Who do you want as our next Manager?

[Pocket rocket]

I'd have never considered Damian Duff Pocket but you inspired me to watch some of his interviews. Very impressive. I didn't know he has been manager at Shelbourne for so long. Im wondering why another EFL club haven't given him a chance.

He is very well regarded and his team plays good football. He will also have some decent contacts in the game.
Are we progressive or patient enough though as a club and a fan base?

[UlleyMiller]

An interesting read Ulley.
I think if we had an ambitious owner with a progressive, forward thinking board of directors, some of the categories you have ruled out would actually fit the bill long term.
Unfortunately we have a leader who has lost interest but remains surrounded by a bunch of yes men who are snuggled into their comfort zones so, yes, the options are indeed limited.
We can only hope Hamshaw is another "happy accident" appointment.

Pretty much why I got to that conclusion. Yes, if we had a different leadership there would be far less of an issue having (some kind of) an established manager, an 'up and comer', or even someone like Woody. We're not equipped for those to work on anything other than a short term basis though (if at all in some cases). I hope it works out with Hamshaw, and have no reservations around him right now. The stars aligned with Warne and hopefully that can happen again.

Whatever the outcome, I hope there's some degree of detachment between what happens on the pitch and what happens off it. Success with Hamshaw isn't confirmation that we're fixed behind the scenes (not in the near/mid-term anyway), and failure isn't necessarily just down to the board. Pragmatism is key now as we enter a new chapter.

[DerekMiller]

When thinking about who to employ as our next manager, I think we need to have a really good think about who we are as a club and where we stand in the wider footballing pyramid.

Do we have a very large fan base? No
Do we have decades of successful history at top level that make us a recognisable "brand" outside of South Yorkshire? No
Do we have a vastly wealthy owner who is happy to throw mega money around in the hope that big spending will amount to lots of success and glory? Nope
Are we a fashionable town? Definitely not.

So now we've established what we aren't, what exactly are we?

A traditional, working class northern football club. Local businessman owner who is wealthy, but not to the extent that is required to bankroll a mega successful football club in 2025. We have a small cache of passionate fans, who I would guess the vast majority of were raised within a five mile radius of Millmoor and/or the NYS. We have competed above our "natural position" quite impressively within the last 30 years (an era where I believe football as a whole has changed the most rapidly) but we have also seen some crushing lows within that same period. We almost lost our club too.

So why does all this matter? Because in 2025, football is as much about marketing a brand than it is about kicking a bag of air around a pitch. The manager of a club is the most visible representation of that brand at any one time.

So for us, we really have to play to our strengths with the position we are in NOW, with an eye on that NOW being the start of a progression forward.

Tony Stewart is simply not wealthy enough to pour money into a bottomless pit in the hope it pays off on the pitch. He doesn't make the top 50 richest people in Yorkshire for 2024, with number 50 on that list having a net worth of ?148 million. So while ever we are run by a local businessman we will never be able to rely on marquee signings and big wage players. Whether that be Ken Booth, Ron Hull, Tony Stewart, Paul Eyre, Millers 05, Dennis Coleman, it is just not happening. The only local businessman with the kind of wealth that may have a chance is Chris Rea, who owns AES Seal. Apparently his wealth is at around ?340 million, which is closer to the amount we are talking for the "sugar daddy" chairman model. But I'm sure if he was interested beyond sponsoring the stadium he'd have come forward when the council put out a plea for rich local people to buy the club.

So with that in mind, we can forget the type of manager that wants to come in and change the DNA of the club and have us play champagne football. That model will not work for us even if we get promoted back to the Championship because it requires big spending. We've tried it, it's always been a disaster. See Mick Harford, Alan Stubbs, Matt Taylor. Managers who also had dour personalities and barely connected with the fan base so, anything other than mega success on the pitch would soon see the atmosphere turn toxic. These same reasons will rule out the unheard of, untested third tier managers from continental Europe. Talk of the likes of Danny Rohl just isn't realistic. Rohl was the assistant manager of the German national team not some Bavarian village team manager. Wednesday will be paying him an astronomical wage I am sure

For the same reasons we can also count out the old veterans. The Warnocks and the (god forbid) Kenny Jacketts. They would want the big investment and wouldn't be shy about demanding it. Or just resigning after five games

I know it infuriates several people on here but that only leaves the type of people who "get the club." Who know the "Rotherham way." I can already feel the blood pressure rising but while ever the four points at the top of this post remain the case, we will always struggle to have any type of success with any other type of manager. Managers who build teams that work hard, are disciplined, and play for the shirt. Managers with marketable personalities who can tap into what the Rotherham crowd want to see on a Saturday afternoon. Moore, Robins and Warne are good recent examples of how this can work for us.

