Just The League Left Then!!!

There shouldn't be any interuption from the FA Trophy for the rest of this season.

The 4th (QF) round is on 21st Feb which we are due to play Kettering who are out.

The 2 leg semi's are on 14th & 21st March when we play Barrow and Northwich.

I am dissapointed when we lose any game but today I think we were on a hidding to nothing.

The players didn't get back to Torquay until 04:15 on Wednesday morning so in preperation for today they have had only a light session on Thursday and then on another massive coach trip to Southport.

Southport themselves on a roll and well up for the task today.on a heavy pitch for a travel weary United. 3-0 did flatter them. If we had scored one of 2 good chances (according to RD) I recon we would have gone on to win, in the same way Wrexham won today. The last thing we needed was a replay and the best result of the day was keeping the 3 saturday available for league football listed above.

Weymouth is going to be a pretty good indicator as to where the remainder our season goes. Thyre on a reasonable spell of form and this a "derby" match so should be well up for it.
Whether today's "hiccup" is just that, a hiccup will become more apparent after Tuesday and beyond.
Can this squad recapture the form that hammered the likes of Histon 4-1 is the big question and there just hasn't been enough of this type of result,even against the so called lowly sides this season to convince me that we are true contenders for the second promotion spot.
This is the time of season that sorts the men out from the boys. Just look at Wrexham and Stevenage they are now a big danger to us and I get the feeling we may just be running out of steam for the run in despite the wonderful performances in the cup. Now is the time every player must dig deep to recapture some top form or it will feel like smoking a f*g after giving up for three months - a total waste of effort.

As ever when there are differences of view about our manager the tone of post deteriorates. Anything posted is just opinion and as such opposing views are equally valid.

The main point of contention is the way one views the club and its existence and whether that very existence is sufficient to console one as a supporter or whether it is about winning, or perhaps most importantly, winning promotion back to the football league.

It does sometimes amuse me that there are those who now profess that being in the conference is no bad thing and may well be the same people who might have criticised Mike Bateson for exactly the same sentiments. Of course those sentiments (MB’s) were expressed when we were a league club, but not of course run along the same lines as we are now.

There are many positive things to be both pleased and proud about off the pitch. But at the end of the day attendance at the gate and thus the ability to sustain those advances will rest upon performances on the pitch. Whilst the economic downturn will have some degree of responsibility for falling attendance levels, the gut wrenching end to last season and its significance in the ability to attract the “less committed” fan is key.

No one on this forum would, I think, disagree that the board have backed PB very well. We are one of the better funded clubs in this league. It is not unsurprising that attached to that funding should come some expectation of performance from fans.

The debate then turns to the fans and if they have confidence in our current manager to get the job done. I received regular reports on the Tuesday night game at Lewes from 2 people at the game (both are members of this forum but neither posts). Both as it happens were sat in the stand taking the advantage of the appropriate elevation to view the game from the “Merse” angle (although I understand Merse may not have joined them in the gods!). Neither thought the performance was any good. Neither could understand the switch in tactics against a very poor Lewes side struggling with form. Both have advised me that they have lost confidence in the ability of our manager to get the club promoted, despite the result!

I think what I might expect to see is some measure of progress. There are those who are prone to making great statements about how the squad has more depth and even offer opinions that the standard of the league has improved from one season to another. I am not sure where the evidence is for such statements, particularly bearing in mind the marked reluctance of PB to play or experiment with certain players in the first team. But they are opinions of people who are watching and have the same validity as anyone else observing.

I like to look at progress. If we are moving positively forward then I can have patience and take a longer term view. With that in mind I set out below 3 tables. The first shows comparisons between this season and last after the same number of BSP games. The second is the same comparison covering all competitions. The 3rd, a table showing our form in the last 15 competitive games. I am starting to feel that my observers at Lewes may be right and perhaps I am wrong!

Re: Just The League Left Then!!!
« Reply #14 Yesterday at 7:46pm »

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Yesterday at 7:23pm, BudleighGull wrote:
No probs Capital... I'm not normally one to shout out but those comments just don't add up from Mr Shaw... I've just realised that he doesn't even watch games being as he's abroad so how does he know what the team's like?



The last time I saw him at one of our games (Kiddie away last season) he was too busy getting the maximum amount of ale down his throat amongst a raucous crowd in the beer garden of the Railway Belle to be in a fit state to really take on board just what the team were like.

Perhaps that what he means by "Pub League"



Merse, i was indeed at the Kiddie game you mention. There was a raucous crowd at the Railway. However do not associate me with the foul mouthed idiots you are referring to. I was sat with jamie and his son who will probably also resent your implied insult.

