Donny

Quoted from pen penfras

[url]https://www.citypopulation.de/en/uk/southyorkshire/E08000017__doncaster/[/url]

If we're counting all of NE Lincs as our catchment area, then it's a fair estimate of theirs

No it's not.

You're looking at the Doncaster Metropolitan area of South Yorkshire rather than the town of Doncaster. Metropolitan areas are just unitary authorities within a larger county. South Yorkshire doesn't have a county council. It has 4 unitary authorities around the 4 largest towns/cities: Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham & Doncaster.

To suggest that everyone living in South Yorkshire lives in either Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham or Doncaster is wrong.

Here's a handy map for you...

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/South_Yorkshire_County.png/1280px-South_Yorkshire_County.png[/img]

Quoted from GollyGTFC

No it's not.

You're looking at the Doncaster Metropolitan area of South Yorkshire rather than the town of Doncaster. Metropolitan areas are just unitary authorities within a larger county. South Yorkshire doesn't have a county council. It has 4 unitary authorities around the 4 largest towns/cities: Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham & Doncaster.

To suggest that everyone living in South Yorkshire lives in either Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham or Doncaster is wrong.

Here's a handy map for you...

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/South_Yorkshire_County.png/1280px-South_Yorkshire_County.png[/img]

You're just being pedantic. They clearly have a much more populated catchment area than us

I think PP is right to compare the population of the unitary authority of Donny with that of NEL. With the proviso that Donny is that much closer to Sheff and Leeds and that means more of the potential supporters are sucked away to the big city clubs.

Quoted from WOZOFGRIMSBY

But they had to burn their own ground down/blow it up (allegedly) to get a new one!

About eight times from what I remember. These things happen.

Quoted from Poojah

The thing that’s often overlooked is that we are almost uniquely distanced from other top clubs. Putting Hull to one side, who’ve had their success but aren’t historically fashionable enough to draw support from distance, our nearest ‘big’ club is Leeds, the best part of an hour and a half away.

I can only think of Plymouth and Torquay who have more favourable situations in that sense. Yes, there are disadvantages to not being close to a major city but, equally, how difficult must it be for the likes of Oldham, Stockport and ffs Boreham Wood to attract fans given the stature of clubs on their doorstep. Eastleigh is not much smaller than NE Lincs, but they are merely Southampton’s Grimsby Borough.

We are playing in a league of suburbs and broken clubs, of which we are sadly one. Let’s not kid ourselves into a narrative that this is okay or that we’ve found our level. That is simply not true. Yes, times change, but the fact that our average league finish over almost 150 years of football (even accounting for the shambolic last 20) is in the top 45 of the league system, is because that’s what this town is capable of.

We must not let two decades of appalling club management to cloud our collective perception of what this club is about and what it can be. We are better than this. Much, much better.

Absolutely bang on. We are not a small club.

Quoted from Poojah

The thing that’s often overlooked is that we are almost uniquely distanced from other top clubs. Putting Hull to one side, who’ve had their success but aren’t historically fashionable enough to draw support from distance, our nearest ‘big’ club is Leeds, the best part of an hour and a half away.

I can only think of Plymouth and Torquay who have more favourable situations in that sense. Yes, there are disadvantages to not being close to a major city but, equally, how difficult must it be for the likes of Oldham, Stockport and ffs Boreham Wood to attract fans given the stature of clubs on their doorstep. Eastleigh is not much smaller than NE Lincs, but they are merely Southampton’s Grimsby Borough.

We are playing in a league of suburbs and broken clubs, of which we are sadly one. Let’s not kid ourselves into a narrative that this is okay or that we’ve found our level. That is simply not true. Yes, times change, but the fact that our average league finish over almost 150 years of football (even accounting for the shambolic last 20) is in the top 45 of the league system, is because that’s what this town is capable of.

We must not let two decades of appalling club management to cloud our collective perception of what this club is about and what it can be. We are better than this. Much, much better.

I agree with this and would add that what we are is a sleeping giant waiting to be woken up. We were a good championship side attracting good gates and paying decent wages to top players, beit some may have been passed their prime but could still play football. We can be there again.

What has happened is for 17 years of club mismanagement, that some fans is all they know about, that has become a norm. We use to attract bus loads of fans from the Scunny, Lincoln and Skeggy areas but all this has gone into oblivion. The fan base is still there but needs waking up again.