Matt Hamshaw fits the mould in that he's a local lad (which appeals to the Rotherham public), he's good with youth (which is something we need to vastly improve on at the club), he's worked here before so will not be shocked by the constraints. He talks well and he will know that the first job is to get some pride back into the performances. So it all looks good on paper, what remains to be seen is if he can deliver this at first team level. I hope he can.

If not, then another candidate for me is one I have spoken of before on here, Graham Alexander. Not got the local connection or past ties with the club, but a man known for building teams that play for each other. Would be able to harness all the type of good work that Warne did but with a little extra tactical ability and no insistence of retaining a tiny squad, despite playing high press football all season. Doing a good job at Bradford, never actually done a bad job at any club he's managed at. He was a free agent when we took Matt Taylor on, a genuine missed opportunity I feel as he would have built on the momentum that Warne had gathered rather that take it all apart for a doomed new approach like Taylor did.

Sorry for yet another long post, I just feel now is the time where we really need to be realistic about what we want and can realistically achieve as a club. We've had a pretty dire couple of years and unless this is reversed I can see us going the way of Hartlepool, Scunny, Carlisle and other similarly sized northern clubs who we were competing with regularly not that long ago

[caytonmiller]

When thinking about who to employ as our next manager, I think we need to have a really good think about who we are as a club and where we stand in the wider footballing pyramid.

Do we have a very large fan base? No
Do we have decades of successful history at top level that make us a recognisable "brand" outside of South Yorkshire? No
Do we have a vastly wealthy owner who is happy to throw mega money around in the hope that big spending will amount to lots of success and glory? Nope
Are we a fashionable town? Definitely not.

So now we've established what we aren't, what exactly are we?

A traditional, working class northern football club. Local businessman owner who is wealthy, but not to the extent that is required to bankroll a mega successful football club in 2025. We have a small cache of passionate fans, who I would guess the vast majority of were raised within a five mile radius of Millmoor and/or the NYS. We have competed above our "natural position" quite impressively within the last 30 years (an era where I believe football as a whole has changed the most rapidly) but we have also seen some crushing lows within that same period. We almost lost our club too.

So why does all this matter? Because in 2025, football is as much about marketing a brand than it is about kicking a bag of air around a pitch. The manager of a club is the most visible representation of that brand at any one time.

So for us, we really have to play to our strengths with the position we are in NOW, with an eye on that NOW being the start of a progression forward.

Tony Stewart is simply not wealthy enough to pour money into a bottomless pit in the hope it pays off on the pitch. He doesn't make the top 50 richest people in Yorkshire for 2024, with number 50 on that list having a net worth of ?148 million. So while ever we are run by a local businessman we will never be able to rely on marquee signings and big wage players. Whether that be Ken Booth, Ron Hull, Tony Stewart, Paul Eyre, Millers 05, Dennis Coleman, it is just not happening. The only local businessman with the kind of wealth that may have a chance is Chris Rea, who owns AES Seal. Apparently his wealth is at around ?340 million, which is closer to the amount we are talking for the "sugar daddy" chairman model. But I'm sure if he was interested beyond sponsoring the stadium he'd have come forward when the council put out a plea for rich local people to buy the club.

So with that in mind, we can forget the type of manager that wants to come in and change the DNA of the club and have us play champagne football. That model will not work for us even if we get promoted back to the Championship because it requires big spending. We've tried it, it's always been a disaster. See Mick Harford, Alan Stubbs, Matt Taylor. Managers who also had dour personalities and barely connected with the fan base so, anything other than mega success on the pitch would soon see the atmosphere turn toxic. These same reasons will rule out the unheard of, untested third tier managers from continental Europe. Talk of the likes of Danny Rohl just isn't realistic. Rohl was the assistant manager of the German national team not some Bavarian village team manager. Wednesday will be paying him an astronomical wage I am sure

For the same reasons we can also count out the old veterans. The Warnocks and the (god forbid) Kenny Jacketts. They would want the big investment and wouldn't be shy about demanding it. Or just resigning after five games

I know it infuriates several people on here but that only leaves the type of people who "get the club." Who know the "Rotherham way." I can already feel the blood pressure rising but while ever the four points at the top of this post remain the case, we will always struggle to have any type of success with any other type of manager. Managers who build teams that work hard, are disciplined, and play for the shirt. Managers with marketable personalities who can tap into what the Rotherham crowd want to see on a Saturday afternoon. Moore, Robins and Warne are good recent examples of how this can work for us.

