Thetownend.com

Just been readinga  few quotes and posts on here,I was so down a few months ago, thinking we were down.  Honestly couldnt see a way out.

Anyway keeping it brief, we were fucked under king (lets not start this debate again) but with him he had done all he could with the club.

In came Iffy (again dividing the club) but on that night in Doncaster us fans got behind the club and you could see that it was anew chapter in STFC

The last few games we as fans have really got behind the team.  Iffy has brought more respect to the club, Devlin is trying to sort out the council and at last I can see the light at teh end of the tunnel.

Lets just get behind the club for the last 20 odd games of the season bith home and away and lets stay up.....

Enjoy the ride boys........

i agree with that ash. Just need you to say that with some sort of opera music or something to make it as motivational as possible. Nicely said

Ha ha, just some brief thoughts.  Even tho bottom of the league ive enjoyed every minute so far.

you're spot on there ash, i'll drink to that.

how many fans of other clubs would be so supportive despite the fact their team is rock bottom? how many fans of other clubs would have travelled to somewhere like donny on a tuesday night and got right behind the new manager?

alright, i'm sure lots of people say the same about their own fans but i think we've got some of the best around. our support this season has been tremendous and i'm sure the players and management appreciate it hugely. nice to see iffy mention us in his post-match interview last night.

off the pitch things are picking up, devlin's back and there seems to be a more positive feel around the club. as you say, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and for once it's not the light of an oncoming train.

can't wait until saturday. football's taken over my life this season.

i wish i could go away, but no money don't help. i have £40 though at the moment.  8) thinking of going to gillingham, if i can convince someone to come.

it has been fun supporting us this season, better than mid table boredom aslong as we don't go down!

Agree with you both

your all wrong we going down

we need an experienced manager...

when will this board learn?


love

Lifetime Red

I cant actually remember us ever actually singing Kings name but with Iffy that is totally different. I come to games thinking we may get a result and not actually dreaeding it.

So were you dreading it when we pushing for promotion back in 2004? It was only last year. Loads of people sang King's name. Remember games like Hartlepool May 2004? Andy King's Barmy Army. EIEIEIO ....Andy is our King etc.... Did I imagine that.

For fucks sake talk sense. The way you're talking you'd think we were bottom then and in the playoff positions now.  :nuts:  :shake:  If you were dreading the games then you must be crazy, I was fucking loving it, easily the most enjoyable season since we won the championship. Good times. Short memories.

Come on think back to March/April/May last year. Real belief we could get promotion, even a chance of automatic, capacity crowds, Fallons wonder goal, great atmospheres, pretty much everyone behind the team, it was back to the good days. Was it really that bad? I thought it was fucking ace! Maybe I'm thinking of another team, sometimes I think I must be.

A relegation fight can be good sometimes as long as you're not miles adrift but it depends how it ends, hopefully this season we can get back out of trouble, it'll be tough but it should have some interesting moments. Give me a chance of promotion rather than a relegation fight anytime though. I thought 2003/2004 was a much much better season than 1998/99 or 1997/98 even though we were in a lower division.

I'm all for staying positive but come on, don't try and rewrite history.

im sure we would all like promotion bwb.

playoff season was quality though, that brighton game was ace, but it is completely different nw.

Iffy in charge, complete new and YOUNG team, i think if we build on this we could get better season by season.

You probably did imagine it BWB. King very rarely got his name sung even when were up in 4th

IEIEIEIO use to die out when it got to the andy is our king line in the Nationwide, always a few people would mumble that was it.

I remember Andy Kings Barmy Army being sung once in the Nationwide ever. I agree it was a good season, but some fans just never warmed to King at all ever.

Iffy had more support against Doncaster than King did the whole time he was here!!

We're not divded by the manager, all the true fans are behind him. We can do this....

Completely agree with Ash.

Being in Hillingdon, it hasn't been easy to get to many matches, but as I'm back in the sham over the crimbo period, I've got the bug again!
I can't wait 'til tomorrow, I'm gonna sing 'til I'm hoarse and welcome in the three points!!  :mrgreen:

BWB, 03-04 is a long time ago.

The season 04-05 was a total waste of time. And a criminal waste of talent. In season 04-05 I saw us get just 4 points on the road and I went to shit loads of games.

We are focused on the job at hand now. And we are comming away from grounds with points. Chesterfield, Oldham, Rotherham, Port Vale, Brentford all games that Kingy would have surrendered. Fuck me, we havnt lost on the road in the league since Franchise October 1st, 3 months ago! (disgrace at Boston aside).

