Other matches thread

Quoted from ska face

Think we all know we’re in a bit of trouble, but don’t get the histrionics. I can’t quite fully recall the attitude the last few times we’ve been in this position but I can’t remember it being this maudlin, end-of-days type stuff.

Hoping the players have a bit more fight in them than some of the fans. Never mind looking down, we should be looking up at who we can drag below us. Donny and Colchester seem to be equally as bad as ourselves, so it’s 1 from 4 (with Sutton pretty much gone).

That's because the last two times vast swathes of the forum buried there head in the sand and suggested we were to good to go down.Now however we all know or should do you've got to battle and claw your way to safety.Rodgers and Maher are key to survival that should send shivers down any Town fans spine.

Quoted from ska face

Think we all know we’re in a bit of trouble, but don’t get the histrionics. I can’t quite fully recall the attitude the last few times we’ve been in this position but I can’t remember it being this maudlin, end-of-days type stuff.

Hoping the players have a bit more fight in them than some of the fans. Never mind looking down, we should be looking up at who we can drag below us. Donny and Colchester seem to be equally as bad as ourselves, so it’s 1 from 4 (with Sutton pretty much gone).

The first time people could get over it eventually. The second time there was a light at the end of the tunnel in that Fenty was finally leaving and it appeared we had better owners coming in so although it was galling to be non-league again, everyone thought long term we'd be better off and this was reflected in the immediate increase in attendances despite being in the NL. If we go down this time, with all the recent things in our favour such as high season ticket sales and an unprecedented FA cup run then I think a very large number of the fanbase will have had enough. Because if we still can't compete even at the bottom end of the FL then what's the point? So my major concern this time is a third relegation in 14 years could be terminal and see the club become an established non-league side. Which you could argue that we would be if we go down again, no better than the likes of Barnet.

This is how I see it unfortunately.  

Hmmmmm...

There's no doubt that this is an incredibly tough league this season. I also suspect Hurst missed out on a few targets over summer as we just can't compete. There's also the issue, being played out right now, that we're seen as perenial strugglers and a bit of a yo-yo club. It's a tough sell.

Artell is right that a team which can score 5 against Notts County isn't rubbish. But you can just sense the believe draining out of the fans and sadly, the team. This [if it happens] will be the relegation hat trick, and there's almost an air of resignation - here we go again.

Saturday is absolutely massive. Everyone needs to be up for it.

We’re playing catch up in a game where everybody is doing better than they were before and I actually think we’re already at that point of being a Barnet type good NL/crap L2 club. Chronic underinvestment over a 20yr period caused this and in that period football has become popular again and therefore awash with cash, even at our level.

Stockport, Mansfield, Wrexham, Notts, Salford and FGR have owners willing to pump huge amounts of cash in to their wage budget. It works, to varying degrees, more often than not. The remainder of the rest of the league have been in the EFL longer than we have over the last 10 years so have the TV money etc that we’ve missed out on.  We’ve got a lot of season ticket holders now but post pandemic attendances at football have risen so we’ve not seen the benefit we might have done previously.

I’m just sick to death of being as excrement as this every season. The break in play on Saturday which saw most of our players looking down at the ground or looking in puzzlement at each other didn’t feel me with any confidence that we can save ourselves. Feels as though we’re reliant on others ballsing up their games. I’m sick of the game in general though too (Town’s responsibility more than anything). Relegation this year would be terminal.

I've told the wife if we go down again that's it I'm not going again. She thinks I'm bluffing, but I just can't stomach non league again. We would still get decent support no doubt but I think for some loyal, long standing fans it would be the end of the road.

What worries me is it doesn't seem to matter what we do we cannot free ourselves of the tag of perennial league strugglers.

Despite what some might worry about racking up unsustainable debt, money whether we like it or not is imperative in modern day football.

All the ideas, the ethos and the drive to be sustainable is all pie in the sky if you can't even get past first base.

I thought these 2 owners would be able to attract like minded people to bring some investment in but everything seems to be theoretical.

On the plus side we aren't down yet and it's in our hands but it's all depressingly familiar.

I don’t think I’ve seen much maudlin or self-pity. I’ve seen, and felt, exasperation that we’re here again. We’re here again, ffs. And we are. Make no mistake.

Despite everything that we’ve achieved in the past couple of years. Despite everything we had going for us at the beginning of the summer. Despite the backing that the club gets home and away. Despite all of this, we are in danger of being relegated into non-league for a third time. And that makes me sad and angry in equal measure.