Matt Hamshaw fits the mould in that he's a local lad (which appeals to the Rotherham public), he's good with youth (which is something we need to vastly improve on at the club), he's worked here before so will not be shocked by the constraints. He talks well and he will know that the first job is to get some pride back into the performances. So it all looks good on paper, what remains to be seen is if he can deliver this at first team level. I hope he can.

If not, then another candidate for me is one I have spoken of before on here, Graham Alexander. Not got the local connection or past ties with the club, but a man known for building teams that play for each other. Would be able to harness all the type of good work that Warne did but with a little extra tactical ability and no insistence of retaining a tiny squad, despite playing high press football all season. Doing a good job at Bradford, never actually done a bad job at any club he's managed at. He was a free agent when we took Matt Taylor on, a genuine missed opportunity I feel as he would have built on the momentum that Warne had gathered rather that take it all apart for a doomed new approach like Taylor did.

Sorry for yet another long post, I just feel now is the time where we really need to be realistic about what we want and can realistically achieve as a club. We've had a pretty dire couple of years and unless this is reversed I can see us going the way of Hartlepool, Scunny, Carlisle and other similarly sized northern clubs who we were competing with regularly not that long ago

Excellent post though it sums up rota supporters to a tee...
Some want championship football and doing it the Rotherham way may get us there but won't keep us there.
Some want stability and grow a young team. Sadly doing it that way we will inevitability sell all our assets then end up with a team like we have now.

Some want to do it the Rotherham way. Which we have for the last 100 years. And what we get is league 1 and 2 football with a smidgen of championship football (usually loosing)

[Brin]

When thinking about who to employ as our next manager, I think we need to have a really good think about who we are as a club and where we stand in the wider footballing pyramid.

Do we have a very large fan base? No
Do we have decades of successful history at top level that make us a recognisable "brand" outside of South Yorkshire? No
Do we have a vastly wealthy owner who is happy to throw mega money around in the hope that big spending will amount to lots of success and glory? Nope
Are we a fashionable town? Definitely not.

So now we've established what we aren't, what exactly are we?

A traditional, working class northern football club. Local businessman owner who is wealthy, but not to the extent that is required to bankroll a mega successful football club in 2025. We have a small cache of passionate fans, who I would guess the vast majority of were raised within a five mile radius of Millmoor and/or the NYS. We have competed above our "natural position" quite impressively within the last 30 years (an era where I believe football as a whole has changed the most rapidly) but we have also seen some crushing lows within that same period. We almost lost our club too.

So why does all this matter? Because in 2025, football is as much about marketing a brand than it is about kicking a bag of air around a pitch. The manager of a club is the most visible representation of that brand at any one time.

So for us, we really have to play to our strengths with the position we are in NOW, with an eye on that NOW being the start of a progression forward.

Tony Stewart is simply not wealthy enough to pour money into a bottomless pit in the hope it pays off on the pitch. He doesn't make the top 50 richest people in Yorkshire for 2024, with number 50 on that list having a net worth of ?148 million. So while ever we are run by a local businessman we will never be able to rely on marquee signings and big wage players. Whether that be Ken Booth, Ron Hull, Tony Stewart, Paul Eyre, Millers 05, Dennis Coleman, it is just not happening. The only local businessman with the kind of wealth that may have a chance is Chris Rea, who owns AES Seal. Apparently his wealth is at around ?340 million, which is closer to the amount we are talking for the "sugar daddy" chairman model. But I'm sure if he was interested beyond sponsoring the stadium he'd have come forward when the council put out a plea for rich local people to buy the club.

