What i dont understand

It is because we have no overarching strategy. Each manager comes and goes doing his own thing and then back to square one. The club is rudderless with the only thing on the agenda is how cheap we can run it. We obviously need new owners that have a vision in the way we operate other than cheaply.

Quoted from 1mickylyons

I still have really high hopes Cardwell will come good he looks to have something about him and I dont know what his injury is but hoping we get him back sooner rather than later?

Hope you're right. Personally, he looks like another non scoring centre forward of which we have many. Rose is the better bet and he's a couple of years younger I believe.

Asante was going to be the next Bogle, until he wasn't. High hopes for Yussuf as well, but that didn't work out. Though not a striker, Osbourne was obviously signed as one for the future. All three are now playing in the division below us. In fact, the other promising player we signed around that time, Sam Jones, has done eff all since he left us, something which isn't perhaps too surprising as we all saw that he often seemed lazy or disinterested. I think that we paid a fee for all 4 of these players, though we did obviously get something back for Jones and Osbourne?

The thing about signing promising players from lower divisions to develop and then sell on is that pretty much every club in the world wants to do this and so there aren't many players around who actually can be developed in this manner. The well-funded football academies and scouting systems tend to find the better players much more often than not so there aren't exactly dozens of rough diamonds just hanging around in non-league waiting to be brought into professional football. Clubs certainly can get it wrong when releasing players but they tend to get it right most of the time.

Peterborough have made signing promising lower division players a priority but they have a lot more things going for them than we do. Not least a heck of a lot more money to risk on these players as well as a geographical location which is relatively close to the many south east and midland clubs.

The idea of signing and developing these players is a good one, but the reality is that it's like looking for a needle in a haystack trying to find them.

Liam Hearn is the benchmark for the coveted non league striker-comes good. Not just the ability but he loved the club and would run through walls for the team. The ongoing injury saga spoilt it for him but shouldn't deflect from the point that there was someone who appreciated his position as a footballer and served his time well here.
It almost seems like we've had a procession of players who on the whole simply just don't care as long as they're being paid for the last 15 years.

It was a policy that served us really well for 5 years.  

McKeown and Pearson were signed from a league below and we developed them.  Hearn, signed from a league below, would have, broken goalscoring records here and/or sold for a tidy profit.  

Then of course there was Bogle with his 50 goals in 18 month and a monster profit.  

During that time we got burnt by, that I can remember, Anthony Church and Louis Soares.  Neither of whom would have broken the bank.  Even with the ultimately unsuccessful signings of Osborne, Jones, Asante and Yussuf, we're still ridiculously in profit with the whole approach just from the Bogle sale.  I dare say that three of those would get in our team now still.

Not every gamble is going to come off, that's the same with any transfer.  The problem was that we let Bignot have free-reign on bringing the next wave of these players through without any thought about their location, character etc.  The board, i.e Fenty, signed off on these deals and gave the approval.  We then appointed a guy who has no interest in developing player talent as manager and gave him the remit of offloading the high earners....

It was a good, if not great, policy that benefited us beyond belief.  The decision to abandon it was a stupid one with absolutely no thought process behind it.  Be it getting lads released from Academies higher up the chain, lads who are working their way up the system or our own home-grown talent, we have to look at all options available to us.

Quoted from RoboCod

Liam Hearn is the benchmark for the coveted non league striker-comes good. Not just the ability but he loved the club and would run through walls for the team. The ongoing injury saga spoilt it for him but shouldn't deflect from the point that there was someone who appreciated his position as a footballer and served his time well here.
It almost seems like we've had a procession of players who on the whole simply just don't care as long as they're being paid for the last 15 years.

Didn't it subsequently come out that Hearn was looking for a move after his first season at the club, even before his injury? Might just have been lip service when he finally signed for Mansfield but I'm sure I remember reading some comments that he'd been trying to arrange a move back nearer home for some time?

Regarding the policy of signing lower division players, it worked pretty well with McKeown and Pearson, but as you note, others obviously weren't a success.

I can't think of many of the players we signed from non-league who subsequently plied their trade in League football. Bogle, Cook and Jones but can't really recall too many others.

Quoted from Maringer

Didn't it subsequently come out that Hearn was looking for a move after his first season at the club, even before his injury? Might just have been lip service when he finally signed for Mansfield but I'm sure I remember reading some comments that he'd been trying to arrange a move back nearer home for some time?

Regarding the policy of signing lower division players, it worked pretty well with McKeown and Pearson, but as you note, others obviously weren't a success.

I can't think of many of the players we signed from non-league who subsequently plied their trade in League football. Bogle, Cook and Jones but can't really recall too many others.

Not sure, I thought the whole move thing came about after his bad injury and there was hesitancy all round as to his future. He seemed well settled for the first couple of seasons but the move thing did sour the relationship a little but personally I feel Hearn had served us very well and had been the best striker in years, post-injury it all started to fall away but that's been the way for us in recent years. Sell them on while they're hot (Bogle) and forget/fail to replace them or keep them on while they're at their peak and they end up nobbling their knee and worth nothing in the market.
The selling on part is pretty dismal, yes, as even Bogle, Cook, Jones are hardly setting the football world alight. Watching Scunny take on that system of develop and sell on for big profits at that time made things even harder to swallow.

Without discounting non league prospects, perhaps we should be looking the other way at released players from Premier League and Championship clubs. The influx of foreign players mean talented footballers don't get the opportunity to progress and we could be the benefactor. I've often felt the spine of the team should be made up of experienced pros for the most part but there are plenty of quality younger players out there hungry for a chance.

I dare say if we'd used them properly and not appointed a manager opposed to playing football then Jamey Osborne and Akwasi Asante may well have come good for us and we could've made a tidy profit out of them. Likewise, if used properly, I think Sam Jones would have developed better and over a longer period for us, hence allowing us to sell him for more. Same with Dembele, if he'd been coached better he'd have progressed better and been sold for more than the reported 100k. Maybe if we'd appointed Jolley (or a similar sort) after Hurst left then we may well be in a much stronger position financially and in terms of league position!

Quoted from Mariner_09

I dare say if we'd used them properly and not appointed a manager opposed to playing football then Jamey Osborne and Akwasi Asante may well have come good for us and we could've made a tidy profit out of them. Likewise, if used properly, I think Sam Jones would have developed better and over a longer period for us, hence allowing us to sell him for more. Same with Dembele, if he'd been coached better he'd have progressed better and been sold for more than the reported 100k. Maybe if we'd appointed Jolley (or a similar sort) after Hurst left then we may well be in a much stronger position financially and in terms of league position!

I think you could argue we did in Bignot but too many moaners on here, on social media and in the stands led to his sacking. People will point to some bad signings and poor performances but we achieved safety under Bignot in a potentially rocky spell for the club and I agree he signed players with potential. It all adds up. Many of those same naysayers are calling for Jolley to go. People live life like they see it on the internet - short term, quick fix. Nobody has long term plans or ambition or patience anymore. What do we want? Everything! When do we want it? NOW!!!