The Azzrentice! Week 4

First topic message reminder :

Week 4

Myself and Lady Viva have this week won £100m on the Euromillions lottery. After much discussion, we have decided to keep £50m for personal use, and to use the remaining £50m for an exciting business opportunity.

We want to own our own football club, and take it to the Premier League. Your task is three-fold:

- Choose a current non-league team to takeover, giving consideration to the fans, the town, and the history of the club;
- Plot our future course - stadium improvements, fan buy-in, sponsorship deals, player purchases, promotion planning etc;
- Come up with a club ethos - how will our club be known around the world in its principles and style? Factor in expectation of the players, the media, playing and coaching styles etc

Remember to cost up all your parts of the submission so we know how you're spending our money.

I realise this could be a HUGE task, so I will take that into account if you don't write 6 pages of text.

The winner will be the team that comes up with the more exciting portfolio. From the losing team, one of you will be fired.

Team Scholes:
Hero - CAPTAIN - FIRED
Trebs - FIRED
Gregers - IN THE FINAL

Team Wilshere:
Soddy - CAPTAIN - IN THE FINAL
Marky - IN THE FINAL

Team Wilshere may choose to ask for help from either GSC or Afro, their choice (and if GSC/Afro wish to do so). The remaining person will be my assistant for the week.

Questions when you're ready

can you explain what i did wrong in this task that wasn't gregers fault. i will justify every single decision i made if necessary. i did a better job than gregers.

Well played Sodhat, we did it. And we didn't even have to turn against each other

onlytreblewinners wrote:can you explain what i did wrong in this task that wasn't gregers fault. i will justify every single decision i made if necessary. i did a better job than gregers.

Hi mate

My decision is final, I won't change it, but for clarity's sake:

The manager - saying you'll keep him but if he doesn't impress then replace him with someone younger - I'd have written that differently, as I took it to mean that he'll get the chop after 4/5 defeats (a la Abramovich) as an excuse to get a higher profile manager in. Personally I'd support him with finances, coaching setup, youth players, new players, media support, anything to make Lee the best manager this country has ever seen.

Nigel Martyn - while a good idea as he's Cornish, he has very little post-playing career experience in the game, especially at lower leagues. I don't know what he'd bring to the table besides an ambassadorial role.

The transfers bit was fine

Luke McCormick was the big mistake. He killed two children. Regardless of ability, experience or 'good publicity' as you put (really? good?), no team should give a job to a man such as this. No team of mine would ever condone such actions.

"We want to be known as a club who play entertaining football" - you can't do that in the lower leagues, the pitches are terrible, the players not up to it, and you get creamed.

Add in things from previous weeks, and I felt it was a few too many to carry forward.

You know how much I love you though!

I know it's already over but I would have said that Sodhat did a great job, he gave his teammates (me) the option as to which topics to go through, and did a brilliant job in correlating all the parts together.

And regarding Hero saying the task wasn't interesting enough (or words to that effect), he is dead wrong.

Azzy i will give you a full explanation tonight from my computer of what a joke your decision is.

Sorry you feel that way Trebs, it's a hard job you know. I had to have a 3-person final, and it came down to you or Gregers, and he's been more consistent in my book. Please don't hate me

I think the only person who's taken his Azzrentice sacking well is Viva - everyone else has gotten upset. Wonder why no-one likes running it?

Marky wrote:And regarding Hero saying the task wasn't interesting enough (or words to that effect), he is dead wrong.

Did he say that? Really? If that's the case he's sacked TWICE, then tied up and given to Olly and Tooze for use as a lady friend on the way to the Hawthorns

If he's sacked twice no.need to sack me

You know what I mean mister

I thought you were monitoring Team Scholes

It wasnt that it wasn't interesting, but that we'd had what I felt similar tasks in the Chelsea/England one of restructuring and that Id like to have seen a task where it could be clearly seen which was the winner due to a set goal being met.

Sorry I missed this, was doing project work all day.

I got a task idea :P

onlytreblewinners wrote:can you explain what i did wrong in this task that wasn't gregers fault. i will justify every single decision i made if necessary. i did a better job than gregers.

Don't you know that doing a good job in this gets you fired? Shame on you for doing a good job Trebs, shame

Team Wilshere beat Team Scholes 4/4 this week, I think that's a clear winner. Lord Sugar sets his teams tasks like "most money wins", but we can't do that, so we get the creative tasks like "best idea wins", which Sugar does a LOT later in the series.

To get to the semi then throw it away though...

The Chelsea one was more about tactics/transfers, and the England one was more about coaching/long-term benefits, so this task brought a new angle to it. Sorry you didn't like it, I'll do better next season

But that way, you don't get the fired manager getting upset.

There seems to be a direct correlation between age and your reaction when you get fired.

Me and Hero couldn't care less and actually quit between tasks

Viva got fired, probably the most hard done by in my opinion, and takes it gratiously. Nando was also honourable in the face of being fired.

Olly and Trebs call the decision a joke, and in Olly's case, the whole game is joke.

Olly wrote:

onlytreblewinners wrote:can you explain what i did wrong in this task that wasn't gregers fault. i will justify every single decision i made if necessary. i did a better job than gregers.

