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Charlie Methven


Be better off with William Storey!

Remember Charlie taking the Mic pre-match in the Black Cats Bar one week, Micky Shush Shush explaining how privileged we were to have 5 minutes of his time.

He proceeded to basically take the piss out the fans, calling them clueless and delusional for want to daring to suggest that a club of our stature should be playing the likes of Man City at the SOL instead of whoever we were playing in L1 that day.....I mean the Prem seemed a long way off at that point, but him and the other clown were there to sell us that vision with a plan, not belittle those who thought it.

An absolute tatey!
 
Tin hat on.

I think people conflate Methven with Donald's crimes against the club, probably because as personalities go, an overly confident old Etonian in pink trousers loudly and condescendingly lecturing fans on business in a braying home counties accent is about the worst one you could have to run Sunderland football club.

The issue with that takeover is that a bloke with a bit of cash (but nowhere near enough to own a top 50 club) and some experience of non league football took a punt on a club that had a serious culture problem and was haemorrhaging money as it bombed through the leagues. This was done on the basis that we were too big to stay in league 1 for more than a season (a serious miscalculation), and was compounded by a few misleading statements and breathtakingly poor decisions.

Methven was painted as a co-investor, but his investment seemed to be mostly sweat equity - ie he got a stake in the club in return for being its CEO. As much as he rubbed people up the wrong way, he did make some much needed changes to turn the club around and halt the decline. Most of the worst decisions made in that period were driven by Donald rather than Methven.

He has since had involvement at a couple of other clubs. As far as League 1 turnarounds go, he has plenty of relevant experience, and there are much worse options than him as CEO and Chairmen throughout the sport.

Just my opinion from what I saw, heard and read at the time. I do not have any inside knowledge.
 
Vauxie said:
Aye, but who were they and where are they now, keep reading about this claim but there is never any factual stuff.
So CM and SD sold off these young lads and pocketed the money?

Pipe down,whoever you are, you have no clue.
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Sam Greenwood has had a decent career in the Championship (and scored against us), plus 25 appearances in the Premier League. Now playing in Poland

Bali Mumba - Played in the Premier League for Norwich, won League One at Plymouth and had a couple of seasons in the Championship. Now at Huddersfield

James McConnell - Played in the Premier League and Champions League for Liverpool and spent time on loan at Ajax this season

Otherwise most have done very little. Don't think that is the point though, they were highly rated enough for Premier League clubs to take them on and we had a pathway into the first team to develop them but let them go for pennies whilst giving out contracts to players who were generally hopeless and would drop down the leagues after leaving. It was short-termism - push them out the door to get a couple of hundred grand up front whilst paying wages to McFazdean, Lynch, De Bock, etc. We sold Mumba for £350k who has twice moved on for £1m since.
 
Definitely Maybe said:
Sam Greenwood has had a decent career in the Championship (and scored against us), plus 25 appearances in the Premier League. Now playing in Poland

Bali Mumba - Played in the Premier League for Norwich, won League One at Plymouth and had a couple of seasons in the Championship. Now at Huddersfield

James McConnell - Played in the Premier League and Champions League for Liverpool and spent time on loan at Ajax this season

Otherwise most have done very little. Don't think that is the point though, they were highly rated enough for Premier League clubs to take them on and we had a pathway into the first team to develop them but let them go for pennies whilst giving out contracts to players who were generally hopeless and would drop down the leagues after leaving. It was short-termism - push them out the door to get a couple of hundred grand up front whilst paying wages to McFazdean, Lynch, De Bock, etc. We sold Mumba for £350k who has twice moved on for £1m since.
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So keeping them would have got us back up quicker?
 
lowesie1 said:
Where do you think the club would be now if him and Donald were still in charge?
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In a worse place - without question, but that's not really my point.

I get things right, I get things wrong, I might just have a different opinion, but I think maybe we needed a clearout and that the ownership of that time was effective in doing so, but in the long term the value was to make us more investable moving forward. There is no doubt they werent right to take us into the Premier League.
 
Definitely Maybe said:
Impossible to say really isn't it? I'm not sure any one decision was the sole difference between getting promoted and not going up. It doesn't vindicate the decision though.
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Selling Josh Maja and not giving him the contract offer he was looking for and signing Will Grigg for more than we would ever have had to pay Maja to keep him, think that was the one decision that made a massive difference in Promotion / Staying Down.
 
makumstu said:
Selling Josh Maja and not giving him the contract offer he was looking for and signing Will Grigg for more than we would ever have had to pay Maja to keep him, think that was the one decision that made a massive difference in Promotion / Staying Down.
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I get that - even then though I think we only actually spent a total of one week in the top 2 when Maja was here. There's a bit of a myth that we were flying then fell away once we left. We did eventually fall away but it was during the run in after we gone level with Barnsley in 2nd with 7 games left and two games in hand. We drew a shitload of games with Maja and a shitload without.

The Maja situation was handled terribly but it was a difficult one to manage still - he'd done nothing for us before that season, started the season by default as we wanted Wyke as first choice striker but he was injured, he got off to a blistering start and kept scoring and by the time we sat him down to discuss a contract the vultures were already swooping. I knew someone with a very tenuous connection to one of the players at the time who said back in September Maja openly wasn't signing a new contract, he already had offers way in excess of what we could afford. Yet Donald was on the radio in December telling everyone he'd sign. The Grigg signing was shambolic, again Donald had been telling everyone on Twitter we'd sign a proven goalscorer and backed himself into a corner.
 
ibahjanner said:
Last Saturday he was down at Argyle along with John Macevoy and one other. Obviously lots of rumours that he has a group together to take over Argyle with him already having already gone over things like the new academy being constructed. My question is what can we expect if he takes over and is it a good or bad move. Just wishing to know your opinions Good or Bad
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Expect to be insulted as a community, lied to and blamed when it goes tits up.
Enjoy the ride.
 
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