Geoff Konopka - United guest of Honour - also convicted paedophile

Whatever about not being aware of this guy we should be doing a club wide investigation at this point. The reaction to various events, the ignorance would you make you concerned about the wider club culture and how many more skeletons there are. Time to clean up
 
Man, a load of us 'fans' realy do like to stick the knife in eh? This happened a year and a half ago. It's not news. Further, it's the Daily f*cking Mail. Have a look at yourselves.

His time at the club was in the mid 90's - well before his crimes and conviction - and I bet if we got the full details rather than - AGAIN - the Daily f*cking Mail version - he's probably just listed as a manager of the amateur woman's team in the museum.

And when said piece was featured, the club invited back all the living people associated with the time period. United probably have thousands of guests at events each year, it's certainly not that big a surprise to learn a couple are bad apples.

It's unfortunate but this is a whole different kettle of fish from the Greenwood case, or our inability to f*cking sell the club, or other sticks to justifiably beat us with.
 
Beachryan said:
Man, a load of us 'fans' realy do like to stick the knife in eh? This happened a year and a half ago. It's not news. Further, it's the Daily f*cking Mail. Have a look at yourselves.

His time at the club was in the mid 90's - well before his crimes and conviction - and I bet if we got the full details rather than - AGAIN - the Daily f*cking Mail version - he's probably just listed as a manager of the amateur woman's team in the museum.

And when said piece was featured, the club invited back all the living people associated with the time period. United probably have thousands of guests at events each year, it's certainly not that big a surprise to learn a couple are bad apples.

It's unfortunate but this is a whole different kettle of fish from the Greenwood case, or our inability to f*cking sell the club, or other sticks to justifiably beat us with.
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It's from The Times, not the Daily Mail. His crimes didn't happen well after he was manager. He was not just listed as a manager. All the living people associated with the time period were not invited.
 
NotThatSoph said:
It's from The Times, not the Daily Mail. His crimes didn't happen well after he was manager. He was not just listed as a manager. All the living people associated with the time period were not invited.
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Thank you for the pithy clarifications, my apologies but I couldn't derive all those facts from the article linked, or any part of this thread, which is all I was going on. Perhaps linking your source could clear up any confusion?

Really weird how all these facts are so obvious, the first articles about a March 2022 event were published in September of 2023.
 
When are we hiring Rubiales?
 
NotThatSoph said:
Second paragraph in the Daily Mail article.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...2?shareToken=69a419f0a1c489fefa79aed067bff9e7
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Even having read that, still seems a hatchet job of sorts. It's obviously not great, but now I'm even more confused about the club's awareness, given this paragraph: "Like all those involved in the women’s game at that time, Konopka was an unpaid volunteer with United and not officially tied to the club. It is understood that the FA only inform clubs and leagues on a need-to-know basis if someone is suspended from football."

If as another poster has pointed out: a google search from around the time of the match in 2022 would have yielded exactly 0 results informing the club of his conviction, what would you have done differently?
 
Beachryan said:
Even having read that, still seems a hatchet job of sorts. It's obviously not great, but now I'm even more confused about the club's awareness, given this paragraph: "Like all those involved in the women’s game at that time, Konopka was an unpaid volunteer with United and not officially tied to the club. It is understood that the FA only inform clubs and leagues on a need-to-know basis if someone is suspended from football."

If as another poster has pointed out: a google search from around the time of the match in 2022 would have yielded exactly 0 results informing the club of his conviction, what would you have done differently?
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I don't know what I would have done differently. Having someone at the club who knew things about that part of the club's history would be great, and that might have prevented it seeing as several of the former players knew. Listening to the complaints, instead of waiting for the media to come asking, would also probably have been a good idea.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I don't know what I would have done differently. Having someone at the club who knew things about that part of the club's history would be great, and that might have prevented it seeing as several of the former players knew. Listening to the complaints, instead of waiting for the media to come asking, would also probably have been a good idea.
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Agree on the second point, though the article seems to suggest said complaints happened after the event. Honestly, as someone who was involved in football in the 90's, I'd imagine whoever put together the women's day just had no idea, nor did anyone around them. It's not like the players from the mid 90's amateur team are likely to be around the club anymore.

I just have some sympathy for the club here, and think piling this onto the very poor handling of Greenwood at a time when the focus now needs to shift to Antony is just hte media being the media, rather than something to be obsessing about.
 
