Barrow Dropped Us In It, No Differnt Than Rickets

[Haruki]

Originally Posted by 3pmsaturday

Package was agreed.

It is quite common in business to agree a package with a prospective new employer, so you go to hand in your notice and your current boss makes you an improved offer to stay. It has happened to me.

Lawrence has done nothing wrong. Club's mistake was in offering Barrow the 2.5 year assistant deal before crossing t's and dotting i's on Lawrence's contract, this started a chain of horrible expensive events

[3pmsaturday]

Originally Posted by Prodigal Dragon

Your interpretation of events does more harm than good, wrongly suggesting an error of judgement by the Board was, in fact, the fault of Lawrence and Barrow. We all make mistakes, but transferring the blame merely compounds the error.

The root of the problem was extending Barrow’s contract as assistant manager before Lawrence had agreed and signed his contract to become our new manager, after Ricketts had left. Barrow had already stated he had no desire to be the boss but would use his rich experience to mentor an inexperienced, younger manager. Personally, I think a Lawrence-Barrow management could have been a perfect fit. However, once T&T improved Lawrence’s deal he decided not to return to Wrexham. This was very inconvenient for the club, and raises doubts about Lawrence’s integrity but, fundamentally, we jumped the gun.

Once Barrow was in place, for some ‘personal reasons’, he quickly told the Board he had made a mistake when taking the post. The question is: why did he take the post? Was it a late personal desire to prove he could do it ( an ego trip)? Or was it an act to rescue the Board from an unfortunate predicament (more id than ego)? I do not know why he did it, but suspect the latter. Spencer Harris’s unwise words at the time may have been in jest, but they merely highlighted the error.

I fundamentally disagree with all the vicious bile aimed at Spencer over this and other issues. His error is that he cares too much about the club, and does too much instead of delegating when possible. Unfortunately, whilst your interpretation may be a genuine attempt to explain the issue, it can be interpreted as chaffing and flaring in an attempt to divert an incoming Slammer.

IMHO, the Board made a mistake. It would be a bigger mistake to compound the error by trying to divert blame onto Lawrence and especially Barrow.

Perhaps we won’t know but perhaps Lawrence insisted on the barrow thing in line with his proposed contract? Yes to ‘back to back’ them would have been better although that does not excuse Barrows about turn or indeed Lawrence’s. Sounds like he used the club and Barrow, in a way, to feather his nest.

The board have continualy been let down over the last few months. I have great sympathy for them.

If anyone thinks making these decisions is easy look at virtually every football club in the world. A very small percentage get it right and even fewer go on to retain that talent.

[LlayDragon]

Originally Posted by Haruki

It is quite common in business to agree a package with a prospective new employer, so you go to hand in your notice and your current boss makes you an improved offer to stay. It has happened to me.

Lawrence has done nothing wrong. Club's mistake was in offering Barrow the 2.5 year assistant deal before crossing t's and dotting i's on Lawrence's contract, this started a chain of horrible expensive events

Aye.

In the end Barrow was already contracted to the club; there was no need to jump the gun and offer anything else until a new manager was in place. Had the the board not done so there would have been far more scope for chasing other targets when Lawrence pulled out. This the point where it all started to go wrong.

Then again I'm sure this is all our fault.

[OneLoveWrexham]

Originally Posted by LlayDragon

Aye.

In the end Barrow was already contracted to the club; there was no need to jump the gun and offer anything else until a new manager was in place. Had the the board not done so there would have been far more scope for chasing other targets when Lawrence pulled out. This the point where it all started to go wrong.

Then again I'm sure this is all our fault.

Exactly this. At the time if the Lawrence thing fell through fair enough but keep barrow as caretaker for another week or two on original contract then you have scope to try and temp a Darrell Clarke type who has been there and done it in numerous leagues as surely the money was there tempt him if we gave Barrow 200k to spend.

[Red_Jackoisback]

So BH offered the Assistants job to GB who turned it down.

Now isn’t that odd for a guy who wants to complete the job he started?

[Ooh aah Paskin]

Originally Posted by Red_Jackoisback

So BH offered the Assistants job to GB who turned it down.

Now isn’t that odd for a guy who wants to complete the job he started?

Not really.

We don't know the complete story. Maybe he just doesn't have the heart for it any more?
Maybe he doesn't have the relationship with the players he had before?
Maybe he has had enough of the circus?

Its a free country. You can change your mind.

The whole sorry mess from Ricketts leaving to now has given more questions than answers.

Barrow clearly thought he could give it a go, realised he was out of his depth and said I need to go.

Its probably kind of hard to stick around after that no matter what was said before.

[Phils-an-alki]

Is there a video of last nights meeting online anywhere?

or could someone detail the boards explanation for the last 6 weeks mess?

[John Neals Dynasty]

Originally Posted by Phils-an-alki

Is there a video of last nights meeting online anywhere?

or could someone detail the boards explanation for the last 6 weeks mess?

I'm sure one of the board members on here will gladly spin you one Phil
Posted via mobile theme

[fezbob]

We can either spend our time blaming managers and players for all the club's ills or admit there are some issues with the management of the football side of things by the board and work to address them.

[Quay Red]

Originally Posted by Ooh aah Paskin

Not really.

We don't know the complete story. Maybe he just doesn't have the heart for it any more?
Maybe he doesn't have the relationship with the players he had before?
Maybe he has had enough of the circus?

Its a free country. You can change your mind.

The whole sorry mess from Ricketts leaving to now has given more questions than answers.

Barrow clearly thought he could give it a go, realised he was out of his depth and said I need to go.

Its probably kind of hard to stick around after that no matter what was said before.

I thought the timeline was explained poorly but was basically:-
Barrow agreed a 1 year contract to see how things would go. He enjoyed the training ground atmosphere and enjoyed working with Rickets. Rickets was happy with Barrow and asked the board to extend Barrows contract to end at the same time as his.
The board approved the request, formalised a new contract and offered it to Barrow. The deal was verbally done before the Shrewsbury fiasco.
The board were then legally tied to the contract.
Whilst Barrow initially said he didn't want to manage he changed his mind and said he wanted the job. Easy decision for the board to make. Barrow then appoints Newell.
3 weeks into the job experiencing the highs and lows of a 7 day a week job rather than amore relaxing 3 / 4 day part time position Barrow speaks to Spencer to inform him that it wasn't working for him and he would like to step down. He would stay on until the process of finding a new man was completed. The board looked at previous candidates and conducted interviews keeping Barrow informed. Bryan Hughes was interviewed last Sunday and was appointed a few days later.
Bryan wanted Barrow to stay on as assistant but that would have meant Barrow replacing Newell who he'd appointed. I believe that it was at this point that Barrow decided to go completely.

Must admit I got confuse over the Data Protection stuff which apparently stopped the WAFC board telling the trust board what was happening. It seems it's down to employer / employee confidentiality.

Meeting basically panned out as I expected. Telling questions not asked as the initial statement / address covered most of the issues that have been discussed on here.