ON THIS DAY
Food for thought for manager Martin Paterson and chairman
Ben Robinson.
ances over the past few years, have never been great.
We have probably the best training facilities in the league, which helps us get some good up and coming players from leagues above as clubs know they aren’t going to be training on the local park.
It gives them a first real taste of men’s football but they have no life experience and lack the experience to get us out of this position season after season.
We have some good lads who will give there all and run their socks off – Hughes, Powell, Helm – but again they were all at Premier League clubs and are now in a League One relegation battle rather than having progressed into the first team where they were.
Surely that tells a story.
We win award after award for this and that in the community, and that’s great, however it’s almost like we place more emphasis on this than the actual first team football.
I can’t knock the chairman. He’s been around a long time, if it hadn’t been for him giving Nigel Clough a chance all those years ago I doubt there would be a Pirelli Stadium, let alone an established Football League club.
He wants us to live within our means, which is truly the sensible thing to do.
York City, Scarborough, Scunthorpe United, Bury are all examples of where we could be with money just thrown at it.
He’s given a number of managers their big break but this one, along with Jake Buxton, really hasn’t worked at all.
No club can literally “rebuild” half the squad every single transfer window.
At League One level, in the grand scheme of things, we are still, if we are honest, punching above our weight.
In my 25-odd years supporting the club, it’s generally been an upwards curve.
Away days at Weymouth and Vauxhall Motors on Tuesday nights are distant memories but the harsh reality is we are at best a top of the bottom half of League One team. Anything else is a bonus.
The problem currently is we are on a huge downward spiral. Martin, while trying, just doesn’t have the knowledge and experience for this battle.
After the last few results and performances I can only see us ending below the dreaded dotted line come the final whistle on the final day. I hope I’m wrong.
■ Dave Goldsmith: It’s clear that everyone is frustrated after Vale and recent results.
Understandable, it’s always worrying when the team you watch seem to have no tactics at all at an important time of the season.
The reality is that we are very likely to get relegated now. It’s hard to see where we’re going to pick points up and we haven’t tasted relegation since 2018. But in those six years, since being back in League One, have we had any very good seasons? I can’t recall any.
Always making sure we scrape safety, no play-off pushes.
No-one wants to see their team go down but would it be so bad to go down to League Two, reset, get a new gaffer in that’s got a style of play (something we’ve missed for years) and maybe have a push for promotion and see some attractive football?
Of course it’s all ifs and buts, we may stay up and have to endure another season of awful football and finish 18th.
1955:
New Zealand were dismissed by England for only 26 runs in Auckland. The innings, New Zealand’s second, lasted 27 overs and stands as the lowest completed in Test cricket.
1998:
A Fulham fan was killed in a disturbance outside Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium after his team were beaten 2-0.
2000:
The Football Association fined seven Leicester City players and officials £75,500, plus £17,500 costs, for “breathtaking carelessness” in distributing League Cup final tickets. Andy Impey received the biggest fine, in excess of £20,000.
2004:
Sven-goran Eriksson agreed a two-year extension to his England contract, taking him to 2008. He eventually left his post after the 2006 World Cup.
Steve Mcclaren in 2007 when he was England manager.
2007:
Steve Mcclaren stormed out of a post-match press conference only two questions in after his England side struggled to defeat part-timers Andorra in a Euro 2008 qualifier in Barcelona.
2009:
David Beckham went on as a second-half substitute for England in their friendly against Slovakia at Wembley, earning his 109th cap and surpassing Bobby Moore’s record for an outfield player.
2015:
Australia captain Michael Clarke announced he would be retiring from one-day internationals after the following day’s World Cup final against New Zealand.
2018:
Australia captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner were banned from international and domestic cricket for 12 months and Cameron Bancroft for nine months for their part in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.