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    Darragh MacAnthony responds to critics and Cambridge fans in social media outburst

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    Darragh MacAnthony responds to critics and Cambridge fans in social media outburst

    Peterborough’s owner Darragh MacAnthony responds to critics and Cambridge fans in quite the outburst on social media this week.

    On Tuesday afternoon, @kevincook77 wrote: “80% off tickets for first game of season. How shit must sales be? #pufc:

    Another user, @Leon45699, tagged @DMAC102, asking for his “thoughts on your shit fan base struggling to sell the ground out for the first home game of the season?”

    @cknnr17 wrote: “He’ll reply with CHAMPIONS CHAMPIONS CHAMPIONS whilst the club burns around him”

    To which Darragh MacAnthony (@DMAC102) then speaks: Fucking hilarious a pair of Cambridge united fans/dickheads show up on my timeline with this shite 😂. Buzz off you pair of Beta bellends. My timeline is filthy enough with a load of 19-30 posh babies whinging about their club not winning promotions & cups in the last 5 minutes. I don’t have time for you pair of inbreds whilst dealing with those chuds. 👍🏻

    There was another tweet from Darragh MacAnthony, but he has since deleted and explained why he did so.

    @DylanPUFC: Funny how he is insulting someone’s IQ whilst simultaneously thinking IQ is measured as a percentage, “beta bellend” #pufc

    Darragh MacAnthony has now said in an episode of the Hard Truth Football Podcast: “This kind of like illusion out there like I’ve let the manager down or you know the manager’s like, you know, been left hung out to dry. Let me tell you this narrative that’s been created is absolutely false and nonsense. All right. Our manager doesn’t really want any players. He just wants to work and coach what he’s got.

    “If there if the players are of a standard, he’ll be like, ‘Yeah.’ And he will he will take some good players that come in or whatever else. But at no point was he in any kind of rush every day ringing and go, ‘I need a player. I need this. I need that.’ And I think he even in his post-match getting fed up being asked about transfers. I think the BBC guy asked about transfers. And he made a really valid point where he said, ‘Well, if we sign 10 and they win, are they great again? And if they lose, are we are we moving all 10 on again?’. What are we doing here? Like and and I get his logic. It’s almost like you lose games of football and we haven’t won enough. Everyone’s crap and then you’re you’re moving 10 out and bringing 10 in or whatever.

    “No, this illusion about squad and really I said to you the funny thing was like a lot of Bradford fans in my timeline as well. It’s bad enough I got Peterborough fans now. I got Cambridge United fans last night. I got Bradford fans coming on. ‘Worst Peterborough team I’ve ever seen’. DMac recruiting blah blah blah. And I’m like, ‘Listen, lads, you’re weren’t rain on Madrid on Saturday. You won a game of football. Calm yourself down.” Like, and I mean, calm yourself down. You had a brilliant bounce back season last year coming up and getting in the playoffs. But let’s calm down. As bad as we were on Saturday, as bad as we were, you’re a red card and a one-yard miss from our number nine. Yeah. From taking that game deep where you wouldn’t want it to go. And at that point, we had players with legs and pace on the pitch that at 1-1 that might have been a different story late in that game. So, I’m just like, you know, you you were a better team than us. You deserve to win. I don’t want any headlines saying I’m sour grapes or whatever else. You deserve to win the game of football. But the narrative isn’t you should have won five or six nil. The narrative isn’t that we were so awful and you were so good.’ I dispute that narrative.’ Do you know what I mean?”

    He added: “You guys were as advertised, you know, physical, strong, you know, capable at home, really good home record. You could tell with the crowd, the atmosphere, you know, sucking that, you know, in that you were you were starting to get on top, you know, you look dangerous every time you got a set piece, a corner, the first set piece, the free kick, you nearly scored, you look really good in set pieces and strong and you know I think there was a bit of fear on our side about your midfield, I’m watching this and Bradford centre backs are probably the in the league at dealing with anything that comes in like long and I’m kind of like so I don’t know what that was about.

