just the ramblings of a bloke called Dave.

[Dave]

For my friend Andy, your right think objectively, by the way. I am in no doubt the board made their decisions in what they thought were the club best interests, but they appear to me, have no inside info just feel, to have got a fair few so badly wrong it's true. Not buying the conference is now our natural level and we've some how been swallowed up by a football league that's just to big for us now, take look over the last 18 months, people will tell us we're a small club with limited finance, yep they'd be right, but, take a look at the crowds and budgets of say Morecambe and Dagenham lower than ours, even Burton and Rochdale.

The magical money fairy found money from the clubs pot less budget to back Alan Knill when Martin Ling went sick, it then found more money to sack Martin Ling, and his trusted side kick turnip, at Christmas the magical money fairy struck again, money once again found to sack Alan Knill, and back Chris Hargreaves, even to sign a player called Cooper, that Alan Knill I believe had previously been told he couldn't.

The good money fairy also stuck in a different way during Martin Lings time, ML sold £600k worth of players, no body need tell me about tax liabilities, nor about staged payments, or clubs need to balance the books, get all that , what the money fairy did then was take all that money away giving ML no chance of bringing any players in with anything like the quality needed, and spent £200k of it, on a training ground that's barely useable because it's almost constantly waterlogged, hence why we've been training at Homers Heath and PCC 3G even on the plainmoor pitch itself , and an academy that still today has produced not one single regular first team player.

Money found to react to an unfolding crisis, after the fact, when, if, could the money have been found before the fact, even if just 50% of this money some how found was put up in the first place, the picture may just look so different now.

No one need tell me that a fit for purpose training ground is a vital asset of any professional football league club, but, even, after the vast money spent at Seale Hayne, we as a club still do not have that, were there alternatives, Forchess Cross needed less money spent on it, but I was led to believe the lease offered was very short term, so get that. But what about Coach Road, did the club enquire about this ground, if they did and there was no deal , fair enough, if they didn't some one needs to be shot, it's flat, drains well, all facilities in place, and it's pretty much lying idle apart from the odd local cup final since the demise of Newton abbot FC .

Then we move on to the electronic score board, who paid for paid it, and how much did it cost personally haven't got a clue, if it wasn't the club then, again fair enough, revenue streams are vital, of course , but does this provide anything like the income already outlined by me and others that's going to be lost, some how doubt that very much.

Benefit of hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, and, as said no doubt decisions were taken for the best long term interests of the club, but ultimately decisions taken could cost us our league status, it's wrong just blame managers and players a like, they've played there part, of course. The over riding no1 priority was to MAINTAIN OUR league status, this really was the most important thing, it seems to me, over the last 18 months the club went down the road of prioritising everything else but , maybe borne out of ignorance as to what was required for all on the field matters (team) Maybe they thought after two play-off season we had the time, who knows.

I'm by my nature a very positive person, anyone who's followed my postings over the years will have seen me to be one of the first to stand between the club and those fans who throw stones at it , even accused of being a rose-tinter many a time, my frustrations started building up around November 2012, even said to one of very well known admins back at the York home last season, never felt so bad about supporting the club as do now, I will never give up on the club however, will still go to games next season.

Of course all the above maybe me taking out of my arse, who knows, who cares. Relegation might be avoided, and gord how I hope so, and will be up there celebrating as loud as the next lad, making this thread pointless, if relegation can be avoided, then my next hope is, lessons are learnt, and what's required to give a team, we the fans can be proud of, as well as the club, the manager and the players themselves.

If relegation is confirmed, I, will then genuinely fear for our long term future, AND HOW I HOPE I'M WRONG, I look at players still under contract for next season, and wonder if the new, slashed to an all time low player budget, will allow, CH to keep all of them here, we'll will see.

[Gullscorer]

If we're relegated, will our players (I exclude the loan players here) expect the same size of wage packet? Even if they move to another club? If they leave Plainmoor I can't see most of them even finding another League club who'll have them. On the other hand, if they pull up their socks and save themselves from relegation, they might just have a future somewhere..

[PhilGull]

I am assuming that all playing staff (and possibly others too) have a standard wage decrease on relegation built in to their contracts (and an equivalent increase for promotion). Also, I imagine that a lot if not all of those players contracted for more than one season have some sort of clause built in to enable them to leave should we be relegated (a minimum fee or some such).

[Dave]

Looking at Aldershot and Barnet, Aldershot were, as we know forced into administration by their relegation from the league, they as far as I can see kept Stanley and Mekki by and large most of their squad went, on Barnet forgive me, not to familiar with their situation, even though they have taken to life back in the conference well , in turn, was their situation actually helped by moving from Underhill to their training ground, the Hive.

