bruce
Contributor
Holy hell, was that public knowledge? That is forgery, jail time
...how did that guy survive so long...bloody amazing.
Staff Ian Robson
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...how did that guy survive so long...bloody amazing.Andy platt using ph in warriors gym to rack up thousands of $ in toll calls to the UK is another one ive heard... only good thing you could say about Robson is he was good with media they loved how he was always avaliable to comment in media friendly way. Something that was unheard by an NZ sports administrator at the time but behind the friendly media hype the guy didnt have a clue...
bruce
Contributor
That is give them something to print. I remember he allowed one journo to photocopy his diary!!! The guy had something, but I couldn't call it class.
bruce
Contributor
That was a standard trick in the UK. It cost one of the Brooke-Cowdens his contract at Swinton.
mt.wellington
Warriors Orange Peeler
Word was that the all the phones at Mt Smart had a toll bar on them. All except the physio room that is. Once players found that out they abused the hell out of it.
The players nickname for Robson was Santa Claus because if you ever needed anything a visit to his office would see you walking out with a free loan. Even the big name money earners were regularly having 'financial problems'. Nothing a visit to Robsons office didnt fix...
IMO it wasnt Robson being accessible so much as him feeding his ego by making the whole new venture all about him...
Wonder if any of the numbers are still active???
mt.wellington
Warriors Orange Peeler
Another thing that Robson did was change the original logo. The original design by Francis Allan, of Colenso, featured a straight tongue. Robson and his marketing manager Liz Dawson thought it would look more striking with a curved tongue and so the curse of the feminine logo began...
bruce
Contributor
...and he even has Dean Lonergan's number
bruce
Contributor
bruce
Contributor
Phil Blake got a free car, it didn't have air con, he threw the keys at Robson and got one with air con. I can just imagine that stunt at the Broncos.
mt.wellington
Warriors Orange Peeler
It was a free car too from then sponsor Mitsubishi. They were less then impressed having to swap a brand new car for another especially seeing as they now had to sell the first car as second hand even though Phil had barely driven it.
Another one was DB Bitter holding an event and seeing Warriors players who were on six figure salaries stuffing their pockets with beers before heading home.
When Matt Elliott said the bad culture was ingrained in the club and that it was in the furniture, you only have to look at the culture that was fostered during Ian Robsons tenure to understand that its been there since day dot...
bruce
Contributor
Sadly it has and I don't think Bill McGowan improved it either
...why would any sane person stuff their pockets with that shite? These stories just get worse.
I've mentioned before in high school I made the Warriors logo in my computer class and how hard it was to do that bloody curve tongue. This was about 1992 so technology was pretty limited. I had to do it on an old Amiga 500. That tongue pretty much took twice as long as the rest of the logo. Now you are telling me it was some quick decision Robson made while on his way to sign Ruben Wiki to a contract on a napkin.
When it got redesigned to the current straight tongue there was a comment it an article that the curve isn't part of maori culture or is seen as bad luck (happy to be corrected on this). It's petty poor that we let an Australian dictate something he is not aware of.
The problem is that we tend to blame what we can see rather than 'drilling down' into the issue. There is no doubt Robson was a total disaster but can he be blamed for the administrative disaster that the Warriors have been up to 1AD (after Doyle).
CEO's are answerable to Owners and Boards. They have to sign Contracts with KPI's and performance requirements. Where was the oversight by the Board, he surely must have had to regularly report to them. There appears to have been criminal acts being committed and the Board of that time has to accept some vicarious responsibility for it.
What has happened has happened, the Warriors must learn from it, install robust practices and get a good balance on the Board and get competent Board members.
CEO's are answerable to Owners and Boards. They have to sign Contracts with KPI's and performance requirements. Where was the oversight by the Board, he surely must have had to regularly report to them. There appears to have been criminal acts being committed and the Board of that time has to accept some vicarious responsibility for it.
What has happened has happened, the Warriors must learn from it, install robust practices and get a good balance on the Board and get competent Board members.
bruce
Contributor
Mount Wellington might correct me but part of the problem might have been Dominion Breweries. There was so much competition for the sponsorship that the founders asked DB and Lion for their best bid and took it. Lion gave what they thought was a reasonable offer but DB ( was it Brian Blake??) made an over the top offer that had to be accepted. If I recall Blake ended up chairman after Super League took over and was in the chair when Dean Lonergan was doing the job all the others should have in asking the serious questions about the money. I might be wrong but I doubt Lion Breweries (Douglas Myers) would have allowed Robson to get away with what he did. My guess is that the DB boss knew he had made a mistake and was trying to keep a lid on it. Some of the Auckland league guys on that board had no experience as directors and Robson had them in his pocket with jerseys and other freebies. Apparently at Robson's last meeting when he was given his marching orders one of the board members asked if could still get the jersey Robson had promised him!!! Mount Wellington will know.
The other thing is that I heard Robson came recommended to the club by the NSWRL. Why would they do that? Just think about it.
