Jon
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Post by Jon on Apr 26, 2009 23:19:20 GMT
Out of interest, Paul Buckle - commonly thought to be a blithering idiot who gets everything wrong - has amassed 169 points from 92 conference games.
Paul Tisdale - commonly thought to be a tactical genius who gets everything right - amassed 161 points from 92 conference games.
Can anyone explain that one to me?
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Apr 26, 2009 23:46:38 GMT
Will have to leave that one to Alpine, Jon.
It's not anything to do with Woods, is it?
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Post by rattz on Apr 27, 2009 0:21:12 GMT
Out of interest, Paul Buckle - commonly thought to be a blithering idiot who gets everything wrong - has amassed 169 points from 92 conference games. Paul Tisdale - commonly thought to be a tactical genius who gets everything right - amassed 161 points from 92 conference games. Can anyone explain that one to me? If you want to go down this route Jon... Both have had teams in the playoffs for two years running. One's a football league manager with the chance to get his team into the old 3rd division... And the other one is Paul Buckle.And neither have ever been thought to be a tactical genius. ;D Somehow surprised that you started a thread like this. |
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merse
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Post by merse on Apr 27, 2009 3:04:13 GMT
Out of interest, Paul Buckle - commonly thought to be a blithering idiot who gets everything wrong - has amassed 169 points from 92 conference games. Paul Tisdale - commonly thought to be a tactical genius who gets everything right - amassed 161 points from 92 conference games. Can anyone explain that one to me? If you want to go down this route Jon... Both have had teams in the playoffs for two years running. One's a football league manager with the chance to get his team into the old 3rd division... And the other one is Paul Buckle.And neither have ever been thought to be a tactical genius. ;D  It doesn't always take a genius of any sort to be successful...................experience of the level we are at, knowledge of the players who will "do a job" at that level, familiarity with the tactics and mentality of the opposition peculiar to that league, a diligent and dedicated approach to forthcoming games, an insistence upon a strong bond of togetherness and team spirit................and a fair sprinkling of luck will suffice. Seeing as Tisdale has been pilloried on here in the past for little more than his stylish dress sense, I see little merit in considering the whining and constant character assassinations of those who haven't a clue as to the actual attributes a professional football club manager needs to bring to the table in this day and age. Knowledge of sports science, health, fitness, psychology, injuries and their prevention or recovery from; are just a few of the many facets of the profession that most who are only too ready to criticise these guys and question their ability to do the job would never come to terms with. Both Paul Tisdale and Paul Buckle deserve the utmost respect for their diligent and patient approaches to their respective jobs and their achievements so far. |
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Post by Fonda on Apr 27, 2009 12:55:50 GMT
I think it's reasonable to point out those stats don't in any way compare the state of the two clubs they were managing. No two jobs are the same. Would Bucks have achieved what Tisdale did, with an apparently smaller budget and more reliance on youth? What might Tisdale have achieved here, with the backing of our consortium? We'll never know.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Apr 27, 2009 16:42:40 GMT
I think it's reasonable to point out those stats don't in any way compare the state of the two clubs they were managing. No two jobs are the same. Would Bucks have achieved what Tisdale did, with an apparently smaller budget and more reliance on youth? What might Tisdale have achieved here, with the backing of our consortium? We'll never know. Is that an "apparently smaller budget" or an "evidently smaller budget"?  If I thought that Torquay had enjoyed a significantly bigger playing budget than every other team in the league - including Exeter - I might judge Buckle more harshly. I think a lot of people have some misconceptions about just how much money we are splashing around and this could very well be the reason for unrealistic expectations. Exeter may have been in turmoil when they exited the league, but the ship was steadied in three years under Dolan and Inglethorpe. Nobody is saying that the two situations are the same or that any definitive conclusion can be drawn about who has done a better job. It just seemed odd to me that an idiot can achieve such apparently (or should I say evidently?) good results. But of course I had forgotten that he has enjoyed such a massively bigger budget than anybody else. |
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Post by Jon on Apr 27, 2009 16:45:47 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that the top five this year all finished in the top seven last year?
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Fonda
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Post by Fonda on Apr 27, 2009 16:52:27 GMT
If Bucks built the squad he did with a budget no bigger than the other main protagonists in the division, he certainly deserves great credit for selling the club to people. Historically, we've struggled to get players here, and part of the problem (so we're led to believe) is the relocation required from pretty much anywhere. To persuade players of the quality he did to uproot, and assemble such a quality squad whilst offering little extra in monetry terms, is praiseworthy in itself.
