Invest is the key word, as I don't really enjoy football anymore, yet I think its important for our area to have a top class football team, I don't know if any of the other six or seven thousand season ticket holders who failed to renew, feel the same as me, as Anthony Vickers thinks, I think once they have gone, it is hard to get them back, yet I am willing to re invest this Xmas if I hear the right things being said.

Middlesbrough fans and Steve Gibson set off on a journey together, to make this under achieving Club of ours, all it could be, nobody asked him to put his own money in and I don't think he ever has, he has just used the money generated by the club to reinvest, but when that club becomes more and more sucessfull, the more it is worth, then the people that benefit are the shareholders, who happen to be Mr Gibson and Mr O'Neil, so lets not feel too sorry for them, " we are in it for sporting glory" or " I never take a wage out of the club" statements, because to this day they are very rich men indeed, because of the clubs sucess, as Lamb Himself pointed out, the 30, million debt we have at the moment is sustainable because of the assets we have, the stadium, the training ground, etc, no mention of Rockliffe Leisure though as an asset, which is the Hotel, golf course, executive housing etc, except to say the money Rockliffe Leisure makes will be used to invest in the football club, that says to me that monies from the football club were used to finance the building of Rockliffe Leisure complex, the shareholders being Gibson & O'Neil, if so the fan has to ask himself, would I have used the money to stay in the Premier League, or build this complex and be relegated and take a chance on getting back up straightaway ?, of course the Gibson for sainthood brigade are going to argue, that the golf course is going to finance our future, I would argue that Sky T.V. money was doing alright for me and I was looking forward to Boro sucess post Eindhoven, untill we went downhill by appointing a rookie manager, then started seling our best players, starting with Luke Young.
Both Gibson and Lamb have been on radio to explain the way forward, which ended in farce, while attempting to downsize the fans ambhitions and cover up probably his mistakes in managing the club, he sugested we were punching above our weight for a small town of 125,000 pop, its actually 134,000, he divorced himself from, Stockton, Billingham, Thornaby, Redcar & Cleveland, where I live now, and the surroundig areas, I am sure he once insisted that M.F.C. was the flagship of Teesside, which it should be, by the way the population of Teesside 500,000, as opposed to Hull {which Gibson used to compare Middlesbrough with}, which is 300,000, then Lamb further complicates the matter by stating, the size of the crowd is not that important, it is the T.V. money that counts, so why make a headlong dive for relegation and less T.V. money. On Keith Lambs radio interview, he said to Brownlea," if Boro fans could see a spreadsheet of the incomings and outgoings of the last ten years, they would see there was more outgoings than incomings" well Keith that would be a great start, so over to you lot at the Evening Gazette, take Mr Lamb up on his offer, publish said spreadsheet and educate your readership who you claim to represent and let this be a basis, for the story of the last ten years, don't give us bits and pieces, like why we had to sell players now we are relegated, we understand that players want to play at the top and wages become a problem, we want to know why we took a nose dive post Eindhoven, which led to relegation.
What I am dreading reading one day soon, is Gibson sells Rockliffe Leisure to arabs for 200 million or more, that might be alright if the money is then put into the football club, I would love him again, but if it went to anything other than sporting glory, watch this space.

I would like to thank the Twe12hman for allowing me to get this off my chest, (as oft times before), I couldnt think of a better web site, that allows you to express your feelings.