MacDonald Out.

[KevinGage]

Wasn't there an incident in recent years when one of our players picked up a really bad training ground injury, and there was some controversy about how it had happened?

I know that sounds vague and is almost certainly not connected to this nonsense, but i remembered it reading these articles and couldn't for the life of me remember who it was.

Ciaran Clark wasn't it?

[LeeB]

Was it Clarke or someone else?

[BC Villain]

What I don't get is why anyone ever thought this was the way to produce top quality footballers.  And if McDonald didn't think that, why was he doing it?  Because that's the way things were then?  No, I'm not buying that.

The 'school of hard knocks' thing has always been a load of cobblers anyway.

Totally agree.  You wonder as well if about other coaches and the management at the time.  Did they have any idea that this was happening and just looked the other way?  A penny for Sir Brian's thoughts, as I'm sure both of them came to the club with him from Leicester

[curiousorange]

Wasn't there an incident in recent years when one of our players picked up a really bad training ground injury, and there was some controversy about how it had happened?

I know that sounds vague and is almost certainly not connected to this nonsense, but i remembered it reading these articles and couldn't for the life of me remember who it was.

Ciaran Clark wasn't it?

I seem to recall it was that somebody went into a tackle and crocked another player. Wasn't Benteke injured that way?

[dave.woodhall]

Wasn't there an incident in recent years when one of our players picked up a really bad training ground injury, and there was some controversy about how it had happened?

I know that sounds vague and is almost certainly not connected to this nonsense, but i remembered it reading these articles and couldn't for the life of me remember who it was.

Ciaran Clark wasn't it?

I seem to recall it was that somebody went into a tackle and crocked another player. Wasn't Benteke injured that way?

Wasn't it Libor Kozak?

[purpletrousers]

Perhaps finally we are getting to the rot deep in the club.
To have harmed our prospects, most importantly is the individuals who suffered. Yet sum up the collective lack of youth progression/development allied to misguided naive owners not getting in the right leaders, and you find why we’ve sunk so far.

How heartbreaking to have made it that far and have your dreams so horribly given a good kicking by those charged with making them manifest.

If any of those lads read this, I’m sorry you went through this.

We as a society are collectively judging prior incident by current moral standards, of course “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

It can never be put right, yet justice must be done.

[algy]

We as a society are collectively judging prior incident by current moral standards, of course “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Seen this sentiment a couple of times here. My 2p worth is that you are right, you have to be a bit careful on judging any action, particularly something that's happened long ago ... but even in the distant past of the 1990s I'm not sure this sort of behaviour would be either acceptable or could be excused.

You know, the odd thing - fine, forgive and forget. Good example was BFR's racist comment a bit back. His actions for the 30odd years before it suggest he's probably not a racist. Fair enough, suspend him, that language isn't acceptable now in any context. But give the guy a break, he's not the devil incarnate.

KMac - ok, he's "old school" whatever that means. He gets a bit of leeway with saying and doing the odd thing as long as it's out of his general character.

But, he's not just had a momentary slip of judgement there by the sounds of it. Theres no way that sending multiple boys - and the ages we're taking about, these aren't fully grown men - in to a state of depression was ok then, or seemed ok then. Making challenges that would get you a red card in a match clearly aren't acceptable. It's not as if the coach wouldn't be aware of the rules of the game. It's physical assault, and would've been seen as physical assault at the time.

 If what's been said is true, and it does look that way, the man should not be working with ... well, people in general. There's no excuse for destroying one person's life, let alone doing it at the scale that seems to have happened. I'm all for letting the odd thing slide, but this is clearly not something that can be let slide.

Not surprising it's taken so long to come out given the atmosphere that must've been created, and the ages of the boys concerned. Not that it's acceptable at any age, of course.

[Risso]

We as a society are collectively judging prior incident by current moral standards, of course “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Seen this sentiment a couple of times here. My 2p worth is that you are right, you have to be a bit careful on judging any action, particularly something that's happened long ago ... but even in the distant past of the 1990s I'm not sure this sort of behaviour would be either acceptable or could be excused.

You know, the odd thing - fine, forgive and forget. Good example was BFR's racist comment a bit back. His actions for the 30odd years before it suggest he's probably not a racist. Fair enough, suspend him, that language isn't acceptable now in any context. But give the guy a break, he's not the devil incarnate.

KMac - ok, he's "old school" whatever that means. He gets a bit of leeway with saying and doing the odd thing as long as it's out of his general character.

But, he's not just had a momentary slip of judgement there by the sounds of it. Theres no way that sending multiple boys - and the ages we're taking about, these aren't fully grown men - in to a state of depression was ok then, or seemed ok then. Making challenges that would get you a red card in a match clearly aren't acceptable. It's not as if the coach wouldn't be aware of the rules of the game. It's physical assault, and would've been seen as physical assault at the time.

 If what's been said is true, and it does look that way, the man should not be working with ... well, people in general. There's no excuse for destroying one person's life, let alone doing it at the scale that seems to have happened. I'm all for letting the odd thing slide, but this is clearly not something that can be let slide.