    “So you get to halftime is 0-0 and then we come out and we start playing in the second half and I guess the argument would be well funny enough when we started playing we concede the goal. But I’d rather we play than what I saw previous. That would be my thing. Do you know what I mean?

    “But I don’t you know at the end of the day I’m not a football manager. I know what I enjoy watching. I know what I don’t enjoy watching. And I also know, you know, our midfielders aren’t mugs, you know, at the end of the day. I get you’ve got two experienced guys in there, but you know…”

    Philip Ideson: “But you played a full back at number six. Like, so from my perspective, you know, I think you played you had a strong 10 minutes and I was like, okay, you know, this is there’s a game here. And then maybe you had PTSD from last time you played us, maybe play into our hands and you the midfield was the weakest area for us because of what you just talked that’s our big unknown is midfield.”

    Darragh: “Yeah absolutely.”

    Philip: “And you didn’t have midfielders I mean you had Brandon yes but you had Liam Kelly who just came in you had Ben Woods I think on the bench and I just felt like it played into our hands like you you set up and played the perfect way for us to get a relatively straightforward win and we got a relative straightforward win notwithstanding you the moments that you talked about that you know that could have changed games that didn’t but I just think you made it relatively easy for us.”

    Darragh later added: “At the end of the day, I’m not trying to be sour grapes. I’m just trying to say everyone needs to calm down with the, you know, worst Peterborough team and Bradford were really good. We all watch the game. Anyone with any common sense would say there’s certain mitigating circumstances. Peterborough aren’t as bad as you think and Bradford aren’t as good as you think. So, there’s a little bit of truth in those things I’m saying. But, who the hell is after one league game by. the away. Yeah, that’s the point as well because…”

    Philip: “I think that, I mean, I’m happy with where we are. I think we got stronger in most areas. I think we got weaker in the midfield at the moment. That’s still to be proven out, we don’t have depth like we’ve talked about. So, you know, you get past your first 11, it gets a little bit weaker, but I think that people are just waiting for you to fail at the moment. There’s like this joy in like I told you so or I don’t know what it is. It’s just really like one game and it’s also you know I see this the world of Twitter trying to represent the general feeling of a football club when it’s a few people but it can be really dangerous because then things that have said then start to manifest themselves and that’s when it becomes something bigger than it needs to be.:

    Darragh: Yeah.

    Philip: So, I just think it’s a really, you know, it’s a really delicate and probably a dangerous time at the moment that could go either way. And you need everyone as much as you can. You need everyone together.

    Darragh: “I agree with you. I agree with you 100%. Like, you know, my wife will say to me like, you know, why why are you putting the time and the money and have you have you seen like and I’m like, again, don’t judge the majority on the minority. And you’re absolutely right what you said and we touched on it last week. It’s those 20 to 40 people, the same people, you know who they are, we know who you are, everyone knows who you are, who will take great joy in anything that happens. The football club lose a football game, it’s Chernobyl, it’s worst case scenario. It’s my fault. It’s recruitment. It’s always my fault. It’s always recruitment. Ticket office makes a mistake. This place makes a mistake. Any of the staff who are human beings and make a mistake and I don’t want them making mistakes but it’s just amplified. Everything’s amplified and I could describe it like this.

    “I could probably describe the typical toxic person at the moment out there who’s just loving it and DMac out and you know where’s all the transfer money gone and putting up nonsense you know innuendos and all that kind of crap you know what I mean from ex employees and ex grounds people who I’ve never met and you know people who never got jobs and you know a lot of agendas there and then you got the local media you got sport you know maybe celebrity fans all of that and everyone’s just ‘we’re rubbish, we’re crap, we’re going to struggle; it’s like a pile on so I would say that a lot of of fans that a lot of the people are going on there who are like super toxic.