So with that in mind, we can forget the type of manager that wants to come in and change the DNA of the club and have us play champagne football. That model will not work for us even if we get promoted back to the Championship because it requires big spending. We've tried it, it's always been a disaster. See Mick Harford, Alan Stubbs, Matt Taylor. Managers who also had dour personalities and barely connected with the fan base so, anything other than mega success on the pitch would soon see the atmosphere turn toxic. These same reasons will rule out the unheard of, untested third tier managers from continental Europe. Talk of the likes of Danny Rohl just isn't realistic. Rohl was the assistant manager of the German national team not some Bavarian village team manager. Wednesday will be paying him an astronomical wage I am sure

For the same reasons we can also count out the old veterans. The Warnocks and the (god forbid) Kenny Jacketts. They would want the big investment and wouldn't be shy about demanding it. Or just resigning after five games

I know it infuriates several people on here but that only leaves the type of people who "get the club." Who know the "Rotherham way." I can already feel the blood pressure rising but while ever the four points at the top of this post remain the case, we will always struggle to have any type of success with any other type of manager. Managers who build teams that work hard, are disciplined, and play for the shirt. Managers with marketable personalities who can tap into what the Rotherham crowd want to see on a Saturday afternoon. Moore, Robins and Warne are good recent examples of how this can work for us.

Matt Hamshaw fits the mould in that he's a local lad (which appeals to the Rotherham public), he's good with youth (which is something we need to vastly improve on at the club), he's worked here before so will not be shocked by the constraints. He talks well and he will know that the first job is to get some pride back into the performances. So it all looks good on paper, what remains to be seen is if he can deliver this at first team level. I hope he can.

If not, then another candidate for me is one I have spoken of before on here, Graham Alexander. Not got the local connection or past ties with the club, but a man known for building teams that play for each other. Would be able to harness all the type of good work that Warne did but with a little extra tactical ability and no insistence of retaining a tiny squad, despite playing high press football all season. Doing a good job at Bradford, never actually done a bad job at any club he's managed at. He was a free agent when we took Matt Taylor on, a genuine missed opportunity I feel as he would have built on the momentum that Warne had gathered rather that take it all apart for a doomed new approach like Taylor did.

Sorry for yet another long post, I just feel now is the time where we really need to be realistic about what we want and can realistically achieve as a club. We've had a pretty dire couple of years and unless this is reversed I can see us going the way of Hartlepool, Scunny, Carlisle and other similarly sized northern clubs who we were competing with regularly not that long ago

An excellent post and well worth the read that touches on all the major points of who we are, where we expect to go and more importantly grounds us to who we actually are.

Makes you appreciate all that was achieved over the years with all the financial restraints and that includes Evans even with his turnstile recruitment, he still delivered with two promotions and us staying in the Championship. Paul Warne on the other hand did it even better with more constraints/restraints than anybody under Stewart's tenure.

[DerekMiller]

Excellent post though it sums up rota supporters to a tee...
Some want championship football and doing it the Rotherham way may get us there but won't keep us there.
Some want stability and grow a young team. Sadly doing it that way we will inevitability sell all our assets then end up with a team like we have now.

Some want to do it the Rotherham way. Which we have for the last 100 years. And what we get is league 1 and 2 football with a smidgen of championship football (usually loosing)

I think we have come close to getting the formula right doing it the Rotherham way in the Championship on a couple of occasions, but have just fallen short.

When I think about the Ronnie Moore years in the Championship I remember a squad that did the old cliched "punching above their weight" with a charismatic manager who was also a club legend. Looking back at our squad from around 2002-2004 we had a real mix of players including a number of our own (Hoskins, Hurst, S. Barker, Sedgewick, Monkhouse). We competed at that level for a few years and it was a great time to be a fan, but sadly what we achieved on the pitch moved a lot quicker than what was happening off it. Our ground, our infrastructure, our prehistoric business model, a chairman who was no doubt overjoyed with the success but not so happy with how much investment was required to keep us there. So naturally it faded and we saw a decline that led us to almost losing the club.

Fast forward to the Warne era. Much better infrastructure off the pitch but still the local businessman model. But Warne was so close to getting it right, like Moore he galvanised every strength he could with his man management and I feel he was on the right track. But the small squad playing high tempo, high discliplined football was too much to sustain in the Championship over a full season. A bigger squad, a couple of extra decent signings, who knows? Was it Warne not wanting to expand or Stewart not wanting to write the cheques? I honestly don't know but when Warne left we were doing well and as marketable as a club as we'd ever been with the manager documentary, recent promotion and cup win. Now we're back on the decline sadly.

