Latest news with #ScottParker
ABC News
21-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Free camping to end in Victoria after ghost bookings and rubbish dumping
A free camping program in Victoria plagued by ghost bookings and rubbish dumping has been abandoned by the state government. In yesterday's budget the government outlined a return to a half-price camping structure at Parks Victoria's 131 paid, government-run campgrounds from July to June 2027. The free camping idea introduced in October 2024 was dogged by problems, including rubbish dumping and no-shows at campsites fully booked online. Caravan and Residential Parks Victoria chief executive Scott Parker said free camping was "a poorly considered initiative" that disadvantaged private caravan park owners. "Ghost camping was an outcome that was foreseen and clearly communicated by the association to government during the policy's implementation. "It was contrary to the principles of the government's own competitive neutrality policy." Mr Parker said better options were suggested to the government at the outset. "Providing campers in private caravan parks with a voucher equivalent to the discounts offered at unregulated government campgrounds would have delivered more choice for Victorians, stronger support for small business operators, grown regional tourism and avoided the inefficiencies of a poorly managed free booking system," he said. Victorian National Parks Association executive director Matt Ruchel admitted the free camping initiative had created problems for small communities, but said moving to a 50 per cent reduction in booking fees could be a good compromise. Mr Ruchel said the amount of revenue Parks Victoria generated from camping fees was a small proportion of their overall budget. "You need to have hundreds of thousands of visitors … to certain places to generate income, which is not always what the environment needs, so you need the state to be funding … the park management agency," he said. Nationals member for eastern Victoria Melina Bath, whose electorate includes the Wilsons Promontory National Park, said the free camping initiative was "systematically flawed" and damaged the regional tourism economy. Ms Bath said frustrated campers contacted her saying sites would often be 100 per cent booked online, only to have about 50 per cent of campers turning up. "That does not support local business in our towns, or even the facilities," she said. "You've got local towns who've had a drop in patronage, a drop in sales." Free camping will end at government-run sites from July 1. Half-price campsite bookings will be staggered due to high demand at some locations, such as Tidal River at Wilsons Promontory.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Can Leeds United and Burnley survive the EPL?
Congratulations to Leeds and Burnley for their promotion back to the EPL and the huge pay check that comes with it. Both teams have fully deserved their success. Under Daniel Farke, Leeds have been the most exciting Championship team to watch this season. With 89 goals they are by far the league's top scorers (the next closest is Middlesborough with 64 goals). Advertisement Conversely - but no less impressively - Burnley (under the management of Scott Parker) have the best defensive record conceding a miserly 15 goals in 44 games (Leeds are 2nd in this metric with 29 goals conceded). There are many ways to skin a cat. Or get promotion to the EPL. Now comes the harsh reality. In the last two seasons all promoted teams have been relegated. In the 2023/24 season it was Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United. This season Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton are the ones to exemplify the massive gap in class (and money) between the Championship and EPL. In most cases those teams have pressed the panic button and fired their manager – and it's not made an iota of difference. Daniel Farke and Scott Parker know this. Farke took Norwich up to the EPL in 2018/19. And then took them straight back down. He secured promotion again in the 20/21 campaign, before being fired in September 2021 after overseeing a run of 15 consecutive Premier League losses (a record). Scott Parker couldn't keep Fulham up when appointed as temporary manager in March 2019. But he did succeed in returning Fulham to the EPL the following season via the play-offs. Only to oversee their relegation again in the 20/21 season after which he was fired. Parker then took over at Bournemouth where he guided them to promotion. The next season he was fired after just four games, three of which they lost with an aggregate score of 0-16. Advertisement There are two ways of looking at this. The first is that both were treated harshly and deserved to stay. It's an unrealistic expectation for a promoted club to achieve survival. Clubs that have stuck to their principals and tried to play out from the back have been severely punished for their naivety. Those that have tried to build their success via a defensive mindset risk doing no better – and upsetting the fans along the way with their dour style. It's an impossible job. The second way of looking at this comes with hindsight. Norwich probably shouldn't have fired Farke; they have struggled since and will finish midtable in the EFL Championship this season. Post-Parker, Fulham and Bournemouth are flying under the guidance of Marco Silva and Andoni Iraola respectively. Winning promotion from the Championship and keeping a team in the EPL are two very different jobs. The chances are that it ends badly for the promoted teams. History tells us they will probably fire their managers in the middle of next season, neither of whom have succeeded In the EPL. So perhaps the smart play is to say 'Thanks for the promotion; but now you are fired'. Related: Put Manchester City In The Relegation Zone To Make It Interesting
BBC News
13-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Clarets academy achieves Category One status
Burnley's academy has been awarded Category One status ahead of their return to the Premier Casper, who was appointed academy manager six months ago and whose own son Charlie is in the academy, says the achievement is a big fillip to the club, shortly after they won promotion under Scott told BBC Radio Lancashire: "It will open a massive door for the games programme, recruitment of players and extra funding, so it's massively important for the club and testament to the staff and to the ownership who have backed us."Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City are all going to rock into town next year. When we were Category One three or four years ago, the atmosphere on a matchday is a different level."The pathway shows what you're trying to achieve and how you're trying to achieve it. It shows productivity, and Burnley's productivity over the last 20 years, with players coming through the academy to play in the first team, hasn't been very good."Scott has been really good with the young players, takes a lot of interest in them, and they train regularly [with the first team], generally on the day before a game so he gets to see them."There's a real desire to produce young players for our first team."
