I guess its no surprise to see certain players leave due to the lack of promotion, and 10 players out of contract gone to save wages ?? including 1st team and reserve goalies !!!! Hess has done us proud this season, and I like others expected him to build on this for next season. But it seems he now has to build a brand new team before he do,s anything else. We the fans need to get behind him and the new players( If we can find any ) And keep our fingers crossed a team to support for 2011-2012 As a businessman, I blame the people not just at Gillingham but all teams who run the clubs, The Chairmen-Women, and Directors, Who rarely put there money were there mouths are and bad admin.Then the Manager gets the sack for getting bad results !! Stay loyal UTG
I agree with what has been said and hope that the decision to restrict the budget to buy/loan players was taken by the Board as a whole and was not the sole decision of the Chairman. I doubt very much if Hessy had anything to do with this decision and he must feel very badly let down by what he as now got to work with. This chain of getting rid of players and working with limited funds will only be broken if the Club get promoted so that Scally can increase prices. If Hessy fails to get promotion, then it might be good night from him and another load of players will disappear and we will be left searching for another Manager. What with the little money that we have, I hate to think what we will end up with. These are difficult times.
This has all a familiar ring about it. For those who remember the last time the Gills really struggled (late 80's early 90's), we were financially strangled and had to appoint a manager who loved the club (Damien Richardson), but was also probably the cheap option. He was forced into blooding a lot of youngsters mixed with ageing journeymen, and for a time, with good team spirit, the club actually done reasonable well for a couple of seasons. But then a run of poor results and bad luck thrust the Gills towards the wrong end of the table. Eventually crowds dwindled to 2500 - 3000 and the enevitable administration followed. Just hope this is not history repeating. UP THE GILLS
allbluelenny quote: As a businessman, I blame the people not just at Gillingham but all teams who run the clubs, The Chairmen-Women, and Directors, Who rarely put there money were there mouths are and bad admin.Then the Manager gets the sack for getting bad results !! Stay loyal UTG .................................................................................................................................................. With respect and if I've understood your comment correctly, I have an opposite opinion... I'm not quite sure how any chairman or directors at our level or even at some premier league clubs can be blamed entirely for for the administration of clubs? By that I mean imo, clubs are dictated to by players & agents in the game of football, if we don't meet their demands, they go elsewhere. I believe this was all brought about by the modern day premier league and the influx of foreign players, to become the elite. In some ways this benefited the fans with new or re-modernised stadiums, also live television coverage, with the services of some of the best footballers on the planet. However, how does this benefit lower league teams and chairman, when we are met with huge wage demands or contracts, of course a football player has the right to expect the best for themselves and family - however, you state you are a businessman, so I take it you give people whatever contracts they want or pay people what ever wage they want regardless of your turnover? Until some regulations are agreed within world football, to control these ridiculous sums of money that are exchanged in our game, we will need to continue to cut our cloth accordingly to avoid administration and that in itself will mean playing football at a level we can afford, because hopefully when the others have folded under their own making, hopefully we will still be around.
Anyone in League 2 with the budget we had last season would have taken advantage of it and would have walked the league. But look at 3 of the 4 teams that were in the playoffs. Accrington were nearly out of business a few months ago yet they had a squad that got into the playoffs. Look at Stevenage! They came up, kept most of their squad together, were struggling a little for the first half of the season and they're at Old Trafford tomorrow for a place in League 1. I've said all along that to get out of this league you need to have a consistent team, it's not rocket science. With the massive cut in wages, there's no way we can sign good league players.... we probably couldn't sign Mulligan or Dave at this rate. So it looks like we're going to have to go down the non league route again but the players are there as proven with Jackson, Morrison, George Boyd etc. The main difference when Stimson bought non league was that he kept to what he knew i.e buying from Stevenage and people like Oli who he had worked with previously whereas I think Hessy will have a thorough look around, the reduction in squad size suggests a quality over quantity system. But what gets me is that we have one of the best stadiums in League 2 with a huge fan base geographically but the prices being charged for the quality of football the fans watched over the last few years is ridiculous and how Scally cannot see that is even more ridiculous. To charge £20+ to watch a dull 1-1 against Morecambe is it any wonder why attendances are low? I've been to Everton twice this year and paid £15 EACH. Scally is pricing the fans out of watching their team and to say we have no money to sign (no offence to Palmer) a bog standard League player and couldn't even match Northampton's offer for Bayo, what is he playing at?
Scally's programme notes. 17 April 2010 "In my view the finances for League One and League Two are very similar in so far as income is concerned....... There has been a huge amount of work done behind the scenes over the last four years on the club's finances and we are close to reaching a satisfactory conclusion that will set the club on a stronger financial footing than at any point in the last 15 years. i think it is fair to say that the benefits of all this have not yet filtered through on to the football side this season, but there is no doubt that it will do over the seasons ahead." Roll on the bad old days!
I think that there is always a balance to be achieved between what the club chairman want, how much money they're prepared / able to put into the playing staff, and the the quality and ability of the manager to work within those confines. There is little doubt that the best managers can achieve more given a longer period of time, but that does not mean that every manager, given time, will achieve what the club (directors and supporters) desire. The bottom line is that Gills financial position at the moment is dire (keeping in mind this is a non-swearing board) and that under that single circumstance it will require a manager with great skill to assemble a squad and team that is able initially just to stay in the division while some longer term squad restructuring in undertaken, and then over the next couple of seasons to play entertaining and attractive football and start climbing the leagues again. There was one chance to get it right with the now-ex squad, and that didn't work out, so now it must be back to the drawing board. Personally I think that promotion next season will be much harder than this, given that we will not be able to attract more established (and higher paid) players, and that the initial focus next season will simply be staying in the league and in business. So the question that Scally should be asking is 'is Andy Hessenthaler the right and best man to do that job?'. But if he's not, then who else would be capable of doing a better job. I'm not questioning AH's passion for the Gills, but also trying to look at it from a business point of view.
If we're looking at it from a business side and building for the future, then for me Hess is the man for the job. Business wise getting rid now would be shooting ourselves in the foot because seeing as we can't afford to keep anyone at the moment, we couldn't get anyone better in that could stay for a number of years. And also if we are to re build then for me Hess is the best man for the job. He loves the club inside out and his relationship with the core group of fans is better than anyone else and Scally will give him at least another 2 seasons to get his side together. Yes we blew it last season and it will be a lot more difficult this time around but going up this season would have taken the limelight away from changes that needed to happen over the summer in regards to getting rid of the flops in the side. Paying League 1 wages in League 2 can't happen and we've paid the price for not going up in that we're probably going to be in League 2 for the next few seasons like the Bradfords, Rotherhams and Chesterfields of this world but we can use this coming season to get Hessy's squad together and then look to push for promotion.
