Braintree at home - Saturday 26th March

[Curtis]

Should be an interesting match with hopefully a good attendance due to special ticket offers :-

https://www.sloughtownfc.net/article/2647/Buy-one,-get-one-free-ticket-offer-for-Braintree-Town-match

Braintree have had a significant upturn in their form recently and it looks as though it is based largely on a strong defence which has only conceded 3 goals in their last six matches & only 2 goals in their last 5 away matches.

Braintree away form:-

D 0-0, W 1-0, L 0-1, L 0-1, D 0-0

Slough home form:-

D 2-2, L 1-2, W 2-1, D 1-1, W 2-1

I would love to predict a 1-0 win for us, but we haven’t kept a home league clean sheet since October & only 2 in 16 home league matches, so my prediction is:-

1-1 at odds of 6/1

 

 

[3spirit]

2 hours ago, Curtis said:

Should be an interesting match with hopefully a good attendance due to special ticket offers :-

https://www.sloughtownfc.net/article/2647/Buy-one,-get-one-free-ticket-offer-for-Braintree-Town-match

Braintree have had a significant upturn in their form recently and it looks as though it is based largely on a strong defence which has only conceded 3 goals in their last six matches & only 2 goals in their last 5 away matches.

Braintree away form:-

D 0-0, W 1-0, L 0-1, L 0-1, D 0-0

Slough home form:-

D 2-2, L 1-2, W 2-1, D 1-1, W 2-1

I would love to predict a 1-0 win for us, but we haven’t kept a home league clean sheet since October & only 2 in 16 home league matches, so my prediction is:-

1-1 at odds of 6/1

 

 

Thank God I watch Slough and not Braintree ! ha ha ha !

[Reading Rebel]

2 minutes ago, 3spirit said:

Thank God I watch Slough and not Braintree ! ha ha ha !

The position Braintree were in I think any 1-0 win was real treat.

[Irishadrian]

8 hours ago, 3spirit said:

Thank God I watch Slough and not Braintree ! ha ha ha !

You can say that again ! The 10 teams that have played in the last 5 Braintree games have managed just 3 goals!

[Reading Rebel]

7 hours ago, Irishadrian said:

You can say that again ! The 10 teams that have played in the last 5 Braintree games have managed just 3 goals!

Adrian, you mean the last 5 teams that Braintree have played have manage just 3 goals.

You could go further and say in Braintree's last 9 games the opposition have managed to score only 4 goals in total.

Those 9 games have been against Maidstone twice, Ebbsfleet, Dulwich, St Albans, Chippenham, Tonbridge and of course Slough.

A quite remarkable defensive record considering they were a side with the threat of relegation hanging over them.

[Shredding Green]

Support is not one of Braintree Town 's strong points.

Their three largest home gates in National League South ths season have been :-

Tuesday 8th February : 805 Braintree Town 2 Chelmsford City 2 
Saturday 19th March : 714 Braintree Town 1 Maidstone United 2
Saturday 19th February : 535 Braintree Town 1 Hungerford Town 0

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by Shredding Green

[Curtis]

2 hours ago, Shredding Green said:

Support is not one of Braintree Town 's strong points.

Recent home attendances for them:-

Eastbourne.     279, Welling    324, Slough    308

I would be surprised if we see more than 50 away fans today.

 

[Sir Rebel1965]

4 hours ago, Shredding Green said:

Support is not one of Braintree Town 's strong points.

Their three largest home gates in National League South ths season have been :-

Tuesday 8th February : 805 Braintree Town 2 Chelmsford City 2 
Saturday 19th March : 714 Braintree Town 1 Maidstone United 2
Saturday 19th February : Braintree Town 1 Hungerford Town 0

 

And none against Hungerford?

[Sir Rebel1965]

Slough 0 - 2 Braintree, says it all.

