That's a weird one - because as far as I can recall the only two posters on here who have actually called on those who are critical of the owner to do such things are Jumbo and HB1. The follow-on comments have been mocking that those two have at times been wanting other fans to do such things, but haven't really tried doing it themselves.
Plenty of posters have said “if you’re that unhappy then why not do something about it” as a response to any negativity. Can you find the posts for me?
We clearly needed another adequate CB as well as Dawson; Mariappa had to start so many games that season & he really wasn't up to it anymore. Alongside the 'sliding doors' moments such as losing in the last minute at Villa, conceding 2 goals in 1st half injury time at home to Everton, Troy missing the penalty at home vs Spurs we could cite Mariappa's brain-dead og at Brighton.
Sure, as you'll see in the posts below, it's a lot of the main negative posters on here who have themselves typically been the ones to start the calls for the fans to "do something about it". Here's a thread created by prominent bedwetter moog calling for the unhappy fans to protest: https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/protest.59710/ In the first 3 pages you have TuT and myself mocking the idea of fans protesting, then Jumbo responding to us both saying that it'd be reasonable for lots of fans to be unhappy and want to protest (he does say here he's too apathetic to protest himself, though a few months before he said he would happily join a protest and bemoaned other fans for being "docile"). You then have the match preview to a game written by resident Admin bedwetter Smudger which he uses as an opportunity to say the following: "Welcome to Stoke City. The game doesn't matter or count for anything. Stoke could probably walk the goal into the net and score half a dozen. The main thing is that supporters actually do what's necessary on the day. That is to protest against the ownership. Be it inside and outside the stadium. Get the club into the mass media at least for a few days. See if Pozzo does squirm. When it's full time and the idiots start their listeless half hearted walk that mirrors their efforts this season to applaud the crowd greet them not with jeers or insults but stony silence. Turn your backs to them. Not a Poznan but show them how much you care about them as they care about us." https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/watford-fc-2-0-stoke-city-08-05-2023.60213/#post-3233865 Here's another earlier post by Smudger where he wants fans to "develop a backbone and protest": "Until Duxbury is removed, Gino is told to be hands off and more fans develop a backbone and protest nothing will change." https://wfcforums.com/index.php?thr...tford-fc-10-03-2022.59197/page-9#post-3111324 Here's HB1 (a year later than the above posts but claiming to be ahead of the curve): "Don't care what people think of me on here. People need to wake up and engage to get this joker owner out of our club before things really get out of control. The so called "happy clappers" are enabling the culture by being supportive. I can't believe how all the "Gino out" stuff has stopped just because he turned up to a Q&A. Our fans are so weak and simple minded (naive) at times, it beggars belief what actually needs to happen before fans really turn." So he states he wants others to "wake up and engage to get this joker out of our club" and that those who do nothing are "enabling". Below him people do indeed ask why he doesn't do something himself, but that's only because he to begin with was critical and then stated the fans should be doing something. Two weeks later, HB1 again calls on the fans to launch a protest: "This is why fans have to use their only ace up their sleeve. A ‘Gino Out’ protest is a must at the next home game. It’s the only thing we can seriously do. If, as a fanbase, we do not do this, then we cannot really complain too much, as we’re all complicit in what’s going on if we don’t try to enforce change. It must be beyond all reasonable doubt that Gino is really hurting the club now. We have to act in order to protect it." https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/ben-manga.60442/page-23#post-3283617 Funnily enough, I could find perhaps one thread which was started that says the thing that you bemoaned and calls for those critical to stop being keyboard warriors, but that was from Lloyd, who I never really had down as a big COG and is a poster who is generally just quite antagonistic. Plus it's also over 3 years old now and if anything just amusingly foreshadowed the posts above where the critical posters did call for things to be done. The funniest part of the thread though is HB1's comment on the first page - he won't see me posting it and I doubt he would self-reflect on it even if he read his comment back, but we can still have a chuckle at Mr Oracle: https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/fans-protest-group.57911/
Just so my position is clear, and I don’t think it’s inconsistent from what Rous has dug up from his odd personal archives. Would I join a proper well attended anti Pozzo protest if arranged? Yes. Do I think our fanbase has enough awareness to identify the extent of the damage Pozzo has done to us in sufficient numbers to be impactful? No. Conclusion: I voted with my feet, gave up my season ticket and won’t step foot in the stadium until the vile owner is gone. Not sure what is remotely controversial or inconsistent with my course of action. I can’t help it if our fanbase are generally idiots.
Don’t think we can forget the debacle around refusing to pay bonuses after the cup final humiliation. I bet if Gino had paid out the money they were due without question we’d have been over the hangover from that battering on day one of preseason. We should have phucked Foster right off as well the minute he said he was fine not playing in the cup final so Gomes could have his last hurrah. Symbolic of the participation medal mentality too many of that squad grew into. Can lump Cathcart, Kabasele, Cleverley into that bucket. I bet Dawson would have been ace if we’d signed a proper defender to go alongside him, rather than wheeling out Cathcart week on week.
I've seen you say similar to this before and always felt it unfair on other supporters. You have chosen to give up your ticket and not go again which is fair enough and entirely your choice. Others, including me enjoy going to football but it's not just for the game itself. I meet up with the same group of fellas that I've been going with for 30 years for a couple of beers and a chat. I won't stop going just because of the owner and I did protest against Petchey back in the day but not by stopping going. Everybody is different and entitled to do what they want to do, that doesn't make them better or worse than anybody else
Yeah I forgot about the bonus thing. Whatever way you look at it, the relegation was nothing to do with us being little Watford. And you're right about Dawson. Just some highly experienced Italian CB in the twilight of his career on loan for 6 months would have done the trick. There must have been shytloads that fit the bill.
