Popular stand article on Doherty's departure.

[graingrover]

 I highly recommend the latest John Coyle article in Pop Stand detailing the events surrounding the departure of Peter Doherty. For our older forum members in particular I would say that Hubert Bates did as much damage to our club as Richardson .Bates'  sectarian comments not only resulted in Doherty leaving but opened the door to the departure of our best players including the irreplacable Bert Tindill.

              The club went straight into free fall and didd not recover it's status for another 50 years . 

[The Red Baron]

Link

http://popularstand.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/in-the-hot-seat-doncaster-rovers-managers-no-6-syd-bycroft-and-jack-hodgson/

[Dutch Uncle]

Many thanks for that Grainge & TRB, a timely reminder of the instability within the club at the time leading to the only double consecutive relegation in our history.

We all need to pull together at this point, from boardroom to manager to players to fans. As far as fans are concerned, any ideas/expectations of us being amongst the favourites for an immediate return need to be based on more than just our performance 2 years ago which IMHO vastly exceeded all reasonable expectations. We will know more in August when we see who has stayed and who is coming in.

COYR

 

[Lifelong supporter]

I highly recommend the latest John Coyle article in Pop Stand detailing the events surrounding the departure of Peter Doherty. For our older forum members in particular I would say that Hubert Bates did as much damage to our club as Richardson .Bates'  sectarian comments not only resulted in Doherty leaving but opened the door to the departure of our best players including the irreplacable Bert Tindill.

              The club went straight into free fall and didd not recover it's status for another 50 years .

Can't agree with that assertion at all, I'm afraid.
Bates was certainly not the best director the club ever had and I still remember supporters howling for him to get out at several home matches.
But I think he always tried to act in what he thought were the best interests of the club - however misguided.
Don't think the same could be said about Richardson who was in a different league altogether.

[The Red Baron]

It is true that Hubert Bates was not an asset stripper, unlike Richardson, but he was probably Rovers' most influential director over a period where the club experienced a serious decline. Not only does Bates' involvement in Peter Doherty's departure do him little credit, but he was a member of a board who appointed a succession of short-term managers in the 1960s. Few if any had previous managerial experience and at least two (Norman Curtis and Bill Leivers) complained of interference after they left the club.

John Ryan correctly identified Frank Wilson as one of the best chairmen the Rovers had in recent times, and his arrival on the board co-incided with a period of relative success, including the 1968-69 Division Four title. However, Wilson ended up resigning because of the lack of support from his boardroom colleagues, who included Hubert Bates.

Yes, Bates was not a crook or an asset-stripper, but he was a very poor director and a lot of the blame for Rovers period in the wilderness from 1958 until the early 1980s can be laid at his door. 

[graingrover]

. I  remember the feeling of gloom and doom around the club at that juncture . The departure of Harry Gregg , loss of Alick to injury , then Doherty taking Tindill with him to Bristol City followed by consecutive demotions blew the platform from under us.The first team disintegrated .

 As a Junior at the club I witnessed  the lack of professionalism directly as it was reflected in the abysmal coaching and training we suffered throughout the four teams ( first, reserves, A team and Northern Intermediates) When the successful Donny boys team arrived 'en bloc' they  regretted the step down they experienced and the club did not succeed in nurturing them ( Billings and Fairhurst excepted to some extent).

      Teams come and go but the club's ethos and standards are dictated by those at the very top .     

[The Red Baron]

Brian- I don't suppose the rapid turnover of managers helped a great deal. Also, nearly all of them had no previous experience of managing, certainly not at League level.

My take on this is that the Board at the time preferred player-managers or those with little experience because they would be easier to control over matters like team selection and the sale of players. Hubert Bates, who was chairman by the mid-60s, was certanly subjected to a lot of abuse from the crowd following the sales of Tony Coleman and Laurie Sheffield, although ulitmately it was the player-manager, Keith Kettleborough, who carried the can.

When I started going to watch Rovers in 1969 my dad and I were told by a neighbour that Rovers "changed their manager every five minutes and sold all their best players." That could serve as an epitaph for the Jack Garnham/ Hubert Bates boardroom regime.

[BobG]

One of the very few things that could make my old Dad go red in the face was a mention of Hubert Bates. My Dad, a bright, thoughtful and experienced bloke, loathed Hubert with a passion. In fact I can only think of two other people he disliked as much - and one of them was Maggie Thatcher. he used become almost apoplectic when discussing Bates and his baleful influence on the Rovers.

I wasn't there, but based on what my Dad used to tell me, Bates was a close second to Richardson. The methods may have been different - but they both nigh on destroyed this club. Indeed without Bates Richardson would never have happened.

BobG