Who Are We?

Quoted from Grantley

Let's be honest, even though Bignot wasn't getting results, everything he said and was doing to bring the behind the scenes section of the club was correct. That development will now stop and we'll continue to be behind the rest of the league, especially with the youth team.

Bignot had a dream, but sadly we can't see into the future to see whether it would have come true or not;
and to many, the risk was too great. Although formations etc have been bizarre, I do feel a little sorry for the guy, who gave up as secure a job as any manger could have, to give it a go.

I haven't looked into this 100%, so I don't know whether we will be having a reserve team or not.
However, 22 players hardly seems enough to do so. If we do have a reserve team, it would be a golden chance to bring on a lot of the youngsters, against the more physical and experienced players who will be in other teams reserves; and really make any youth policy as successful as those in the past.

There's a well documented plan in place, be in league one by the time the new stadium is built. We've heard it several times. Yes teams like Swansea seem to have had a plan of playing good passing football, but I doubt that they planned on being in the premier league when they where in our league playing at the Vetch, which is the position we currently find ourselves in.

For every Southampton and Barcelona who's long term plans have been successful, there's a Newcastle (remember Pardews 7 year contract?) and an Aston Villa. They decided to sign young foreign talent for their first team and develop them. Look how that went.

We are where we are. Let's get behind a plan of a new stadium and league one football and then take it from there.

What Southampton, Ajax, Crewe etc...have delivered is more than just a plan it's a well worked strategy in that they drive income into their clubs by rearing talent and selling it on. They are well placed initially to do this as they are based in large catchments and thus can attract a lot of youngsters without the kids having to spend time away from home. Crewe maybe is a mid sized town but it's close to Stoke, Liverpool and Manchester which provides rich pickings

If you have a strategy you need plans to support it and the plan to get into league 1 and move to PP supports a long term strategy as we then become more attractive to talent from day Hull, Lincoln  and Scunny as well as further afield like Notts etc..

Bignot thought he needed to do it all in one go but could not recognise he needed to deliver a number of plans before he could land a long term strategy, the first of those was stop dicking around with signings for the future and get the best players you can to get you competitive and up asap.........the rest comes later.

I don't think there will ever be a better time than now to start spending a few quid on the structure of training facilities (that are here to stay even after PP is built) and development of new talent. It's not every season a club like ours will get a £1m windfall and allocating some of that could bring windfalls like that it in more often. We get that Bogle money in and there's still battles over a strengthening and conditioning coach. As for prospective signings, they'll look at their daily place of work, ie Cheapside and make up their own minds.

Slade strikes me as the pragmatic type and i doubt he'll be interested in youth development. He's never stayed anywhere too long, perhaps with the exception of Orient. I dunno, maybe his wandering days are over and he's looking to establish himself long term here. He doesn't live too far away by all accounts but i just can't help feeling he's the type that's in it for himself and more bothered about personal glory than long term planning that he may not be around to enjoy the fruits of. I remain skeptical of him but he has a clean sheet for now.

Quoted from Grantley

Let's be honest, even though Bignot wasn't getting results, everything he said and was doing to bring the behind the scenes section of the club was correct. That development will now stop and we'll continue to be behind the rest of the league, especially with the youth team.

What actually HAD he done? I think he had just talked about it but no evidence that Bignot had done anything towards implementing any of it

Quoted from Civvy at last

After six long years in the wilderness we are back in the league. JF is probably petrified of going back there and I can't blame him. He got burnt with Woods and made damn sure it was t going to happen again.  If people want to laugh I really don't give a fat rats t-t.  

This absolutely nails it for me. If he sensed something was horribly wrong then he wasn't going to let it play out just so the sacking looked understandable to people outside of the club.

In general I'm very sceptical of the argument that stability is the key. Stability is great if you're winning and moving in the right direction but if changing a manager or style of play is more likely to improve the fortunes of the club then that's what we should do.

Quoted from Grantley

Let's be honest, even though Bignot wasn't getting results, everything he said and was doing to bring the behind the scenes section of the club was correct. That development will now stop and we'll continue to be behind the rest of the league, especially with the youth team.

I would love to see you justify this one.  Please tell us how you are so sure about this !!!

I posted previously that the revolution of the Youth set up was an excellent idea, however I do not know personally of any club at our level who run a full blown development team between Youth and 1st team levels. Anyone able to enlighten me?

I think doing such a thing would have to be done virtually at the expense of the 1st team unless you have got a mega rich backer who is prepared to fund infrastructure for long term development in addition to keeping the 1st team competitive for the 6-10 years before it becomes sustainable.

Just my opinion, and I would love for it to happen at GTFC, but seems very far removed from reality

We have always had a long term plan,

Plan No 1. To get back into the league .  Done

Plan No 2   Hurst took it with him to Shrewsbury,

Plan No 3   Marcus had one but it was in his head so we lost it when he went,

Plan No 4, Slade is just writing it now.