Reflecting on SISU (1 Viewer)

Mucca Mad Boys · Monday at 2:10 PM

SISU were right to take on the council over the rent agreement and then over the sale of the ground to Wasps. As a fanbase, we lost faith in them because they failed to deliver Operation Premiership v quickly.

Their tactics though, were blunt and alienated the fans who probably didn’t understand just how underhanded the council were being towards the football club. It was personal for the Council and that set us back years.

People who were glad the council didn’t sell to us and chose Wasps were delusional. Owners come and go but it was always in the best interests of the club to have a pathway to owning the stadium.

It’s all done and dusted and we can put that 2011-2023 to rest now. That’s the main thing.

Brylowes · Monday at 2:14 PM

Undertaking the process of due diligence after the purchase, probably not their finest hour!!

DazzleTommyDazzle · Monday at 2:24 PM

fernandopartridge said:
Both sides were acting in bad faith in reality

I think that’s true.

Difficult to work out exactly where cause and effect sat, but neither side emerged with any credit.

SBT · Monday at 2:30 PM

Grendel said:
I had the misfortune to sit near that thick twat Mutton in block 36 - he looked genuinely surprised when he stood up and said “they (Sisu) ain’t owning this place we (the council) won’t let it happen” and he got dogs abuse.

And then everyone clapped?

covcity4life · Monday at 2:31 PM

Look they were arseholes. But as time went on they became our arseholes as we fought against bigger arseholes

Would I want to go through nearly 2 decades like that again ? Hell no. But ultimately they helped get us from a terrible situation to a very good one.

SBT · Monday at 2:32 PM

Sorry, I’m not letting SISU off the hook - however poorly treated they were by the council (and it was very poorly), they also seemed perfectly content to let our club wither away. They should have given up and sold us on years before they did.

Moff · Monday at 2:40 PM

chiefdave said:
some of us even managed to be labelled as both

Counsisu apologist!

Otis · Monday at 2:44 PM

Moff said:
Counsisu apologist!

I'm going to go with Counsisusil

Mucca Mad Boys · Monday at 2:45 PM

SBT said:
Sorry, I’m not letting SISU off the hook - however poorly treated they were by the council (and it was very poorly), they also seemed perfectly content to let our club wither away. They should have given up and sold us on years before they did.

How many charlatans were trying to buy the club way back when? Sometimes, it’s a case of ‘better the devil you know’.

Imagine if they sold to that Preston Haskell IV guy? I for one was optimistic about his plans for us… he went bankrupt a few years later.

Perhaps the painful steps SISU took to get the club on a better financial footing lead to someone serious like Doug King taking the club over and taking us forward.

Sky_Blue_Dreamer · Monday at 2:45 PM

jto123 said:
Having now got the stadium it feels like any toxic legacy of SISU has finally been washed away.

The feel-good factor of Saturday has really made me wonder what on earth was going through their heads in the time they owned the club? I was obviously never a fan of them as owners and was emotional/angry during their reign in charge, but I also consider myself someone who believes in nuance and trying to understand another’s point of view.

I still struggle to really understand what their end goal was or what they were trying to achieve. I guess ultimately it was simply that they bought a club and realised that they did not have the proper money to invest too far down the line.

I’m sure underneath this post, there will be usual comments about them being money sucking ghouls, which I am not averse to as I went through the 15 years of hell like everyone else. Beyond that though, I would always want to know why they were poor with communication, what they hoped to achieve and what they think went wrong? Any comments that shed reasonable light on the above welcome. I appreciate that many will think I am just naive.

Part of me wants to just say who cares, it's over, but the other part of me is an opinionated prick who wants to put in his two pennorth.

I can understand why SISU were interested when they bought the club, given what their business MO is. The club was distressed, going out of business and they could get it for pretty much nothing. Remember everyone being told to give up their shares to SISU?

At the same time there was a huge pot of gold available if you could get promotion to the PL which meant they could flip the club for a massive profit in a short time frame if they could achieve it. And they thought they could do that with a modest investment in the squad and we bought the likes of Fox, Dann, Westwood, Eastwood etc. They never intended to 'run' the club long term, just sell it ASAP.

