Sittingbourne 4-2 Town // FA Trophy 3rd Round

[ETFC2001]

28 minutes ago, The Crowing Cockerel said:

It would surprise me. You just have to look at the other recently-departed managers in NLS to see that none of them jumped - they all waited for the sack - perhaps for contract reasons. (Weymouth, St Albans, Hemel...)

 

That’s a good point aswell. We’ll see in these coming weeks or maybe as early as Tuesday. 

[ETFC2001]

23 minutes ago, No bull Towner said:

I wouldn't worry about Gavin's resignation I would worry more about players leaving and saying enough is enough; they will jump surely for the same reason we can't recruit....nobody wants to lose every week and they definitely didn't look harmonious today!

 

What players would we be upset to see go? Most of them are not up to quality and even the best players today had absolute shockers. 

Last season, a main part of why we did so well is because of the ‘vibe’ or friendship we had in that dressing room. There is nothing of resemblance with this group. I’m not sure if they even train together at the same time! They look so disjointed, the shape is non existent and none of them want to take responsibility and take control of games! They just want to argue with each-other when things don’t go our way and It bewilders me every week

[No bull Towner]

1 hour ago, ETFC2001 said:

 

What players would we be upset to see go? Most of them are not up to quality and even the best players today had absolute shockers. 

Last season, a main part of why we did so well is because of the ‘vibe’ or friendship we had in that dressing room. There is nothing of resemblance with this group. I’m not sure if they even train together at the same time! They look so disjointed, the shape is non existent and none of them want to take responsibility and take control of games! They just want to argue with each-other when things don’t go our way and It bewilders me every week

I think Billy Leonard, Rhys Forster, Dylan Adjei Hersey, Adam Thompson and Lennon Peake are worth holding on to

[ETFC2001]

11 minutes ago, No bull Towner said:

I think Billy Leonard, Rhys Forster, Dylan Adjei Hersey, Adam Thompson and Lennon Peake are worth holding on to

Realistically I don’t think Lennon, Thompson, Rhys are going to stay if we go down. I can see the rest staying though.

I just feel there’s no togetherness with this club. Just feels like we’ve put together 11 quality individuals and try and put them on the football pitch to win games. In every team, you need leaders, or players to step up and talk when stuff is going wrong. I don’t see anyone on that pitch today that can do that. 

[TULACH ARD]

14 hours ago, Comet said:

Get Brad back 

This

[andyetfc]

37 minutes ago, TULACH ARD said:

This

A man of few words.

[Nobster180]

We are at the stage now where we have to do whatever it takes to stay in this league, If that means getting someone else in as manager we’ve got to do it, Gav done amazingly well to get us up last year but it’s gone so badly wrong this year, if you look at the turnover of players etc nothing is working really is it, lost 14/19 league games out of all the cups early, not sure what other options we have apart from new ideas from someone else?

At least they’d have around 5 months to have a go,

And being honest you look at the 3 away games coming up and you can’t see many points coming home with us with the current form we are in realistically can you?

The new stand is great as it sets us up for the long term in this league so as it stands we’re going to be relegated, at least if we recover in a few years we’re be set up a bit better and if we ever get promoted again the ground will be set up already.

it’s such a shame how this season has panned out it’s gone from bad to worse and for me that result yesterday was the final nail in the coffin.

 

[Towningaround]

I maintain that Gavin missed golden opportunities to buy himself time, gain some momentum and raise moral by fielding considerably weak teams v Athletic Newham and Hanwell when some goals for his strikers and a couple of wins would’ve given every single member of the club on and off the pitch a much needed boost…..and who knows how it may have kick started something.

Big error in my eyes.  

[ETFC2001]

36 minutes ago, Towningaround said:

I maintain that Gavin missed golden opportunities to buy himself time, gain some momentum and raise moral by fielding considerably weak teams v Athletic Newham and Hanwell when some goals for his strikers and a couple of wins would’ve given every single member of the club on and off the pitch a much needed boost…..and who knows how it may have kick started something.

Big error in my eyes.  

I said this at the time too. Being out of every single club by the first week of December, when a cup run helped us last year with some momentum and helped with morale massively just shows how naive we are. We thought we was going to roll over these lower league teams because we’re now a step 2 side but we got what we deserved in all 3 games. Newham deserved to win, Hanwell and now Sittingbourne. We’re essentially playing for nothing and it’s not even January.

