Little club syndrome...

[premierleaguegull]

My point to the board would be to present a scenario. If say Reading wanted to buy a player from Peterborough then they would know that they would have to bring their cheque book with them. We got a taste of it when we bought Constantine & Charnock. I accept that the bigger clubs can get their players on longer contracts but if we even tried to be tougher then others would have to listen if they wanted a player. Barry Fry has it sown up regarding lower league transfers.

[nicktufc]

Barry Fry has it sown up regarding lower league transfers.

Great point, well made. You may love or loathe the guy, but he knows how to make his club the powerful ones in transfer negotiations, hence a player who scores goals for fun in LEAGUE 1, being touted for a £3million+ move.

[yellow]

I endorse small club syndrome.

It is a lowering of expectations that provides greater satisfaction when we are successful and a sense of proportion when we are not.

If you take it too seriously then TUFC will burn you. When all said and done we are a small club, with small crowds in a footballing backwater.

But we have a passionate and knowledgeable hardcore of support, and a vocal away following that make us what we are.

At the moment we are a league club again. That is success. Just ask Wrexham, Luton, Grimsby, Darlington, York, Mansfield and Cambridge, to name but a few.

[ferrarilover]

Well done Yellow, we have pointed metallic fixing mechanism to cranium interface.

Matt.

[hector]

I endorse small club syndrome.

It is a lowering of expectations that provides greater satisfaction when we are successful and a sense of proportion when we are not.

If you take it too seriously then TUFC will burn you. When all said and done we are a small club, with small crowds in a footballing backwater.

But we have a passionate and knowledgeable hardcore of support, and a vocal away following that make us what we are.

At the moment we are a league club again. That is success. Just ask Wrexham, Luton, Grimsby, Darlington, York, Mansfield and Cambridge, to name but a few.

I really despair of this sort of attitude. Simply because some clubs are worse off than us does not mean that merely surviving in the league is success. This is the myth that Bateson peddled and the gullible swallowed. There are plenty of 'small' clubs doing better than us...former peers such as Doncaster, Scunthorpe, Colchester, Chesterfield, Bury, Hartlepool, Rochdale...if we ask them you could say we are failing.

[Fonda]

Can't quite fathom an endorsement of doing little more than the bare minimum. Which has been our mantra for as long as i can remember. We'll never improve as long as we're satisfied with such moderate attainments.

[yellow]

But football is about money.

We don t generate enough to sustain lofty ambitions. Not enough people come through the turnstiles and we are not generating enough from transfer fees yet.

That doesn t mean that we cannot aspire to greater success in the future, but that will rely on long term plans like the academy bearing fruit. And that will take time.

It is just realism.

[exilegull]

I agree with yellows comments - we are a small club and facts are our income is not covering our expediture.

Fonda - you say about having someone on board who is a football man. We did in Colin lee and look how much it costs us - 2 if not 3 players salaries.
A good marketing manager would cost us 1 or 2 players and to break even on the salary would have to attract at least 100 extra fans paying full price. Success and entertainment on the pitch will always have the biggest influence on attendances so why spend the money off field? There is no magic wand out there that the board are not waving that could transform our fortunes - cost control however can help to ensure we survive.

The board have invested a lot of money in the facilities to try and increase revenue - does anyone posting here go regularly to the Sunday carvery and put more money into the club in return for a decent lunch?

Hopefully we can see a return on the biggest investment in a few years by producing some quality players ourselves.

Talk about Manset and £400k - a good proportion of that is incentive based but even so look at where he went. A top tier championship club with premier league aspirations and he was a player in much demand. Benyon went to a struggling league 1 club and so to get almost half the fee seems to be a good bit of business - we could have played hardball and risked him leaving at the end of the season with fee determined by tribunal.

O'kane undoubtedly has a lot of natural talent but he is has yet to establish himself in league 2 as a consistent influencer of games - yet values of 350k+ are being touted for him which is quite frankly dreamland and if he goes for less it is not down to the board. We always have been and always will be a selling club and we will never get the values many fans think we should because quite frankly expectations are too high.

[cambgull]

What if O'Kane goes to a Championship bidding for the Premiership, what would you say he's worth then?

I don't think the level a player is moving to should make a difference to the valuation. It should make a difference to how much we can squeeze out of the clubs as they have more money than us!

[nicktufc]

The size of the fee a club receives for any player will be down to 2 things, and 2 things only

1. The finances of the selling club
and
2. How 'in-demand' the player concerned is

If there are 5 or 6 clubs interested, we are likely to get more from the club who wants(can afford) to pay the most, but if we were(for example) £17million in debt, a player who is 'worth' £500,000, is likely to go for £100,000 or less, because the buyers know the selling club have no bargaining power.

[Fonda]

I'm not on about spending beyond our means. My point was about the mentality of the club. If our finances dictate the very best we can achieve is 20th in the division, so be it. I'm not advocating risking the future of the club by gambling on acheiving more. My point was regarding the outlook of the club. Just because we ARE a small club, doesn't mean we always have to ACT like a small club. I just think if we did things differently, we wouldn't be viewed as such an amatuer outfit - just pretending to be a proper football club. Because i'm afraid that's how we come accross at times. I fear i'm not explianing this at all well, so i might retire from trying now.

[nicktufc]

Totally agree Fonda,

All about the poker face, if you can make the rest of the world believe you're not to be messed with, then the chances are you will get a better deal when buying and selling.

[hector]

I'm not on about spending beyond our means. My point was about the mentality of the club. If our finances dictate the very best we can achieve is 20th in the division, so be it. I'm not advocating risking the future of the club by gambling on acheiving more. My point was regarding the outlook of the club. Just because we ARE a small club, doesn't mean we always have to ACT like a small club. I just think if we did things differently, we wouldn't be viewed as such an amatuer outfit - just pretending to be a proper football club. Because i'm afraid that's how we come accross at times. I fear i'm not explianing this at all well, so i might retire from trying now.

I concur with this completely. TUFC is a business afterall. Any other business has to go out and seek investment, new customers. It cannot just rely on the same old customers coming through the door, even if one year the product is very good and the next year the product is not very good.

Probably the most successful club in this area is Exeter Chiefs. About 5 years ago they were getting crowds half the size of ours or smaller. Albiet there has been significant investment there and a new ground...but the whole outfit is far more professional yet at its core are the same people running the club as were when they played at the County Ground. Their marketing strategies, their whole commercial outlook and their matchday experience is something that puts ours to shame.

It seems that people who run TUFC just sit back and hope more people will come and then moan when they don't. Bateson always preached a mantra of small-time club, no chance of success, you're lucky you have a league club at all...which is hardly going to get people excited and banging down the gates of Plainmoor.

The club and those running it, have a responsibility to try and shape their own destiny. They can't just say 'we don't get enough fans so we are going to sit on arses'

[exilegull]

Fonda - I get what you are saying but to I imagine that most similar size clubs are run in a similar manner. I don't necessarily agree that we appear amateur - we just can't spend the money to have professional services in all areas. I think as someone said earlier the main voice as to the small club view has been Paul Buckle. But also as fans I see that we thrive on it as well

Cambgull - of course it matters where a player goes, the higher the level the better the player must be hence a higher fee. I guess my point is that while O'Kane has potential he is not ready made premier league, championship or maybe even league 1 player - so talking £350k upwards is dreamland.

Hector - in reference to Exeter chiefs, is not a large part of their growth due to the general growth in the popularity of rugby union that has happened in the last 10 years and more so since the world cup win?

[yellowforever]

I'm confident CMS is good enough to step up. <3