What makes this a 'forum'?

Joe Barlow,

You need to take a VERY long hard look at yourself. Your self-righteous sanctimonious (look it up) bulls*it regarding Adam Stansfield makes me want to puke.

How can you POSSIBLY be entitled to pass comment on such a tragic event when a matter of months ago you were blatantly stealing from the very charity that is in place to try and eliminate this crippling disease that has affected almost all of us in some way throughout the course of our lives. I’m not sure you’re quite aware of the strength of feeling brought about by your theft, or aware how close you came to having a little ‘old fashioned justice’ dished out for your actions. I deplore violence and I’m delighted that it didn’t come to that, but I thought it was worth mentioning in case you plan to rob any other life-saving charities in the near future.

I could have sent you this message as a PM, but as you seem so keen to tell the world how distraught you are about the death of a young man from cancer, I thought I’d tell the world how much you disgust me. I am more than ready to be chastised for posting this, but if you have even a modicum of self respect, or indeed respect for the recently deceased, you will not even consider passing another comment on the subject.

I believe the exceptionally good nature of our forum host may have saved his skin.

It might be the right time to drop this now. I've made my point and there's no point systematically destroying somebody publicly, no matter how worthy the cause.

Dave is perfectly within his rights and at liberty to do as he sees fit, even if not everyone agrees with the action he has taken. This isn't a public square, it's a privately run member's forum. My general rule when it comes to condolences threads is not to add anything unless I knew the person concerned. That, however, is my own view. What i'm not going to do is start hijacking such threads to make some cheap little point or accusation about what others should or should not be thinking, and I can understand why dtg's crassness has hacked so many people off.

Absolutely right although I do think it is now about time the lad was given a break and that the matter is dropped as a topic on this Forum. Although he was very wrong in the first place and he did commit theft, not technically but actually, he did pay back every penny. That of course does not exonerate him from his actions in the first place but just as in Court where a person is given credit for a guilty plea it should be acknowledged that he recognised that what he did was wrong and then worked hard to pay the money back. Many people know him and through him being exposed on this Forum, quite rightly as well as he raised the money through this Forum, he has probably received a greater 'punishment' than any Court would have given him

Most of you know by now the sort of man I am and what I believe in that has stood me well in the 55 years I have lived so far. You also know I’m never afraid to open up my heart and tell you how I feel.

I have been very upset for the whole of today and trying to make sense of what I consider is the madness that has gone on here yesterday and today as well. I have tried to get my head around how a thread put up because a very young man lost his life to cancer ends up in a forum war, an attack on the forum itself, me and Rob and now Joe Barlow.

I work full time and can’t sit by the PC all day to ensure what gets posted on the TFF is not something that’s going to land me in court, I have to put my full trust in every member on here to not only conduct themselves in an appropriate manner, but also to post sensibly and responsibly.

Yesterday sometime before 8pm I checked the forum on my phone and saw DTG’s post, I called at one of my customers and asked to use his PC as it’s not so easy to post using my phone. The aim of my post was to try and prevent what I feared would happen. Sadly my polite request was ignored and around 12pm I felt I had no choice but to take the action I did.

I have always said I’m more than happy for anyone to question any action I take; I always take action only because I believe the action taken is best for the TFF and for no other reason.

I’m very disappointed this thread was started and very disappointed at the comments made about me by the opening poster, because as I said I give the TFF a very large part of my spare time for free and only because I try to provide something for all TUFC fans to use that hopefully will give them pleasure.

I’m only human and a man who wears its heart on his sleeve and yes I do get upset and hurt when I feel I’m being unfairly attacked and yes there are times I wonder why I have put myself in this position running the TFF when it does cause me much stress and pain.

But I do because there are days it gives me such pleasure and happiness and I have made some great friendships since I set it up and I value those friendships very much and anyway there are far more who tell me to keep up the good work and so I try to do just that.

I can understand the anger some now feel toward Joe Barlow and fully understand where you are coming from and so as some are not aware of all the facts and because I feel I need to explain my position as far as Joe is concerned and because there is a real need to get this all put to bed and get our forum back to how it was on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

Two Christmas’s ago Joe took part in a properly organised Santa run to raise money for charities; I can only assume he handed over all the money he collected. Last Christmas the event was not going ahead but Joe said he was still going to do the walk from Torquay and Paignton to raise money for Rowcroft.
He put an appeal up on the TFF and members along with people at our club pledged Joe money. As it was put up on the TFF I told Joe I needed to see a receipt from Rowcroft and he kept fobbing me off by saying he had got one and would send it to me.

I had a gut felling he had not handed over the money and thought long and hard what to do about and in the end made a discrete call to Rowcroft and explained my position. They confirmed he had not handed over any money and so I tracked Joe down and grabbed him just as he was about to go into college.

I asked him once again for the receipt he and he once again told me he would sent it to me, I told him I knew he had hot handed over the money and he came clean to me. Joe does have a few problems and they can’t be used as an excuse but he was working hard at college and I did not want to be the one who made him end up in prison as that is not the answer for Joe.

I told him he had to go home and sell what ever he needed to raise £250 and hand it over to me so I could give it to Rowcroft. He made no real effort to do so and I was left with no choice because I knew what had really happened to the money to name and shame him on here in the hope he would then realise he had to sort this all out and pay Rowcroft the £250.

I set it up with Rowcroft so he could pay weekly and he paid them the full amount and while some felt then and still do that I should have gone to the police, I’m sorry but I’m not hard enough to wreck his life as I hoped my way Joe would learn a real hard lesson and would think twice before he ever considered doing this again.

We have all been guilty of doing something wrong in our lives, OK maybe not on Joes scale, but we all needed to be forgiven and for people to move on and be prepared to give us another chance. As far as I’m concerned Joe paid a big price for his mistakes and as far as I know has not done anything like this since.

He was banned on here as Joe Barlow for the reasons Merse put so well, he came back as Pappy and all users on a forum who come back using a different name give themselves away in the end.

I can ban the user name pappy and if I do that I know he will only make yet another account on here and pretend to be someone else. I feel it’s far better for now to let him stay as pappy as at least I know it’s him.

I agree under the circumstances he should not have posted what he did on the thread that has caused so much trouble on the TFF, sadly Joe does not think at times,
I can’t or won’t ask anyone to forgive him for what he did, but will remind you all he put it right in the end and for that as far as I’m concerned does deserve a second chance.

He knows I do not give third chances ever and I’m keeping my fingers crossed he has learned his lesson as far as taking money in the way he did.

Dave,

In my opinion, you handled a difficult situation well.....