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Marcos Bignot has written an article in the telegraph about how the women's game is far ahead of some league clubs in using sports science. He mentions how far behind Town are as a league club but fails to mention we were newly promoted from non league.

http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/grimsby-town-football-league-clubs-476938

I know we are trying to catch up but it takes time to get everything in place.

Its interesting you could easily argue this both ways, as a newly promoted club we fell behind because we put money into players to get us out of the league rather then sports science. You could also argue the other way the reason it took us so long to get out of the league was because we didn't invest in the sports science.

Interesting that he says the remit was to avoid relegation. If that is true, then I feel for him even more.

I can't believe that he didn't push for the playoffs just because he was told to avoid relegation and nothing else. I would have thought that avoiding relegation was no.1 priortry playoffs no.2 priortry.

Doesn't make sense not to want to go up.

Can we get Tom Bolarinwa to write an article on how he's played for the likes of Billericay, Bangkok, Udon Thani and Cray Wanderers but has never come across such poor coaching methods in his whole career? Bignot is an idiot and the womens game (funded by multi million pound premier league clubs) are welcome to him.

It also doesn't make sense to ignore modernising the club off the field , yet we have done that for years. That's one thing I'm certain bignot would have sorted.

Two sides to this obviously, we will know that cuts were made when we dropped out of the league and once your infrastructure falls behind then there's a significant cost in catching up. Problem arises when you haven't got the cash to catch-up.

Should never of been sacked

Quoted from Grim74

Should never of been sacked

What he said

The actual article and interview is on the set pieces. It also has the added bonus of being free from pop ups:

[url]https://thesetpieces.com/interviews/marcus-bignot-interview-bridging-gap-mens-womens-football/[/url]

Actually a very good and interesting article to read. I don't think he is bashing town for our facilities, just making the point that there should be more investment in these sectors and I don't think that is a point we can really argue with that much.

Hurst left because he was told he could have all this then told he could not,

Bignot was sacked unfairly ,

Slade at least has got it all in place now so he must have more influence with Fenty.

Lets move on upwards and onwards. :)

On what premise do you say that Bignot was sacked unfairly?

Do you have in depth knowledge of his sacking?

Has there been an acas tribunal for unfair dismissal?

The problem with this board is that every poster seems to have an opinion on the inner workings of the club that is based on little if any real evidence. Most of the threads at the moment are the same. "I think that this happened" when there is no proof or evidence to agree or disagree.

Quoted from 935

On what premise do you say that Bignot was sacked unfairly?

Do you have in depth knowledge of his sacking?

Has there been an acas tribunal for unfair dismissal?

The problem with this board is that every poster seems to have an opinion on the inner workings of the club that is based on little if any real evidence. Most of the threads at the moment are the same. "I think that this happened" when there is no proof or evidence to agree or disagree.

Just an opinion, but the reasons stated at the time suggested that there was more than football reasons behind this.

Quoted from 935

On what premise do you say that Bignot was sacked unfairly?

Do you have in depth knowledge of his sacking?

Has there been an acas tribunal for unfair dismissal?

The problem with this board is that every poster seems to have an opinion on the inner workings of the club that is based on little if any real evidence. Most of the threads at the moment are the same. "I think that this happened" when there is no proof or evidence to agree or disagree.

Yes it called a forum,i.e people express an opinion e.g. the venom with which attack you attack people who post on here leads me to believe you must be a very uptight individual,that is an opinion not a fact.

Despite the odd half decent performance anyone who saw the side under Bignot or listened to his continuous sh1te in the media should understand why he was ditched even if you didn't agree with the decision.

That article is quite patronising in that he thinks we are daft enough to believe that if a women's team sat in isolation and was not aligned to a decent sized club they would have all this facilities, they only have that because their male counterparts need it too.

The article is a pop at Town as well as a "come and get me" advert for the women's game, see full of sh1t.