    “Their day would go like this. They get up, they walk upstairs from their, you know, grandmother’s basement. They make themselves breakfast, they turn a laptop on, and then they start scouring, you know, Twitter and social media because probably a lot of them are unemployed, probably not in great jobs, probably not doing really well in, you know, work life. And then they’ll go, let me put something out there. Have we signed a player yet? do something, DMac out, whatever. Then for the next two hours in between masturbating, they will keep scrolling on the same tweet or message they put out to see what the reactions like. Where’s the comments? Where’s the reactions? Where’s the comments? Where’s the reactions? Yeah. And then it starts gathering pace and a few more of their brothers in arms who all come from their own basement basically start making comments and before you know it, it’s just bang, it’s there and it’s out there. So, I get it. It’s the pile on. It’s whatever. And that toxicity and the people, I really… I don’t give a… I don’t care about me.

    “People I really feel sorry for are the great fans, the fans who got to read this who see it on their timelines who probably want to say something but are frightened of being shouted down or abused. You know the employees who go to work every day really enjoy their job. The football players who are under the age of like 25 who god help them if they go anywhere near that cess pit you know that’s around PUFC Twitter at the moment. So, we’re one league game in and that’s that’s where we are and it’s been going on all summer and all summer and it’s really funny because 90% of clubs haven’t really done a lot of signings, but it’s just like it’s just gone on and on and on.

    “So, yeah, reflection of a really bad end to last season, reflection of losing a game on Saturday. so, you know, I don’t know what to do about that, Phil. I don’t coach. I don’t manage. I don’t pick football teams. You know, contrary to popular belief, I don’t bring players in without a management team buy in, a director of football buy in, a recruitment team buy in, which is what we’ve done for 20 odd years. I can take responsibility for so much and I can certainly take responsibility for Ethan Williams and Liam Kelly coming in last week. But really, I couldn’t get them two weeks ago, a month ago, six weeks ago.

    “So at that stage like my Mrs said to me was well why don’t you sign you know number six number seven on your list and I’m like because I still feel number one and twos on my list are there to be done. And I said to Barry about 10 days ago on a call I’m like I know everyone’s super frustrated out there. Fans whatever else we’re all super frustrated and it feels like we can’t do a deal but I really feel those three or four people that we wanted high on our list are getable and I’m not willing to give up yet, because I’d be devastated if I go and sign number five and suddenly I get told number and then I’ll probably end up signing them anyway and we’ll have too many players.

    “So I can take the criticism, but I’m trying to explain the reasoning for some of those deals taking so long, and that’s just the truth, so but look, I’ve done this for 20 years and I get it, you know, like maybe maybe sometimes you… I don’t know if your time’s up or if you get to a point, but when I see like the joy particularly in like the local press, when I see the joy in, you know, us not winning or, you know, I turned on the Bradford game last week, I was flying to the UAE.

    “So, and the commentary before the game had even started, there was a whole thing they were talking about where we concede after half time, which everyone knows. And if the league last year had been played based on the 15 minutes after half time, Peterborough would have been 24th in the league. And I’m like, what? First game of the season. I’m like, what? Like, so, you know, and then I then I see the the questions, the press, you know, not so much even BBC, it’s the other local press who loves to, you know, have himself name checked on here or whatever else. I mean are trying to throw in questions like see the way they’re trying to ask them. They were doing this last week to manager. Are you happy with your squad? Are you happy with the lack of players?”

    Philip: “Are you all this about you know Luke looks defeated and that he’s been thrown under the bus with the lack of his squad? That seems to be the prevailing narrative that you know has been that’s been trying to build built up out of those interviews.”

    Darragh: “Couldn’t be further from the truth regards our manager and players and transfers. He doesn’t care. He just cares about coaching and working hard. He doesn’t care like all of that nonsense about, you know, and they’re asking me in the interview he’s like, you know, are you happy with what you got? You surely you need a few more play and it’s like a dig. I get it. You know, and he bats it away really well, but he bats it away really well because it’s the truth. He’s not lying. Like people thought it was like some Stockholm syndrome. He’s been sent out there like to lie, you know? And I’m going to say this and I don’t do this rarely on my family. It’s the truth. Like so it’s like I don’t know. You know what I mean? I all I can do is get on with my work. All I can do is do the best I can for what we have.

