Callum Huxley

[Phils-an-alki]

Originally Posted by dixienormous

Correct me if I'm wrong but the people there now have nothing to with what went on there.

Gradi was still there when it all came out, until he was suspended.

[tokyored]

Originally Posted by dixienormous

Correct me if I'm wrong but the people there now have nothing to with what went on there.

The chairman has been there since 1980. I'm sure he's claimed he never even heard the slightest rumour of abuse despite people claiming they reported it to the board.

[GarryOggy]

Originally Posted by Phils-an-alki

To be fair he is right. They are a disgrace. They knew full well what was going on because they were told directly several times. Got severe doubts about Gradi's claims and his role in it all too.

Thank you Phil

[Phils-an-alki]

Originally Posted by tokyored

The chairman has been there since 1980. I'm sure he's claimed he never even heard the slightest rumour of abuse despite people claiming they reported it to the board.

On the board from 1980 and chairman from 1987

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football...quiry-totally/

Reckons he knew nothing about the claims despite several parents claiming otherwise. I know who I believe!

[Funny_Old_Game]

You only have to look at those specs Gradi wears to be honest.
Posted via mobile theme

[dixienormous]

Jesus.

But the question is what did these people know about what was going on?

[davewilli]

Originally Posted by Inside Left

There is new blood there now including fan share representatives. Unfair to compare with that period in the clubs history with the current progressive set up.

True, although there is still a nervousness there regarding further allegations coming out but credit to them they still punch above their weight up there with the PL clubs when it comes to their academy. It did look like the bottom was going to fall out with player sales declining even before the scandal but it has survived and hit a purple patch. Crewe fans have to be very tolerant with some of the young players in the first team and they are the investment and accept players need to be sold regularly to fund the very expensive academy, but over the decades it has been the making of Crewe.

Gradi was suspended for his involvement at Chelsea with a case there and I don't think he has faced any allegations regarding Crewe. He did vow to clear his name but it has all gone quiet.

The rumours were rife back in the day and I have a number of good friends who were in and around the youth set up as young lads. Thinking back they recall things happening but innocently didn't think anything of them at the time but is clear to them now.

[louisleftboot]

Originally Posted by dixienormous

Jesus.

But the question is what did these people know about what was going on?

A lot more than they are letting on I'd be willing to be bet.

Did Gradi suspect the same of Bennell? And, perhaps more pertinently, if not, why not? Gradi, the inquiry has been told, was so protective of Bennell he allegedly flew into a temper when he was informed, according to one account, that Crewe’s directors wanted to stop the club’s youth-team coach taking boys home to stay overnight. Gradi, like Bennell, kept bunk beds at home to accommodate Crewe’s academy players. “What are you going to do about me, then?” Gradi is said to have asked the chairman, John Bowler. “I take kids home.” That, allegedly, was the key intervention, meaning Bennell was free to continue preying on boys at the house where he kept a monkey, a wild cat, a juke box, games machines and other attractions.

Gradi, then the first-team manager, had modified his own house to accommodate boys. Indeed, he needed a people carrier to ferry them all around and, although this is far from an easy subject to address, it has been made clear to the people leading this case why so much innuendo and suspicion has followed him throughout his professional life. “You’d always see him with his arm around a blond boy,” one former Crewe academy player has told the inquiry. “He used to prefer blond boys. He had dressing gowns with the [boys’] initials on. He had a [swimming] pool that was built so it was a certain level for young boys to play in.” Gradi used to take boys on holidays and, it is claimed, had to be talked out of resigning after one game because of some pointed barracking from a number of Crewe fans behind his dugout.

Gradi has been called Mr Crewe in the past because of his long association and influence at a club that size. But how can he say the club did not have concerns about Bennell when Ken Barnes, then Manchester City’s chief scout, went on record in the 1997 Dispatches documentary Soccer’s Foul Play to say that Bowler’s predecessor, the now‑deceased Norman Rowlinson, rang him for advice because Crewe “had one or two reports of him mucking about with kids”? Does Gradi recall another incident that has been officially recorded, namely of him finding Bennell with an academy player on his knee at Crewe’s training ground and allegedly doing nothing about it? And if Bennell was notorious enough to be banned from attending matches in the Manchester Youth Sunday Football League, even being forcibly removed from one fixture, why were the alarm bells not ringing 35 miles south in Crewe?

[Phils-an-alki]

Gradi is up to his neck in it. No doubt about it. So are Crewe because they did nothing to stop it.
How Gradi has got away with this is beyond me. Everything suggests he's a wrong un too.