Quoted from 935

On what premise do you say that Bignot was sacked unfairly?

Do you have in depth knowledge of his sacking?

Has there been an acas tribunal for unfair dismissal?

The problem with this board is that every poster seems to have an opinion on the inner workings of the club that is based on little if any real evidence. Most of the threads at the moment are the same. "I think that this happened" when there is no proof or evidence to agree or disagree.

I would argue that results on the pitch provide real evidence that he was sacked unfairly. His last game was a 3-1 away win at a team that got promoted a month later.

I thought it was surprising when Bignot was sacked as I thought he'd get until the end of the season at the very least. However, he seems to be suddenly becoming a better and better manager, the longer it get since he left.

Buckley summed it up well when I heard him commenting before one of the games. He didn't have a clue how Bignot wanted his team to play, what style they should be playing or how the various formations and line-ups tried were intended to work. Just the way I felt at the time and I can't help but think he was just trying anything he could in the hope rather than the expectation that something might just fall into place and work by sheer chance.

That said,some credit is due to him for making a few decent signings at the very least.

Quoted from friskneymariner

Yes it called a forum,i.e people express an opinion e.g. the venom with which attack you attack people who post on here leads me to believe you must be a very uptight individual,that is an opinion not a fact.

Its not that I m uptight, more I find it so frustrating, come on the forum to check out whats going on with the mariners and theres just so much negativity that comes from everyone's opinion... Like a viscous cycle, it just keeps going.

Theres reams of posts on the FAO Get your factsright thread, attacking John Fenty for almost everything. Here we re back to Bignot should never have been sacked and its all someone's fault. Any one who disagree's is a happy clapper. If half the guys posting there about fenty were gentleman, they d contact him and discuss their concerns sensibly, or turn up to fans forums and ask sensible questions. Instead we get that, quite honestly cringeworthy, situation where there were 25 people loosely chanting fenty out in the rain at accrington then haranguing him while he was getting into his car. The effect of which is nothing but negativity.

Honestly its not just frustrating, its sad. We re a small club in the fourth division with not much money. We should really stick together and beam some positivity but instead its this same old reactive anger that spews forth everytime we have a bad run. Bignot has gone, so has Hurst. Slade is manager for now, and we ve beaten two top 6 sides in the past week or so. John Fenty owns the club, until such a time that someone buys it off him, so instead of creating divisions and negativity why cant we all just support the club.

Meh potato potatoe, in my book if it looks like a duck, walks like and duck and sounds like a duck it is a duck.,so you would all like us to passive recipients of what is doled out to us and worship at the altar of St John.

To those who point out the connections SOME women's teams have with Prem outfits, re-read the bit in the set-piece article that points out that Birmingham Ladies didn't even have a connection with Birmingham City.

Bonkers he might have been but Bignot's results didn't justify a sacking. And if senior players were moaning about him the best way of dealing with them was to remind them who the manager was.

Where are those senior players now I ask myself.

Quoted from friskneymariner

Where are those senior players now I ask myself.

I would hazard a guess that the senior players who went to the board are ones that left. I am sure Slade will have discovered what happened for Bignot to get sacked and any players who did go to the board will have been seen as a potential problem for him further down the line.

This is not a criticism of Slade because if was manager I would remove these people too.

It may be that everyone offering Bignot support on this thread never thought he should have been sacked when he was but there was certainly a considerable volume of opinion on here and across social media suggesting the axe not only should have been wielded but even earlier than it was.
On the plus side there were excellent wins at Carlisle and Blackpool but there was at least as many monumentally poor performances. I remember the reaction to the Crewe defeat on here. It was the most embarrassing 45 minutes first half since the Halifax away game two years ago. The last half hour versus Stevenage away was in the words of a very much respected poster on here to me at the game akin to Sunday League where you try to chase the game by banging as many people up front as the substitute rules allow you. If Crewe wasn't enough he then committed the cardinal sin of in the words of countless posters on here and elsewhere of putting out an experimental team in arguably the biggest game of the season v Donny at home with an all too predictable result.
Many on here had their bullsh1tometers triggered within weeks as Bignot was identified as one who could "Talk the talk" but was somewhat less inclined to "walk the walk".
In a normal world he"d have got longer but in the rarefied atmosphere of 21st century pro. football I can see why he was finished. To say he was unfairly sacked given the stick he got is at best disingenuous.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