    “And I was saying to you before we came on, we’ve probably paid the biggest wages ever this summer, you know, and probably last summer. Like our wage bill like is way up there in League One. Way up there on top of what we spend. It’s like we don’t spend any money. So, and good quality players. I don’t hear it. I don’t hear about bad recruitment, bad this, bad that. I’m sorry, but you know, and I don’t coach and I don’t manage. Yeah? All I can do is put my best foot forward, give them everything they want, which I’ve done. Backroom staff done. Just extra staff, no problem. You know, do this, do that. I’m trying to do everything I can for them, for the players. I am on it, you know, and I’ve done everything. and everyone behind the scenes will tell you right to the bitter end I’ve done everything as best I can and to give everyone what they want.

    “What else can I do, Phil? So, I can’t control people who just dislike me anyway or people who are now enjoying themselves because Peterborough United have had a shit fucking year or whatever else. I can’t control all that. That’s some people who don’t know me.”

    Philip: “I mean, you need to win some football games and I think that…”

    Darragh: “I can’t do that.”

    Philip: “I know. You know, I reflect because this is it’s not the level of toxicity that it was at City, you know, two and a half years ago, but you can see the early kind of seedlings of you’ve been there. You’ve been there of that. And it takes it takes winning some games and it takes time. It takes time where the people who are the loudest feel as though they are in the that they look stupid in continuing to to say the things that they say.

    “And so they will if it’s anything like for us, you know, we started winning football games, we go on a good run, you still have the, you know, a loud, vocal, very minority who are still never happy with anything and they still kind of make noise until the obvious is so irrefutable that they can’t continue to do that and, you know, without looking stupid and then they probably quieten down a bit. But even you win a few games, you’re still going to have that because you’re gonna have people who they will say otherwise, I am sure, but who actually getting joy in defeat at the moment.”

    Darragh: “Loving it, loving it.”

    Philip: “Because it’s proving them right in their point of view, of course. And so it’s going to take a little bit of time and some wins on the board to fight that down, I think.”

    Darragh: “And I saw like one of the headlines, it was on Twitter, I think it was advertised for like another podcast was like, is it Darren MacAnthony or Luke Williams’ fault, you know, and it’s like the portion of blame and you know, whatever else?’ Okay, great. Well, okay. Well, I’ll take all the blame. But do I get all the credit when they start winning football games? Like I just like, Jesus Christ. Like I don’t, yeah.

    “Again, I don’t pick football teams unlike other clubs who do it. We know they do it. I don’t go anywhere near that. At the end of the day, I’ve not told our manager, contrary to popular belief, that our two young fullbacks have to start the big game. I most certainly didn’t tell my manager that Chris Conn-Clarke play games or be involved.

    “My manager does everything on merit. He does everything based on a fair system of if you work hard enough, whether you’re transfer listed, available, not about, he will play you. He’s just fair like that. He’s I think he’s a real player’s manager in that way. So none of that has got anything to do with ownership, direction from ownership, nuts in a million years. So, and if fans really knew me, there’s no way. Like, no way. So that that’s where we are with all that.

    “It’s, you know, but we haven’t won a lot of football games. I get it. And that breeds a lot of issues, problems, you know, whatever you want to call it, and we have to start winning football games and it’s been too long. And you’re right. You know what I mean? But it quietens down some, not always all of them. But and it’s been a while since we’ve been successful or been at Wembley, you know, not a decade, but it’s been a while. So, you know, and I know everyone like including Bradford fans are all laughing about that, but I we’ve we have a decent squad and we have some players that nobody’s really, you know, you saw Ethan Williams for 10 minutes or whatever else, but like he’ll be a very good winger in League One and Liam Kelly and be a very good player in League One and Bolu is already at 17 a very good player in League One and then the whole don’t play young players and then I saw obviously you were getting into a thing with someone about Patryk who did really well for the 21s yesterday and whatever else like so…

    Philip: “It’s like what do you want, you know, you either you want to play young players because they have the ability or you want to protect them but you can’t.”