I'm really getting bored with the "not being at games" criticism. I don't need to be, one look at the league table tells me all i need to know. Points are all that count, and we don't have enough. Buckle should have done better with the backing he's had. You can pretend otherwise if you like but it doesn't alter the facts.

Really not sure where you're going with this "haze of alcohol" routine. A couple of beers and fish and chips before a game is hardly the depths of depravity. Nor does it disqualify one from being objective. I seem to remember sharing a couple of beers with you before the Bath game. So are we both in the same boat?

I totally agree with your comments about the idiots. Embarrassed doesn't begin to cover it. I was ashamed to be a Gulls fan.

The league table does not lie Merse. It is dispassionate and truely reflects our performance so far this season. It doesn't care that we played like world beaters but lost to kiddie. So it does tell me all i need to know. We're not good enough up to now. Maybe it will tell a different story at the end of the season.

No, the league table doesn't show the true story... it doesn't show the whole picture, the tireless work behind the scenes to get our club on an even keel after the disaster that came before, the passion of the fans at the last 5 or 6 home games, the unbelievable support away from home, the moulding of a team over time by a manager who has done wonders as a rookie in the last 18 months. It takes time to build, it takes time to get all parties to gel and understand the methods they use, it takes time to bring it all to fruition. If you want to support a team based on league tables support Man Utd, if you want to support a team who splash the cash support Man City, but if you want to support a club who you can feel passionate about and can take the rough with the smooth support our United and appreciate what we have.

Some very interesting view points on this thread and thanks to Andy for providing his latest tables, as these do show how far or not we have come on the pitch this season.

BudleighGull is correct to say that we all need to look at the whole picture, just how far the board has come on and make so many positive changes around the club. We all know how we are now on a very decent foundation and not the shaky ones we have all witnessed in the past, the likes of people like Webb and Roberts, who could have ended our club for good, if they had stayed any longer.

We only need to look around and see all the improvements the board has made to the ground and the facilities, done to make the Plainmoor experience better for the fans and also one hopes to increase the income of the club. The problem is and always has been, that all that soon gets forgotten by many fans, as at the end of the day no matter what we may feel, football is and always has been a results game.

Fans do not always care about what goes on behind the scenes(its only us on forums who seem too ;D) all they want is a team that wins things, IE cups, promotion all the things that bring on the good time feeling and a sense of real achievement. Yes our board has achieved in so many areas that do play a big part in our clubs very future and more importantly well being, but like I said many will still only judge the team and club on results.

Having a well run club and being part of it should give us all a good feeling of well being, but being a well run club and not producing the progress on the pitch, will in time only result in some fans losing interest and finding other things to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Another problem is how to measure success, is being a well run club the main one? or finishing in a play off spot? even if you fail in the end, or is only promotion seen as the real measure of success for the club and nothing else will ever matter in the end.

Bucks is a young and still learning manager, he has been guilty of making mistakes and no one in their right mind would have not expected him to have made some. The sign of any good manager or anyone for that matter, is how you learn from those mistakes and put things right, so such mistakes do not happen again. Bucks I do feel is often under unfair pressure, simply because some feel that he has had more and much better backing from the current board, then so many managers before him.

We know old uncle mike was a penny pincher and the only times he would splash the cash, was when we had six games left and looked liked we were going down, so often he then found the cash to back his managers. So yes compared to others Bucks has had the very best backing and as a result some fans expect instant results and the real facts are, everything in life takes time to grow and deliver what is expected.

Any young manager in any job is going to face a few problems, I like you may have in the past, been in a job where a new manager came in and some you just felt had no real clue as to what to do and really knew very little about the job or how to improve and move forward. Bucks only had limited knowledge as you would expect and has even had a few ideas of his own that sadly did not really work out for him.

Many felt he signed too many midfield players at the start of the season, then tried to play some in wrong position's to try and fit them into the team, Hargreaves comes to mind here, yet we have seem how Hodges has made the change and is now doing a very good job as a defender now.

My view is that Bucks still does not know how to get the very best out of the players we have here, does not play them to their maximum strengths and as a result we do not play as good as I feel we really could. Merse thinks Bucks needs to give our players some extra training this week, my view is that any manager has to be a motivator of men, the one who gets them fired up and in the right frame of mind to go out on that pitch and die for the shirt they have on their back.

Maybe that is lacking? maybe that real fire that needs to be put into the players can't come out, it would sure explain why Bucks does not seem to celebrate any goals we score.