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Get your coat if you don't get York owt - National League North 2017/18

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    Get your coat if you don't get York owt - National League North 2017/18

    Having failed to save York from relegation from the National League (or Conference if you will) last season, there's pressure on Gary Mills to get them back up at the first time of asking. He has got previous, having won the Conference North with Tamworth in 2008/09 before leaving for his first stint at York a year later.
    It won't be easy though, as there is still quite a lot of money swilling around this division, even after the departure of Fylde to the top division, with Salford and Harrogate both chucking it about. There are also some strong former Football League clubs such as Stockport, Darlington and Kidderminster who will all be expected to be challenging for the top spot. Chorley will be up there again as well, but I'm not so confident about Tamworth's chances of challenging for the play-offs following top scorer Danny Newton's move to Stevenage. Boston and Nuneaton could and should have better seasons than last, and may also be up there. I've no idea how Blyth and Spennymoor will do after their promotion from the Northern Prem, but at least they help the division start to live up to it's name. As for the rest I expect mid-table obscurity or relegation struggles.
    My prediction:
    Kiddy to win, though they have been known to blow up and have a mid-season fire sale in the past if it starts to go wrong.
    Stockport to beat Salford in the play-off final (my feelings about the ownership of the latter may have influenced this).
    Gainsborough, Southport and Telford to go down.

    #2
    Gainsborough seem to do just enough to stay up every year, feels kind of inevitable that sooner or later they'll fall below the line.

    What's the current position with York's new stadium?

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      #3
      I think Darlington might sort themselves out after the shambles of not reading the ground grading rules correctly last season. But they need bigger crowds to cover debt repayments and the type of wage and travel bill the Conference would necessitate.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by longeared View Post
        What's the current position with York's new stadium?
        I believe the council are looking for someone to build it after the last lot pulled out. It's been a shambles.

        The site is 10 mins walk from my house. It currently consists of piles of rubble left over from the demolished athletics/rugby stadium.

        I'm strangely looking forward to this season. Mills' side that finished the season weren't responsible for the relegation. They've kept some good players from that side and signed some that look promising.

        So 10th ...

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          #5
          Fair to say that Southport's summer hasn't been the best.

          A feeble relegation from the Conference last season led to many fans feeling that the time had come for chairman Charlie Clapham to step down - under his rule, the club was running much as it has for the last twenty odd years, apparently not recognising that the world has changed and what was good enough to challenge at the top of the division a decade or so ago is now just not good enough. There has been little coherent long term planning for some time and the biggest surprise about the relegation was that it hasn't happened a season or two earlier. However this season several years of going three managers each campaign finally caught up with us.

          There were discussions amongst fans about protests against Clapham in the final few games of the season - holding up red cards and walking out on the 78th minute (1978 being the year Southport dropped out of the League). However these plans were largely abandoned on April 21st after Clapham suddenly announced that he was stepping down, with Nigel Allen taking over as chairman on a temporary basis. The following day director and commercial manager Haydn Preece calls for the silent majority to raise their voices and call for the return of Clapham. Still waiting....

          On April 28th the local paper announces that the owner of a local multi million pound business wants to invest in the club. This is expected to be discussed at a board meeting on May 3rd.

          On May 5th interim chairman Allen announces that he is stepping down after being stopped from attending the 3rd May meeting, as were fellow directors Dave Barron and Liam Watson. He states "there is no point in being part of a board that has no credible function and is merely paying lip service in terms of decision making". The same day Phil Hodgkinson, CEO of Pure Legal Group (shirt sponsors of Huddersfield last season), announces that he has made a written offer for control of the club but is yet to receive any acknowledgement of this. He goes on to reveal that he has agreements with a manager and 19 players to join the club, along with details of a progressive business plan for the future of the club. Also today director of football Liam Watson is sacked by email, although this news does become public for a couple more days.

          On May 9th it is announced that accountant James Treadwell and financial advisor Adrian Shandley have taken over the club, stating that they have invested a "six figure sum". Both have been around the club in the past, mostly sponsoring games here and there. There are suspicions that they are little more than proxies for Clapham. The supporters trust invites the pair to a meeting to discuss their plans for the club. They also invite Hodgkinson to discuss his plans. These meetings take place over the next week or so.

          On May 16th a series of texts apparently from Haydn Preece are leaked. It appears he thought he was communicating with Treadwell. These appear to indicate that Clapham is still involved. It is suggested that the texts are fictional, but the following day it is announced (without reference to the previous day's events) that Preece is stepping down from his role with the club.

          On May 21st the supporters trust reveal the results of their meetings with Shandley and Treadwell, and with Hodgkinson. One group has a well thought out plan that provides a realistic route for the club to progress on and off the field. The other has some rough ideas, remarkably similar to various announcements issued by the previous ownership over the last decade. It should surprise few that it was the "new" ownership that produced the latter.