    Darragh: “I love Patryk so like I’m in that camp I mean I love him Patryk’s got a lot to learn, Patryk’s got to you know Lucca and Ryan are doing really well with him you know I mean they put him in they take him out they teach him a little lesson they you know Patrick’s got to do it in training every day Patrick when he’s picked for the first team has to realise that he doesn’t have 10 minutes on the ball like he might do in an 18s game or 21 all the things teenagers have to learn but what what a prodigious talent potentially you know what I mean so I am in that camp by I always like seeing a bit of Patrick playing so um you know what I mean and I was getting a good report on the 21’s game yesterday which was very good be a really good QPR side.

    “So yeah look and and the thing about like we have signed some experience this summer you know we’ve Tom, O’Connor, Liam Kelly, and it might be one more. And and the worst part about this is I’ve been working on something for a while and I’m hoping to get it done in the next three, four months. I think it’s going to be really good for the club and whatever else. And I bet you when I do it, it’ll be just like, yeah, what’s up? Yeah. Yeah. You’ve redone the lounge, you know, we’re not winning the football game. Sign a player. You know what I mean? So, you’re kind of like, Jesus Christ.”

    Phillip: “You’re spending the money in the wrong places. That’s what we got as well. when you know when you’re not winning games of football any investment you make is suddenly turned… any commercial deal that you do we you know the club would get abused for it because you know where”

    Darragh: “Which we did.”

    Philip: “We’re good off the pitch but you know that’s not translating to on the pitch so you know three points is the only thing that matters.”

    Darragh: “And I like spent money obviously at the training ground and spent a bit of money in the stadium and the toilets get redone and I gave like Dan spent I agreed yesterday signing a player from abroad for the academy you know what I mean that was like a decent chunk you know a little bit of recruitment for the academy as well because we sell academy kids you know you can’t control that but you got to make sure that you’re filling slots so we were doing a bit of recruitment there and spending transfer fees you know on players that were like under 18 which not a lot of teams do but again I get it. You know, that’s not going to affect the first team. And that doesn’t mean we’re going to win on Saturday. And I get it. Go win a football game. I get that, too. But I don’t, I can’t control that, can I? I know I get blamed for it, but I can’t control it. No, it’s you know…”

    Philip: “You become the shield. You’re protecting and creating a safe space for everybody else at the club to try and do the best work. And you you become the the magnet.”

    Darragh: “Punchbag right?”

    Philip: “The shield to protect them all.”

    Darragh: “It is what it is. ”

    Looking ahead to the Mansfield game, Darragh said: “I hope for us to play a star we all want to see. I hope for us to look like we’re we have goals in us. I hope we’re resilient. You know, I know we have issues with David being suspended and a couple of other things back there. So, um I hope our crowd, you know, hopefully enjoy what they watch.

    “I think it’s really important that we get our crowd smiling and our fans smiling because the mass majority of them that will come on Saturday, they’re not on social media ripping the _____ out of the football club. So, you know, they’re there. Mums on seats. They’re spending their money. They’re bringing their family. I want them to have a great experience. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing on Saturday. I want us to play really well and ultimately I want us to win football games again.

    “So, you know, it’s been too long, even though the season’s only new, you know, in the league and last year’s done, Bradford’s done, you know, we got to get on now and we got to start winning and and, you know, the opposite to what everyone else thinks about us. I still think we have bones and potential of being a really good squad. And ideally, of course, we want a couple more in, but we have to like certain things have to happen for that to happen. So, you know, they got to be the right I think we’ve made the right signings and they have to be methodically done and we can’t just sign a player for the sake of signing somebody. What for?”