I would hazard a guess that the senior players who went to the board are ones that left. I am sure Slade will have discovered what happened for Bignot to get sacked and any players who did go to the board will have been seen as a potential problem for him further down the line.

This is not a criticism of Slade because if was manager I would remove these people too.

My feelings too.

Yes, I know I'm name dropping but.., I was having a beer with Ray Parlour when the Bignot sacking was announced. His immediate response was WTF has he done, that makes no sense at all. He's far more qualified than me in these matters.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Yes, I know I'm name dropping but.., I was having a beer with Ray Parlour when the Bignot sacking was announced. His immediate response was WTF has he done, that makes no sense at all. He's far more qualified than me in these matters.

Yes because he knows all about the ongoings at an obscure league 2 club. Most GTFC fans will know more about why Bignot was sacked than Ray Parlour. I think the general feeling amongst fans was shock but at the same time we knew it was coming

Did We? If it was another club, we'd be saying it was ridiculous and another weird decision in the crazy world of football.

Quoted from jaygy

Yes because he knows all about the ongoings at an obscure league 2 club. Most GTFC fans will know more about why Bignot was sacked than Ray Parlour. I think the general feeling amongst fans was shock but at the same time we knew it was coming

I have got no clue as to why Bignot was sacked

Quoted from mimma

I can't believe that he didn't push for the playoffs just because he was told to avoid relegation and nothing else. I would have thought that avoiding relegation was no.1 priortry playoffs no.2 priortry.

Doesn't make sense not to want to go up.

JF's only publicly declared target for last season was to stay in the League, that was announced at the start of the season......Hurst likewise towed the party line and followed suit with the same statement...no mention of even play offs would be nice, any wonder we didnt set the League alight.
Bignot therefore couldnt have had any other target set and by the time we were safe did he then take time to rotate and evaluate the squad by trying all sorts of formations and line ups thinking it didnt matter on results but learning about players was key ?

While i didnt hold much faith in Bignot's chances of success if he had stayed i do truly believe that he was expecting to be given support to invest in the infrastructure and backroom to build and develop "the project/plan" for long term sustainability. He did mention plenty of times about sport science and the further development of those at the difficult 18-21 phase, players like Wright, Clifton, Venney.
JF initially also referred to the plan , long term, etc at initial appointment....which then by the time Bignot was sacked and Slade appointed, had turned into getting ready for promotion push this season and not in the long term.
There was in the middle that slightly awkward moment at the fans forum where they sniped at each other on the subject of fitness/sports science....was that the moment the cracks appeared and MB's future at the BP was sealed ?

Quoted from jaygy

Yes because he knows all about the ongoings at an obscure league 2 club. Most GTFC fans will know more about why Bignot was sacked than Ray Parlour. I think the general feeling amongst fans was shock but at the same time we knew it was coming

Ray knows more about how football clubs are run than you or ever will. Since we became neighbours then friends, he has taken a lot of interest in GTFC, and could not get his head around the circumstances leading to Bignot 's departure

The moment that Bignot's fate was sealed was when Slade became available.

So are you implying that people saying Bignot shouldn't have been sacked have changed their tune Barra?

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Ray knows more about how football clubs are run than you or ever will. Since we became neighbours then friends, he has taken a lot of interest in GTFC, and could not get his head around the circumstances leading to Bignot 's departure

Parlour lives in Nunsthorpe?