Not surprising it's taken so long to come out given the atmosphere that must've been created, and the ages of the boys concerned. Not that it's acceptable at any age, of course.

I think you're spot on with all that.  It's not like the 1990s were the 1950s and I don't think attitudes were that much different 20 years ago.  MacDonald is clearly a nasty so and so, and quite why he's still at the club in any sort of capacity is beyond me.

[kippaxvilla2]

He is under investigation following an allegation made by a former player.  As much as I don't like the bloke for the Tottenham line up, he is still innocent until proven guilty.  We have hired a barrister to investigate it.

[kippaxvilla2]

Wasn't there an incident in recent years when one of our players picked up a really bad training ground injury, and there was some controversy about how it had happened?

I know that sounds vague and is almost certainly not connected to this nonsense, but i remembered it reading these articles and couldn't for the life of me remember who it was.

Ciaran Clark wasn't it?

Ciaran Clark broke Kozak's leg in training.

[themossman]

As mentioned above the moral equivalence argument might, MIGHT have some heft if he was pulling that shit in the 1950s, not in the 1990s.

Imagine if you heard about a teacher behaving like that. Why is it any different? We were responsible for the welfare of young people over whom we had an enormous amount of power.

There seems to have been an underlying sense of it’s a man’s world so you’re expected to ‘deal with’ some pathetic old man calling you a c***. Shows how football is still a safe space for toxic masculinity.

[Small Rodent]

He is under investigation following an allegation made by a former player.  As much as I don't like the bloke for the Tottenham line up, he is still innocent until proven guilty.  We have hired a barrister to investigate it.

In many ways, the "Tottenham line-up" could be argued as symptomatic of an aggressive attitude that might be part of a bullying persona. Or not.

[stuart445]

We as a society are collectively judging prior incident by current moral standards, of course “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Seen this sentiment a couple of times here. My 2p worth is that you are right, you have to be a bit careful on judging any action, particularly something that's happened long ago ... but even in the distant past of the 1990s I'm not sure this sort of behaviour would be either acceptable or could be excused.

You know, the odd thing - fine, forgive and forget. Good example was BFR's racist comment a bit back. His actions for the 30odd years before it suggest he's probably not a racist. Fair enough, suspend him, that language isn't acceptable now in any context. But give the guy a break, he's not the devil incarnate.

KMac - ok, he's "old school" whatever that means. He gets a bit of leeway with saying and doing the odd thing as long as it's out of his general character.

But, he's not just had a momentary slip of judgement there by the sounds of it. Theres no way that sending multiple boys - and the ages we're taking about, these aren't fully grown men - in to a state of depression was ok then, or seemed ok then. Making challenges that would get you a red card in a match clearly aren't acceptable. It's not as if the coach wouldn't be aware of the rules of the game. It's physical assault, and would've been seen as physical assault at the time.

 If what's been said is true, and it does look that way, the man should not be working with ... well, people in general. There's no excuse for destroying one person's life, let alone doing it at the scale that seems to have happened. I'm all for letting the odd thing slide, but this is clearly not something that can be let slide.

Not surprising it's taken so long to come out given the atmosphere that must've been created, and the ages of the boys concerned. Not that it's acceptable at any age, of course.

I agree with everything you said apart from the BFR bit, I can have an unblemished record in my job and be extremely racial friendly but if I was to make the same comment Big Ron did then I'd be sacked. So why should Big Ron be any different?

[paul_e]

He is under investigation following an allegation made by a former player.  As much as I don't like the bloke for the Tottenham line up, he is still innocent until proven guilty.  We have hired a barrister to investigate it.

Let's not forget he's already been found guilty of something very similar in an investigation, and that was 3 years ago so the whole "it's was a different time" argument doesn't wash either. I'd be amazed if he's not out on his arse as soon as this inquiry finishes.

[Ger Regan]

It's shite, and they're probably following the way the were raised in the ranks themselves in the 70's-80's. But we're talking over 20 years ago, in a culture where Ferguson could kick a boot at David Beckham, call his players everything under the son and be worshipped, or Barry Fry is seen as a somewhat amusing clown figure in some corners. Doesn't excuse grown men suffering from severe cases of toxic masculinity, but this was probably rife, throughout professional football. Yeah, by all means, if someone comes in from more recent times and accuses him over severe bullying, he'd have to go. But players getting called a Berkshire hunt over 20 years ago? We fire him and it sets a dangerous precedent I think for retrospective punishments. Jesus, look at Wimbledon. A ten year span, probably more and you could lock up the entire first team probably. It's historically been the English approach to coaching young players, up until the last decade or so. If things are changing, brilliant. Great. But this is the culture that used to see dads at kids football games shouting obscenities in the presence of 30 kids on the pitch and touchline.
What can be done about that? If they were more forthright about it back then they might have seen some action take place. If they were ignored, that would have been a failing on the clubs part.   

Some of the claims are from 2015 / 2016, so the "different era" argument falls flat.[Edit - missed the previous responses] Absolutely shameful stuff from the club here.