    On trying to keep the fanbase growing: “How many new people? You know, we got to keep growing the fan base as your fan base gets older and whatever. You got to keep growing them. and you know maybe I need a spokesperson for me to deal with the 19 to 29 year old crowd.”

    Philip: “So you need you need to um you take Twitter off your phone for a couple of weeks.”

    Darragh: “Yeah. I mean to be fair I um I was like yeah my Mrs and we were chatting and whatever and she’s like you see what’s going on you know and I’m like listen do yourself a favour don’t like right click one of the messages and go not interested in this post and then you won’t have every time you pop up on social media it’s DMac out and you know… and… salesperson and blah blah blah.

    “So I was in a bathroom in a restaurant basically and you know and you’re bored and you’re stood there so you just flip. Up comes, I’m thinking Cambridge United fans, like no I ain’t having that it’s bad enough having most some of my younger fans at me but Cambridge United fans like do me a favour like well done on your win and all that but calm yourselves down. So yeah and that’s where obviously I shouldn’t bite.”

    Philip: “Do you ever regret you ever look back and think I wish I had done that?”

    Darragh: “The second tweet I put up was like you know just like childish and babyish. I deleted it because it was just stupid. I left the first one up because I meant the first one. The second one was just like you know what Yeah. It was like funny and then you’re like I’m 50 so you know I’m not 30 anymore so you know don’t engage and look I used to enjoy engaging on social media but nowadays it’s such a… it’s a different place, there’s rules, there’s laws, obviously I’m not in the UK so it was like you know what I’ll post it anyway.

    “But yeah I’ve got to be a little bit more show my years of experience with my gray hairs and you know watch the P’s and Q’s but yeah I nobody made me do that or asked me to. It was just something I felt like, you know what? Nah, I gotta take that crap down.

    “So, you know, but I left the first one up because I meant that. So, no way. I ain’t having that. With all due respect, like, nah. Nah. Just equally like with the Bradford fans coming on my timeline about how bad steam we are and this that, whatever else, no, I ain’t having that either.

    Philip: “I get… I got accused by a Bradford fan of being your clueless mate you know when I was um you know being one of the posh players I think it was but I don’t know I mean it’s easy for people to get caught up in in rivalry and in hatred.”

    Darragh: “And tell the truth.”

    Philip: “You know things like that but um I try and see the game as objectively as I possibly can, even though of course it’s not possible when it’s your own club because you’re always gonna watch it through rose tinted glasses. But 100% us for that.”

    Darragh: “No, I look you know you got your comments, you got your opinions. We’re very different than our opinions. We’re different politically. We’re different in every every other way. But you’re allowed your opinion. And you know, there’ll be Bradford fans on Saturday thinking, ‘Oh, they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.’ And then there’ll be the fans who are a little bit more intuitive going that that that’s as good as we think. And you know, we’re going to have to play better if we want to do what we did last year. So yeah, I think it is what it is. You know what I mean? But a bizarre game for me. Really bizarre. So, you know, to watch it.

    “I’ve obviously spent a lot of time talking with David [Storch], the new owner. He’s a really cool guy. He’s there at the moment. I think he’s spent, he said to me, like eight, nine million on ground repairs. I mean, him and his family are like having a really good go. I’m going to meet him back in the States when I’m home. I think he comes to Florida quite a lot, really, really good guy. I like him a lot. and you can tell, you know, you can just tell a good owner wants to do things right, is learning on the job, won’t be perfect at everything, but his heart’s in the right place, his wallet’s in the right place, he’s trying to do everything right, and that’s all you can ask for like any owner, the best he can. And my advice to him was, don’t ever hide after a defeat. You know, front up with fans. Tell them you got issues, tell them. I’ve tried to always do that, sometimes to my own, you know, fault, you know what I mean? Where maybe I’m too honest. But I think it’s the best way, you know, to try and handle a fan base when they’re not as happy as they should be.”

    Meanwhile Peterborough Telegraph gave their response after receiving digs…



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