We dabbled with relegation last year.....and administration was why we nearly ended up being relegated. This year no such problem......but we are looking as if we could again be in a relegation battle. Falling into the Conference can be more of a disaster than years ago when it was not so strong. I have been checking how teams that have risen from the Conference in the last ten years have faired Remarkably of the twenty teams only two have returned. Hereford..... are again in the Conference Premier League. Chester..... have faired the worst of all being relegated to the Conference North. Twelve teams are in Division Two, they are........ Fleetwood.....only just come up.....and doing ok. York.....just come up.....and holding their own at this level. AFC Wimbledon. Oxford. Burton A. Torquay......Dabbled with the Conference for awhile but doing better than us at this level. Aldershot. Exeter.....who have just dropped down from Div 1. Dag & Red. Morecambe T. Accrington S. Barnet. Six teams have reached Division One and are still there. Crawley T.....pushing for promotion again. Stevenage. Carlisle........(have been in the top Division once,years back). Shrewsbury. Yeovil. Doncaster R. So ex-Conference teams a not a push over.........We are reminded of even lower leagues as well.......Dorchester and Stourbridge. So it is obviously a dangerous place at present that we find ourself in..........CAN YOU HEAR ME MR JAMES BRENT.
To me the biggest fear of the Conference has always been the strength of it and nothing to do with any sense of pride or respectability. I have commented many times across many domains that I would like to see the Conference more integrated into the current league structure, with some positive comments in favour and some strongly against. My main thoughts have been towards combing the two leagues (Conference/League Two) into a League Two North/League Two South divide with the goal towards cutting costs while increasing attendances, including creating a promotion formula via autos & play offs across that North/South league structure for subsequent admission into League One. I seriously believe this is the way forward but many will disagree and would this help clubs such as Plymouth or make their plight worse?
Not good is it peeps? Some of us saw all this coming years ago but got laughed out of town! As I used to say when Argyle were in the Championship, relegation to the next league down will not be the end of the demise. The club will continue to plummet until it reaches the bottom of the hole. League One was not the bottom, League Two is not the bottom, Blue Square will not be the bottom either. Same as was true 4 years ago when I was an active forum member, the club is still in freefall and still has a long way to fall yet. None of the problems that were present in 2008 have been addressed. My old favourite saying of "acceptance of mediocrity" has now gone a step further and actually been replaced with acceptance of total and utter failure. What's needed to fix it? The same thing as was needed years ago, proper facilities, proper coaches, proper specialists, proper training, proper scouts, proper networks, a proper professional set up. Remember the parting words of Jamie Mackie after he left for QPR? "I've learned more in 2 weeks at QPR than I did in 2 years at Argyle".
Nice to hear from you brb........not to busy to pay us a visit before the mighty Gillingham arrive on Saturday.....I will be predicting a defeat for us......but you never know, sods-law might take over and we will win.....prolonging Fletcher's stay a little longer.,
Far be it from me to welcome DS back but this place seriously needs some action and I'm all for lively debate. Personally I would not have requested the banning of Thunderballs, I was gonna have some fun with him first...AND THEN BAN HIM! Yes I do have an evil streak so don't mess with me
Don't worry Lala thunder will come back soon.. i only had time for 2 replies to him.. pity sensible was not about?? Now we have DS... long time he has been away... banged up maybe for wearing a shell suit in public..
In all fairness to Devonsurfer he wasn't actually that far off the mark was he. Yes DS that is an admission that you were pretty much right albeit your way of expressing it was lets say a tad OTT. Thunderwhatsits is a bit different. He is just a troll with no life to speak of so he sits in his darkened room alone and tries to think up ways to keep his hands busy lest he go blind. This isn't the same as a couple of years ago in a number of ways. The football isn't that worthy of the title but that isn't an acceptance of mediocrity by the faithful. There are glimpses that the squad we have could compete fairly well in this league. We have to build to something worthwhile rather than expect hand outs from our Banker friend that is evident. Where we do make the same mistakes is the risks taken with the set up and leadership. We need and experienced backroom staff and that is manager and coaches. The ones we have are cheap and amateurs even at this level. Change that and I don't think we would struggle. We may not contend for the honours right now but we wouldn't be in another dogfight. The problem is that Brent will not take any sort of punt on anything and until he shows some signs of doing something then the punters will not come. You will get your 5000 in the end but the rest will drift away again. He thinks he did his bit by signing the dotted line and doesn't have to do anything else. We should all be grateful to have a club and he is our saviour. Somebody somewhere is telling him that the janners will come in their droves which they did once to save the club. Somebody forgot to tell him that he has to provide entertainment to keep them there and we aren't all as thick as the advisors. All you have to look at is the historic results when there is something good on offer. At one end of the table the people disappear and at the other end the masses grow.
That makes a lot of sense in the current climate brb. I remember when it was: Division 1 Division 2 Division 3S and Division 3N My little team Wycombe were then in the Isthmian League. Might be heading back there. Not sure why they changed it. Reverting back to the regional structure for the bottom tier would certainly help towards cutting costs. To what extent though, as a %age of overall costs, I don't know.
But for a lot of clubs it would save nothing. Reasoning behind that statement is that a lot of them would just spend more and having nothing to show for the possible savings in travel. I've got nothing against the suggestion however. It might create more interest and atmosphere in grounds with more local derbys possible. The Burton away fans on Wednesday must have all come on a moped there were that many. But there were at least 10 happy people in the ground I suppose.
It might also increase income with more away fans attending. Can't imagine many Plymouth fans going to places such as York, Bradford, Fleetood, Morecambe (and vice versa). Not convinced they would spend more with budget constraints being what they are these days.
Ron, with all due respect mate you need to look up the Argyle away following. Small it ain't. This league cannot afford for Argyle to disappear down the plug hole. We boost the average numbers by a fair bit wherever we play. Lets be honest, the more the clubs earn the more they spend and some anyway. It seems to be the nature of the beast and there is no way some of these clubs are anywhere near within the 55% rule. Just look at some of the attendances. With creative accounting however.......
But Ron they do travel...........thousands of miles every year.....whatever crap they play.....the greenarmy turn up.
Sorry, I've no idea. I was talking generally (out of my backside it would seem). I assume you have a very dedicated fan base then. I think we have fewer fans going to away games today than we did as an amateur team. Not absolutely certain but it wouldn't surprise me.
Very admirable. I admire our fans that follow the team all over the place but I suspect it's a much smaller following than you have. I see the attendance for our game was 3,161. Very low but it was a Tuesday night in October. Do you know how many of those were your fans?
A fed up fan base is probably more accurate Ron but they do travel. The smallest away numbers is probably around the 5/600 mark and the biggest excluding locally is around the 1300 mark. We took a third of the total crowd to one earlier this season although I'm not one of them. I think it might have been the Aviva advert and inspiration from Big Dave. Seriously though they always have done away games.
That's a very impressive fan base for away games. Anyway I'll say goodnight (it's an hour later here). Nice chatting.
How good has it been having other fans around to debate with - makes this place much more interesting. Thanks everyone for popping in, you are all welcome (especially in the bar) anytime.