[Pocket rocket]

When thinking about who to employ as our next manager, I think we need to have a really good think about who we are as a club and where we stand in the wider footballing pyramid.

Do we have a very large fan base? No
Do we have decades of successful history at top level that make us a recognisable "brand" outside of South Yorkshire? No
Do we have a vastly wealthy owner who is happy to throw mega money around in the hope that big spending will amount to lots of success and glory? Nope
Are we a fashionable town? Definitely not.

So now we've established what we aren't, what exactly are we?

A traditional, working class northern football club. Local businessman owner who is wealthy, but not to the extent that is required to bankroll a mega successful football club in 2025. We have a small cache of passionate fans, who I would guess the vast majority of were raised within a five mile radius of Millmoor and/or the NYS. We have competed above our "natural position" quite impressively within the last 30 years (an era where I believe football as a whole has changed the most rapidly) but we have also seen some crushing lows within that same period. We almost lost our club too.

So why does all this matter? Because in 2025, football is as much about marketing a brand than it is about kicking a bag of air around a pitch. The manager of a club is the most visible representation of that brand at any one time.

So for us, we really have to play to our strengths with the position we are in NOW, with an eye on that NOW being the start of a progression forward.

Tony Stewart is simply not wealthy enough to pour money into a bottomless pit in the hope it pays off on the pitch. He doesn't make the top 50 richest people in Yorkshire for 2024, with number 50 on that list having a net worth of ?148 million. So while ever we are run by a local businessman we will never be able to rely on marquee signings and big wage players. Whether that be Ken Booth, Ron Hull, Tony Stewart, Paul Eyre, Millers 05, Dennis Coleman, it is just not happening. The only local businessman with the kind of wealth that may have a chance is Chris Rea, who owns AES Seal. Apparently his wealth is at around ?340 million, which is closer to the amount we are talking for the "sugar daddy" chairman model. But I'm sure if he was interested beyond sponsoring the stadium he'd have come forward when the council put out a plea for rich local people to buy the club.

So with that in mind, we can forget the type of manager that wants to come in and change the DNA of the club and have us play champagne football. That model will not work for us even if we get promoted back to the Championship because it requires big spending. We've tried it, it's always been a disaster. See Mick Harford, Alan Stubbs, Matt Taylor. Managers who also had dour personalities and barely connected with the fan base so, anything other than mega success on the pitch would soon see the atmosphere turn toxic. These same reasons will rule out the unheard of, untested third tier managers from continental Europe. Talk of the likes of Danny Rohl just isn't realistic. Rohl was the assistant manager of the German national team not some Bavarian village team manager. Wednesday will be paying him an astronomical wage I am sure

For the same reasons we can also count out the old veterans. The Warnocks and the (god forbid) Kenny Jacketts. They would want the big investment and wouldn't be shy about demanding it. Or just resigning after five games

I know it infuriates several people on here but that only leaves the type of people who "get the club." Who know the "Rotherham way." I can already feel the blood pressure rising but while ever the four points at the top of this post remain the case, we will always struggle to have any type of success with any other type of manager. Managers who build teams that work hard, are disciplined, and play for the shirt. Managers with marketable personalities who can tap into what the Rotherham crowd want to see on a Saturday afternoon. Moore, Robins and Warne are good recent examples of how this can work for us.

Matt Hamshaw fits the mould in that he's a local lad (which appeals to the Rotherham public), he's good with youth (which is something we need to vastly improve on at the club), he's worked here before so will not be shocked by the constraints. He talks well and he will know that the first job is to get some pride back into the performances. So it all looks good on paper, what remains to be seen is if he can deliver this at first team level. I hope he can.

If not, then another candidate for me is one I have spoken of before on here, Graham Alexander. Not got the local connection or past ties with the club, but a man known for building teams that play for each other. Would be able to harness all the type of good work that Warne did but with a little extra tactical ability and no insistence of retaining a tiny squad, despite playing high press football all season. Doing a good job at Bradford, never actually done a bad job at any club he's managed at. He was a free agent when we took Matt Taylor on, a genuine missed opportunity I feel as he would have built on the momentum that Warne had gathered rather that take it all apart for a doomed new approach like Taylor did.

