Message for Mr. Fitton

[axs]

I'll renew, and go to away games, as someone else said, I enjoy it even if we lose, especially the away days.

Few wins would go down well though.

I can understand people who travel a hundred miles just to see the game and go home straight after getting hacked off if the players put in no effort.

[Reg Smeeton]

FWIW I believe that Mr Fitton and co have removed the fantasy from our football club...by which I mean they're thoroughly grounded in reality.  As fans of a shit lower league FC, we need a bit of fantasy from time to time. Years back when we were struggling in Div 4 in front of 2000 odd crowds...I knew we'd make the top flight and we did; this fantasy though was only achieved by cooking the books.

 I believe SSW understood this basic premise, which is why he used Diamond Mike, who didn't worry too much about reality, so when we went down in 05/06, we could have Wise and a shed load of staff and players even though we couldn't pay them...similarly Sturrock.

 This grounding in reality means it might take us a while to get out of L2  from next season.

[herthab]

FWIW I believe that Mr Fitton and co have removed the fantasy from our football club...by which I mean they're thoroughly grounded in reality.  As fans of a shit lower league FC, we need a bit of fantasy from time to time. Years back when we were struggling in Div 4 in front of 2000 odd crowds...I knew we'd make the top flight and we did; this fantasy though was only achieved by cooking the books.

 I believe SSW understood this basic premise, which is why he used Diamond Mike, who didn't worry too much about reality, so when we went down in 05/06, we could have Wise and a shed load of staff and players even though we couldn't pay them...similarly Sturrock.

 This grounding in reality means it might take us a while to get out of L2  from next season.

So teams like Hull, Wigan, Reading, etc have all achieved success by being dodgy?

What a load of rubbish!

[BANGKOK RED]

That;s only temporary though Reg.

The buzz/fantasy will come back once things get on track.

[DiV]

Why was there not this reaction in the 05/06 season?

expectation levels

[Reg Smeeton]

That;s only temporary though Reg.

The buzz/fantasy will come back once things get on track.

 To a realist, things are on track....

[Panda Paws]

I'll renew, and go to away games, as someone else said, I enjoy it even if we lose, especially the away days.

Few wins would go down well though.

I can understand people who travel a hundred miles just to see the game and go home straight after getting hacked off if the players put in no effort.

I think I'm also part of this minority that go knowing full well it's gunna be shit half the time, but love it anyway. Football is so much more than just the match. I remember travelling up to places like Oldham and Chesterfield in 05/06 knowing that we were garbage but not caring, and every now again you get a day like Orient away where the craic off the pitch is matched by the result on the pitch, resulting in a top day all round!

[Tails]

FWIW I believe that Mr Fitton and co have removed the fantasy from our football club...by which I mean they're thoroughly grounded in reality.  As fans of a shit lower league FC, we need a bit of fantasy from time to time. Years back when we were struggling in Div 4 in front of 2000 odd crowds...I knew we'd make the top flight and we did; this fantasy though was only achieved by cooking the books.

 I believe SSW understood this basic premise, which is why he used Diamond Mike, who didn't worry too much about reality, so when we went down in 05/06, we could have Wise and a shed load of staff and players even though we couldn't pay them...similarly Sturrock.

 This grounding in reality means it might take us a while to get out of L2  from next season.

Biggest load of tosh I've read on here in a while.

[Reg Smeeton]

Biggest load of tosh I've read on here in a while.

In what way? Try a bit of deconstruction rather than a blanket write off.

[Reg Smeeton]

So teams like Hull, Wigan, Reading, etc have all achieved success by being dodgy?

What a load of rubbish!

 Nowhere in there does fantasy equate with being dodgy...my basic premise is that the fantasy element is essential in football, some are able to achieve it by backing it with money....the likes of Hull, Wigan etc.

 In our case it was partially achieved by dodgy dealing...which is why it wasn't sustainable. 

 We wont achieve anything without money in some degree being thrown at it, which the Board have stated they wont do.

 This isn't a criticism of the Board, rather an acceptance, that we will need to operate at a lower level to maintain financial satbility.

[flammableBen]

Stabilising the club finances leaves us at a disadvantage over those which spend more than they can afford, or which just generate more cash than us. Add the hangover from the previous board and we're at even more of a disadvantage. Oh well. At least we won't go out of business.