Trouble was Ranson got the managerial appointment completely and utterly wrong and that made the investment in the squad almost meaningless. At the same time they thought that their experience with business litigation could get them the stadium from the council etc. "They batter people in court". Of course they were entirely wrong and ended up looking silly, and eventually the saga made them bitter towards everyone and everyone bitter towards them.

So once we failed to get promotion quickly and they failed to get the stadium they were left in a situation they're not used to. They had a business they couldn't sell, without the expertise (or desire to hire the expertise) to run it, it was losing tons of money and cutting funding and expenditure (as is what they do in their world), just made it a lot worse and the club worth even less. In that scenario they'd normally just liquidate and move on, but they couldn't really do that partly due to the high profile and community nature of it and partly because they couldn't afford to take that kind of loss for their investors.

So they were basically left with putting no funds in while desperately seeking someone to take it off their hands. And eventually for whatever reason King came along and they were glad to be shot of it.

I understand their reasoning for buying. I also understand why they operated like they did give their industry. They just didn't understand it wouldn't work in football and hence why it went spectacularly wrong.

play_in_skyblue_stripes · Monday at 2:48 PM

SISU had their own aims but they are now in the past. The prospects for Coventry City have improved under the new regime.

Good time to restate what Mark Robins has done for Coventry City.

Lets concentrate on the present and future rather than bringing back and reigniting the bad feelings there was between fans.

We are playing now at CBS for sure and have a bright future.

SBT · Monday at 2:55 PM

Mucca Mad Boys said:
Perhaps the painful steps SISU took to get the club on a better financial footing lead to someone serious like Doug King taking the club over and taking us forward.

Or maybe they were just bad owners? I’m loath to say that Ken Dulieu etc were strategic geniuses just because it turned out alright when someone else came in.

Sky_Blue_Dreamer · Monday at 2:58 PM

Grendel said:
I repeat. The council picked Sisu to own the club. They actually decided who’d be fit and proper owners - I had the misfortune to sit near that thick twat Mutton in block 36 - he looked genuinely surprised when he stood up and said “they (Sisu) ain’t owning this place we (the council) won’t let it happen” and he got dogs abuse.

As devil's advocate given SISU's business nature I could understand why the council didn't want them to have it. I guess also having seen them operating when taking over the club they lost faith in them pretty quickly.

I, as did many others, expected that if they got the stadium they would keep it separate from the club and charge the club rent to use it. It's sadly a common arrangement even though it seems to cause nothing but trouble. And with their ownership you just couldn't be sure of the future of the stadium or the club being able to use it. We'll never be able to tell if that would have actually been the case but I strongly suspect it would have been.

Of course what then doesn't make sense is them selling it to the Wasps lot which was not really any different, but with a sport that has much lower potential crowds than football and would be massively unpopular with a large number of their constituents. I can only imagine by this point the council were fed up of the legal proceedings and were desperate to be shot of it so it wasn't their problem any more, but as a matter of principle they couldn't sell it to SISU. So it was almost whoever would give them an offer as long as they weren't SISU.

Sky_Blue_Dreamer · Monday at 3:01 PM

SBT said:
Or maybe they were just bad owners? I’m loath to say that Ken Dulieu etc were strategic geniuses just because it turned out alright when someone else came in.

Without a doubt their appointments to board positions were absolutely terrible.

Remember the 'most talented' board ever? Fuck me, I'd have been worried if they were the board of the local PTA. Charlatans, chancers and delusionists.

Mucca Mad Boys · Monday at 3:03 PM

SBT said:
Or maybe they were just bad owners? I’m loath to say that Ken Dulieu etc were strategic geniuses just because it turned out alright when someone else came in.

Obviously they weren’t good owners… it’s still the case that their diagnosis of the problems the club face were accurate.