[ETFC2001]

48 minutes ago, Nobster180 said:

We are at the stage now where we have to do whatever it takes to stay in this league, If that means getting someone else in as manager we’ve got to do it, Gav done amazingly well to get us up last year but it’s gone so badly wrong this year, if you look at the turnover of players etc nothing is working really is it, lost 14/19 league games out of all the cups early, not sure what other options we have apart from new ideas from someone else?

At least they’d have around 5 months to have a go,

And being honest you look at the 3 away games coming up and you can’t see many points coming home with us with the current form we are in realistically can you?

The new stand is great as it sets us up for the long term in this league so as it stands we’re going to be relegated, at least if we recover in a few years we’re be set up a bit better and if we ever get promoted again the ground will be set up already.

it’s such a shame how this season has panned out it’s gone from bad to worse and for me that result yesterday was the final nail in the coffin.

 

If the board want to sack him, they would do it now. This is the last chance to really give someone else a go for the next 5/6 months and try and contact a few people to get the squad where it needs to be and hope they can bring in some saving graces. The next 3 away games you can just write off unless we magically get a point like Dorking.

Great news about the stand, it would of been even better if we could of just went on and won yesterday but we can’t have too many good things at once at the moment.

Harry Ottoway scoring a couple goals against us on Tuesday would be probably everyones final nail in the coffin.

[ETFC2001]

When you really look at it though, this season really should be looking much better then it should be. Salisbury, Hemel, Chippenham - We should have had 5/7 points from just those 3 games. But; lack of concentration, mentality, lack of character from everyone involved, and it’s time for a change. 

Edited December 8 by ETFC2001

[symptomless]

I got stuck on the A13 yesterday so I  completely missed the first half. But I got in for free and I found a Snickers in my pocket that I'd forgotten from Friday. So in balance, a good day.

[The Crowing Cockerel]

2 hours ago, symptomless said:

I got stuck on the A13 yesterday so I  completely missed the first half. But I got in for free and I found a Snickers in my pocket that I'd forgotten from Friday. So in balance, a good day.

In the running for best post of 2024.

The board seem to have decided that Gavin is the man to take this club forward. He really isn't. The only way he could've done any worse this season would've been if we'd lost the penalty shoot out against Hornchurch!

Next please.

[No bull Towner]

18 hours ago, The Crowing Cockerel said:

The Board's view seems to be: "well, Gavin did so much better than we expected last season that he gets a free hit at this season with it fully expected that we'll be relegated." The harm now being done to the playing squad and the support should not be underestimated. I maintain that no new manager could do any worse than Gavin has so far this season. 7 December and our season is effectively over. Out of all the cups and we need 35 points from 27 games in order to stand any chance of staying up. Its time to begin planning for next season.

If I were doing the post-match interview with Gavin I'd probably start with: "Do you think you are still the right man for the job?"

I think the question should be put to the board 'did you actually even want to go up?' I think the answer would be no. They never expected it and didn't want it, they were happy being nearly men and so it shall continue to be. This season is needed to show the club that they aren't a step 2 side and with the club model never will be. We need to be content with playing decent step 3 football but I don't think some people are and that's the problem.

[The Crowing Cockerel]

1 minute ago, No bull Towner said:

I think the question should be put to the board 'did you actually even want to go up?' I think the answer would be no. They never expected it and didn't want it, they were happy being nearly men and so it shall continue to be. This season is needed to show the club that they aren't a step 2 side and with the club model never will be. We need to be content with playing decent step 3 football but I don't think some people are and that's the problem.

Would be interesting to know how the club fares financially over the course of this season. I'm assuming playing budget has been carefully managed. At the very least the board should have a clearer idea about exactly how much it would cost to maintain ourselves at Step 2. I would think that if you were to ask most clubs in NLS, the ambition of their fans (and perhaps their owners) would be to make it to the Football League. I know precious little about the logistics required at Step 1 and above, but I can't imagine that a club run by a handful of volunteers could ever get close to achieving that. That being said, I'm very much a believer that a man's reach should exceed his grasp though.

[lovely stuff]

33 minutes ago, No bull Towner said:

I think the question should be put to the board 'did you actually even want to go up?' I think the answer would be no. They never expected it and didn't want it, they were happy being nearly men and so it shall continue to be. This season is needed to show the club that they aren't a step 2 side and with the club model never will be. We need to be content with playing decent step 3 football but I don't think some people are and that's the problem.

