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Post by whiteswan on Feb 13, 2023 21:40:44 GMT
I guess it depends on what you want from your football club and why you choose to support them.
Owning a stadium, being financially sustainable and producing good youth players will ultimately lead to more success on the pitch. That’s the whole point, right? If we can own our own stadium, be financially sustainable/competitive and have a flourishing youth system, we’ll progress as a club, have more success on the pitch and play in higher leagues.
A bigger fan base will be a byproduct of the above.
Having good community outreach is also great. But I don’t support the club because we give away tea and biscuits to OAPs on a Thursday morning.
It’s in my blood. I inherited it from my dad. He inherited from his. I literally dream about us playing in the premier league. Battling it out with the big boys. The aesthetics of the opposition stadium and the size of the clubs we could be going toe to toe with is a big part of those dreams. I reckon Paul Barry has them too.
‘The Moose That Roared’ as Andrew Bennett put it.
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Post by amberisbackdrink on Feb 13, 2023 22:46:47 GMT
Ok so this season has been hard on the pitch however that should not detract from the progress at this club. The Barnsley game was awful but in isolation is 3 points. We have many more points to fight for against easier opposition.
We own our ground, invested in the training facilities, youth team have made quarter finals in fa youth cup, fighting for League One status, engaged with the community and are building all of this from a sustainable financial base. This seems ambitious to me without going sh.. and bust.
If we get relegated (a big if) then its a setback, however on the grander scale of things we are still growing as a club. A couple of wins and things will look different.
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Post by martinjohn on Feb 13, 2023 23:14:36 GMT
I agree with everything you’ve said. I don’t think anyone’s mentioned being entitled to step by step progression. The previous poster seemed to suggest that playing in league 2 against smaller clubs wasn’t an issue, because we have Fleetwood, Accrington etc in league 1. The difference is, the very obvious difference is, league 1 also has some sleeping giants and we therefore play in much more attractive fixtures. I think we can all agree with that!? I think we can also all agree that league 2 has some very very unattractive looking fixtures if we’re to go down. The best thing about league 1 is we get to go places like Hillsborough, The Valley, Portman Road etc etc. Obviously if you’re looking forward to taking 200 fans to Crawley next season (as someone suggested on twitter yesterday) or if you spend your Saturday tweeting about and ground hopping around the Kershaw premier league, you might have a different perspective. Which is fine. As I have stated before, I am far more interested in my club owning it’s stadium, being part of it’s community, being financially sustainable, bringing youth players through and building a fan base for generations to come than the size or the aesthetic of the opposition stadium we play at. "Building a fanbase" is inextricably linked with "the size... of the opposition stadium". Our fanbase won't grow playing Sutton and Barrow. We've got real potential to grow to the size of Lincoln or even the unmentionables up the A1. But to do that we need a sustained spell in this league. |
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squeeze.
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Post by squeeze. on Feb 13, 2023 23:55:08 GMT
As I have stated before, I am far more interested in my club owning it’s stadium, being part of it’s community, being financially sustainable, bringing youth players through and building a fan base for generations to come than the size or the aesthetic of the opposition stadium we play at. "Building a fanbase" is inextricably linked with "the size... of the opposition stadium". Our fanbase won't grow playing Sutton and Barrow. We've got real potential to grow to the size of Lincoln or even the unmentionables up the A1. But to do that we need a sustained spell in this league. It’s absolutely not inextricably linked. Staying in League One would be good, some achievement of course that’s what we all want but some of you are talking as if League Two would be terminal, everything would be undone and we would never recover. No wonder so many folk want to change the gaffer if the thing they value most and want to hang onto is playing at big stadiums they used to see on the telly. |
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Post by martinjohn on Feb 14, 2023 6:26:47 GMT
"Building a fanbase" is inextricably linked with "the size... of the opposition stadium". Our fanbase won't grow playing Sutton and Barrow. We've got real potential to grow to the size of Lincoln or even the unmentionables up the A1. But to do that we need a sustained spell in this league. It’s absolutely not inextricably linked. Staying in League One would be good, some achievement of course that’s what we all want but some of you are talking as if League Two would be terminal, everything would be undone and we would never recover. No wonder so many folk want to change the gaffer if the thing they value most and want to hang onto is playing at big stadiums they used to see on the telly. The amount of Cambridge fans attending games will drop if we get relegated to league 2. That's a fact. The quality of football / atmosphere / opposition will generally decrease, therefore the market for watching it will decrease. Simple stuff. |
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Wingco's Boy
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Post by Wingco's Boy on Feb 14, 2023 8:38:56 GMT
One reason for fighting tooth and nail to stay in this division, and there has not been enough evidence of that fight, is that we need to keep that one division cushion against a return to the wilderness. I understand the arguments of those who are relatively tranquil at the prospect of relegation because we appear stronger as a club in terms of owning the stadium again, getting massive improvements to training facilities etc. but League status should be considered alongside those things as an important sign of success. It’s not a “nice to have”.
The above debate about the size and tradition of opponents hasn’t addressed the prospect of playing the likes of Wealdstone, or Maidenhead, or Dorking. That’s the prospect that Gillingham are facing, with a second successive relegation looming. And I think we are much more likely to go straight through than to bounce back up.