Captain Dart · Monday at 3:19 PM

I'd rather just forget all that shit and look forward, that's all I have to say on the matter.

robbiethemole · Monday at 3:30 PM

Igwe’s idea still exists tho, Sky Blue Sam looks very trim this season! Hahaha
Him and txt a sub Brody and Orange Ken really were fucking clowns. I wonder where we would have ended up if we’d gone into admin before they bought us. We were never in fear of liquidation until they rocked up

Briles · Monday at 3:43 PM

wingy said:
Does it ever wash off?

Wiped my feet on the way out

Telfer85 · Monday at 3:59 PM

An era with lots of downs and a few highs at the end. Those early Coleman days where there could have been such promise is full of buying so many dog shit signings. The Eastwood saga where Mccarthy dug his heels in to get an extra 500k out of us…he must have been killing himself laughing seeing Coleman so desperate to sign him.

Attendances dwindling over time and then the stadium saga and moving grounds will forever be the lowest point in our history and not a pleasant time to be a fan. Won’t get into the blame game but all involved should hang their heads in shame.

Thankfully bringing Robins back was the best thing they ever did and him, Adi and Boddy steadied the ship and started the change. It culminated in some decent years at the end before the dawn.

Let’s hope these next 20 will be filled with more highs…certainly feels like it just might be.

JimmyHillsbeard · Monday at 4:09 PM

Wouldn’t now be an audacious time for Doug to pull off the mask and reveal that he’s been SiSU all along?

Sky_Blue_Dreamer · Monday at 5:07 PM

robbiethemole said:
Igwe’s idea still exists tho, Sky Blue Sam looks very trim this season! Hahaha
Him and txt a sub Brody and Orange Ken really were fucking clowns. I wonder where we would have ended up if we’d gone into admin before they bought us. We were never in fear of liquidation until they rocked up

Said exactly the same thing about Sam to my mate on Saturday.

jto123 · Monday at 5:41 PM

Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:
Part of me wants to just say who cares, it's over, but the other part of me is an opinionated prick who wants to put in his two pennorth.

I can understand why SISU were interested when they bought the club, given what their business MO is. The club was distressed, going out of business and they could get it for pretty much nothing. Remember everyone being told to give up their shares to SISU?

At the same time there was a huge pot of gold available if you could get promotion to the PL which meant they could flip the club for a massive profit in a short time frame if they could achieve it. And they thought they could do that with a modest investment in the squad and we bought the likes of Fox, Dann, Westwood, Eastwood etc. They never intended to 'run' the club long term, just sell it ASAP.

Trouble was Ranson got the managerial appointment completely and utterly wrong and that made the investment in the squad almost meaningless. At the same time they thought that their experience with business litigation could get them the stadium from the council etc. "They batter people in court". Of course they were entirely wrong and ended up looking silly, and eventually the saga made them bitter towards everyone and everyone bitter towards them.

So once we failed to get promotion quickly and they failed to get the stadium they were left in a situation they're not used to. They had a business they couldn't sell, without the expertise (or desire to hire the expertise) to run it, it was losing tons of money and cutting funding and expenditure (as is what they do in their world), just made it a lot worse and the club worth even less. In that scenario they'd normally just liquidate and move on, but they couldn't really do that partly due to the high profile and community nature of it and partly because they couldn't afford to take that kind of loss for their investors.

So they were basically left with putting no funds in while desperately seeking someone to take it off their hands. And eventually for whatever reason King came along and they were glad to be shot of it.

I understand their reasoning for buying. I also understand why they operated like they did give their industry. They just didn't understand it wouldn't work in football and hence why it went spectacularly wrong.

I think this is pretty beautifully put

wingy · Monday at 5:43 PM

JimmyHillsbeard said:
Wouldn’t now be an audacious time for Doug to pull off the mask and reveal that he’s been SiSU all along?

At least as?likely Ashley

itsabuzzard · Monday at 6:06 PM

ovduk78 said:
It also seems SISU didn't do enough due diligence and were oblivious about things like the ridiculous rent we were paying the council & I'm not sure if they were aware of our annual losses.

