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Post by ohtobeatplainmoor on Nov 21, 2010 13:04:07 GMT
It didnt look great on the Football League Show, did it?! In mitigation, it did look like he was left unsighted until fairly late. Bevan has returned to the sort of form that he showed when he first joined - occaisionally just doesn't seem to get to shots that you would think that he might.
When Bevs is injured it is plain to see (and painful for the fans to watch!). If he is injured then I would have thought that Danny Potter would feature a bit more as last season when Bevan was played through his injury then the problems were exacerbated.
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petef
Match Room Manager 
Posts: 4,626
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Post by petef on Nov 21, 2010 13:19:57 GMT
Allways find the arguement about not being in league one a bit strange Dave! More money from the football league...larger numbers of away support ie:Southampton, Plymouth, Exeter to name a few...better teams who just might entice a few more home fans in................................ Only thing I can see against is that players will expect slightly higher wages...it's not untill the Championshite that they start expecting silly wages! That's just where the problem of not being properly equipped or prepared can result in a reactionary and uncontrollable downward spiral if your not competitive. Without strong foundations, the right preparation and adequate financial resource's the danger of "promotion" as we saw the last time it was achieved, can easily result in abject failure. Mike Bateson simply wasn't prepared for promotion and didn't really want it because he knew that for the club to be able remain in a higher division he would have to take a gamble and find the finances to fund better players and a large squad. Who could blame him in all honesty. Its no different now, and with the squad as it is we would find ourselves floundering at the bottom of the division above if we did happen to fluke promotion as are D&R at this moment in time. Promotion to a higher division is great if sustainable in the longer term . At the moment I just cannot see that it is. The whole profile of the club needs to be raised somehow and the only way I can see that happening is with a good cup run and a big club draw, though that never seems to happen to us and ultimately do we really want to be in a division that where we cannot compete?  |
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Post by ohtobeatplainmoor on Nov 21, 2010 13:43:05 GMT
I agree PeteF - I think about the club up the A380 in the last 20 years they have had ties against Everton (including a 0-0 draw at Sid James Park), Villa and the matches against Man United. When we get to the 3rd round we seem to draw teams like Brighton. The only recent decent draw was the Birmingham match - which the clubs shambolic handling of the away match resulted in many supporters not being able to get tickets for the replay (including myself - as a result I stopped going to home matches for a month or so).
Exeter's existence owes a huge amount to those two matches in '05, the amount of money that they genereated was phenomenal and I would say accelerated their return to the league by at least a few seasons as they were able to pay-off the CVA in one fail swoop.
One thing that I do beg to differ Pete is that we need to get crowds up before we move into League 1. I would hope that they would come as a natural consequence of this acheivement. Even with miniscule infrastructure in the 04/05 season we very nearly managed to stay-up and most seasons our points tally would have seen this happen. Our reserve and youth set-up is starting to get-up and running again (although whether it is sustainable in the current financial climate remains to be seen) and there is a possibility that work on the new stand will start next year. We have a proper team of coaches and we have a board of directors driving the club forward.
A win against Walsall next weekend could provide a massive boost to the future of our club. Imagine what the board could do with the money that an away match against one of the big boys could do for us?
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Dave
TFF member
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Post by Dave on Nov 21, 2010 13:46:48 GMT
Allways find the arguement about not being in league one a bit strange Dave! Don’t worry register; you are not the first person who believed I held some strange views. ;D I can only look back to our last promotion and factor in how things are right now. By right now I mean our gates and how I see things happening in the UK over the next year or so due to all the cuts that will be made by the government. Did our gates really go up a great deal when Leroy took us to division one? Did the club find it had so much more money to spend on team building etc? I don’t know the answers really and that may well have been the case and it was just Bateson who was unwilling to spend more on the team. What I do know is we had a much weaker team in division one than the one that won promotion and was in my view the main reason we came straight back down again. I don’t think Leroy was half as lucky as Paul Buckle is now as he had to work under Bateson and in true Bateson style; Leroy was unable to make any changes in the playing squad until it was too late. In the past Bateson just about got his timing right and saved things right at the death. Paul Buckle was able to make changes halfway through the season to his team when he took the club back to the football league, I think we all felt he made the right calls on the players he felt had not been able to make the step up to league two. I’m not 100% convinced he got it all right by the way, the loan players did OK, but I feel it was playing Nico and Muzzy again in our games at the end of the season that played a big part in us staying up. Talking of Muzzy he sure scored a great goal yesterday and I do feel it’s a shame he wanted to move on as we might have won a few more games this season with him here. Yes all fans want their club to have ambition and be reaching for higher and better things, but I don’t think there is any point in aiming higher than what can be sustained and my view is we are still not in a good enough position at the club, to be a good league one side. I have never really understood why our gates in the first season of the BSP were so good, one would have thought losing our league status, would have seen much smaller gates. They have only gone down since we got back into the football league and that is with more away fans in the ground. We could go up and do what we did when we came back up from the BSP and survive our first season, we could also get back to back promotions as anything can happen in football. But I still think taking everything into consideration, for the time being it is best to stay in this league because unless we really could increase our income greatly, we would end up struggling and a club that loses most of its matches, finds it also loses fans into the bargain. |