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Post by whiteswan on Feb 14, 2023 9:22:29 GMT
One reason for fighting tooth and nail to stay in this division, and there has not been enough evidence of that fight, is that we need to keep that one division cushion against a return to the wilderness. I understand the arguments of those who are relatively tranquil at the prospect of relegation because we appear stronger as a club in terms of owning the stadium again, getting massive improvements to training facilities etc. but League status should be considered alongside those things as an important sign of success. It’s not a “nice to have”. The above debate about the size and tradition of opponents hasn’t addressed the prospect of playing the likes of Wealdstone, or Maidenhead, or Dorking. That’s the prospect that Gillingham are facing, with a second successive relegation looming. And I think we are much more likely to go straight through than to bounce back up. Bang on. Bigger clubs than us are struggling to get out the conference right now. Our current squad is much weaker than the squad that got promoted in 2021. At the end of the season we’ll lose Jones, Knibbs, Smith and others. I’ve seen nothing from this season that suggests we’ll be anywhere near the top of league 2, should we go down. (See Curzon Ashton and Grimsby as three examples of how we compare to teams in leagues below us). I feel it’s much more likely we’ll be battling it out for mid table and looking over our shoulder in March and April. No, it’s not the end of the world if we go down. The club is now in a better position off the pitch (so we’re lead to believe and I’ve got no reason not to believe that!). Relegation will have a significant financial impact on the club. It’s difficult to quantify what that will look like. FWIW I still believe we’ve got enough about us to stay up. I hope we do, but we really shouldn’t underestimate the difficulties, apathy and underwhelming environment that comes with league 2 football. |
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terryd
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Post by terryd on Feb 14, 2023 9:40:58 GMT
One reason for fighting tooth and nail to stay in this division, and there has not been enough evidence of that fight, is that we need to keep that one division cushion against a return to the wilderness. I understand the arguments of those who are relatively tranquil at the prospect of relegation because we appear stronger as a club in terms of owning the stadium again, getting massive improvements to training facilities etc. but League status should be considered alongside those things as an important sign of success. It’s not a “nice to have”. The above debate about the size and tradition of opponents hasn’t addressed the prospect of playing the likes of Wealdstone, or Maidenhead, or Dorking. That’s the prospect that Gillingham are facing, with a second successive relegation looming. And I think we are much more likely to go straight through than to bounce back up. Bang on. Bigger clubs than us are struggling to get out the conference right now. Our current squad is much weaker than the squad that got promoted in 2021. At the end of the season we’ll lose Jones, Knibbs, Smith and others. I’ve seen nothing from this season that suggests we’ll be anywhere near the top of league 2, should we go down. (See Curzon Ashton and Grimsby as three examples of how we compare to teams in leagues below us). I feel it’s much more likely we’ll be battling it out for mid table and looking over our shoulder in March and April. No, it’s not the end of the world if we go down. The club are now in a better position off the pitch (so we’re lead to believe and I’ve got no reason not to believe that!). Relegation will have a significant financial impact on the club. It’s difficult to quantify what that will look like. FWIW I still believe we’ve got enough about us to stay up. I hope we do, but we really shouldn’t underestimate the difficulties, apathy and underwhelming environment that comes with league 2 football. Spot on. |
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tojo
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Post by tojo on Feb 14, 2023 9:43:15 GMT
I've seen many relegations at our club, and if anyone thinks this time, it's just a 'blip' in an otherwise upward curve, they are v much mistaken, the financial impact, and cloth cutting to suit will be significant.
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Post by addyell on Feb 14, 2023 10:05:39 GMT
No doubt going down would have an impact on the squad and club. With a rebuild as big as we are facing already, it would be much nicer & easier to do that in league one than two.
I'm not in agreement that our current squad is much weaker than the side that got us promoted. A lot of players are still involved, and while one or two 'special' players (Mullin and Wes) haven't been replaced and were never likely to be, as a squad overall we are much stronger man for man than we were that season.
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Post by svh on Feb 14, 2023 10:09:48 GMT
Boateng and Iredale walk into this team so I would say man for man is certainly not true.
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Post by El Goodo on Feb 14, 2023 10:16:11 GMT
The squad's stronger, the starting XI in this formation would be improved with the additions of Iredale, Boateng, Hoolahan, Mullin & probably Knoyle.
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Post by addyell on Feb 14, 2023 10:26:40 GMT
Boateng and Iredale walk into this team so I would say man for man is certainly not true. Maybe a misuse of wording from me. What I meant was throughout the whole squad, if you match then vs now, now is going to come out on top more. Looking at the squad numbers list at the start of the 20/21 season, it's a good job we didn't struggle with injury that year as outside the first 12/13 names, we were extremely limited |
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imp566
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Post by imp566 on Feb 14, 2023 10:30:10 GMT
It’s absolutely not inextricably linked. Staying in League One would be good, some achievement of course that’s what we all want but some of you are talking as if League Two would be terminal, everything would be undone and we would never recover. No wonder so many folk want to change the gaffer if the thing they value most and want to hang onto is playing at big stadiums they used to see on the telly. To be honest, if we lose those idiots who are intent on causing trouble at our games, then I'd be delighted. I think if they hang around too long we might risk losing others because of their presence, regardless of what is happening on the pitch! |
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Post by milesfenton on Feb 14, 2023 10:35:23 GMT
Boateng and Iredale walk into this team so I would say man for man is certainly not true. Not sure Boateng would. Linked very nicely with Wes, but was a bit of a liability at times defensively. Iredale I agree with - but I'm sure with our luck he'd become another injured left back anyway! Morrison, Bennett and Jones would all have walked into our League 2 side. Either McGrandles or Knibbs (the more experienced version we have now) would get in over Hannant. Williams v Knoyle is pretty even. Smith isn't Mullin, but wouldn't be a million miles off (definitely 20+ goals in League 2). Wes is the big miss. |
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