Wardle - the wilderness years

[twinkletoes]

The guy ran the club into the ground and left us almost bankrupt he deserves no credit whatsoever.

He almost ran the club into the ground when nobody else was in the frame. He put his hand in his pocket when he could have said no.

As far as I am aware he didnt mortgage the future TV revenue for a short term gain unlike Thaksin.

Things were bad, we all agree that but I personally think it would have been a lot worse if it hadnt been for him.

Peter Swales is the perfect example of a Chairman running a club into the ground (our out of it if you pardon the pun)

He made wrong decision after wrong decision and dug us into a big hole that we couldn't get out of.

We were between £80-90m in debt when he finished.

 

[The Fat el Hombre]

Top man but a poor chairman. Saying that he didn't want to take the chairman role but no one else wanted it so he took responsibility

 

[johnny crossan]

He almost ran the club into the ground when nobody else was in the frame. He put his hand in his pocket when he could have said no.

As far as I am aware he didnt mortgage the future TV revenue for a short term gain unlike Thaksin.

Things were bad, we all agree that but I personally think it would have been a lot worse if it hadnt been for him.

Peter Swales is the perfect example of a Chairman running a club into the ground (our out of it if you pardon the pun)

He made wrong decision after wrong decision and dug us into a big hole that we couldn't get out of.

We were between £80-90m in debt when he finished.

eeeee luxury

 

[twinkletoes]

The guy ran the club into the ground and left us almost bankrupt he deserves no credit whatsoever.

Rubbish! If it wasn't for Mr. Wardle, we would have been relegated and probably ended up bankrupt! He didn't put the amounts of money in that Thaksin or Sheikh Mansour did for obvious reasons but he did all he could for the club with the little resources he had.

Things got so bad he had to sell the souvenir shop to generate some cash.

 

[fbloke]

Rubbish! If it wasn't for Mr. Wardle, we would have been relegated and probably ended up bankrupt! He didn't put the amounts of money in that Thaksin or Sheikh Mansour did for obvious reasons but he did all he could for the club with the little resources he had.

Things got so bad he had to sell the souvenir shop to generate some cash.

I hadnt heard that one TBH.

I suppose the questions should be asked of FH Lee as well as the club seems to have been almost unsellable. It took an egotist Thai criminal in need of publicity to break the cycle of decline. But that only happened when he left!

 

[KentBlue]

Yes, in retrospect some of Wardle's decisions weren't the best for the club. Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. But in my view he always had the best interests of the club at heart and acted accordingly.

Personally, I say fair play to him.

 

[Dyed Petya]

There are some criticisms you could make about [John Wardle's] chairmanship. He forced Bernstein out over Fowler when there's little doubt Bernstein was right. He went for Pearce when most around him told him not to and once again he was in the wrong. He wasn't a good chairman as he provided very little leadership and let Mackintosh run the show.

But he put a lot of money in that he could never be sure he would get back and there's no doubt he loves the club. He's also a bloody decent bloke, which is more than you can say for some of the people he had around him.

This is the best summary of Wardle and his legacy on the thread, in my opinion.

 

[m27]

He almost ran the club into the ground when nobody else was in the frame. He put his hand in his pocket when he could have said no.

As far as I am aware he didnt mortgage the future TV revenue for a short term gain unlike Thaksin.

Things were bad, we all agree that but I personally think it would have been a lot worse if it hadnt been for him.

Peter Swales is the perfect example of a Chairman running a club into the ground (our out of it if you pardon the pun)

He made wrong decision after wrong decision and dug us into a big hole that we couldn't get out of.

We were between £80-90m in debt when he finished.

His intentions were good...HOWEVER...he believed everything Keegan said and that in itself cost us David Bernstein and plunged us further into debt. Keegan is as much to blame to be honest, the amount of money he spent on utter rubbish was a disgrace.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

His heart was in the right place, his only failing being that he became starstuck by Keegan, just as David Bernstein had been.

Wardle allowed Keegan to stay in the role maybe ten months too long.

He basically didn't have deep enough pockets in the end - mainly as a result of Bernstein's reckless stewardship and the accumulation of £50m in debt he sanctioned.

Another, who thought the sun shined out of Keegan's arse, his personally shameful treatment of Joe Royle.

Never ceases to amaze me the credit Bernstein receives in some quarters.

His supposed principles on not spending £5m on Robbie Fowler, were a penny that dropped far too late.

A City fan, yes. A Bean counter, yes. A decent crisis manager, possibly.

A saviour, never. He brought us to the brink more than anybody - him and Macintosh.

I know for a fact that Wardle twice stopped this club going under in last 18 months.

An additional £2m loan to Toxin to pay wages over Christmas when cash flow was a real issue. And same amount again to keep wolves for the door.

 

[Balti]

He had the best of intentions and backed it with some cash. His pockets were not deep enough and the fact that he only owned around 20% of the shares with Makin was the real killer. This meant that the uninterested Boler family shareholding acted as a blocker to progress for many years.

Only when they finally sold up and allowed someone with money and ambition to have a controlling stake could we move forward.