Thats what the hardcore are more positive about.

spot on spencer.even though im not at the games i can tell how much the atmosphere has changed around the county ground.wednesday for example the away support was fantastic all i could hear on the radio was our fans oh and fuckin ed hadwin i hate him :x

Yeah when we were in teh play offs it was good, however he took us as far as he could.  What spencer said is true, its all about what this season means.  Me dex and paddy never really went with a big group prior to this season where as this year weve found people who are good lads, a laugh and teh whole day is fucking ace.  I find myself sitting in the office on a monday buzzing about the saturday, never did that even in 2003 - 2004.

2004-05 still gets me angry now. I did over 3000 miles following town that season and I saw us win at City (which was terrific) and get a draw at Torquay. But what about the other 15 games I went to? 13 losses with a striker who was nailed on 20+ goals a season.

It was criminal. Ive said it before and Il say it again. King was motivated about keeping his own job, thats why we were so much better at home, cos he knew if he kept the home fans on board then he could do what he wanted.

Its soooo much better comming away with a point. If we can get draws on the road, and win at home we will stay up, easy.

until i was banned away games were fuckin brilliant.the atmospere was like it has been for the last 5 away games.i must admit as much as i cant wait to go again the last year or so since i had a baby and other things i started to question will it be the same as it was when i used to go.but recently the buzz is back and im not even going so fuck knows what its like for you lot.hopefully by the end of this season i will be back going week in and week out again taking my little one staying out of trouble and going mental with fallon in the last minuite in the town end..cant fuckin wait now :D

Im with DV.I could never bring myself to singalongaking(mind you I never sang "King out"either)but "I I IFFY IFFY I" just seems to roll off my tongue.

Nah that's bollocks, a few fans never warmed to King but they were very much in the minority then, all the "true fans" as much as any "true fans" are behind Iffy, that's a pointless statement because any definition of a true fan is purely opinion. Listen to anyone texting into radio swindon and you will see there is still a divide, you get just as many when we have a bad result than you did a couple of seasons ago and they still tend to be mostly pricks.

Iffy will have a lot of tough times to cope with yet, if we achieve half as much as we did under King he'll have done well.

The name K*ng should be banned from this forum.  :evil:

trust ben to ruin a postive thread by harking back to king's reign. face it, that's in the past and we were going nowhere under king after the play-off season. as spencer says, 04/05 was a total waste of time and that's entirely king's fault.

have you even seen us this season ben?

iffy inheirited a pretty poor squad who were slowly sinking without trace, things didn't change as soon as he took over but he's turned things around. we're on the up. anybody who went to games like oldham, huddersfield, vale etc would know that we didn't get the three points we deserved from those games.

you always banged on about giving king time so why not give iffy the same?

BWB needs to take his K*ng tinted specs off.

BWB, firstly true fan was probably not the right word, lets say regular fans....

Where ever we were, certain people didnt like King. People would NOT chant is name, as I've already said EIEIEIO always died out before it got to the last line and we never gave King the honour of chanting his name followed by red n white army.

Those people who text in, well the thats their opinion whatever they think of Iffy there is never a bad word said about him in the stands. No one boos when we sing his name and everyone joins in with chants of his name. He started with some poor results, did anyone chant Iffy out....no

He might not get the same success as King, but he doesnt have the same money or resources as King. King had a better wage budget, money to spend and the best player in the division in his squad. Iffy has a lower wage budget, no money to spend and no Sam Parkin. He has a different job, he will achieve different things.

If Iffy keeps us up, it will be a better achievement than King getting us into the play offs in my opinion because most people have already written us off, even some of our fans.

I feel much more confident with Iffy in charge and most people who go every week feels the same way.

post of the year dv85 that is spot on

King had very little money or resources, much the same as Iffy has now got, let's not forget we were in administration for a long time, he also made a big profit on players. How much of the Parkin money did he have to spend, he only had arguably the best player in the division because he managed to buy him very cheaply.

The wage budget is not much different, if Iffy keeps us up it will be the same achievement as King keeping us up in 2000/2001 but despite the lower budget I think we have a better squad of players now than we did then.

Only getting into the playoffs would be as big an achievement as getting into the playoffs, resources are similar, both managers jobs are equally difficult.

I would agree that this team is a lot better than that on 2000/01. But the teams around us are also a lot stronger (Gills, City, Tranmere - all probably too good to go down).

Plus we were never ever this far adrift in 2000/01. Weve basically come back from the dead.

that is bollocks ben.kings budget was much higher than what we got this year.and as much as you think king done well in signing parkin it was not rocket science he could of gone to northampton or us king didnt spot him he had been around already.he took as much a gamble on parkin as he did with sabin,opera etc but one of his gambles came off

King had very little money, but still more than Iffy

Parkin - 50k
Fallon - 70k?
Roberts - 50k?
Ifil - 70k?

Off the top of my head thats 4 players King brought in for money. I've had rough guess at the totals spent.