[GlenSTFC]

So deflated after that performance and more importantly result. What a chance we had today of closing the gap to 7th to just 3 points with a game in hand had we won. I know I’ll be told Braintree are on a great run of form but they have nothing to play for but have done the double of us within a month! The first 10 minutes we looked decent but we seemed to fade and Braintree in all honesty could have scored 4 maybe 5. For me I can’t see us making the play offs now as we’re annoyingly too inconsistent. On our day we can compete and beat the biggest and Best Buy we just struggle against the so called lesser sides. 

[Shredding Green]

3 hours ago, Sir Rebel1965 said:

And none against Hungerford?

Thank you Sir Rebel1965. I have inserted the figure which was 535.

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

Unfortunately, with so many youngsters in the starting 11 (and squad!) we will be inconsistent. The play offs have always been a wishful target for me, the fact we are still pushing for it at this stage of the season is a massive credit to our managers and players… There is a bigger picture at play in my opinion!

[GlenSTFC]

43 minutes ago, CookhamRebel said:

Unfortunately, with so many youngsters in the starting 11 (and squad!) we will be inconsistent. The play offs have always been a wishful target for me, the fact we are still pushing for it at this stage of the season is a massive credit to our managers and players… There is a bigger picture at play in my opinion!

Yes I agree the play offs shouldn’t have been a target this season but when you get so close on 2 or 3 occasions it’s just bitterly frustrating when the team doesn’t take the opportunity!!! Considering the amount of young players in the squad yes to be comfortably mid table and safe is testament to our management and players. But I think it also highlights our budget is probably bottom third and it’s not likely to improve next season. Will be interesting to see what the squad turnaround is in the summer.

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

5 minutes ago, GlenSTFC said:

Yes I agree the play offs shouldn’t have been a target this season but when you get so close on 2 or 3 occasions it’s just bitterly frustrating when the team doesn’t take the opportunity!!! Considering the amount of young players in the squad yes to be comfortably mid table and safe is testament to our management and players. But I think it also highlights our budget is probably bottom third and it’s not likely to improve next season. Will be interesting to see what the squad turnaround is in the summer.

I’m quite looking forward to seeing what happens next season to be honest, I think youth with a sprinkling of experience is our best chance at building for the future… If 2 or 3 of those young players really push on you could be looking at bringing in transfer fees that really do set the club up for a charge at Conference in the 23/24 season. Yes I agree it’s frustrating days like today but it’s bigger picture for me, just a bit of patience I think.

[Cornish Rebel]

I read the other day that average budget in nls is £400,000.Yet it is reckoned you need 3 or 4 million pounds a year to compete in the national league.That is massive step up !

[GlenSTFC]

12 minutes ago, Cornish Rebel said:

I read the other day that average budget in nls is £400,000.Yet it is reckoned you need 3 or 4 million pounds a year to compete in the national league.That is massive step up !

£400,000 divide 40 weeks = £10,000 a week! I would suspect maybe 6 or 7 clubs* in our division have a weekly budget in excess of that? I would guess ours is around £3,000.
*Dorking, Ebbsfleet, Havant, Dartford, Maidstone, Dulwich and possibly Oxford City.

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

Not always about money at this level, if you can get the right blend of players anything is possible. Money doesn’t motivate all players at this level, club and environment are massive

[SloughFlyer]

A few thoughts on yesterday from me -

- I thought George Hunt was 100% deserving of his MoM and had 1 of his best games for us.

- I think Jonathon North in goal was the only other player that deserves any credit at all as although I would question his positioning for the 1st goal, without the saves he makes we lose that 5-0 so credit where its due.

- All the talk about the 1st 20 minutes, but the goalie hss 1 proper save to make in that spell (and a scutler long shot). So whilst we were better in the 1st 20, compared to the final 70, that wasn't too hard to do.

- After 15-20 minutes the Braintree bench sent on a piece of paper to change the instructions and formation, clearly from Neil's interview we realised that. Now, im not saying we should be reactive to every change teams make against us, but after 10 minutes of them changing and us seeing we were struggling against their new shape, why did we not try something different? I'm sure Kurtis could have gone wide left, Kayani wide right and push on George Hunt and try a 4-2-3-1 for 15 minutes. Couldn't have been any worse than sticking with what we had and might have changed some things. No plan B today and we got what we deserved.

