What Division do we 'belong' in?

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

The 1960s was uniquely bad at the time and remained easily the all time low point until Admin and the Trust period of 2004-2009.
The 8 season 3rd Division South era (in which we never finished lower than 12th) would have been offset by Lawton, massive crowds (rising to the 15th highest average in the country) and the fact Fword had been circling the drain to join us in that division, which they did and we went back up before them.

The swift 21st century repeat nightmare under Trew-Hardy has changed perceptions. It's basically now half the fanbase endlessly expressing gratitude for whoever is simply keeping the club alive and the other half permanently peed off or frustrated about the lack of ambition. We need something to happen, maybe being thrown into the deep end of L1 after a lucky break in the play offs will set off a positive chain of events. I'm clutching at straws but you never know with football.

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I'm not pessimistic of progress under the current owners, just fear that with their incremental progress I might not be around to see the benefits :(

There are two sayings that stick in my mind and come to the fore hear:

1) How do you eat an elephant?
A spoonful at a time

2) You can only leap a chasm in one bound

We're in the "eating elephant" category.

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Originally Posted by Old_pie

I'm not pessimistic of progress under the current owners, just fear that with their incremental progress I might not be around to see the benefits :(

There are two sayings that stick in my mind and come to the fore hear:

1) How do you eat an elephant?
A spoonful at a time

2) You can only leap a chasm in one bound

We're in the "eating elephant" category.

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I guess it all kinda depends on how many years these current owners think they'll be here. This summer it will be six years since they walked through the doors and in that time there's been one promotion (but we all hope that'll become two in the next couple of weeks).
Also where would they like the club to be when they do leave.

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Originally Posted by marky

I guess it all kinda depends on how many years these current owners think they'll be here. This summer it will be six years since they walked through the doors and in that time there's been one promotion (but we all hope that'll become two in the next couple of weeks).
Also where would they like the club to be when they do leave.

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One promotion in six isn't bad though. Most owners this century left us in a worse place than where they found us. Plus, this will be out fifth playoff campaign in those six years.

The incremental improvement strategy we employ is clearly more sustainable than the boom-and-bust (or just straight-up bust) we're used to. But when you see other teams around us getting it right faster, it can be a bit frustrating, especially when the strategy involves selling the players who could guarantee you promotion if they stuck around.

I feel that at some point, the bros need to start making bigger moves if they want to take us to the next level. Signing players like Grant and Whitaker won't do it. Getting LW and Langstaff back might though. If we don't, a team like MKD will, and we'll end up watching them get promoted instead of us.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Old_pie

I'm not pessimistic of progress under the current owners, just fear that with their incremental progress I might not be around to see the benefits :(

There are two sayings that stick in my mind and come to the fore hear:

1) How do you eat an elephant?
A spoonful at a time

2) You can only leap a chasm in one bound

We're in the "eating elephant" category.

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i think you mean **** or bust ! re the leap the chasm.
i think at best we should be a league one team pushing for promotion with crowds averaging the 10,000 mark. If this drops to the average 6,000 mark then we would hopefully be league one , but lower mid table to relegation fodder.

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Originally Posted by marky

I guess it all kinda depends on how many years these current owners think they'll be here. This summer it will be six years since they walked through the doors and in that time there's been one promotion (but we all hope that'll become two in the next couple of weeks).
Also where would they like the club to be when they do leave.

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One promotion in six years is good especially as it was from the hardest league to get out of the National League. As we know it took us four attempts to get out of that bottleneck.

If we look at the six years prior to The Brothers taking ownership of the club we finished 64th in the pyramid (20th in League One) and just avoided relegation to league two. Today we sit ten places behind 74th in the pyramid (6th in League Two) with a chance of getting promoted to League One. So we have recovered and come back well.

The next step is to get back to League One and survive there like Mansfield have done this season.

The 8 Season Fall
11/12 - 51st (7th League One)
12/13 - 56th (12th League One)
13/14 - 64th (20th League One)
14/15 - 65th (21st League One - Relegated)
15/16 - 85th (17th League Two)
16/17 - 84th (16th League Two)
17/18 - 73rd (5th League Two - Playoffs)
18/19 - 91st (23rd League Two - Relegated)

The 6 Season Rise - Under The Brothers
19/20 - 95th (3rd National League - Playoff Finalists)
20/21 - 97th (5th National League - Playoff Semi Finalists)
21/22 - 97th (5th National League - Playoff Quarter Finalists)
22/23 - 94th (2nd National League - Playoff Finalists Promoted)
23/24 - 82nd (14th League Two)
24/25 - 74th (6th League Two - Playoff Semi Finalists min)

League 1 with current fan base. We have the potential facilities wise and potential fan base to be consistently championship but need a much better Manager and be able to hold on to better players.

"but need a much better Manager and be able to hold on to better players"
Or pay more money, especially in the case like Crowley!!!...