The inquest......so what went wrong?

Fenty hollocunt. Spineless board

Fentys pathetic clingers on who still back him

I'll give you another reason why the club has been relegated...
Fenty has been supported by too many people for a number of years and actually thought he was doing OK... and it's those people who supported Fenty who have contributed in Towns fall into non league.... They just couldn't admit they were wrong and the club has now got to suffer for their mistakes...

Quoted from aussiej

I'll give you another reason why the club has been relegated...
Fenty has been supported by too many people for a number of years and actually thought he was doing OK... and it's those people who supported Fenty who have contributed in Towns fall into non league.... They just couldn't admit they were wrong and the club has now got to suffer for their mistakes...

Looking at the majority of posts in this thread and corelating a certain theme against the red x's there appear to be three of these Fenty appeasers still active 🤔😥

Quoted from Swansea_Mariner

Looking at the majority of posts in this thread and corelating a certain theme against the red x's there appear to be three of these Fenty appeasers still active 🤔😥

I'd picked up on that too, obviously cannot see the damage he's done and still foolishly believe he's the great Messiah who saved the club...

Quoted from Abdul19

I had no issue with dismantling the side that won/scraped promotion (although obviously it would've been nice to keep the good players) - we were doing well until PH left and he left because of JF.

The team was very reliant on Bogle though; I agree it goes right back to the summer of 2016. We lost two quality players to a club with smaller crowds - I was puzzled at the time but what has come out since explains it. Letting Arnold go didn't make sense either - not perhaps a regular starter but a good option to have on the bench for later in the game. Our style of play was better suited to League 2 than the Conference - well drilled part-time teams like Braintree frustrated us by parking the bus. If you look at the playing stats for that season we were the most dominant team in the league in terms of possession. I thought at the time that PH was too conservative and didn't try and change things when we came up against the likes of Braintree. But with a good couple of players in -  to replace Nolan and Robertson, I think the same squad would have continued to make progress.

I'd like to know more about what went on last summer - did Runaway really think the season wouldn't finish - or was he told to say that?

Quoted from GrimRob

All started right back in 2016 when we dismantled the side that got us promotion in the first place. We should have built on that side and PH left only a few games in. I suspect he'd have stayed had we been more ambitious. Bignot was then a disastrous appointment as someone who wanted to change the world just when we needed stability. Since then we have been playing catch-up and it was inevitable we'd spiral back down into the bottom two at some stage. Holloway was the final nail in the coffin.

Funnily enough, hasn't Bignot got the best win percentage out of all the managers since we got promoted? Certainly played the most entertaining football at times with some talented footballers with him in charge. But no, he wasn't the answer neither. We need vision and investment for infrastructure to begin to rebuild our shattered reputation.

Where did it go wrong?

Historically, having a man with a complete lack of football intelligence in charge of the club, a board with the same lack of talent, all conducive in beleving the bottom line is everything and not a clue how to navigate the club forward with a balanced risk and reward strategy. Not sure whether the die was cast in Cardiff or Bournemouth, but that's how far it stretches back, and man, have the fans and the club's respect suffered so much for one man's personal vanity project..

Current season is easy to assess. Penny pinching not keeping our best players from last season. Where was the money for a downturn in fortunes? Already tucked away back in JF's bank account. Galling really because he'd cost the club millions by dropping out of the Football League and a series of poor management decisions. A portakabin instead of a new training complex, lack of investment in club infrastructure including key personnel, then the salary cap and Covid clauses meaning no decent player in their right mind would sign for us, only the desperate, the knackered and the hopeful. We couldn't even buy our way out of trouble in January if we wanted to. The club banked on other clubs going out of business to stay up rather than planning for the season reasonably like twenty odd other teams did in our league. And then there's Holloway's over confidence in his own ability to turn rough or old knackered diamonds into a reasonable team. Second chance with Hurst. No new manager bounce because he slagged the existing squad off weeks before the transfer window opened. Already on the back foot and then barring Menayese, Matete and Coke does barely a better job than Holloway did in the summer. Old crocks and non-leaguers. Added zero pace up front so we've had to play anti-football to glean the odd point or two, how many goals have Hanson, LJL and Payne scored by the way? And stuck with Waterfall for months too long before the penny dropped. Holloway had a shocking record and Hurst has too. As managers go, I feel they're both as culpable. We need to clear out the playing squad, try and sign the best four or five if we can, pay the rest off that need paying off and start afresh with a new manager. Even though he's done it before, I really don't think Hurst can get us back quickly enough or if at all. I really don't. Nice bloke, but I really haven't got the patience for or belief in him and I think he's on the slide, and he was in charge of the budget and just as culpable in breaking up that promotion side too let's not forget.. Vernon for Amond for god's sake.. But ulimately the buck always stops with the man at the very top.. John "Five Relegations" Fenty..

No baggage, new owners and a completely fresh start to re-energise.

20 years of a man that underfunded a hotbed of football with the added climax of a mad fool who spoke gibberish from Dec 19 until his departure in Dec 20 with all the wheels for the team bus under his arm

Quoted from Limerick Mariner

The team was very reliant on Bogle though; I agree it goes right back to the summer of 2016. We lost two quality players to a club with smaller crowds - I was puzzled at the time but what has come out since explains it. Letting Arnold go didn't make sense either - not perhaps a regular starter but a good option to have on the bench for later in the game. Our style of play was better suited to League 2 than the Conference - well drilled part-time teams like Braintree frustrated us by parking the bus. If you look at the playing stats for that season we were the most dominant team in the league in terms of possession. I thought at the time that PH was too conservative and didn't try and change things when we came up against the likes of Braintree. But with a good couple of players in -  to replace Nolan and Robertson, I think the same squad would have continued to make progress.

I'd like to know more about what went on last summer - did Runaway really think the season wouldn't finish - or was he told to say that?

Yeah that's a fair one, and Bogle flourished in League 2, although if it'd been PH (and additional new staff!) who'd been allowed to spend his sale money instead of Bignot, we probably wouldn't have ended up with Slade returning.

Meh.

Quoted from aussiej

Morecombe were struggling and have been flirting with relegation for a number of years along with us but they got their act together and did something about it...  
Fenty did not invest in the failing team and the rest is history....   and without investment on the pitch the club will not recover....  So please take note new owners....  Investment on the pitch is vital or it will be a long long time before we see Town back in the Football league again...

I wouldn't imagine the new owners need to take note,they are astute businessmen and would know that investment is needed in all aspects of the club. Not like some owners that treat a club as an ego boosting plaything.

John Fenty and the people who allowed him to disembowel the ‘punching above our weight’ mentality that had built through the efforts of Alan Buckley, Dave Booth, George Kerr and Laurie Mac before that.
We’ve been stripped of our history by a chair/custodian who wanted it to be about him not what happened on the pitch. Screwed by the ego that is John Fenty.