Yes, we have a 6 point cushion and a game in hand, but our form is dismal and our performances, for the most part, not much better. So far in 2024, we’ve registered 3 defeats, 2 draws and 0 wins. We’ve won one game in over 2 months. The only reason we’re not in deeper shít than we already are, is that the two teams at the bottom have been so abject. Forest Green, incidentally, picked up their first win since the end of October last night, and convincingly so by the sounds of things. They now have what they’ve lacked all season; an experienced manager and a bit of confidence. Relying on them, and Sutton, to keep dropping points isn’t gonna cut it.

I just think the past few days have been a real wake up call. We concede goals for fun, and the players seem bereft of confidence. That’s not a formula for winning games, and we need to win games. Especially forthcoming ones against Donny and Forest Green.

Do I have confidence in the manager and players to turn things around? Honestly, as of right now, I don’t. I think we’re genuinely in trouble. I’m contemplating what until very recently has been absolutely unthinkable. That we might go down again.

And going down now would be an absolute disaster. The first time was the first time. The second time, came at a fortuitous time, if there is such a time to be relegated into non-league. Fenty was fresh out the door, there was the optimism of new and progressive ownership, Covid lockdown had only just been fully lifted and people, by and large, had a bit of disposable income in their pockets.

If it happened again, a third time for crying out loud, there would be no such optimism. And economically, life in the summer of 2024 is going to be drastically different to summer 2021. Going down, in the best case scenario, sets the club back years, already on the back of two and a half decades of failure and stagnation. In the worst case, it is a terminal death knell for GTFC. It would kill the spirit of the club and the town.

Is all this maudlin? Is it melodramatic? I don’t think it is. I think the threat of relegation is real, and the consequences grave. Ultimately, there’s little the fan base can do directly to affect change on the pitch, but they can, to some extent, influence what happens in the boardroom. I have no agenda against Dave Artell, and I’d be absolutely delighted if he were to win 2 out of the next 3 or 4 games, but I think the notion that he simply needs time to make things work is a dangerous one. We don’t have time, and if it’s not working now, we may need to look to someone else to bring about a change in fortune.

I totally get where LH and LCL are coming from. After seeing Town competing in the second tier for almost two decades to endure this seemingly endless battle to survive at the bottom of L2 is just soul destroying.

To misquote Lady Bracknell, to get relegated to the NL once is unfortunate, to do so twice is careless, but to do so three times would be disastrous. It would I think define us as an EFL/NL yo yo club.

Long gone are the days when our rivals were Sheffield Wednesday, Wolves, Newcastle and others. Instead we would have to dread visits to Dagenham, Eastleigh and Boreham Wood. And yes, Scunthorpe.

The next dozen games or so could constitute an era defining change in status.

Quoted from Badger57

Yeah but we've only won 6 out of 30 in the league and some of those were not exactly convincing. How we beat Barrow for example I'll never know because they played us off the park. We've beaten none of the teams at the bottom with us. I think we've got every right to be worried.

Barrow were far superior , I thought Sutton should have beaten us aswell .

But we should certainly have beaten MK Dons as we were as superior as Barrow there . Notts County we should have been out of sight by halftime .

You could  make an argument for Bradford & Accrington away aswell off the top of my head . So we are probably around where we deserve to be on balance imo.

Quoted from mariner91

The first time people could get over it eventually. The second time there was a light at the end of the tunnel in that Fenty was finally leaving and it appeared we had better owners coming in so although it was galling to be non-league again, everyone thought long term we'd be better off and this was reflected in the immediate increase in attendances despite being in the NL. If we go down this time, with all the recent things in our favour such as high season ticket sales and an unprecedented FA cup run then I think a very large number of the fanbase will have had enough. Because if we still can't compete even at the bottom end of the FL then what's the point? So my major concern this time is a third relegation in 14 years could be terminal and see the club become an established non-league side. Which you could argue that we would be if we go down again, no better than the likes of Barnet.

Think it is the contradiction between expectation and reality ,with Fenty we expected not much from him.However when the new owners came in they were full of fine words,with increasing ticket sales,cup run and promotion people were lulled by their management speak/rhetoric.However once the buzz of success waned it appears they lost interest.It is as I have repeatedly said ''fine words butter, no parsnips''