          The following day Mark Wright is announced as "Head of Development". Despite the title suggesting that his role might have something to do with developing young players, it is apparent that he will be more or less running the football side of things. He announces that he will name his management team by the end of the week. Former England defender Wright was Southport manager for eighteen months around the turn of the millennium, during which he led them to finishes of ninth and fourth in the Conference. However it is known that the budget made available to him was relatively high and the club made a considerable loss during his time in charge. Concerns have also been raised about a number of players in his squads being allowed to run down their contracts and subsequently join League clubs on free transfers. Since leaving Southport Wright has managed several clubs (a number of which had the notorious Steve Vaughan involved with them), although none since Maltese team Floriana five years ago.

          On May 26th Alan Lewer is announced as manager. Lewer has previously managed Forest Green, Histon and Weymouth, with his most recent role being coaching at Bangor City. His career 16% winning record surprisingly does not get fans excited.

          The club had its AGM on June 5th at which Shandley and Treadwell were appointed to the board, although Treadwell initially lost on show of hands. Instead he had to be elected by using the block votes of shareholders. It is notable that the majority of shares are still held by Clapham and previous vice chairman Sam Shrouder.

          That pretty much brings up to date the off the field action, barring the appointment of various people into minor off the field roles. The qualifications of some for their new roles remains unclear. The Hodgkinson offer still appears to be on the table, with a sizeable number campaigning for this under the name 'Back the Bid'.

          On the field Southport had pretty much no players left at the end of the season, with the few on contract for 2017/18 either released or sold on. Wright and Lewer have assembled a squad of about fifteen so far, most of whom have played for either Bangor City or Shrewsbury reserves. Early results haven't been promising with two 3-1 defeats in friendlies to date, away to Bootle and at home to Blackpool.

          It's a shambles. Whether or not Treadwell and Shandley are merely Clapham's puppets I don't know, but they certainly act similarily, communicating poorly with supporters and having no apparent plan. Many fans are thoroughly disillusioned by it all, particularly with the announcement of Hodgkinson's offer being the most hopeful thing to happen to the club for years. I suspect gates will be low and the squad, such as it is, has the look of another relegation battle being the best thy can aim for (at a recent 'Meet the Manager' Wright said that they probably have the 15th best budget in the division but he thinks that 7th place, and qualification for the expanded playoffs, is possible.

          Comment


            #6
            That's a mess, Zeb. It's more fucked up than I thought it was.

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              #7
              PM for you, Zeb.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Grimmer View Post
                I'm strangely looking forward to this season. Mills' side that finished the season weren't responsible for the relegation. They've kept some good players from that side and signed some that look promising.

                So 10th ...
                Optimistic as always, I see. I generally advocate cautiousness but with the players that have been retained plus the new additions, it will be a major failure if we finish outside the top 6. Obviously this being York City there is a fair chance that will happen, but things look better on the field now than they have for years. Yes, other clubs have money, but have 9/10 of them really put together stronger teams than ours? Remember the core of this team would have finished top 10 in the league above last season had it started in January when they came together...

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                  #9
                  It's more that I don't want to jinx them.

                  I honestly can't wait for the first game.

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                    #10
                    With Alan Lewer and Mark Wright involved, what's going on at Southport has the stench of Vaughan all over it. I thought he was tied up at Bangor City at the moment, though.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                      I think Darlington might sort themselves out after the shambles of not reading the ground grading rules correctly last season. But they need bigger crowds to cover debt repayments and the type of wage and travel bill the Conference would necessitate.
                      They need bigger crowds to cover the costs and type of wage that's being paid now!

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Quite a well-represented division now on OTF, in 13/14 it was just me and the occasional Boston comment from ingoldale.

                        I don't expect we'll be able to keep up with the clubs with the highest budgets, but I'm expecting play-offs. Last season's points total was enough to finish in the top 7 most seasons, and I think we can do at least as well again.

                        Had two departures since then that we could've done without, Lewis Montrose to A.F.C Fylde for 15k and Danny Lloyd to Peterboro. We've not sought like for like replacements and some interesting comments from the manager suggest he believes the team can evolve to mitigate these losses - you'll always miss 29 goals from a winger, or whatever position the left of the 3 in a 4-2-3-1 is, but perhaps too much goal dependence on one source made us predictable, and the new signings were identified with an eye to allowing us to attack more as a unit. Montrose won player of the season and deserves another go at a higher level, but Gannon implied recently that he was too defensive a defensive midfielder for a team looking for promotion.

                        Salford's title and Brackley through the play-offs.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          What did you make of Montrose? Seemed to have an awful attitude and contributed the square root of naff all when he was with us, though he was very young.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            15/16, I only went to three matches, but watched the youtube highlights of every game – Montrose looked like a good player with temperament issues, got two red cards and should have had another but got away scot free with a mindless potential career-ender.

                            16/17, he appeared to sort himself out in the head and as a result became a cool calm authority in the middle, constantly directing others and breaking up play. Should do well in the National.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Quietly optimistic about the Pilgrims' chances. The new manager seems to have started his recruitment when he came in towards the end of last season. Jay Rollins is, somewhat surprisingly for me, rumoured to be on his way up the A16 to Grimsby but I'm not sure he's quite good enough to follow Zak Mills to BP. Will be a big loss for Boston if he does go and he is yet sign...