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Post by register on Nov 21, 2010 13:54:47 GMT
Allways find the arguement about not being in league one a bit strange Dave! More money from the football league...larger numbers of away support ie:Southampton, Plymouth, Exeter to name a few...better teams who just might entice a few more home fans in................................ Only thing I can see against is that players will expect slightly higher wages...it's not untill the Championshite that they start expecting silly wages! That's just where the problem of not being properly equipped or prepared can result in a reactionary and uncontrollable downward spiral if your not competitive. Without strong foundations, the right preparation and adequate financial resource's the danger of "promotion" as we saw the last time it was achieved, can easily result in abject failure. Mike Bateson simply wasn't prepared for promotion and didn't really want it because he knew that for the club to be able remain in a higher division he would have to take a gamble and find the finances to fund better players and a large squad. Who could blame him in all honesty. Its no different now, and with the squad as it is we would find ourselves floundering at the bottom of the division above if we did happen to fluke promotion as are D&R at this moment in time. Promotion to a higher division is great if sustainable in the longer term . At the moment I just cannot see that it is. The whole profile of the club needs to be raised somehow and the only way I can see that happening is with a good cup run and a big club draw, though that never seems to happen to us and ultimately do we really want to be in a division that where we cannot compete? I see Scunthorpe are surviving in the Championshite with home gates of around five and a half thousand! Maybe we should ask there fans where they would rather be! Holding on in the Championshite or being average in the league below! I know where i'd rather be! |
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Post by chrish on Nov 21, 2010 15:11:13 GMT
One thing that I do beg to differ Pete is that we need to get crowds up before we move into League 1. I would hope that they would come as a natural consequence of this acheivement. I can see what you mean, but it certainly would make things easier during the run in if we had extra financial clout to bring in a player or two either on loan or on a permanent basis. I also think bigger crowds and extra revenue now would make things a lot easier in the close season if we did go up. If you have a look at Dagenham they averaged just over 2,000 at home last season and this season they've been getting that or maybe 200-300 more. The only gate over 3,000 was the recent FA Cup game with Leyton Orient who, I imagine, brought a decent away following with them. They find themselves 3rd from bottom and are struggling without Paul Benson who they sold to Charlton Athletic. This lot are a well run club, they a good manager, a good youth set and a decent board of directors but they're struggling with the gates. If you add 2,000 to their usual gates they would be in much better shape. The problem for them is that they've had no history of attracting more than 2,000-2,500 to games on a regular basis. I wonder how many they had at Wembley for the play off final? If you look at our situation. The gates are similar to ours, although I would say that at least we have had the ability in the past to attract crowds in the high 3,000s and most importantly we are beginning to get our act together off the pitch with the youth setup and the reserve team. It's going to take time for people to stop taking us as a "joke" club run on a shoestring to a serious professional club run by a solid board of directors and a good stable manager. I think that the MB years did more damage than good, even if his heart was in the right place. But if you ask fans to keep paying to attend games and then don't invest that money in making a decent fist of things when you do get promoted, people will stop going and some will never come back. There are a hardcore of 1500-1800 who will go whatever rubbish we serve up but they are 2000-2500 potential fans/stay-aways who will find better things to spend the 16 quid on. |
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Post by loyalgull on Nov 21, 2010 17:01:55 GMT
if we maintain the present momentum things will change,such is the state of this division that despite our recent patchy run we are still in the top 7,and we are due to go on one of our unbeaten runs again.We have absolutely nothing to fear in this division i believe,but we have niggling little doubts about our ability to sustain a promotion challenge with our piddly gates,but they will improve as the season and off field PR improve of that i am sure.And finally if scunthorpe,colchester and the likes of dagenham can do it then there is no reason why we cant
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jerry
TFF member
Posts: 165
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Post by jerry on Nov 21, 2010 17:53:22 GMT
You only need to look at the teams currently in League 1 to see how our attendances could improve.
Exeter
Plymouth
Yeovil
Bristol Rovers
Swindon
Bournemouth
It's almost like the South Western League! (you may be able to add Bristol City next season as well)
They would all bring huge away followings. Add to them Sheff. W, Southampton, Charlton and Huddersfield and you are looking at nearly half of our home games with the away end almost full, a massive increase in our gates without us having a single extra home fan!
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Post by lambethgull on Nov 21, 2010 18:05:46 GMT
Good point. It would interesting to know the number of away supporters Exeter have had this season compared with the number we've had.
'Derbies' aside, it would interesting to know what teams in more central areas of the country get in terms of away support compared to us. Even if they were to average just 80 extra away supporters per game at £16, that's an extra £30k per year.
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Dave
TFF member
Posts: 13,081
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Post by Dave on Nov 22, 2010 11:56:52 GMT
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Post by ospelgull on Nov 23, 2010 9:28:19 GMT
Better quality pictures, well done!
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Dave
TFF member
Posts: 13,081
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Post by Dave on Nov 23, 2010 15:33:08 GMT
Better quality pictures, well done! That's because Darryl has send me larger images for our last two games and I was able to put them up as they were and not have to try and make them bigger. I have thanked him for doing this for the TFF. |
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