Realise my post was ambiguous apologies - I’m not expecting people to give up going. I miss it myself but feel like it’s the only way to show an irrelevant act of anger at the owner, because our fans don’t seem too concerned. The point I don’t understand is why everyone isn’t foaming at the mouth at Pozzo. It’s not about league position - it’s about how we have been run into the ground. I don’t understand why there isn’t a huge wish to show Pozzo how furious we are at his stewardship and crazy ways. I just don’t get it, and don’t get me on to the twitter defenders of the regime!
It's just that in Feb 2022 you said: "Yep I’d make the effort to go. Can’t stand the Pozzos and would love them gone. I don’t think there would be many of us though. Too many weak minded docile fans." https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/if-there-was-a-protest-against-the-owner….59141/#post-3102788 But then more recently in Sep and Oct 2022 you suggested that you wouldn't even "be bothered" to do that; which is amusing and ironic considering that in Feb you were bemoaning fans for being "docile": "That said, Pozzo has turned my club into something I feel empty about so I can't be bothered to protest. I can barely motivate myself to go to games." "I still can’t be bothered to protest mind you. I’ll just stop going unless I’m absolutely at a loose end. Pozzo’s circus is the very lowest of my priorities these days and I’ve got two blooming season tickets!" https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/protest.59710/page-5#post-3180154 https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/protest.59710/page-2#post-3178264 And now you're back to saying again that you would bother going to a protest. Make your mind up. In genuine fairness to you though, your stopping attending matches is still more in the way of an actual protest than anything the other critical posters I quoted above seem to have done (albeit it's still a rather passive protest).
I’d go if organised. The thing that puts me off is not enough of our fans are interested in such action so it’s a waste of time so apathy rules.
So you've changed your mind. Fine. But the main point is it's still a bit rich of you to have also had a go at other fans earlier for supposedly being "docile" when you yourself are so apathetic and willing to take a backseat.
It’s pretty much us that believes it and that’s it. Even some of the wobbling bedwetters say stuff like ‘we’d have gone down eventually’. Like they’ve been saying about Palace for 12 years. This year will be the year!
Good points well made. I personally agree that there’s nothing wrong with having such a specific view on the owner without having to back it up. However, if you hold such a view combined with constantly criticising the rest of the fanbase for not doing anything about it then I'd suggest it would be questionable if you yourself did not nothing. There are a handful of posters on here who repeatedly make snide comments about the fanbase they are part of and who seem to consider themselves better than other fans. I don't really get why they would want to spend so much time on a fourm chatting to people they clearly have contempt for.
I can try and answer this from my own perspective. After having read and considered a lot of the financial arguments against Pozzo I don't think it's proven that we have been run into the ground. I can see that we are financially challenged by losing the premiership money but ultimately I'm simply not qualified enough to categorically know whether we are financially screwed and doomed to go out of business or whether our predicament is not disimiliar from many other relegated clubs and symptomatic of wider football problems. If I thought we were definitely screwed and were doomed to cease as a club i would be foaming at the mouth and inclined to protest. It might be that I'm ignorant and by the time I do get angry enough it will be too late. I'm of the view that there have been lots of dubious decisions by the regime but I also think they have done a lot of good things both on and off the pitch. I'm wary of any extreme viewpoint either way as I consider it lacks balance and objectivity. I'm not saying this to get into an argument and there would be absolutely no point in arguing as it will simply repeat what has already been said. I am simply to explain why I'm not furious and foaming at the mouth.
And plenty of others don’t understand why you are “foaming at the mouth” and calling others “idiots” for not doing the same. Football club owners deliver a few years of crap decisions after 7 years of excellent decisions. Storm the Bastille. I guess we’re all built differently.
You know full well that isn’t my position. To insinuate I’m angry with Pozzo just because of a couple of years of championship football? Guess you fancied discrediting me like that after years of non football performance complaints about the way he operates? Frankly **** you.
I reckon you won't go to football for some time Jumbo as I don't think Pozzo is going anywhere. Not sure I give a monkeys either way anymore, football as a whole is just not what I got in to 40+ years ago and I appreciate it needs to move with the times but I hate all the money at the very top, yet in the last week Torquay and Rochdale go in to administration. Whatever happens can we not go down the pathetic tennis ball effort that Blackburn produced the other night. Must have been about 10 balls!
Well that’s nice but not surprising. Of course I didn’t say you hated Pozzo due to “a couple of years of championship football” but don’t let that fact get in the way.
I’m not interested in your endless games validating the despot. Of all the apologists you and WatfordTalk have always been the most sinister. I’ll block you to save the forum the tedium of our interaction.
I like you and respect your views but like plenty of others don’t like being called an idiot, sinister, an apologist because I don’t see the world the way you do. I don’t throw the same insults your way. Block me if you want, I won’t be blocking you and will still respond to your posts.
Out of curiosity what do you like about someone who calls you sinister, an apologist and an idiot? What does it take for you to go from liking someone to being more neutral about them?
For me, it’s when people seriously suggest that a desperate loan taken out by the club isn’t to keep the club afloat, but to have ‘cash on the hips’ for a promotion push.
I am pretty easy going ! I like the fact he wears his heart on his sleeve, says what he thinks, and generally has been pretty accepting of contrary points being made, without changing his overall view. Obviously I don’t agree with his view that everything they have done is dreadful or the insults, which I’m happy to repeatedly point out as he repeatedly makes the same point and insults.
