Luther 'disgusted' By Club's 'shameful Pr'

Quite possibly. In which case he will have diminished still further in my estimations and I will need to invest in some plastic underwear and bed sheets.

 

Absolute f**king car crash.

We’re currently the equivalent of sideshow Bob stepping on rake after rake straight into his face.

 

I like the sound of the rake.
Could he play up front?

 

Solid four pronged attack.

 

Excellent.
You were a good sweet too Chewitt,what happened to you?

 

I had a good run

 

I love that scene

 

I love Luther and feel sad that that the tabloid scum rattled him so much that the nickname still hurts him all these years later.

We know it is a complete and utter nonsense, and rightfully laud his many achievements. But there is a generation of fans that only associate Luther with that name.

Imagine, an entire successful career reduced to two words that will follow him to the grave.

It probably hasn't been mentioned in decades. And the club to bring it up after all this time is WFC. It's unforgivable, really. It's beyond belief.

 

If he does he's effin hopeless at his job. I knew the whole family and they're Watford through and through but to think he's anyone more than an employee is deluded.

 

Who is deluded? Dave Messenger? I don't think he thinks he's any more than an employee - thats not been alluded to.

He's a decent bloke who is very good at his job from what I know and hear. The club could do with plenty more like him behind the scenes as far as I'm concerned.

 

I’ve got it. Burnsy is really Dave Messenger. He’s planning to have a serious word with himself.

 

What next? An interview with Xisco where they mention the nicknames GT received?

The club should be acutely aware of how moronic headlines by newspapers have impacted people closest to this club and by extension the fans who care deeply about them.

 

Daily.

 

It's deluded to think he has any clout at the club. I didn't say anyone is deluded.

 

"So Xisco, here's a selection of root vegetables. Can you guess which one was given as a nickname to Graham Taylor by the tabloids? Take which one you think it is and place it on the head of the statue of GT outside the club shop"

 

Anyways Mr Burnsy I'll be interested to hear what he has to say and what happens afterwards.

 

Just make sure you don’t shoot the Messenger.

 

Everyone has clout in the field they work in. Doris the tea lady has clout to make the tea. The ground staff have the clout to cut the grass.

Of course DM doesn’t have the clout to force his superiors to do anything. But he does have the power to bring things to their attention. There’s no delusion in knowing that, that’s all.

It’s definitely worth highlighting to them just how angry fans are with the interview the other night and the degrading way they associated a club legend to it.

(For what it’s worth, I don’t actually think they meant to insult Luther Blissett - and in some weird convoluted way, they meant to actually praise him for rising above those headlines to achieve what he did...and by extension, laughably suggest Gray is capable of the same. But they got it horribly horribly wrong and need to publicly apologise to him.)

 

Trust me Dave will already fully know about what the fans feel about the way Luther was used in that video.

But I agree I don't believe they intentionally meant to insult Luther. But they got it horribly wrong.

 

Xisco would 100% pick the wrong one and then put it in the wrong position.

 

Then they tell him to have another go and he'd pick the same one again and put it in the exact same place.

 

Spot on. The lesson to be learnt is that it doesn’t matter if there was no intent to offend. If offence was felt by anyone, there is a need to apologise.

 

Has the club issued a public apology to Luther yet? If not, why not?

 

It's reached the national press now so expect to see some sort of apology follow.

 

Hours Lineker waited for an apology - 4
Days Luther's waited for an apology - 4

 

Maybe if Lineker tweets about it that'll close the loop?

"Gary, please pass on our apologies to Luther. Thanks, Scott."

 

I agree, actually. They were obviously intending to hold Luther up as an example of someone Gray could aspire to be. The interviewer (who was it, exactly?) was bloody useless throughout, though, and made a ham-fist of it. It was a real botch job.

It was honestly one of the worst interviews I think I've seen. The interviewer asked very leading questions and then often continued speaking to answer them for Gray. He also frequently talked over the person he was supposed to be interviewing. All this plus accidentally insulting a club legend. Bafflingly inept.

 

I really don't think they will apologise.

 

Unfortunately 'getting it horribly wrong' has become Gino and Scott's default setting

 

It was Richard Walker, who's head of supporter communications. I think we have to be a bit cautious this doesn't inadvertently turn into a witch hunt with him as the fall guy. He's local, has been at the club for ages (pre-Pozzo) and I've always heard good things about his interactions with people on here and elsewhere. I think he did a lot of player interviews in the past, before Affleck took over doing them.

There was obviously an agenda behind producing the interview in the first place. While that's always the case for both sides in any interview situation (job, media, police...), in this case I think it would have been better for the club to offer Gray up to the national sports media instead rather than going in-house. Seems like the club and Gray both had the same aim for the interview - to buy him some time and explain his behaviour - but totally different views about how that should be done.

 

Andre seemed genuinely depressed, it was pretty painful to watch. Anyone with half a brain would have briefed Andre to talk only about cheese. 'I feel bad about the lockdown poker night but u shouldve tasted the Camembert, it was delicious' 'I do feel bad about my homophobic rants, my local Budgens had sold out of Red Leicester and I was losing my mind' 'its true the goals have dried up, but I just got this Stilton delivered online. It's fookin majestic' 'I know Troy thinks he's Mr Watford but Edam well isnt. Luther is Watford's favourite son and always will be'. Wouldve been much better received!

 

Agreed, would have made far more sense (and given the club plausible deniability on top of that if they cocked it up).

 

It's not easy to see what it was though. Was it to make people forgive Grey for flouting lockdown rules? In which case, surely he or the club have had time to come up with a better excuse than he invited a few people round for a surprise party for himself! Was it to stop people taking to social media in their droves to insult him? Maybe, although he claimed it doesn't bother him and if the video was supposed to be a charm offensive, surely he could have been given a quick lesson in, erm, charm - i.e., smile from time to time, show a little humility, try not to come over as an arrogant, surly sh1t etc etc. Could it have been to encourage people to overlook the fact that he pulls down 70 bags a week for being an utterly hopeless footballer? Probably, but I'm afraid it'll take more than a lame video to do that. All in all, it is hard to think what WFC and Andre hoped to achieve with this film but unless it was get supporters' backs up, I think its safe to say they failed in their objective.

 

And I'd assume it'd have to go through various levels of editing and sign off before being uploaded. Did no-one see that clip and say, yeah, let's edit out the nickname thing as that's not a good look at all.