@JakeW2311 It’s absolutely amazing how all these other clubs seem to progress with new stadiums/stands! There is no appetite from Rovers for a new or redeveloped stadium. There are plenty of sites and out there. If you want something bad enough and you are determined it can happen.
@DanJHargraves Dan, I agree an absolute club legend, Hard done by, I’m not so sure. The budget was there and 7 of the starting lineup were his (maybe) signings. Tactics were all wrong and questionable. I love DC as do 90% of Gashead’s but the reality is it wasn’t good enough.
@Joey7Barton Joey, I couldn’t agree more. The club lacks leadership from the top down. They removed all control from Tom Gorringe (who by the way is an excellent talent and a leader) Dismissed everything you and Eddie were building (again leaders) and surrounded themselves with mediocre.
@GasAssociate Until we either redevelop the stadium or move to a new it will continue to hold us back. From match day revenue to attracting players it’s a problem. As long as we continue to operate out of a stadium not fit for purpose it will slowly drag us to non league.
This sums up the experience of running a small business and why politicians who have never run (let alone created!) anything in their lives will never understand it or legislate accordingly.
I sit in Parliament listening to these ministers, and it’s all just so depressing - the vast majority of them have never run a business, and it SHOWS. You would not believe how bad it is.
They think ‘work’ means turning up to an office between 9 and 5, answering a few emails, and going home at the end of the day. Nice lunch break, few coffees away from the desk, probably a smoking break or several. It doesn’t - not for the millions of men and women who actually create the wealth that funds the state.
Running a small business isn’t a job. It’s a way of life. It is life. It’s 24/7/365. It’s relentless. You are the accountant, HR department, compliance officer, cleaner, marketer, and customer service team - all in one. There’s no sick pay, no safety net, and no taxpayer-funded pension waiting for you.
Holiday? Good luck. If you do manage to get away, it’s checking the phone all day, every day. Wife/husband obviously getting pissed off. We’ve all been there...
It’s all on you. Every invoice chased, every tax deadline met, every bit of red tape navigated is on you. And if you make one mistake, one error, one small slip-up, the state comes after you - in a relentlessly efficient manner that is never afforded to us when we ask questions of it.
Most MPs have no idea what that feels like. They just don’t. We’re going to see more of this in the budget I’m sure. More hurt. More pain. More tax. They don’t get it.
They don’t understand that when a small business owner gets hit with another tax, it’s not absorbed by a ‘budget’ - it’s taken straight out of their family’s pocket.
There is no ‘deficit’ in the business world - that’s called going bust.
And they certainly don’t understand what real risk looks like. Politicians can vote through a policy on Monday and forget it by Tuesday - a small business owner lives with the consequences of that policy for years, decades. The MP monthly salary is safe. It always has been. In the public sector before, and in the public sector after - if not that, some charity/NGO funded entirely by the public sector.
GET A REAL JOB.
If MPs actually spent a week running a small firm - paying suppliers, tackling VAT, navigating health and safety law, sorting out HR issues, chasing clients for payment, trying to expand while staying compliant with everything from GDPR to local planning regulations - they’d legislate very differently. I can promise you that.
They’d realise that most of Britain’s problems could be solved by the state doing less, not more.
Cutting tax. Simplifying regulation. Slashing back the HRification of the country. Trusting people who actually produce things to get on with it.
Instead, we have a political class that talks endlessly about ‘growth’ while brutally punishing the only people capable of delivering it - especially going after the family businesses/farms, which is a particularly spiteful policy decision.
Small business owners are people who work harder than almost anyone in Parliament could imagine - and who are treated worse for it.
Britain’s small businesses don’t succeed because of politicians, they survive in spite of them.