Steve Woods

...................mind you , on of my my Sons in Law socialises with a well known professional goalkeeper who may well not be first choice at his club this season - I'll think I'll pick his brains!

Dave, I'm not remotely interested why Rayner was brought back except of course that we needed another keeper to see out the season. Like hundreds of other players in my time supporting the club, he's been, he's played and he's left. He had potential, he had ability but he blew it. We replaced him with a very good loan signing which was unluckily cut short and the second loan signing didn't come off so we had to utilise a player still contracted to play for us and now he's been off loaded and life goes on.

I'll tell you something, if any other pro' on the books refuses to sit on the bench he can feck off too as far as I'm concerned. A successful club just cannot countainence that sort of anarchy. Clubs where that sort of "player power" goes unchecked go down the toilet I can assure you.

OK, so you're the club chairman and you think your , manager's "personality" is standing in the way of what really would be best for club and team. Well as Chairman you deal with it and if you've got any nous you keep it under your hat and between you and your manager. It's not for fans' forums to constantly rake over unproductive tittle tattle without contributing anything but a loss of respect for the manager and his position.

Paul Buckle did a very good job for us last season in very difficult circumstances, and I would hope that everyone in any position of substance at Plainmoor recognises that, in fact I'm sure they do.

The Bateson regime undermined John Impey soon after he had safely guided the club to promotion by the chairman paying heed to the whingeing of a bunch of "professionals" that clearly weren't good enough to survive at the exalted level to which Imps had got them. The position of club manager was then further undermined by effectively doing away with it and letting the players manage themselves by having two long term injured players put in charge of affairs.....................disaster!

Players don't run clubs, neither do fans' forums...............Chairmen run clubs and they employ managers to run football matters. Why can't we leave it at that?

Firstly, nothing I said about Paul Buckle or his achievements last season are a joke. I've spent enough time over the past twenty four hours outlining how he had to come in and put a squad together in a hurry. Part of that restricted time was taken up by a discredited old regime and their ridiculous reintroduction of a failed manager. For a squad that was put together in such a short space of time the final analyses has to be one of a job well done.

Bucks was not lucky to have the support he did, he was entitled to it and the board were entitled to seek a candidate professional enough to warrant that support. They inherited a manager they patently did not think worthy of that support and got rid of him forthwith!

I have not taken any manager to task over his running of OUR club except for Leroy Rosenior who I thought was demotivated and insincere in hanging onto his position way before he went, when he knew he had no stomach for the job; and has subsequently been shown to be a hopeless manager in his next short lived position at Brentford.

The point I have been highlighting is the futility of constantly harping on over a difficult situation with which the manager had to deal last season, a situation he dealt with and should be allowed to get on with his job. A situation which is done and dusted and left us with a better player in our goal than we had at the beginning of last season.

He has not left us with a squad which is ill equipped for the job, he has not left us with a squad which is worse than last season; he is not putting in less time at the club than he was previously and he is not living ninety miles away!

So what is the point in continuing to complain that the exact nit picking minutiae of who said what/did what is not public knowledge? I don't see anyone else coming on here with that complaint and quite frankly I see very little evidence of general disquiet over the manager's modus operandi so why keep raking over one episode that has been closed?

I'm not saying it's OK for me to say this or you not to say that, I'm saying give the manager the space to do his own job until such time as it becomes obvious (if it ever does) that he is not doing a good job.

This ongoing argument is all very entertaining to us "Outsiders", but BEFORE this gets out of control, might I suggest that:

1. YOU BOTH GET DOWN OFF THIS.....



And then,

2. YOU BOTH PUT THESE AWAY!!




Then, maybe just maybe, WE CAN ALL PLAY NICELY - LIKE "GOOD GIRLS" - TOGETHER!!

That's such a shame Dave - after much deliberation, I was sure that I had picked the right colour for you both!!

I would fully agree that the squad was not put together by Leroy, but he was the one who got them to play.

Moving away was a big mistake by Leroy and he did lose his way and sadly the club payed the price. Still he did give us a season we will never forget.

You disagree then agree with me in one statement Jon.............your dates are not arguable against, but you must take into consideration all the lost time once it was obvious the club was in it's last season as a Football League member. Therefore I would contend that coming in in May AFTER the period when a lot of the groundwork towards new signings has passed (you can bet your life that some of THIS summers' signings where being worked on during last season) means that last year's squad WAS put together in a hurry...................and in those circumstances the end result was pretty good.

I was not highlighting the appointment of the old regime of Rosenior as an example of time wasted for the new regime (they summarily dismissed him!) I was utilising it as an example of the old regime failing to take the following season and it's vital importance into account at all. All they were interested in was getting out themselves.

Such things as takeovers don't happen overnight, and during the time from "conception to completion" the new regime would have been more than aware that they would have been (if successfull) taking over a BSP rather than a Football League club.

If they had (and we'll never know if they did) their manager identified during that time, then he wouldn't have really been able to do much ground work other than possibly "butter up" his Exeter contacts during that time. Anyway, I rather had the impression that the man charged with seeking out and securing the new manager was Colin Lee and that he originally was "working" on Keith Curle coming back.

You are certainly right in the assumption that the current manager enjoys support from his board unheard of and unimaginable since the periods you highlight, but in my opinion that does not detract from his achievements last season nor from the excellent and lucrative progress in the cups that has allowed a different look at this season's budget than had it not not been achieved.

You and I both, know that certain people on this site are trying to draw me into some spectacular slanging match............well it isn't going to happen ( Jon/Dave!) The site is perfectly interesting and "attractive" enough to folk without some stage managed WW3 going on, so I will finalise my comments on this subject with this:

Consider that "instant" promotion back to the Football League might not have been the wonderful thing some perceive it to be. Consider that the re-building of OUR club has gone on unabated through the summer despite failing to go straight back up and consider too, that if (and I stress if) we were to be successfull this season the club would be in a whole lot better shape to take advantage of a return to the Football League than it would have been right now.

Taking all that into consideration, I contend that Paul Buckle did and is doing a very good job...........and there is no hidden joke in that statement!