And now it's happened,
and now it's too late, you want to _do_ something! You can't! It's
too late. There's only one thing the matter with first-class football in
Bursley," he concluded, "and it isn't the players. It's the public--it's
yourselves. You're the most craven lot of tom-fools that ever a big
football club had to do with. When we lose a match, what do you do? Do
you come and encourage us next time? No, you stop away, and leave us
fifty or sixty pound out of pocket on a match, just to teach us better!
Do you expect us to win every match? Why, Preston North End itself"--
here he spoke solemnly, of heroes--"Preston North End itself in its
great days didn't win every match--it lost to Accrington. But did the
Preston public desert it? No! _You_--you haven't got the pluck of a
louse, nor the faithfulness of a cat. You've starved your football club
to death, and now you call a meeting to weep and grumble. And you have
the insolence to write letters to the _Signal_ about bad
management, forsooth! If anybody in the hall thinks he can manage this
club better than me and my co-Directors have done, I may say that we
hold a majority of the shares, and we'll part with the whole show to any
clever person or persons who care to take it off our hands at a bargain
price.
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