Of course long term, as the infinite credit financial fiddling game drops out of football, more and more clubs will find that they have to run themselves in a more sustainable manner. This might give us an advantage as they sort themselves out and we're a bit ahead of the game compared to some others. Or maybe not, we'll have to wait and see.

Hopefully running as a stable club would see us eventually averaging around our natural league position. Which I suppose is high-mid league one with the occasional adventuring season up or down. Could live with that.

As for this season compared to others when we've been shit. This year the "we're shit who cares", almost fun resignation to the shitness, doesn't seem to be there this year. Everybody seems more frustrated than accepting that it's part of supporting Swindon.

I didn't see much of our last relegation, but when Kingy kept us up 00/01 I remember much more of a collective excitement, even if we were shit. You can talk about the expectations, but that was off the back of Brady's going to buy us a super stadium empty promises, so I don't think it can be completely down to that.

[Reg Smeeton]

 Of course the fiscal fallout of other clubs may see us in a position of strength in the future, but that is very difficult to predict, in terms of time scale.

[STFC_Gazza]

I am pretty sure if we had a healthy league position say 8th now, Fitton and co likely would have chucked a few quid at it to get us over the final hurdle so to speak. Same in the Championship. If we got there there is no way we could survive up there now doing as we are now. I think any success is around a Stadium development so we are looking at League One (or lower) probably around 2013/14. A new stadium that is self funding would give us additional funds to throw at players until that time we carry on as we are. IMO. Our biggest lack is a "football man" on the board I think. Paying agents fees etc is all part of the game really and any decent player we agree a deal with and the agent wants their cut will say "thats fair enough, we will go elsewhere" and that agent gets his cut so if Swindon dont pay agent fees I applaud them however unless every club takes this stance we will always lose out on the better players unless we have a good league position/chance at promotion or genuinly want to play for Swindon Town. We are probably looking at around 5 years of bouncing betweens Leagues One and Two until a Stadium is in place etc. to get the balance sheet right and then have some spare cash to spend on players.

[dell boy]

Panda Paws - what you say is so right, there is nothing like a good match day out, home or away, just remember the 7-1 drubbing at Forest, who didn't enjoy that day. Terrible result, but the fans supported the team more than they really deserved, we played our part as supporters.

Going completely off at a tangent here: Reg, you have been a supporter longer than myself which is a flipping long time, I want to ask you this, do you still enjoy match days?
Do you get like me totally demoralised by the performances of many players who do not give a shit about the shirt they pull over their necks? We as supporters deserve so much more.

At the end of the day we support a little side who could be big, we have a catchment area like Norwich, and like Norwich we should fill our ground, so why dont we?

Just look back to the heydays, and they are not so long ago ...
Under Ardilles, we played sensational football, others might believe Hoddle or Macari.
But the Ardilles area was the best for me, win or lose my God you came to the ground with great atmosphere and for the most you left feeling you had your moneys worth.

We need passion in the Swindon shirt, we need passion from the seats, get that back and Swindon will be back. We need to play our part again, if we do then maybe results will start turning around on the pitch.

Now that is probably the most senseless post of the year, so I apologise in advance, but I want to be proud to be a Swindon supporter again.

[RobertT]

We are indeed at a disadvantage right now as others have continued to spend beyond their means.  3 Teams faced the consequences this year, others are beginning to publicly complain about hardship - a certain club like Stockport making it known players are for sale, imagine how we'd feel right now if we had to advertise our best players for sale when the play offs could be a possibility.  As Reg says, it's all down to how long this may take, we're one of a few lower league clubs finally accepting we have to live within our means.

FWIW, crowds are pretty good still, better than 05/06, thanks to the Boards Season ticket deal.  There aren't any missing thousands, certainly not over the past 30 years ish anyway.  I managed a very patchy attendance record in 03/04, go figure.  In fact, the old Board have been the only ones to cause a major dip in attendances to some extent, following big increases in prices combined with a collapsing of the squad.  A close to last effort at balancing the books and avoiding having to sell up before they could a ground development deal through.

I started watching in the early 80's, so everything's been rosey since then really, even now!!!