Beachryan said:
Agree on the second point, though the article seems to suggest said complaints happened after the event. Honestly, as someone who was involved in football in the 90's, I'd imagine whoever put together the women's day just had no idea, nor did anyone around them. It's not like the players from the mid 90's amateur team are likely to be around the club anymore.

I just have some sympathy for the club here, and think piling this onto the very poor handling of Greenwood at a time when the focus now needs to shift to Antony is just hte media being the media, rather than something to be obsessing about.
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It happened after the game, and you can't travel back in time to rescind invitations, but there's also the museum, the website, promotional material etc. From the way it's worded I think it's very likely that they at least received complaints in July, and an article about him stayed up until this Tuesday. The Times contacted them Monday, so they certainly have the ability to act quickly when they want to.
 
NotThatSoph said:
Second paragraph in the Daily Mail article.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...2?shareToken=69a419f0a1c489fefa79aed067bff9e7
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Worth noting that when the museum put up the panel about his managerial career, his time on the sex offenders register had expired 12 prior, and the club would only need to check the FA safeguarding system or do DBS checks if he was going to be coaching or working with kids. Which he wasn't. It was literally going be some stats on a wall.

So, while making no excuses for the man himself, you can see why nobody doing a bit of research into who the managers of the MUFC Ladies were thought they'd need to look into whether he had a criminal record for anything. He was an obscure figure with no online presence whatsoever and nobody had tipped staff off about his past.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I don't know what I would have done differently. Having someone at the club who knew things about that part of the club's history would be great, and that might have prevented it seeing as several of the former players knew. Listening to the complaints, instead of waiting for the media to come asking, would also probably have been a good idea.
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You can only listen to complaints if someone is telling them to you though. If there's a wall of silence, zero accessible information and former players dispersed around the country with decades of no contact or relationship with the club, you have to go with the little you have available.
 
decorativeed said:
Worth noting that when the museum put up the panel about his managerial career, his time on the sex offenders register had expired 12 prior, and the club would only need to check the FA safeguarding system or do DBS checks if he was going to be coaching or working with kids. Which he wasn't. It was literally going be some stats on a wall.

So, while making no excuses for the man himself, you can see why nobody doing a bit of research into who the managers of the MUFC Ladies were thought they'd need to look into whether he had a criminal record for anything. He was an obscure figure with no online presence whatsoever and nobody had tipped staff off about his past.
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Sure, I don't think it's surprising that something like this would slip through. It's unfortunate, of course, but not indicative of people doing a bad job.

decorativeed said:
You can only listen to complaints if someone is telling them to you though. If there's a wall of silence, zero accessible information and former players dispersed around the country with decades of no contact or relationship with the club, you have to go with the little you have available.
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According to The Times the club received several complaints.
 
NotThatSoph said:
Sure, I don't think it's surprising that something like this would slip through. It's unfortunate, of course, but not indicative of people doing a bad job.



According to The Times the club received several complaints.
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After they invited him to the match. Not during the period the museum were researching the managerial history of the MUFC Ladies team. Which, as I mentioned before, followed an argument between the museum and branding as to whether that team were even allowed to be mentioned as having a history at the club.

It was very much meant to be a start to being able to tell the story of those women, rather than to glorify the man or portray him as the hero of the story, too.

The entire curatorial staff had left between the two events, by the way.
 
decorativeed said:
After they invited him to the match. Not during the period the museum were researching the managerial history of the MUFC Ladies team. Which, as I mentioned before, followed an argument between the museum and branding as to whether that team were even allowed to be mentioned as having a history at the club.

The entire curatorial staff had left between the two events, by the way.
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I don't think the people who did the research have done anything wrong.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I don't think the people who did the research have done anything wrong.
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I don't mean to suggest you did, sorry.

And I know I'm very defensive in this thread, but I know all the people who worked in the museum then quite well. Also, the newspaper stories make it seem like the whole thing was a coordinated effort by the club to roll out the red carpet for this guy and give him a hero's welcome, when the actual course of events was not like that at all.

It was literally started by updating a display about United managers that had been exclusively about the men's team. They wanted to add Casey Stoney to it and anyone who'd managed the previous Ladies side. Hence the inclusion of Konopke.
 
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