lunarjetman":2957ei1d said:
He shouldn't have used Argyle's Official Site for this statement but I do sympathise with Ridsdale.
People are continually complaining about him and implying that he is corrupt and greedy.
In actual fact, he has probably saved Argyle from oblivian. Yes- for a salary, and yes he likes everyone to know how marvellous he is. But so what ? Without Ridsdale there might have been no football club.
Remember that James Brent thought that Argyle's chances of survival were 10% earlier this year. A number of people "in the know" are saying that Ridsdale has done a good job here. Without Ridsdale's efforts, I doubt that the Brent takeover would be happening right now.
I think he has done little wrong at Argyle to deserve such criticism.
Ridsdale does what’s best for Ridsdale i.e. to further his own personal aims and ambitions. If that happens to coincide with our interest then great – if not then look out! When he first arrived ‘on holiday’ the rats were leaving a sinking ship and he spotted a golden opportunity to get his hands on a football club. Stage one meant fighting off HMRC and buying the club time to recover. That was certainly in our interests so I’m perfectly willing to believe those who say he helped save the club and for that we are in his debt.
Stage two meant finding a buyer that maximised his own chances of taking personal control with the help of a ‘friendly’ administrator. Frankly I don’t believe a word of his now stated preference for Brent – he threw his whole weight behind the BIL bid (right down to the company registration in his home town) and consistently backed the Guilfoyle line about it being the only real option. That’s the one option that just happened to hand him the keys to the club for £1. THAT was definitely not in our interest and damned near ended our existence and may still result in us dropping out of the Football league. Even when it was blatantly obvious Heaney & co. were not going to deliver instead of forcing the issue to get the Brent bid back in the frame he was jetting off desperately trying to find other exceedingly dodgy ‘investors’ that might salvage his chance of getting control. Utterly disgraceful. So if he did save us when it suited him he didn’t bat an eye at risking everything when it didn’t. Even now he wrings the last bit of PR he can out the club for himself.
The sooner he clears off the better.