I have said before that it wasn't an unmitigated failure. His proportion of good signings was better than Slade's had been so far. Jones, Osborne, Clements, Asante and even Dyson when he was here were upgrades on previous players. He did give us those excellent performances at Carlisle, Blackpool at home to Mansfield and most notably Plymouth (which was brilliant).

However, his man management was shocking, that shambles involving Macca at Stevenage and the Henderson bus situation was cringeworthy and amateurish. His team selections were usually baffling, often playing Comley and Clements out wide. The Donny selection stands out, he played Boyce and Gunning at centre half against the best striker in the league (Marquis) and it was clear that we'd never be able to cope. He signed 18 midfielders and let two wide players leave us on loan and he didn't replace us, leaving us often playing one dimensionally.

The interviews were even more amateurish and confusing. He contradicted himself even within them and I never remember him saying anything interesting and I knew the humour (such as the BP) would wear thin eventually. My bullshit-o-meter went into overdrive almost immediately and it was abundantly clear that he wasn't quie the full ticket. He had his heart in the right place and had a vision to take the club forward on and off the pitch but he was out of his depth.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Ray knows more about how football clubs are run than you or ever will. Since we became neighbours then friends, he has taken a lot of interest in GTFC, and could not get his head around the circumstances leading to Bignot 's departure

"Football Friends".

Chill your beef mate, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Ask Ray to lend me 100k so I can buy some seats for Darlington. I'll get him a parmo when he's next up north.

Quoted from realist

Parlour lives in Nunsthorpe?

Hehe- no! I could give you his Portuguese address and phone number though!

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Yes, I know I'm name dropping but.., I was having a beer with Ray Parlour when the Bignot sacking was announced. His immediate response was WTF has he done, that makes no sense at all. He's far more qualified than me in these matters.

You were boozing it up with The Romford Pele? ;)

Quoted from barralad

It may be that everyone offering Bignot support on this thread never thought he should have been sacked when he was but there was certainly a considerable volume of opinion on here and across social media suggesting the axe not only should have been wielded but even earlier than it was.
On the plus side there were excellent wins at Carlisle and Blackpool but there was at least as many monumentally poor performances. I remember the reaction to the Crewe defeat on here. It was the most embarrassing 45 minutes first half since the Halifax away game two years ago. The last half hour versus Stevenage away was in the words of a very much respected poster on here to me at the game akin to Sunday League where you try to chase the game by banging as many people up front as the substitute rules allow you. If Crewe wasn't enough he then committed the cardinal sin of in the words of countless posters on here and elsewhere of putting out an experimental team in arguably the biggest game of the season v Donny at home with an all too predictable result.
Many on here had their bullsh1tometers triggered within weeks as Bignot was identified as one who could "Talk the talk" but was somewhat less inclined to "walk the walk".
In a normal world he"d have got longer but in the rarefied atmosphere of 21st century pro. football I can see why he was finished. To say he was unfairly sacked given the stick he got is at best disingenuous.

Talk about re-writing history I think I am right in saying when news was announced that Bignot had been sacked it took everyone by surprise,anymore revisionist theories?

Quoted from chaos33

You were boozing it up with The Romford Pele? ;)

Yes, top bloke. Probably the most knowledgeable football person but daft as a brush.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Yes, top bloke. Probably the most knowledgeable football person but daft as a brush.

I am currently(rather coincidentally) halfway through his autobiography, it's been keeping me busy the last couple of night shifts. Seems a top guy and very knowledgeable but like I said I do believe most fans understood Fentys decision even if it did come as a shock

Quoted from jaygy

I am currently(rather coincidentally) halfway through his autobiography, it's been keeping me busy the last couple of night shifts. Seems a top guy and very knowledgeable but like I said I do believe most fans understood Fentys decision even if it did come as a shock

Remember that Ray comes from a club that is reluctant to change and you can understand why he found it strange. As far as he was concerned, Fenty appointed in October, gave money in January, sacked early April = strange!