Should add, just irritated by a situation we now find ourselves that to me could have been avoided by the club, who again my opinion, are guilty of a certain amount of false economy.

[SuperNickyWroe]

great OP there Rodney.

well said.

[AustrianAndyGull]

So what you are saying Dave in a nutshell is that the club ignored investing in the playing side of things to focus on other lower priority projects and only then found the cash when needed when things began to go drastically wrong on two occasions (3 if you count Hargreaves being appointed). Forgive me mate, I am a bit dim at times so I'm just trying to get my head round it. You think the club should have stumped up the cash for better players and had better systems in place generally like the protocols for appointing new managers etc before these became problem areas?

I do agree with that to some extent and in many instances the club have perhaps got involved with projects that weren't appropriate or immediately necessary at the time. I think since Buckle left and the way he left, I think decision making by the club has been consistently poor and critical decisions have eventually been made but they were either not the correct ones ultimately like the appointment of Knill or the decisions were made far far too late such as the dismissal of Knill which should have come a lot sooner when it became glaringly apparent that he was actually really rather sh*t.

That said I don't believe anybody at the club could have foreseen just how terrible Knill was going to be so as one example I think a lot of the criticism for his appointment and no doubt the criticism for the appointment of Hargreaves when we go down , which will happen - the criticism of the board for appointing someone with no managerial experience for a relegation dogfight. When you actually see that sentence written it does smack home the bizarreness of it. Someone with zero experience of management suddenly appointed after a clamour by fans and him expected to perform a minor miracle with some of the most consistently ineffective players in league football. It's crazy when you think about it but at the time things couldn't get any worse and he was the answer. He still might be but if not then it isn't really the fault of Hargreaves.

So maybe the fans have a point eventually to criticise the board for appointing Hargreaves on what appeared like a convenient whim and a great PR exercise. Which is another area the club seriously need to address but that is another story.

I am actually confusing myself here but I still can't get away from my original point about the personnel at the club ultimately being culpable for our impending demise. Ok so Knill turned out to be clueless, he brought the odd decent player here and we still had a few other decent players to add to them. Our squad is by no means one that should be 7 points adrift of league safety. Our squad is one that should NOT be losing so tepidly against sides like Accrington, Northampton, Wycombe and the like. Even Burton on paper have an average squad and they are in the play offs! So IMO Knill failed spectacularly to get anything going here. No cohesion, no belief, no direction, no motivation, no tactics, no consistency, no energy, no togetherness from week to week resulting in chucking more and more loanees at the problem and making increasing odd selection decisions from week to week. I hardly think the board is at fault for this man's abject failure. The only thing you could level at them is that when it was so obvious that we were getting worse they waited and waited and waited until they had no choice in the end to give him the boot. I'm all for giving people a chance but when the light at the end of the tunnel disappeared long before you don't keep on ploughing ahead. What if Knill were permitted to sign Cooper and a few others? I'm totally convinced we would still have been a total crock of shit and it would be more money down the drain. Take Mozika for example. The jewel in the crown supposedly. Absolutely dreadful. Wasted money when we could have used youngsters or other players at the club to do a better job. No point throwing away good money after bad on a manager who had no idea what he was doing.

So I am of the opinion that we could have chucked cash at Knill until the cows come home but still got the same outcome. Hargreaves may have been the ideal candidate to come in during the summer and be the future for us but he has just taken on a too bigger job for someone of his inexperience. Not his fault at all, he believed he could do it and he can't. Nothing wrong with that. He will have an opportunity next season to get the team HE wants and then he can really begin his work here but for now it was a huge risk not getting in a firefighter and chucking more cash at someone for a few more months and maybe the board have made an error here.

But anyway I digress. What I am trying to say in a nutshell Dave is that I agree with you that the club has made some bad decisions and perhaps more could have been spent on the playing side but if you have the wrong man in charge then it doesn't really matter how much money you give him. He has signed a couple of decent players like Pearce and Chappell (who is gradually beginning to annoy me though) but the rest have been cash down the drain. The club may as well have give me a hundred grand and I could have added a few lads from the dog and duck, paid for their drinks all night and then nipped down the Ladbrokes for some fun and frolics. Knill has wasted most of the cash he had on absolute dross and some players we already had who could have turned out to be quite useful have been cast aside, shipped out on loans and faffed around with. I believe that despite Ling signing Bodin for however much it was which has turned out to be an absolute mistake then I think if the board had given Ling money then he would have invested it wisely, it might not have been spectacular but we wouldn't be where we are now. I don't know if this was the case that Martin wasn't given much.