Don't you know that doing a good job in this gets you fired? Shame on you for doing a good job Trebs, shame

I rest my case.

That's the thing Olly, of Trebs' contributions on this task, 4/5 were not good. Only 1/5 was good. On top of previous weeks I couldn't with any conscience put him through.

BTW doing a good job doesn't necessarily mean you stay in. If everyone does a good job, someone still has to go

I disagree Afro. I'm the wrong side of 25, and i'm kicking off big time if I don't win

You have to love our Apprentice tasks though. It always get people upset

I remember one year when Afro fired me, I wanted to track him down using his Facebook photos and treat him like the sheep we all know he keeps in the garden shed.

It must be mental age then Marky

I'd also like to point out that I am the only finalist who's yet to be a captain

(Obviously that will change in the final, but still)

You would have been if I hadn't had to fire so many people Marky...as such you'll get last pick

BigFellasAfro wrote:But that way, you don't get the fired manager getting upset.

There seems to be a direct correlation between age and your reaction when you get fired.

Me and Hero couldn't care less and actually quit between tasks

Viva got fired, probably the most hard done by in my opinion, and takes it gratiously. Nando was also honourable in the face of being fired.

Olly and Trebs call the decision a joke, and in Olly's case, the whole game is joke.

If I feel like I've been hard done by, I'm gonna say.

The problem was that you all did a good job on that task, so whoever went was going to feel hard done by.

Azzy had to pick the least good

Yeah we get that Olly, if you have nothing new to say then go back to your sister/mother/uncle/bison/tractor/bale of hay.

To repeat, the others all came up with ideas that week, you didn't...case closed. Just think how well Norwich have done since I fired you.

I'm not gonna get involved anymore you all know my opinion

Problem is I can see exactly what Azzy saw as well.

You did everything that was asked off you well, but so did everyone else. Who gets fired, the one who didn't come up with the better ideas, but just did what he was asked.

It's a bit like the working world. Those who keep their head down and just do what they need to, stay where they are. Those who work hard, but also come up with new ideas and "raise their head above the parapit" get promoted

But in Azzy's little report I had no wrongs yet Soddy had 2. Doesnt seem like everyone did there work well to me...

BigFellasAfro wrote:Problem is I can see exactly what Azzy saw as well.

You did everything that was asked off you well, but so did everyone else. Who gets fired, the one who didn't come up with the better ideas, but just did what he was asked.

It's a bit like the working world. Those who keep their head down and just do what they need to, stay where they are. Those who work hard, but also come up with new ideas and "raise their head above the parapit" get promoted

This is why Afro should run the Apprentice, he can summarise his thoughts much better than I can

This is all true. Olly you were the guy who did his job, and said yes to the big men. Kind of what I do at my work

Didn't Sod do some of the things Azzy highlighted as good, but you were no where to be mentioned in that list?

Olly I said at the time that the wrongs weren't that important, they were 'less goods' rather than 'much worses'. The ideas weren't as good as the other team's - but it was the others that had the ideas, hence why they went through.

I can see this topic carrying on until next Christmas, four Azzrentice seasons later.

1 good idea and 3 bad ideas is still better than someone else with no ideas at all.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:This is why Afro should run the Apprentice

No thanks

BigFellasAfro wrote:Didn't Sod do some of the things Azzy highlighted as good, but you were no where to be mentioned in that list?

I came up with the whole team bonding thing which was considered good.

Anyways good luck with Trebs later

Can i run the apprentice next time

Olly wrote:

BigFellasAfro wrote:Didn't Sod do some of the things Azzy highlighted as good, but you were no where to be mentioned in that list?

I came up with the whole team bonding thing which was considered good.

Anyways good luck with Trebs later

Which was not highlighted by any of your team mates at all.

On the answers they gave on who did what out of Azzy's good list, your name didn't feature once.

Seems you were a victim of them, rather than Azzy

That, and I looked through their team page meticulously and could see nothing of any import coming from Olly besides 'yes I agree, good idea'.

No Nando, because Nando doesn't fit well with 'Apprentice'. What would you call it, the 'Apprenando'?

Fernentice sounds alright

I think its high time GSC took control of the Apprentice next

No, it doesn't. It sounds like a disease he got while sleeping with that bird off of Ready Steady Cook

Just afraid id show you up with my bossing skills

Impress us in the Azzrentice and I'll let you take over

Ive already won this on Afro's better version

#fact

Including an impressive Twitter week attempt (as in, he actually tried, when two of the other 4 didn't bother)

#odnantoruntehapprentice

Fernando wrote:Ive already won this on Afro's better version

#fact

The #fact that Afro had you as the winner tells me all I need to know about Afro's quality as Apprentice runner #weak

Question is Nando, can you run it week in, week out? I barely see you on the main thread

Quite easily considering i don't have a job at the moment

#youcouldnthandlemysuperiorbossskills

You can't be looking very hard then but then again most things go over your head

Nando just wasn't trying very hard this time.

It's like when teams win the CL, they don't put much effort into the League Cup. But for players like Olly, it still means a lot and he gets passionate about it

Once you've won it you dont need to again

#lifeasanarsenalfanprovesthis