Ollie Byrne in the media

In the end of the day supporters go along to support their local team. Most aren't political animals and just want to see a game of football. Besides, there was no way anyone could wrestle the reins off Byrne. Not even now. He will hang in there, until someone gives him a very big payoff.

Fenlon has escaped criticism in all this. I think he must have known the financial implications of his spending. Yet he went back again and again, looking for money to sign players. Then when the **** hits the fan, he is the first to jump ship. Hardly honourable.

fair point on fenlon. haven't thought of it before. a bit like o'leary at leeds except o'leary took the flak there and fenlon walks away unscathed.

Teflon Fenlon!!!!!

i'm not trying to justify assault or condone some of the things that Ollie has done. i think he is his own worst enemy. However I think he was always doing what he thought was best for Shelbourne Football Club.

There are other people far more worthy of abuse and scorn who have robbed clubs blind

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Originally Posted by gspain

i'm not trying to justify assault or condone some of the things that Ollie has done. i think he is his own worst enemy. However I think he was always doing what he thought was best for Shelbourne Football Club.

There are other people far more worthy of abuse and scorn who have robbed clubs blind

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this is the type of crap which p.sses me off about the irish mentality
the guy your defending here effectively destroyed his club carrying out a suicidal policy (there are so many parrallels with a certain Galway commercial managers past its unreal)

i dont feel any sorrow for this individual - i do feel sorry for the fans of the club and those who dug deep from their OWN pockets (rather than someone elses) to keep it all goin

this persons delusion is so great he refers to Ozzie kILKENNY ET AL as "investors" - as if they're some kind of benevolence fund for shels and its maniac and reckless leader

what the person you're defending here has done is nothing short of criminal - and the ENTIRE el has suffered greatly from the inflated wages now being paid (all of which are way beyond the income generating capacities of all clubs in the island)


Ive no time for the guy anymore - I cant even be arsed naming him - he's nothing, a total muppet - in the truest sense of the word -EVERYONE and i do mean everyone with a shred of cop on has been saying for years that the course his club had embarked on was reckless and suicidal - at every step of the way these sensible ppl were met with the defence of "oh he's a great man for shelbourne" "look at the work he put in" etc etc

well each man kills what he loves - and he killed shels

Is it just me but every time Olly says " Shelbourne" it sounds like " Shamrock"?

Or maybe he's playing head games..........with himself !!!!!!

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Originally Posted by drummerboy

Fenlon has escaped criticism in all this. I think he must have known the financial implications of his spending.

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In all fairness, you know sod all about what Nutsy had to put up with last year. If Nutsy didn't have his own business he'd have been in serious financial trouble. Nutsy was lied to more than anyone else in this debacle - with the exception of the gullible fan base.

As for the UCD fan defending Joe Colwell, you know even less about that particular gent. His tunnel vision and self-imposed martyrdom was what handed our club to Maguire and his crooked cohorts.

And wws - Did someone drop you on your head over Christmas? You're talking a lot of sense on here these days and you seem to be the only one on the Pats MB with his eyes open. Dodge's "I just want to see a winning football team" is very very sad coming from a clever bloke.

KOH

Oily has been on a media blitz recently. What is the purpose of this as hes usually not quick to be so forthcoming in public? I presume he trying to drum up some interest from a white knight?

Chasing the dream stuff is a load of crap. Its fine speculating a little bit but when revenues reduce you need to reduce expenditure too. When Shels only had Inter Toto cup football last season I saw no sign of Shels reducing spending. Hoolohan was sold but thats about it.

How is any of this Nutsy's fault? If Ollie couldn't afford new or more expensive players, it was his duty to tell Nutsy it wasn't on.
Given the very real debacle at Shels, all the marketing in the world won't change the public perception that Irish football is an irrelevant mess.
Note to Delaney and co: the difference between saying something is better and it actually being better is vast. It's like 'near' and 'far away' on Father Ted.

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Originally Posted by WeAreRovers

In all fairness, you know sod all about what Nutsy had to put up with last year. If Nutsy didn't have his own business he'd have been in serious financial trouble. Nutsy was lied to more than anyone else in this debacle - with the exception of the gullible fan base

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That would back up a few stories I have heard from people connected to Derry City in regards to Fenlons situation last year. I'm surprised he stayed as long as he did.

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Originally Posted by WeAreRovers

In all fairness, you know sod all about what Nutsy had to put up with last year. If Nutsy didn't have his own business he'd have been in serious financial trouble. Nutsy was lied to more than anyone else in this debacle - with the exception of the gullible fan base.

As for the UCD fan defending Joe Colwell, you know even less about that particular gent. His tunnel vision and self-imposed martyrdom was what handed our club to Maguire and his crooked cohorts.

And wws - Did someone drop you on your head over Christmas? You're talking a lot of sense on here these days and you seem to be the only one on the Pats MB with his eyes open. Dodge's "I just want to see a winning football team" is very very sad coming from a clever bloke.