Iffy has been given £0 to spend, which is slightly different.

Kings job was easier because he had Parkin, I know King bought him and for that I say fair play. 50k spent very well indeed, but who is to say if Iffy was given 50k to spend he couldnt pull a decent player out the hat? No one knows what his spend is like because he hasnt been given anything to spend.

I'm no expert so I cant say how much the wage budget has been slashed, but there is talk every season of it being slashed again and again. I expect King had a bigger wage budget to work with, which can make it easier to attract players.

did we pay money for o,hanlon aswell?if we did thats nearly 300k king spent

All except Parkin were signed due to the extra wage money available due to the 2000 extra fans we got in 2003/2004, when we got Parkin we had to spend a little cash at the expense of having a reduced wage budget, the wage budget was higher but we had a number of poor players signed by Colin Todd on far too high wages meaning the available money was just as low.

the fact remains that iffy's operating on a budget lower than king had in previous seasons.

It's not bollocks, they both have very very tough jobs. Opera was no gamble, he was on like £100 a week and couldn't settle so we released him after a couple of months, nothing lost nothing gained.

O'Hanlon was free. Iffy has not spent much yet but King spent about £40k per year, less than any manager we've had in decades and we got at least twice that back from Parkin. Iffy may be given some money to spend, we don't know.

oh fuck it.king was god will that do

My point was only that the past was not the nightmare some people were saying. Get behind the club now for sure but we've had some good times in the past too.

League Form:

P11 W3 D7 L1
DWDDWLDWDDD

(I thought I'd allow a statistic to explain my current state of mind)

I think people think King was only here last season. In 03/04 when we were 15th I was confident we would do well and in the end we came good. King did well that year because in his time he had got Parkin, Smith, Evans, Mooney, Migs and others together to make a strong side.

Iffy hasn't had the chance to do that yet and to be honest I am not sure that he will do. BUT what we can hope for is that Iffy continues to get the team playing in their current form and that will keep us up. And given the position he was in to start with, I would consider that a damn good job,

I disagree about the extra gate money, because didnt the board mis calculate something?

I remember before the start of the season we needed an average of about 6k to break even, despite most games being above that didnt that figure go UP the next season. I'm sure the board messed up somewhere, so it turned out despite beating the orginal break even figure we didnt make as much profit as we would have thought? maybe I've got that wrong.

I agree with the first part about the Colin Todd wages, but the last 2 seasons (4th and 11th) there werent any people still on Todd wages were there? Even the players signed in that era had been given new contracts?

"meaning the available money was just as low"

You dont know that for a fact! Where as the wage budget between last season and this was slashed, thats a given.

Wage budgets etc aside, Iffy has a different task. King the last two seasons at least, and this one had the chance to bring in his own players and build his own team. Iffy has taken over someone elses team, and in the process players he probably doesnt even want. That to me makes his job harder.

Coming in part way through the season cant be easy, esp with this window blocking any potential wheeling and dealing. We'll see what money he gets to play with in January first then decided if King had a better budget.

:wall:

i think that sums up this thread perfectly...

Good post. I would consider it a good job too.

Not really, I think its been a mature discussion and we've come to some sort of agreement..... :o

Id agree with that, but for as many people who only remember King last season alot of people only remember him by his good season.

He was never liked by everyone and had mixed fortune with us, but he did some good things and some not so good things.

The start of this season wasnt good, the 03/04 season was..

Iffy has revitalised those players that were going backwards under King,namely Ifil,O'Hanlon,Nicholas Shakes and even Migz

Nicholas was one of those players who under K*ng would be sat on the bench week in week out when they should have been in the starting 11.

precisely. nicho's looking better than ever and is improving still - why? because he knows iffy will pick him if he performs when king would ignore him for no other reason than dislike.

imo king done well but outstayed his welcome.as soon as you call your own fans idiots your days are numbered i think..the way i see it is that if the players can see the manager does not give a fuck as long as his job is safe then why the fuck should they bother just my opinion

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:  That was 2002 he did that for the first time.

still a cunt for doing it

His days were numbered, they just happened to be numbered 700+

I couldn't care less about King or whether he was any good or not.  Past, gone, finished.

I'd say that's a fair summary. I'm all for getting behind the team and Iffy now because the last thing we need is negativity but I just  don't like it when people make out it's all perfect now, whilst it was awful before because it's just not true.

At this stage in 2000/2001 I wasn't a big King fan but he got my support by keeping us up, then taking us forward and signing the type of players I like to watch and getting them cheaply, despite near impossible circumstances at the club.

If Iffy does similar then I will give him just as much support, keeping us up is the main thing I'm judging him on and I think he's capable of it.

Bearing in mind we are bottom of the league with half the season gone, I don't think too many people are making out everything's perfect BWB!