Thetownend.com

Or to put it another way - what would you, the fan, be happy about where STFC is in the footballing scheme of things?

Success means different things to different people. To Power it probably means surviving as a League club sustainably.

To Brown it’s probably good enough to actually have a job - there are only 92 available.

To the players it’s probably similar to Brown but with a few more options.

Now, to the fans! Generally, fans are never happy. Yes, it’s been shit for years now and with little likelihood of improvement soon, but personally it’s the lack of entertaining football that does it for me.

If does irk me when I look at nearly all our opponents in L2 - how has it come to this. Trying to eke out a result at shitty little clubs we should be pounding. Worrying about getting a result against the likes of Stevenage et al.

Would I be happy with a similar existence in L1 - nah. It’s the journey that’s exciting. The arrival is just the start of more meh.

shotr-medium: to be regular contenders for promotion to the championship, with the occasional success at it!

long term: to be in a position to be able to survive financially if we did make it to the championship (I guess that ground ownership comes into this). obviously we'd be one of the smaller teams in those terms.

I know a hell of a lot has to happen for it to be achievable, and the is a window to hit. The gap between league 1 and championship is ever widening due to parachute payments.

entertaining football is a bonus not a staple for me. It's about success. I don't want to be Crewe of a decade ago - ooooh they play nice football and develop youngsters - but don't actually win enough to go up.

Being in the mix for promotion to the Championship, with the occasional cup run. Not faffing around in mid-table in the bottom division.

This.

Being in the top 7 in League One with the (very) occasional season in the champ might entice me back. I can't get excited about making up the numbers in League Two.

 Fella who plays for Watford.

This was what I used to consider as "normal" rather than "success".  The drip, drip from the premier league means that the automatics spots "ought" to be taken up by "big clubs" these days but play off contention would be an unremarkable measure of "success".

Cup runs were once not uncommon but, PDC apart, humiliations outnumber runs considerably.  We seem cursed really.  Power saved the club from Jed.  He now embodies stagnant mediocrity.

Success would be holding our own in the Championship on the back of ambitious marketing, ground redevelopment and Black-style investment and management, but sustained.

Playing entertaining football, looking like a side with some ambition, with a decent stab at promotion alternate seasons (and sometimes achieving it)

 It's a cliche, but I take each game as it come ... win and it's a success, draw and it's not so bad, lose and well some loses are worse than others. 

That short term perception leads into the longer term of the season.  We've seen enough of this one to know, success will be staying up, once upon a time player development might have come into it, but now any player you like will just be sold on. This prevents thinking too much about future sides as they'll mainly turn over season on season.

However, it does mean that the next home game v Carlisle, is as big a game as any we've had in recent years, if we are to be successful this season in maintaining league status, then the home form needs to turn around as quickly as possible.

Although the Cumbrians have a decent away record, they did lose at Macc, then follow up with a point at Sincil Bank, so just maybe we'll catch them on a bad day rather than a good day.

I see this as over achievement rather than success given our history.  Success is just a season on season thing to me

This is probably very true but the general apathy means it's treated with a shrug of the shoulders and a crowd just squeezing over 5,500.

It will be interesting to see the gate on Saturday. The FGR LC game got a crowd of near 3 and half thousand. This on the back of a cheap tickets, like on Saturday.  Not bad considering Cooper put out effectivlely a second string XI, only 4 players being Saturday regulars.  OK they still won, but their budget is bigger than ours.

You'd like to think we could match that and perhaps being a Saturday and the FA Cup, get it up to 4,000.

I don’t really see the point in being involved in football - be that an owner, manager, player or fan if you don’t want to win things?
So surely success is winning more games of football than you lose every season, regardless of what level you play at.

Success would be to be able to encourage people of this town to come and support the club rather than strut around in Liverpool shirts. If Reading can manage it why can't we?

say that took us to 8th quagmire, would you still class it as success?

On a personal level, winning the half time lottery would be a notable success.  :)

Short term, just winning a few games, regardless of style, would be a start.

Longer term, success would be getting into the Championship, even better if coupled with a shiny new CG.

I'd like to think that Power has at least a modicum of shame left somewhere and doesn't want the club to be languishing in L2.

if a new stadium complexed, championship with dips into premier league can't manage it, why can't we? ummmm.

Took Madjetski 10 years and a shit load of money to leaves a legacy. And it's much harder now simply because finances have skyrocketed.

it can still be done, but it takes money.

Bournemouth are a better example of what we could do. But you'd like to think they'll sink again at some point with their lack of infrastructure.