KOH

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In defence of Dodge, if Keegan/Molloy/Caffrey/Armstrong/Rutherford were all high earners, replacing the 5 of them with O'Neill and Ndo can't be putting that much financial strain on the club. Having a small sqaud will have separate implications, but there is always another side of the coin to wws' paranoia. :)

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Originally Posted by Jaime

In defence of Dodge, if Keegan/Molloy/Caffrey/Armstrong/Rutherford were all high earners, replacing the 5 of them with O'Neill and Ndo can't be putting that much financial strain on the club. Having a small sqaud will have separate implications, but there is always another side of the coin to wws' paranoia. :)

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jaime will ya do me a fooken favour

ndo kirby o neill are wots signed "SO FAR"

we're now linked with even more of these guys (from shels)

ive no paranoia

re the signing policy - with wages saved/the molloy transfer fee plus knock on bonuses - they could juggle the figures to leave them in a similar position to last season wages wise - but if they sign the likes of jason byrne etc well that goes out the window again

the board of pats met the fai re tallaght - as per their own admission

its all out war on these fckrs till that plan is well and truly torpedoed

I'd be agreeing with gspain here on this one.

Shels and Bohs were the 2 clubs to start bringing the league up to the level it's at now a few years ago and led the way for the likes of Cork, Derry and Drogheda. Obviously with a support base like Shelbourne have it was going to be difficult to sustain this (Bohs lasted about 3 years at that level).

As Felix Healy says when you give money to players it's automatically out of Irish football and that's really what's killing the game here, look at Shels league winning team - half of them have jumped ship already. Look at Fenlon's list of clubs as a player and it will tell you what motivates him.
Obviously there can't be a situation where an employee is going without wages but it's not too difficult not to feel sympathy for players who had no loyalty to the club in the first place.

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Originally Posted by JC_GUFC

I'd be agreeing with gspain here on this one.

Shels and Bohs were the 2 clubs to start bringing the league up to the level it's at now a few years ago and led the way for the likes of Cork, Derry and Drogheda. Obviously with a support base like Shelbourne have it was going to be difficult to sustain this (Bohs lasted about 3 years at that level).

As Felix Healy says when you give money to players it's automatically out of Irish football and that's really what's killing the game here, look at Shels league winning team - half of them have jumped ship already. Look at Fenlon's list of clubs as a player and it will tell you what motivates him.
Obviously there can't be a situation where an employee is going without wages but it's not too difficult not to feel sympathy for players who had no loyalty to the club in the first place.

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thats just stupid jc

you cut the cloth within reason
they didnt

that ol players loyalty crap is for roy of the rovers readers

Every time I think of Shels and their fans, a song by the Housemartins comes into my head:

The people who grinned themselves to death
Smiled so much they failed to take a breath
And even when their kids were starving
They all thought the Queen was coming

For "Queen", read "Champions League group stages" and you have the recent history of Shels in a nutshell.

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Originally Posted by gspain

Am I the only non Shels fan that feels genuinely sorry for Ollie here?

I appreciate he has make enemies and can rub people up the wrong way. However nobody can question his commitment to Shelbourne FC and doing what he thought was best for the club.

He was clearly chasing the dream of making the Group Stages of the Champions League. He saw the opportunity to maybe finally have Irish football fans supporting an irish team rather than Man Utd/Liverpool. I'll save my anger for those who came into clubs with the sole intention of milking them for personal profit.

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I would have the same degree of sympathy for Ollie as I would for the likes of Peter Ridsdale at Leeds. In other words, zero.

I don't care what his motives are or how well-intentioned they are, Ollie is a delusionist who has driven the most successful Irish club in recent years to the brink of complete meltdown. If I became Taioseach and made a complete fcuk-up of the country, would it be alright as long as I was well intentioned.....?

I have no sympathy for oilly.........Since he won the league in the courts all those years ago.poaching players, inflating wages.his general underhandmanship (is that a word you know what i mean) the whole league knew what he was at and knew this day was coming..Shels might have won titles under Oilly but they won no friends.. if derry had won the league he would still be in the courts trying to win it....Oilly..If you really love something set it free......

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Originally Posted by drummerboy

Fenlon has escaped criticism in all this. I think he must have known the financial implications of his spending. Yet he went back again and again, looking for money to sign players. Then when the **** hits the fan, he is the first to jump ship. Hardly honourable.

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A manager's job is to assemble the best possible team, and motivate them on the pitch to win things. It is not the Manager's job to manage the club's balance sheet, nor are they usually privvy to even half of the necessary information to enable them to do so.

If Fenlon was asking for players the club couldn't afford, how was he to know they couldn't be afforded without having an intimate knowledge of the club's finances (which seemingly only Olly had) ? Olly would've set the direction and aims for the club on a season-by-season basis (and if he didn't, it's another failuing on his part), which then would've given Fenlon a budget and dierction to work towards. If he then attempted to go beyond that, it's the Boards job to say no, as they hold the purse strings.

Even if Fenlon had been asking for players his club couldn't afford, so fcuk ? It's Olly's job to say 'no'. Which he clearly either didn't do, or didn't want to do.

Blaming Manager's for the financial and managerial inadequacies of thsoe who run football clubs is pathetic. The buck stops at the Board Room, nowhere else. End of story.

while you are mostly right dcfcsteve i think everyone in the country knew that the good ship shelbourne was going to sink sooner or later. with this in mind fenlon signed players on contracts that he must of thought the club could have problems honouring. so while it's is not his fault for the financial mess, if i was a player i wouldn't totally exonorate him. after all he would of sat them down and said you will be paid x, y and z for playing.

I agree that Byrne should shoulder most of the blame. But surely when there was problems with players not getting bonuses, wages ect, alarm bells should have rung in Fenlons head. Some of the bonus due goes as far back as 2004. Was it not possible to ship out some of the many guys picking up large wads for sitting in the stand.