Results on the pitch are one thing but we need more, a new club structure which 1878 seem to be trying to do and an improved/new stadium fit for the 21st century.

We were a good championship team attracting crap gates. That’s where my pessimism about us being as massive as some comes from. Look at our attendances over the last 20 years.

Quoted from psgmariner

We were a good championship team attracting crap gates. That’s where my pessimism about us being as massive as some comes from. Look at our attendances over the last 20 years.

Exactly. Even in the McMenemy days when we were supposed to be packed to the rafters we only averaged about 12,000. we had the odd sell-out like Norwich and Exeter when we got 22,000. I think we only had one more over 20,000 crowd since, and that was Everton.

Poojah makes an excellent point (as usual....) and this club should certainly be at least two divisions ahead of where we are currently.

Those of us lucky enough to see the 1980's and 90's teams who were in the championship most of the time may well have been spoilt to some extent, because I think it fair to say that we did punch above our weight during that period.  But it set a level of expectation as to what we consider to be the level we should aspire to be playing at. That is why we often gets so animated and angry at the shambolic state we have wallowed in these past twenty years.

We were a pretty well run club.up to the turn of the century. I think things started to go downhill before Fenty took control, but even so,the shocking decline under him was unimaginable when we we winning at Stamford Bridge, Saint James Park, Goodison and Anfeild  a few years earlier, and briefly topping the second tier in 2001.   It still makes me angry so see what we have sunk to.

The good news is that we all know that this town is perfectly capable of sustaining a League 1 team, at least. and it is a perfectly realistic and attainable goal. That is what we should be aiming for. It will not e easy, but nor is it impossible. The questions is how, and  how long?

The first, and most critical change, was getting new owners. Thankfully we can tick that box. Our prospects of getting into L1 under Fenty were pretty much zero in my opinion.

The second desirable change is to bring the club into the twenty first century in terms of administration, organisation, commercial activity, supporter engagement of all of the other off the field activities. I believe this is underway.

Next we come to the team management, coaching, youth development and fitness regimes. Of course the most prominent of which is the team manger.  We all have a view on Hurst. Mine changes from time time. If you had asked me at the end of October I would have given him the thumbs up. I would have though back to the team he built at Shrewsbury when he took them from the L1 relegation places to the L1 play off places in a year and a half. Pretty impressive.

Now though, I worry and can't help but think that it should surely have been possible to avoid relegation last season. It's not as if we were miles adrift at the bottom when he took over with half the season to go.

I will reserve judgement for now, and wait to see what transpires in the January window, and where we end up at the end of the season. But whether it's Hurst or someone else, we must have a capable manager in place to build a team, whichever division we find ourselves in, over the summer.

And of course the final piece in the jigsaw is the playing staff. I am like a broken record on this score but I'll say it again. You have to pay for good players, whatever league you are in. Players on free transfers are free for a reason. If we had just brought in a few freebies in summer 1997 we would not have won at Wembley twice in 1998.

You have to spend wisely, but you have to spend. It's called investment. We have seen what two decades of under investment have resulted in.
    

      

          

Quoted from RonMariner

And of course the final piece in the jigsaw is the playing staff. I am like a broken record on this score but I'll say it again. You have to pay for good players, whatever league you are in. Players on free transfers are free for a reason. If we had just brought in a few freebies in summer 1997 we would not have won at Wembley twice in 1998.

You have to spend wisely, but you have to spend. It's called investment. We have seen what two decades of under investment have resulted in.  

When it comes to the playing side it's all a balancing act and I don't necessarily disagree but one mans trash is another mans treasure. Jon Nolan, Padraig Amond, Nathan Arnold, Craig Disley, Danny Collins were all players we signed on a free (although Arnold was on loan for a season first). But to back your point up there is also free transfers such as Nick Colgan, Nathan Clarke, Michael Jeffrey, Mikael Antoine-Curier, John Thorrington, Clint Marcelle, Jamie Lawrence etc, etc. Good free transfers will be wanted men so striking early and paying them a good wage is key.

Our most profitable young players in recent years have actually been those rejected elsewhere such as Bennett, Pollock, Burrell although Grist is truly one of our own.

I think the good work Neil Woods clearly does with bringing a few of these young players in who have been disregarded elsewhere needs to be built upon but we do need to get into a position where we can pay a couple of decent fees for some standout players. Ideally ones that we can sell on for profit and reinvest.