I'd be happy to do a Brentford. they seem to have moved to the next level. with money.

Just fucking enjoying a season overall would be a good start. I don't think that's happened since Cooper was here.

Well last season we managed that, just, and finished 9th.  Now I regarded that as an OK season, not a runaway success but we managed to pick up a win when needed to avoid any drop zone tinkering.... yet many felt it to be a terrible campaign.

I've touched on Benham before, it's estimated he's put 90 mill into Brentford, to get them to Championship fringe contenders.

Now however much we might like such an owner, as things stand it's not worth thinking about, we have to deal with the reality of our situation.

Blimey, I really didn't know that. Oh well, back to the lottery tickets..

Good point. Everything has been shit since 17:05 on 24 May 2015

Also, looking at the team that day I only just realised that Jermaine Hylton was on the bench that day (and the only survivor, naturally).

Was convinced he was signed the season after.

Get used to it folks, we missed our golden opportunity in 2013.

Higher end League 1, pushing for, and achieving the Championship occasionally, then staying there.

However, needed is:

Somebody on the board with a bit of money and ambition for a start, fed up of being medicore and shitter and shitter every year.

A manager that doesnt appear to be a clueless fucker.

Just something to give the club a spark and a boost.

I ditched my season ticket this season after over 12 years, is there anything to entice me back? Is there fuck.

On another note, i see the lot down the road have just had the ex majority owner of Inter Milan, DC United and Philadelphia 76ers just join their board.

Steady L1 club fighting at the top end to get out and having a crack at the championship every other year

Never has a quote on the townend been so true.
Our decline since has been noticable.

Turning up at the CG, and feeling like there’s an event going on. Drama and atmosphere. Something to capture the imagination of lifelong fans and their children. I was lucky enough to start supporting the club when that was the norm - and we’ve since glimpses since, particularly under PDC and briefly under Cooper. Bring it back.

Everything has been shit since 15.00 on 24th May 2015 !.

A cup run would be good, anyone going Saturday?  :)

Me. My dad and an ex-season ticket holder are going so there will be at least 3 people.

me, Mrs me, me jr and me jr jr

Batch's batch

The collective noun for a group of Town fans these days would be a 'meh' I guess.

Actually the game kicked off at 17:30, so I'd say since 17:33, when beckford scored Preston's first. The game was only going to go one way after that, and sadly so was the club as it turned out. The thought of being a top-end L1 club in the fight for the play-offs would be plenty to regain my interest. As it stands, I find it hard to justify the cost of going to a game.

Captain Fantastic playing through the pain barrier for all of 20 seconds when he was clearly not fit to even be on the bench 🙄

No, to be fair I wouldn’t.

nor me, it's a good starting point but i need a playoff minimum to consider a season as  success at this level (hypothetical I know).

Basically success for ANY football club should be continuous progress & improvement.

The aim should always be to finish higher up the Pyramid than you did the previous season. Only exceptions being if your league form takes a dive due to having a real go at (and possibly winning) a major trophy.

I expect Wigan, Swansea & Birmingham fans have happily traded existing in the PL for (eventually) getting relegated but having seen their team win a major trophy.

Continuous improvement is impossible so you'd never be happy in that scenario. Classic example is Charlton, who got ideas way above their station and deemed being a midtable Premier League club as unsatisfactory.

I've accepted we're a small club and always will be, and will never really be anything more than a 3rd tier club but I don't mind. It's a shame given the size of the Town and catchment area but that's how it goes.

Success is probably pushing top end of league 1 at the moment.

Problem is people think we should be up there by right based on history and crowd sizes. Unfortunately I'd imagine a lot of clubs with lower crowds have higher revenue streams than us now as other than ticket sales and sponsorship we don't really have any other sources of cash and Jed obviously sold off the catering. In terms of facilities the CG is probably amongst the worst in the football league as we don't even have any exec boxes or sources of non matchday revenue, we've just got left behind and as much as Power has his faults it's 25 years of stagnation that has caused our status to plummet.

Wise words.... beating York will be a success.

Another example would be Huddersfield, won 3 league titles in a row from 1926.... how could they improve on that?

1 title seeing as not a single fan will remember the previous 3

I'm sure Terriers fans would regard the last 2 seasons as success.... despite in 16/17 having a negative goal difference and a leading scorer with 12, yet reaching the PO's and not winning a game in regulation time. Then given the circumstances, staying up with only modest investment...  Alex Pritchard... was Brownesque at Hull.  You have to be realistic