- I was surprised again in Neil's interview that whilst all the players (apart from George Hunt) were kind of called out, Scott Davies was mentioned by name and yet again Lee Togwell "got away with it". For the first goal, Togwell still doesn't know where the Braintree #7 went. Surely as a coach, he would know to try and stay on your feet as opposed to diving in? For the 2nd goal, he played a lazy ball into Midfield (did that quite a few times yesterday) 3/4 passes later the ball was in our net!!!!!!! Very, very poor.

All in all a rubbish performance yesterday apart from Hunt and North and hopefully now, regardless of points differences and "if we go on a  good run for 8 games we could make the play offs" guys on here can now see why it was clear 2 weeks ago that we as a club aren't ready to challenge for promotion via any means and need to start looking for next season and which of the players we have are good enough to stay around and be part of the squad for next season.

To me a good indicator of the above was the "Slough sign 5" situation -

Joe Dandy - played like the rest of the team yesterday (not called North or Hunt) so not a great debut.

The Oxford midfielder - signed a Goodrham is injured - gets injured in training.

Beauchamp - is staying at Binfield for the rest of the season and got taken off in the first few minutes of the game with a "serious" injury.

The 2 U23/U19's - 1 not in the squad and 1 played for the U19's 18 hours prior to kick off yesterday.

So in the PR, Slough sign 5, which factually is correct, BUT, 2 are part of our academy, 1 stays at Binfield, 1 is a loan who is training with Oxford. So in actual terms, Slough sign 1 loan 1, duel reg 1 and promote 2 (not the most punchy headline granted) but to dress it up like we have made a load of additions is a bit of a stretch.

For me a better way to announce those signings is - 

Slough make additionS - is your headline on the first post to everywhere (FB, twitter, the website etc). Then do 3 posts (don't see much point talking about Beauchamp for now) scheduled 1 hour apart from 5pm. At 5pm, everyone is checking the website etc to see ADDITIONS - then you release the Dandy signing, and end off with - ....... more to come, check back at 6pm. Then you do a piece on the pro-club loan and end off ........ more to come at 7pm. Then you make a big thing of the promotion from within and Xth number of signings from the academy set up and how proud we are as a club of all the academy players that have been promoted this season (which encourages more player to those set ups and perhaps gives some potential supporters a hook as a young up and coming side that promotes youth). 

By doing the above, you drive website and social media traffic as everyone is trying to see the "additions", you add a proper good non-league day offer for fans to each post and perhaps increase the attendance (ignore the performance of yesterday for a minute).

Simple and effective marketing above. Pretty much divide the 1 PR into 4 and flesh out a little with a simple goal of driving social and website traffic and maybe putting some more bums on seats (trackable from the individual offers on each PR bit), and, something a club looking to drive to playoffs and beyond would do (see Dorking who put a PR out last week announcing Jason Prior was back from injury earlier than expected!!!!!) and in their "looking ahead" which is an interview with Marc White, they mention with the home set up or the supporters coach every week.

Edited March 27, 2022 by SloughFlyer

[Guest Wycombe Rebel]

Unfortunately the clubs marketing strategy is non existent, embarrassing the lack of it for non league day to be honest!

Do something different, speculate to accumulate!

Edited March 27, 2022 by CookhamRebel

[SloughFlyer]

2 minutes ago, CookhamRebel said:

Unfortunately the clubs marketing strategy is non existent, embarrassing the lack of it for non league day to be honest!

Do something different, speculate to accumulate!

Whilst I agree CR I want to try and be a bit pragmatic as in fairness to all concerned we are talking about volunteers that are giving up free time to the club etc, so I can't be too critical of anyone involved. 

My point above about the signing announcement as an example would have taken no-one any more time than they put in anyway and MIGHT have had an improved engagement.