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Post by jmgull on Apr 27, 2009 16:55:03 GMT
I think it's reasonable to point out those stats don't in any way compare the state of the two clubs they were managing. No two jobs are the same. Would Bucks have achieved what Tisdale did, with an apparently smaller budget and more reliance on youth? What might Tisdale have achieved here, with the backing of our consortium? We'll never know. Is that an "apparently smaller budget" or an "evidently smaller budget"? If I thought that Torquay had enjoyed a significantly bigger playing budget than every other team in the league - including Exeter - I might judge Buckle more harshly. I think a lot of people have some misconceptions about just how much money we are splashing around and this could very well be the reason for unrealistic expectations. Exeter may have been in turmoil when they exited the league, but the ship was steadied in three years under Dolan and Inglethorpe. Nobody is saying that the two situations are the same or that any definitive conclusion can be drawn about who has done a better job. It just seemed odd to me that an idiot can achieve such apparently (or should I say evidently?) good results. But of course I had forgotten that he has enjoyed such a massively bigger budget than anybody else. I remember being told last season, by a reasonably well connected Exeter City mate of mine that City's budget was in fact bigger than ours......not suprising when you remember that they had 23/24 fulltime pros, a reserve team and a youth section to pay for with it. |
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Post by jmgull on Apr 27, 2009 17:01:32 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that the top five this year all finished in the top seven last year? ...Bloody dull this BSP ain't it. Getting as pedictable as that other "premiership" |
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merse
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Post by merse on Apr 27, 2009 17:55:57 GMT
The other factor that needs and deserves consideration is that OUR club is still in the process of rebuilding the infrastructure that other clubs take for granted. Take on board that we have NO reserve set up, a youth policy still in it's infancy and neither do we have a plethora of larger professional clubs on our doorstep full of players seeking employment at a lower level of the game without the need to uproot either themselves or their families, to say nothing of having to consider living away from home as Isleden Christie this season and Jodie Banim had to last season. Running Ebbsfleet, Grays, Cambridge, Oxford and Stevenage on the edge of the Greater London conurbation gives them a much larger pool of potential signings to draw on and of course the Midlands clubs like Burton, Kiddie and Kettering enjoy a considerable geographical advantage also. Achieving ANYTHING of note in football carries an extra gravitas at places like Torquay..................always has and always will; and if last night's pathetic home attendance of barely over three thousand doesn't underline that, nothing will.
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Post by graystar on Apr 27, 2009 18:10:39 GMT
Merse you are bang on the button when you point out the benefits of being geographically based around the edges of London and the Midlands. Most people around Britain that are involved in any sort of financial/manpower investment think the country ends at Surrey/Hampshire. They only think of the South West region when it comes to their holidays or retirement. For Torquay/Exeter/Plymouth/Yeovil to have acheived what they have in recent years in and out of the Football League is quite honestly miraculous given the resources and finances available. Especially Torquay! All I can say is ''Bloody Well Done''. I may be a daft Northerner myself but after living here for the last 25 years I can recognise and respect what is going on locally with the resources available and and show appaluse where it is due.
Now lets all get behind the team and management and get this team back where it rightfully belongs, back in the football league.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2009 18:28:46 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that the top five this year all finished in the top seven last year? No, I hadn't but I'd noticed that - of last season's top five - the clubs which didn't get promoted all finished in this year's top five (Burton, Cambridge and ourselves). Also that our record this year has similarities with Exeter's last year: 4th place; 83 points; goal difference + 25. If you want to talk problems go on message boards for Wrexham, Oxford, Mansfield, York... all bigger clubs than us and who would give their right arms to be in our position.... I was going to endorse this point yesterday morning but I paused wondering if Oxford might do it at our expense. As it happens, only two ex-Football League clubs finished in the top five and - of course - it's still possible for two clubs to be playing in the FL for the very first time next season. In that case a Luton/Chester swap for Burton/Stevenage or Histon would change the balance even more at a time when finances could become more and more of an issue for all clubs. Some of the ex-league clubs have been a shambles over the last couple of years as the more progressive "traditional" non-league clubs have risen to the fore. But I wonder if full professionalism amonst the traditional non-leaguers has reached its apex? If so, how will this affect the balance of power? Whatever the future - and I'm going to remain patient - this will be a damn fine time to get promoted! |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2009 19:09:38 GMT
Making comparisons is always difficult and, it needs to be said, the implications of "two up/two down" hadn't really kicked in when Exeter arrived in this league in 2003. Indeed - with the exception of the rather poorly Scarborough - City were the lowest-placed recent ex-league club in 2003/04 when they finished 6th.