I know someone will try and say I am contradicting myself here but despite that I strongly feel that our squad of players should not be in the bottom 2 overall. We are and so all things considered I believe Knill has ground down the club and players to their lowest common denominator and it and they are just too far gone for Hargreaves to revive. The players must take a long hard look at themselves too IMO but at the end of the day, at the end of the season we can accuse him, her, it of being the problem but we can't turn the clock back.

We just have to try and make sure that errors aren't frequently made in the future whatever league we are in. If the club make errors in the conference then we could quite quickly find ourselves in terminal trouble.

Thanks for the post Dave, it was much appreciated. The time and effort.

[Gullscorer]

In a nutshell Andy..?? =D

[AustrianAndyGull]

Yeah, I like using that line and then adding another 700 or so.

[EmetEdadsBeard]

Ramberlings?

Do you mean ramblings?

[Fonda]

I certainly concur with the OP that the priorities of those in charge have been focussed on the wrong things over the last two years. It's great to realise the importance of non-match day revenue streams and the like. But THE most important asset of any football club is the playing staff. And ensuring they are fit for purpose is THE most important job of those in charge. Unfortunately, the quality of those on the pitch has been neglected - or at least been considered of less importance to other things, and that is a mistake I didn't expect to see repeated.

In terms of the management - They gave Alan Knill the job in the summer, and what seems to have been forgotten is that the majority of fans seemed happy with that at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - and people shouldn't confuse themselves about when these decisions were made. The squad Knill constructed in the summer APPEARED to be good enough. But significant change takes time to take effect. You can't expect to change half of a squad and to be brilliant from the off. Unfortunately some did. It was evidently soon forgotten that TUFC are perennial strugglers, and Knill had turned us from a side which escaped relegation the previous season to one which...was likely to have another fight against relegation this season. Apparently par isn't nearly good enough on this course, so toys were thrown. Many of the fans who wanted Knill only months previously had become very vociferous in the need to get rid of him. So the consortium were in a very difficult position at this point. As it happens, I think they timed their decision pretty well - they had to give Knill some time to try and affect some change - but at the same time couldn't wait forever for improvement to come. They were forced into a corner and reacted.

The mistake they made (and I said this at the time), was in very evidently having a 'preferred candidate'. They listened to those same voices on the terraces that had clamoured for Knill, then wanted rid of Knill in next to no time. The populous choice was Hargreaves so they offered him the job. There was seemingly little more thought put into the decision than that. And it is the decision to give the job to a complete rookie - rather than someone who had been in this situation before, that will ultimately see us relegated. Make no mistake, had an experienced 'fire-fighter' been recruited in December, there was more than enough time left to effect significant change. We'd been in far worse situations than that previously.

Hargreaves might go on to prove a decent manager. I very much hope he does. But I doubt it'll be at Plainmoor, and that's a shame. We're not destined to see the best of him, because the situation he walked into is not one a novice should face. The same dissenting voices that got rid of Knill will soon be calling for the head of Hargreaves. And then the whole thing will start again. Those in charge have a lot to answer for. As do the two managers who've failed to inspire the players. And the players who consistently under-performed. But so do we, the fans. Who lacked patience, and forced the consortium into making the decision which will ultimately cost us.

[NA Gull]

With regards to appointing Hargreaves, he was not first choice and at least one other manager was approached before CH.

[lucy6lucy]

With regards to appointing Hargreaves, he was not first choice and at least one other manager was approached before CH.

Names?

[NA Gull]

Warnock was approached for a job until the end of the season but turned us down as he had an interview lined up for a Championship job,

The other manager was only a rumour and not confirmed.

[Dave]

Ramberlings?

Do you mean ramblings?

You clearly haven't read the forum rule book, rule 6 sub section c, states the bloke called Dave, is allowed at all times to make spelling and grammatical errors with out fear of arrest or prosecution by the grammar police. Title edited.

[nickfrench82]

If we'd signed a striker who was hungry for football, and could score goals, all of the above posting from Dave would still be true, but irrelevant.

We were dragged into trouble by our inability to score goals at the start of the season, and there are now so many problems stemming from that one major failing(lack of confidence, injuries, 6,834 loan strikers etc) that now we're sinking quicker than the titanic.

Imagine, if you will, that we had signed Millwall's John Marquis, not for a month in December, but in August, on either a 1 year deal, or a one year loan.........

Now stop daydreaming!!! Was nice for a second though wasn't it. What position were we? Top 10?

I'm not ignoring the off the pitch failings, but so many problems on and off the pitch in football are solved by having just one man who can find the back of the net.