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                                #16
                                A good win today against Curzon Ashton, though in all honesty they weren't up to much. It's been mixed fortunes up until today for Tamworth, starting with a piss-poor display against BPA in the opening game. I fully expect us to be like this all season, culminating in a mid table finish.
                                The bigger fish like Harrogate, Salford and York seem to be floating towards the top now. Not sure how Brackley have started so well, and I see I was spot on with my prediction of Southport to struggle this season.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Darlington won their first three but lost at home yesterday, so the jury is still out. Fifth or sixth was their level last season.

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                                    #18
                                    How's everyone enjoying the season then? For the most part it's been utterly dispiriting in YO30. Gainsbro were just the latest in a procession of teams to pitch up with 11 men behind the ball and engage in very blatant time-wasting tactics from the kick-off – theirs was pretty spectacular, and I'm not sure why their manager was so affronted when the referee (who hitherto had done absolutely naff all about it) added on 6 minutes of injury time at the end.

                                    Basically, if we don't score in the first 20 minutes, we don't win. Our manager has neither the invention or the daring to try any new formations/team selections that might get through stubborn defences, preferring instead to just resort to aerial bombardment at the earliest opportunity. The season is rapidly slipping away and unless something changes very soon I can't see any outcome other than a continuing slide into inevitable part-time obscurity, if not just non-existence. With the resources available to us compared to our competitors, it's just an absurd position to be in, and entirely of our own making.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Tamworth have put a nice little run of form together recently to climb into the play-offs, though that has become somewhat easier since the number of play-off positions has increased to six. We even beat Kidderminster on Tuesday, and we never beat Kidderminster.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        FC United are, from reports, absolute mince this season. They managed to go up one place on the table the other week despite losing, the sort of managerial genius we've come to expect from Karl Marginson. Sadly for fans he was unable to repeat his trick and the following defeat saw them drop to 21st in the table. They've lost 7 out of 10 games, a senior player has told fans that some of his team mates aren't trying, three former players with actual coaching qualifications have approached the club offering a short term fix, but the board, weighed down by financial issues surrounding the ground, are reluctant to bin him off due to any redundancy payment.

                                        Club never should have left Bury.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Southport made a surprisingly good start to the season but the wheels have spectacularly fallen off in the last week - a 6-0 defeat at Stockport last Tuesday, a 3-0 defeat at home to Darlington on Saturday and a 4-1 defeat at home to Harrogate last night. It seems that spending out of the budget on a few more experienced players is not an ideal strategy, particularly when those players are prone to injury (Steven Schumacher picked up his third injury in little over a month last night). The odds and sods rounding out the squad are simple not good enough - last night Jacques Kpohomouh particularly stood out, playing as if he had never seen a game of football before but had only read the Wikipedia entry on defending. Apparently Mark Wright was impressed by how high he can jump.

                                          More positively Phil Hodgkinson, whose attempts to invest were rebuffed over the summer, has now joined the board, which means there is now somewhere on there who has some idea of the realities of modern football. Ironically the announcement of his investment came a couple of hours before the start of the current losing run. A lot of work to be done of the next few months, much of which could have been better done in the summer.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            FC 3-0 down to Darlo. Two men sent off for FC United, one for Darlington. This really is desperate stuff.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by EIM View Post
                                              FC United are, from reports, absolute mince this season. They managed to go up one place on the table the other week despite losing, the sort of managerial genius we've come to expect from Karl Marginson. Sadly for fans he was unable to repeat his trick and the following defeat saw them drop to 21st in the table. They've lost 7 out of 10 games, a senior player has told fans that some of his team mates aren't trying, three former players with actual coaching qualifications have approached the club offering a short term fix, but the board, weighed down by financial issues surrounding the ground, are reluctant to bin him off due to any redundancy payment.

                                              Club never should have left Bury.
                                              I have to say FC might be the worst visiting team I've ever seen at Bootham Crescent, which obviously didn't stop them winning fairly comfortably in the end. The highlight was when the keeper, who had been pretty ropey all afternoon, went to kick the ball out hurriedly with one of our forwards a couple of yards in front of him and just fumbled it out of his hands like the proverbial bar of soap (the FC website reported it as something along the lines of "...was controversially robbed of the ball" – there was absolutely no contact). Says everything you need to know about how our season is going that in that incident we still couldn't even score with no keeper in the way.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Jobi1 View Post
                                                How's everyone enjoying the season then?
                                                Indifferent, if I'm being kind, aforementioned 6-0 notwithstanding. Seem to have found the centre-forward who can score that we lacked last season, but swings & roundabouts having lost a goalscoring winger in Danny Lloyd, we're no closer to promotion. The biggest worry is how the solid away form from last season has gone. Possibly also down to Lloyd, there's nobody in the squad with the same pace and close control to break away effectively when the home team are attacking and lose possession.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Well, as the thread title said...

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