New York Times
09-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why it might not be ridiculous to sack a manager who won promotion
After what felt like weeks of speculation, Leeds United confirmed this week that Daniel Farke will be their manager in the Premier League next season. Instinctively, it feels ridiculous that it was ever a question. Leeds won the Championship with 100 points, beating a Burnley side with an almost impenetrable defence to the title. The season had its ups and downs, and there remained a whiff of suspicion after Farke failed to get them promoted last season, but surely he has earned his chance to take Leeds into the top flight, right? Advertisement Well, yes. On the other hand, he earned his chance at Norwich City — twice — and look how that went. Twice. This is Farke's third promotion from the Championship. In those three promotion seasons, he has collected 291 points and finished top each time. Conversely, he has managed 49 games in the Premier League and won six. When Norwich, already well on course for relegation, sacked him in November 2021, that was the fourth-worst record of any manager to have taken charge of more than 20 Premier League games. It included a run, spread over those two seasons, of 15 consecutive defeats. Even though Farke has done brilliantly for Leeds in the Championship, there's little evidence to suggest he will do brilliantly for Leeds in the Premier League. This isn't meant to pick on Farke specifically. You could say the same about Scott Parker, who has made Burnley the third club he has taken from the Championship to the Premier League, so clearly has something about him. But his record with Fulham and Bournemouth in the top flight reads: played 52, won nine, drawn 13, lost 30, 40 points gained. Averaged over a 38-game season, that's 29 points: not enough to survive in any of the Premier League's 33 completed seasons. And then there's Phil Parkinson, whose three successive promotions with Wrexham should, in theory, qualify him for god-like status. But they'll be in the Championship next season, and that's where things start to get sticky. He has managed three clubs in the second tier: it would be harsh to blame him too much for Bolton Wanderers' relegation, given it was amid a financial apocalypse that nearly saw them go out of business, but being sacked before Christmas by Hull City and relegating Charlton Athletic are less easy to explain away. Getting a team promoted and making them competitive in a higher league are two very different jobs. So why was the idea of Leeds moving on from Farke — or Burnley from Parker, Wrexham from Parkinson or any promoted club in similar circumstances — so ridiculous? Advertisement There's very little precedent for it in England. In the history of the Premier League, there have only been five occasions when the manager who led a team to promotion was not in charge at the start of the following season. Three times the manager in question was snapped up by a bigger club and, in 2017, Steve Bruce resigned from Hull. The only time a team has even come close to 'upgrading' a promotion-winning manager in the summer was when Watford replaced Slavisa Jokanovic with Quique Sanchez Flores in 2016, and even then there were some contractual issues that were at least a factor in the decision. 'Upgrades' of an ostensibly successful manager have happened in different circumstances. Southampton were doing reasonably well under Nigel Adkins partway through the 2013-14 season, but took the opportunity to replace him with Mauricio Pochettino. After successfully avoiding relegation for their first two seasons, Brighton & Hove Albion decided that Chris Hughton had taken things as far as he could, so replaced him with Graham Potter. Bournemouth thanked Gary O'Neil for keeping them up in 2023, but sent him on his way and brought in Andoni Iraola. It also happens with players all the time, and nobody blinks an eye. It's widely accepted that Player X from Promotion Winning Team Y might well be good enough for the Championship, but not for the Premier League. Every season, clubs that go up say, 'Thanks for the promotion, guys, but we'll be buying some better players now' to significant portions of their squad. Similar things happen elsewhere. Recently, too: in Germany, Koln are second in the and heading for promotion, but lost confidence in head coach Gerhard Struber, as well as sporting director Christian Keller, and have replaced both for the last couple of games of the season. Advertisement It happens in other sports too: in basketball, the Golden State Warriors reached the playoffs in 2013-14 but thought they could do better than coach Mark Jackson, replacing him with Steve Kerr, and that's gone pretty well since. After Tyson Fury's first fight against Deontay Wilder, which was officially a draw but pretty much everyone thought Fury won on points, he replaced trainer Ben Davison with SugarHill Steward for the rematch. In all of those examples, a coach has done one job very well, but the decision-makers involved recognised that doesn't necessarily mean they will do the next one equally well. It's not that much of a surprise it doesn't happen, because it would take some significant backbone to make such a bold call. If you stick with a manager after promotion and you're bottom of the table with one win from 10 in October of the following season, well… you had to give the guy who got you there a