That sounds like no due diligence rather than not enough. No doubt blinded by the light from the PL edifice.

long way home · Monday at 6:14 PM

Fisher was a pretty toxic person that coupled with the incompetent individuals at the council, it created what should of been a business transaction into who got the biggest dick contest

And to be honest all involved could of won a contest of being the biggest dick in the room. Way too many egos and nobody willing to listen hurt any progress.

Im glad that is all behind us and the big boys got together in a room without personal involvement and hashed a deal that must of pleased all parties. Lastly Doug and Ashley didn't need the media to spin a narrative to spoon feed the fans, it was pure business . Amazing what can happen when 2 successful business people get together without prejudice and a willingness to make a deal.

Speedie's Head · Monday at 6:18 PM

Sky_Blue_Dreamer said:
I, as did many others, expected that if they got the stadium they would keep it separate from the club and charge the club rent to use it.

It'll be interesting to see how the finances are operated in future. It won't be called "rent" if they have any PR sense but they'll be some cost to the football side of the operation for the use of the stadium I would think. That's just how accountants work. They'll need to account for running costs and maintenance. If the stadium etc starts to make money without that then all the better but "cross subsidies" give accountants sleepless nights!

ovduk78 · Monday at 6:39 PM

itsabuzzard said:
That sounds like no due diligence rather than not enough. No doubt blinded by the light from the PL edifice.

I was giving them the benefit of the doubt thinking that no business would be stupid enough not to do any due diligence It was reported they were shocked how high the rent was so I suppose it could be assumed that they did none and fit into the stupid category.

quinn1971 · Monday at 6:44 PM

As the late Jim Bowen used to say “ look at what you could have won “

Speedie's Head · Monday at 6:45 PM

quinn1971 said:
As the late Jim Bowen used to say “ look at what you could have won “

A cuddly toy and a poxy hostess trolley. Why on earth did they never gamble?

quinn1971 · Monday at 6:55 PM

Speedie's Head said:
A cuddly toy and a poxy hostess trolley. Why on earth did they never gamble?

And why take a “ non dart player,

jto123 · Monday at 7:01 PM

long way home said:
Fisher was a pretty toxic person that coupled with the incompetent individuals at the council, it created what should of been a business transaction into who got the biggest dick contest

And to be honest all involved could of won a contest of being the biggest dick in the room. Way too many egos and nobody willing to listen hurt any progress.

Im glad that is all behind us and the big boys got together in a room without personal involvement and hashed a deal that must of pleased all parties. Lastly Doug and Ashley didn't need the media to spin a narrative to spoon feed the fans, it was pure business . Amazing what can happen when 2 successful business people get together without prejudice and a willingness to make a deal.

Yeah that pretty much sums up my feelings

Shannerz · Monday at 7:17 PM

Speedie's Head said:
A cuddly toy and a poxy hostess trolley. Why on earth did they never gamble?

Because it would have been an arse owning a speedboat when you lived in Tipton.

Speedie's Head · Monday at 7:26 PM

Shannerz said:
Because it would have been an arse owning a speedboat when you lived in Tipton.

Bloody cool on the Birmingham Canal though, dodging all the trollies and the dead bodies...

Para1140 · Monday at 7:36 PM

Mucca Mad Boys said:
How many charlatans were trying to buy the club way back when? Sometimes, it’s a case of ‘better the devil you know’.

Imagine if they sold to that Preston Haskell IV guy? I for one was optimistic about his plans for us… he went bankrupt a few years later.

Perhaps the painful steps SISU took to get the club on a better financial footing lead to someone serious like Doug King taking the club over and taking us forward.

Or Storey

Paul Anthony · Monday at 7:49 PM

Funnily enough I was just talking with someone on Saturday about some of the "characters" of the sisu era. And for the sake of balance, It wasn't just Sisu, because you've got to factor in the whole council/Wasps love in.

I mean, christ, when you lay it all out, It feels like a miracle that club is anywhere near the position it's in now. It's a wonder the club even still exists.

Reflecting on SISU (1 Viewer)

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