Quoted from friskneymariner

Talk about re-writing history I think I am right in saying when news was announced that Bignot had been sacked it took everyone by surprise,anymore revisionist theories?

People being surprised doesn't necessarily mean that they all thought it was a bad idea as a quick resume of the 29 page Bignot Sacked thread would show you. It's hardly relevant though because what I'm saying is that plenty of contributors on here voiced opinions pretty quickly that Mr Bignot wasn't all he was cracked up to be. The rewriting of history is being carried out on this thread as Marcus is now being portrayed in certain quarters as someone who should've been beyond reproach. I'm pointing out that throughout his short tenure there was as much negative stuff written about him as positive. And before you ask you may be among the people who saw nothing but good in Bignot from Day 1. I didn't check but it was why I qualified my previous post.

I neither saw all good nor all bad,but after the dourness of Hurst he was a change,his record was no worse than Slade's should not the same logic apply.

The fact that he was prepared to say we were not up to speed regarding infrastructure probably says all we needed to know. If we weren't, then surely he made the board aware at that time. If he didn't, then it's his own fault that it ended the way it did.

Quoted from friskneymariner

I neither saw all good nor all bad,but after the dourness of Hurst he was a change,his record was no worse than Slade's should not the same logic apply.

Personally I didn't think Bignot had been given enough time. I was surprised at the timing. Were we currently debating Slade's sacking I suspect the thread would look pretty similar to this one because the same criteria would apply. I've seen every match in Slade's 2nd spell except Chesterfield and the game at Accrington the other night (perhaps there's a pattern developing there!) and I've yet to see anything as good as Mansfield at home under Bignot or as bad as the Donny game or Crewe away under him.

I still think the performance against Doncaster at home was the death nell for Bignot's job. He said in the previous interview to that game how it was practically impossible to get into the playoffs but as a matter of fact it was possible, but you have to fight to the end. Though he deemed it necessary to make many changes that game.

I work in Women's football and for me the difference is there is no money chasing in Women's football. Other than the top clubs who pay some money and look for success it's a much less tainted area of the sport where as an example where Town need to deal with agents and journeymen with excessive wage demands etc. Women's teams are more likely to bring in the likes of sports science people to improve what they have.
I think there are more forward thinking people in the Women's game but if it became a lot bigger then I imagine they would have similar problems.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Yes, I know I'm name dropping but.., I was having a beer with Ray Parlour when the Bignot sacking was announced. His immediate response was WTF has he done, that makes no sense at all. He's far more qualified than me in these matters.

I met Ray last year too at very crappy corporate function. He gave a really good speech then stayed for lunch which was after the time we had booked him for and gave everyone who was interested really good time & attention, very friendly, approachable and warm a real genuine normal bloke unlike author of said article.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Ray knows more about how football clubs are run than you or ever will. Since we became neighbours then friends, he has taken a lot of interest in GTFC, and could not get his head around the circumstances leading to Bignot 's departure

Interesting old codger. I was talking to my old mate becks, over the garden hedge the other day ,and he said how shocked he was. Big Sam was round at the time and said he heard rumours so wasn't completely surprised

I know some of why he was sacked and it's totally a good call. He's a flipping idiot.

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

I know some of why he was sacked and it's totally a good call. He's a flipping idiot.

I was told some things by some very good sources and I have to concur.we had a narrow escape.well done jf...........and that's not something I say very often!

Come on guys spill the beans!

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Come on guys spill the beans!

Hmmm. Senior players bemused/shocked by naivety. Training schedules more suited to under 13s. Bignot speaking with forked tongue;1 speech to,the players, something completely opposite to the media. Coaching made up on the hoof with reference to training drills looked up on by mobiles as they went along. Fans invited down by pros just so they could witness's the chaos that was ensuing.
Senior players refusing to sign extensions until he'd gone.
He may well come good in years to cone, but this was too big a step too soon.as I said we had a lucky escape