Nonetheless - although some of their fans were appalled by such a lowly-placing (although most were realistic) - that wasn't a bad show in the circumstances and Eamonn Dolan deserves much credit. The Man U money didn't arrive until the second half of the 2004/05 season and, although progress was being made in many ways, the future was by no means assured until that windfall. The club has done well to select three managers - Dolan, Inglethorpe and Tisdale - in broadly similar mould. At a time when Team Bath have recently expired it's worth recalling that it was an amazingly brave decision - ridiculed by many at the time - to take Tisdale from that source. As a football fan - in the broadest sense - you have to be cheered by the success of that type of move.
Equally, you could argue that it was a bold move for us to choose Paul Buckle although - once I heard the news - it made perfect sense even though I'd never thought of him as a contender. To be honest I wouldn't like to choose between the merits of Tisdale or Buckle but - of course (it's bleedin' inevitable, isn't it?) - even yesterday I heard Buckle described as an "arsehole" and the old cobblers about "if he wasn't good enough to have been Exeter's manager he wasn't good enough to be ours". I'm not sure what type of manager these people would have preferred at the time and - even if they know - most likely it would have been somebody who wouldn't have touched the Conference nor known anything about it. Good God, there was even a "Buckle Out, Holloway In!" thread on another site last season. And where do they get the idea that Colin Lee was going to take a major part in team affairs? Did he ever say that?
It might not get us promotion - let's remember the system is a harsh one which brutally undermines season-long achievement - but, as Jon reminds us, 169 points over two seasons can't be bad.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Apr 28, 2009 19:13:01 GMT
I think this thread has probably confirmed my suspicions about one of the main causes of such negativity towards Buckle. I think it does come down to unrealistic expectations and I think that those spring from a false belief that Buckle enjoys a far higher budget than all of his rivals in the BSP. I have heard much the same as jmgull re Exeter’s budget being considerably higher than ours last season. I don’t have any evidence, but I don’t expect that our budget this season is massively higher than that of say Oxford, Cambridge, Stevenage, Rushden or Wrexham.
Maybe people get confused because they hear that the guys in the consortium are doing all they can and have had to put their hands in their pockets. Maybe people think that this backing lifts us way ahead of everyone else when it comes to spending. A few things to remember :
1. We are only the seventh best-supported team in the BSP
2. We have had just two years of really pushing hard to maximise non-football income, some clubs have had a lot longer
3. We have additional player costs due to our geographical isolation
4. Other clubs may have benevolent backers too
5. Other clubs may be spending money they can’t afford
6. One club allegedly does not have to pay any tax or on NI on player wages, although in fairness that particular club does have massive expenditure on pies and pastries for its manager and assistant manager
In conclusion, I just don’t believe that our financial resources give us a huge advantage over everyone in this league. I think that the excellent backing we now enjoy probably puts us in amongst, not way ahead of, the top six in the BSP in terms of spending power. The problem is that if you make too much of a fuss about this in order to make expectations more realistic, you end up talking the club down which can then become a self-fulfilling prophecy – a trap I believe Mike Bateson may have fallen into.
Of course, money isn’t everything. The two shining examples of how to run a football club in our league are Histon and Burton. They have totally opposite on the field styles – which just goes to show that neither “hoof” nor “pretty” is always the answer. What they do both have in common is a club culture or ethic which has been built up over a long time. You get the impression that a “club way of doing things” runs all the way down the club from top to bottom. You don’t get the impression that either has been panicked by short-termism. In fairness to Exeter, you can say the same of them since they hit rock bottom. That seems to me the way to run a football club and I think we are two years into establishing something along those lines at Torquay. It doesn’t come easy!
We are a big enough club to get out of the BSP without being as clever as Burton or Histon. We can do it just by being well-run rather than by being exceptionally well-run. But to get above our “natural level” – that is to strive to get into and hold our in own in League 1 – we would have to be exceptionally well-run, in the way that Histon and Burton are now. It’s a hell of a task, but I think our current owners are determined to give it a go.
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