chance, right? But if you change managers after promotion and you're bottom of the table with one win from 10 in October, then you look like an idiot, and the reputation of the guy you binned grows as they count their payoff. On a human level, it would be a fairly despicable way to treat someone. If Farke, or Parker, or Parkinson were dismissed after the seasons they've all had it would look pretty shabby. It might not even be the right or sensible thing to do from a football perspective, either: there's plenty to be said for loyalty and continuity, the circumstances of their previous records are different to the ones these three managers currently find themselves in so might not be deemed relevant, and any replacement would be a gamble. But much as anything, it feels like there's more onus than ever on promoted teams to try something a bit different. The last six clubs to rise from the Championship have gone straight back down, averaging half a point per game between them. It's not just that they've all gone down, it's that none of them were really ever close to staying up. Five of those six kept the manager that got them promoted and Leicester would have done had Chelsea not come calling for Enzo Maresca. There are all sorts of factors at play here, from broader questions about the chasm of class between England's top two tiers, to elements particular to every club. But one thing it emphasises is that conventional thinking hasn't worked, and that maybe keeping a manager with a poor record in a higher division, just because they have a good one in a lower division, isn't necessarily the right call. (Top photos: Daniel Farke and Phil Parkinson, right; credit: Getty Images)
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pictures: Thousands of football fans line streets for open-top bus parade
Fans line streets for Burnley FC promotion parade (Image: Danny Lawson/PA Wire) Thousands of fans lined the streets of Burnley today (May 6) as the town's football club celebrated its return to the Premier League with a parade. Fans lined the streets and red and blue plumes of smoke could be seen as crowds gathering outside Burnley Town Hall and along the open-top bus parade route. Manager Scott Parker and players were at Burnley Town Hall from 6.15pm for interviews on the balcony, with Clarets fans watching on and cheering from the street below. Scott, kitted out in a retro Burnley shirt, said: 'I am absolutely delighted that we managed to get [fans] Premier League football. 'I am glad these boys managed to deliver that, and to get it over the line at home against Sheffield (United) in a one-off game was important to us. 'This team has been very consistent. They represent what I want to be about – core values, commitment, hard work – and this group has it in abundance.' Striker Ashley Barnes, who rejoined Burnley from Norwich in January, added: 'It is an incredible feeling. 'There was a lot of change in the summer, a lot of players left the club and there was a change in manager, so it has not been straightforward. 'But we set a solid foundation that we could build on, we timed our run at the right time to win important games and get promotion, and that's what it is all about.' After interviews at the town hall, the parade followed a route along Manchester Road, St James' Street, Yorkshire Street and then Harry Potts Way before arriving at Turf Moor. The atmosphere was akin to a Burnley match, with children on top of parents' shoulders, people chanting football songs, including No Nay Never. Crowds were awash with claret and blue shirts. The fun is set to continue at matchday pub The Royal Dyche, which is hosting DJ and celebrations until midnight. The great news even reached the music industry. At the weekend, singer Natasha Bedingfield made a surprise appearance at Turf Moor. Natasha was videoed in the changing room with the squad as they sang her song Unwritten together following their promotion from the Championship. Bedingfield was also pictured with Clarets manager Scott Parker sampling Bene 'n' Hot, a Burnley delicacy. She also performed on the pitch as Turf Moor celebrated the club's promotion, which had already been sealed prior to their 3-1 win over Millwall. Natasha said: "Surprising the Burnley players was so much fun, seeing their reactions was priceless! I'm incredibly grateful that Unwritten has meant so much to them, it's an incredible story to be a part of. Congratulations to the team on such a huge moment, they deserve every bit of it!' It's not the first time the town has celebrated with a parade. In 2023, thousands of fans also lined the streets to celebrate Burnley FC's return to the Premier League. The open-top bus parade then made its way through the town centre to Turf Moor to the delight of thousands of fans. The parade today was after the Clarets clinched promotion with a 2-1 win over Sheffield United in April. Burnley became the first side in English football history to finish with 100 points but not be crowned champions, yet they also conceded only 16 goals in 46 league games – bettering the record set by Liverpool, who conceded 16 across 42 matches in 1978-79. Success this season means manager Scott has achieved three Championship promotions with three different teams, having previously guided Fulham and Bournemouth out of the second tier. It also means Burnley will once again compete in the top flight having last been there in 2023/24 under Vincent Kompany.
