How long before Crewe are repremanded by the FA and/or investigated and charged by the Police for harbouring a Peado and now this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43211929

Unproven rumours about Gradi have been doing the rounds for about 20 years.

I know that a certain ex Darlo & Pools player who spent time at Crewe back in the 90s was shocked at some of the stuff that went on.
Couldn’t wait to get out!

Yeah I suggested it was quite a call the other week from Higgy that Paul Watson our ‘head of recruitment’ was the worst person he’d ever met in football given he was at Crewe in the 90’s!!

The current chairman of Crewe was a director at the time of Bennels crimes. They have started no internal investigation into how he got away with it, they banned certain journalists from a fans forum the other night including the one who broke the story they ultimately led to the sick fucker being put where he belongs for 30 years. They refused to answer any questions on the matter fobbing people off about an ongoing legal process. He’s been convicted and is in jail I realise he has another 86 complaints about him but come on? The conduct of the club is a disgrace no wonder the repulsive nonce got away with it for so long. The chairman even bemoaned how the club are missing Gradi and the manager how wasn’t allowed to contact him due to his FA suspension. The title of the forum given the backdrop was also comical, like something straight out of Alan Partridge ‘Let’s talk about football’ Sadly no byline though ‘not one of Britain’s most prolific peados who we harbored for years, don’t mention him ’

It just makes them look like they have got a lot to hide. I find it hard to believe this creature got away with it for so long on his own.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... -sand.html

The club sounds absolutely rotten


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Howay Loan Star, you've got me thinking now, and I have a pile of ironing to do. Did the man in question have the initials LE?

gradi was bigger than the club at the time. it was another world back then and he was looked upon as a kindly bloke to kids but did leave himself wide open when he did take lads back to his house after friday night games for the weekend. might have been innocent but needs to be deeply looked into.

Under no circumstances should any man have boys under the age of 13 staying in his house alone.

That was back in 2011.

It certainly was, some of us ( not me mind you ) used to watch women take their clothes off before games and feel womens arses in pubs after the game and whistle at women when they walked past your place of work. Where did it all go wrong


Seriously though , how did Crewe get the reputation for bringing through homegrown young players? surely against a backdrop of inappropriate behaviour towards young boys ,this wouldn't be the case. The majority of people at Crewe must of been decent and good at their jobs surely , albeit some of them must of turned a blind eye and kept stum about the few bad apples in the barrel , which is blatantly wrong, but we know people do these things to keep a job or not rock the boat.

There was probably the threat made that if the kids didnt sign and keep quiet the likes of Bennell would put the word out that the kid wasnt good enough or a problem that was too much to deal with.
As for the ex Darlo & Pools player, you made a good guess!!

In a lot of cases it wasn't so much their own youth setup, as taking on players discarded by bigger clubs - David Platt, Robbie Savage were both released by Man Utd and picked up by Crewe before becoming successful for example. There's also the point that, sadly, the more sophisticated abusers often know how to choose their victims.... Bennell for example has used the fact that he was in a position where the lads abused really did think he could make or break their football career to effectively silence them, and there's plenty of examples where someone uses their power abusively, or victims are effectively chosen from the powerless who certainly at the time were unlikely to be believed (hence why there's so many allegations that have come out of old-style Childrens Homes etc). So not every kid at Crewe would have been targetted by Bennell, and this has been at a time when there's probably been rumours, but people unwilling to act on them.

Crewe are coming out of this very badly because they seem to have played fast and loose with anything remotely resembling proper Safeguarding Procedures, and still seem to be in denial about any sort of responsibility. This may in part be because they fear being sued by Bennell's victims, and the fact that a lot of the same people are still there at Board Level etc. gives them more incentive to stonewall.... The thing is, with the Jimmy Saville stuff, this just won't wash anymore and they'd be far better served by being more open about past failings.....

Apart from you own children of course, unless you want to break some kind of law

God and God alone will judge

Good point ! I was thinking after I posted , that I couldn't really remember any young players who came through the Crewe ranks, and that maybe they were just a club who dealt well in the transfer market, buying the type of players you mention. Did Hignett and Danny Murphy come from the youth set up?. If not the perception of Crewe being a good club for bringing youngsters through is a bit of a myth then. I know there was a bit of a football love in with Gradi during the nineties and early noughties because of this.

I prefer to see people up before a jury.

You’re right, there was a love in with Gradi certainly when he was manager during the nineties. It reminds me of the time when our yungun was playing for the borer at Crewe. As all the lads were running out from the changing rooms onto the pitch, Gradi, who was 1st team manager at the time, was stood outside encouraging all these 13/14 year olds and actually knowing all their first names. I was really impressed with this as he must have known the names of all age groups. Yet take Brian Robson, for example, I only ever saw him at 1 academy home game, don’t think he even knew the names of his first team.

Imagine if you could choose between the two at your trial, would be a lot more murderers and nonces etc roaming the streets. In fact it would only be the religious nuts behind bars!

think you are right there horden. crewe seemed to be good at finding top sides cast offs when they were 18 and made them into top players. these were not their own youth products but gave em more than their fair share of good publicity at the time. had a mate that played for crewe in the 80,s and met gradi who semed a friendly guy. the thing is crewe where always given gredit for playing the game the right way, whatever the right way is i never knew, but when gradi arrived there he made john becks sides look tippy tappy.

I think the right way, is tika taka with purpose and winning the game.Unfortunately many clubs such as pools try to play tika taka but go round in circles , passing for passings sake, across the pitch, side to side, back to the keeper etc etc, and when it doesn't work its mind numbingly boring, give me a couple of wingers or the long ball over that any day. Not every club can replicate Barca or Man Shitty.

The nearest we came to perfecting it was under Turner in the early noughties , when we had Paul Smith and Darrell Clarke in midfield. Personally I prefer a bit of mix and match, good football and a bit of physicality , such as the team we had under Murray between 1991-93.

That spell under turner was probably the best football I've seen pools play, I remember a game game against southend where we won 5-1, Humphreys got a hat trick, the only game I can remember my dad and granda going to. Smith on the wing was devastating, wasn't that quick without the ball but could shift when he had it at his feet and had a lovely cross on him.

It carried on into the next season and only really slowed down a bit when turner left and flash got injured.

I can remember a time when we went to home games expecting to win by a good number of goals. One game we were already a few goals ahead and someone dinked a ball into the box for Craig Midgley who, thinking he was offside, caught the ball. I actually laughed back then as the next goal was always just around the corner whereas now I think I'd be jumping off the top of the Town End if something similar happened.

They were great times, thrashing teams by 4,5 and 6 goals. Smith was a good player to have in away games when defending a narrow lead, was great in the corners at holding onto the ball despite being hounded by 2 or 3 opposition players. Remember him doing this at Bristol Rovers one night to great effect.

A whole one night????? How much injury time was played??