Constantly belittling the club, it's board and fans, whilst omitting to ever show the same harsh scrutiny to the performance of the management or players does seem odd. Hopefully this won't be your only season with us on the forum.

[Albury_Walker]

41 minutes ago, lovely stuff said:

Constantly belittling the club, it's board and fans, whilst omitting to ever show the same harsh scrutiny to the performance of the management or players does seem odd. Hopefully this won't be your only season with us on the forum.

Look's like No Bull has  a valid point to me . Everyone is entitled to their point of view. Even proper dipsticks like you 

Edited December 8 by Albury_Walker

[ETFC2001]

1 hour ago, The Crowing Cockerel said:

Would be interesting to know how the club fares financially over the course of this season. I'm assuming playing budget has been carefully managed. At the very least the board should have a clearer idea about exactly how much it would cost to maintain ourselves at Step 2. I would think that if you were to ask most clubs in NLS, the ambition of their fans (and perhaps their owners) would be to make it to the Football League. I know precious little about the logistics required at Step 1 and above, but I can't imagine that a club run by a handful of volunteers could ever get close to achieving that. That being said, I'm very much a believer that a man's reach should exceed his grasp though.

I agree with this TCC, how far do you think we can make it with just our sort of model? Realistically, I think no higher then step 2. Honestly, I can’t talk about how the board are using the budget or if they want to be extra safe with it due to us never being here because I have no clue how it is to really run a football club but it’s a real shame how we just went into this season completely unprepared.

But - I’d like to ask a few questions. Where do WE want to be in 5-10 years? What do we want to be aiming for? What is our actual ambitions as a football club? Of course, everyone wants to be in the football league but let’s be realistic. That will take a lot of investment from who knows who but if it ever did happen it would be a long time away and we’ll have to revisit that if it ever happens.

I think as a club, we have the cheapest tickets in the league at the moment at £14, I think we’re a very good ‘family’ day out, and of course that sells tickets and we also have to take in the fact being near Arsenal and Tottenham, Barnet etc but I think we should be looking to try and maximising revenue for new signings or other opportunities etc whether that’s opening up other food stands, putting up ticket prices a tiny bit - and I’m not sure if these conversations happen in fan meetings but I personally know people would like to know if there was because it is bigger then just some pub team now. It has been for a while. 

People are upset with how this season is getting, I wouldn’t say ‘everyone’ but most people expected us to stay up this season. And I think we could of, or (can)? but I don’t know the next time we will be here and I think it’s a shame how we never really seized this great opportunity and how it’s now becoming a bit of a toxic atmosphere in the ground and the talk around it.

[ETFC2001]

1 hour ago, lovely stuff said:

Constantly belittling the club, it's board and fans, whilst omitting to ever show the same harsh scrutiny to the performance of the management or players does seem odd. Hopefully this won't be your only season with us on the forum.

I agree with you. Obviously, we have to look at the management team first and players because they are producing this on the pitch. But I find it hard to disagree with some of his comments. I think a few people’s problems lie higher up. Whether that’s not giving Gavin enough budget, going into this season unprepared, are we really happy to just be a step 3 side from Enfield, who challenge for promotion every year in step 3 and we will maybe go up a few times but go straight back down - or do we think this is just a learning curve for all and once we get back up here -  if we ever do it’ll be a much better experience for everyone involved? I sit on the fence about that one. 

But, you have to share about blame equally. You can’t talk about just the board and not focus some blame on Gavin and the players. Whether or not they are good enough for this league, that’s a different issue. Gavin deserves the blame too, for not being open to changing the way we play. I understood it for a while because maybe we was lacking in some areas, but there is no excuse for it now imo, especially yesterday. I understand - conditions and all, but that was for both teams. There was no game plan in place for yesterday. And I’ve said that a few times now this season.

[The Crowing Cockerel]

54 minutes ago, Albury_Walker said:

Look's like No Bull has  a valid point to me . Everyone is entitled to their point of view. Even proper dipsticks like you 

Looks like Chesericay have got themselves involved in a real dogfight in the basement of Step 3. Will be interesting to see whether they can claw themselves out of the drop zone with the likes of Hastings, Cray, Hashtag and Whitehawk unlikely to roll-over.