Sorry for yet another long post, I just feel now is the time where we really need to be realistic about what we want and can realistically achieve as a club. We've had a pretty dire couple of years and unless this is reversed I can see us going the way of Hartlepool, Scunny, Carlisle and other similarly sized northern clubs who we were competing with regularly not that long ago

Excellent post
Some really well thought out points.
Some of the issue is the fans mentality as Cayton has pointed out.

[Jimmy Badfellow]

When thinking about who to employ as our next manager, I think we need to have a really good think about who we are as a club and where we stand in the wider footballing pyramid.

Do we have a very large fan base? No
Do we have decades of successful history at top level that make us a recognisable "brand" outside of South Yorkshire? No
Do we have a vastly wealthy owner who is happy to throw mega money around in the hope that big spending will amount to lots of success and glory? Nope
Are we a fashionable town? Definitely not.

So now we've established what we aren't, what exactly are we?

A traditional, working class northern football club. Local businessman owner who is wealthy, but not to the extent that is required to bankroll a mega successful football club in 2025. We have a small cache of passionate fans, who I would guess the vast majority of were raised within a five mile radius of Millmoor and/or the NYS. We have competed above our "natural position" quite impressively within the last 30 years (an era where I believe football as a whole has changed the most rapidly) but we have also seen some crushing lows within that same period. We almost lost our club too.

So why does all this matter? Because in 2025, football is as much about marketing a brand than it is about kicking a bag of air around a pitch. The manager of a club is the most visible representation of that brand at any one time.

So for us, we really have to play to our strengths with the position we are in NOW, with an eye on that NOW being the start of a progression forward.

Tony Stewart is simply not wealthy enough to pour money into a bottomless pit in the hope it pays off on the pitch. He doesn't make the top 50 richest people in Yorkshire for 2024, with number 50 on that list having a net worth of ?148 million. So while ever we are run by a local businessman we will never be able to rely on marquee signings and big wage players. Whether that be Ken Booth, Ron Hull, Tony Stewart, Paul Eyre, Millers 05, Dennis Coleman, it is just not happening. The only local businessman with the kind of wealth that may have a chance is Chris Rea, who owns AES Seal. Apparently his wealth is at around ?340 million, which is closer to the amount we are talking for the "sugar daddy" chairman model. But I'm sure if he was interested beyond sponsoring the stadium he'd have come forward when the council put out a plea for rich local people to buy the club.

So with that in mind, we can forget the type of manager that wants to come in and change the DNA of the club and have us play champagne football. That model will not work for us even if we get promoted back to the Championship because it requires big spending. We've tried it, it's always been a disaster. See Mick Harford, Alan Stubbs, Matt Taylor. Managers who also had dour personalities and barely connected with the fan base so, anything other than mega success on the pitch would soon see the atmosphere turn toxic. These same reasons will rule out the unheard of, untested third tier managers from continental Europe. Talk of the likes of Danny Rohl just isn't realistic. Rohl was the assistant manager of the German national team not some Bavarian village team manager. Wednesday will be paying him an astronomical wage I am sure

For the same reasons we can also count out the old veterans. The Warnocks and the (god forbid) Kenny Jacketts. They would want the big investment and wouldn't be shy about demanding it. Or just resigning after five games

I know it infuriates several people on here but that only leaves the type of people who "get the club." Who know the "Rotherham way." I can already feel the blood pressure rising but while ever the four points at the top of this post remain the case, we will always struggle to have any type of success with any other type of manager. Managers who build teams that work hard, are disciplined, and play for the shirt. Managers with marketable personalities who can tap into what the Rotherham crowd want to see on a Saturday afternoon. Moore, Robins and Warne are good recent examples of how this can work for us.

Matt Hamshaw fits the mould in that he's a local lad (which appeals to the Rotherham public), he's good with youth (which is something we need to vastly improve on at the club), he's worked here before so will not be shocked by the constraints. He talks well and he will know that the first job is to get some pride back into the performances. So it all looks good on paper, what remains to be seen is if he can deliver this at first team level. I hope he can.

If not, then another candidate for me is one I have spoken of before on here, Graham Alexander. Not got the local connection or past ties with the club, but a man known for building teams that play for each other. Would be able to harness all the type of good work that Warne did but with a little extra tactical ability and no insistence of retaining a tiny squad, despite playing high press football all season. Doing a good job at Bradford, never actually done a bad job at any club he's managed at. He was a free agent when we took Matt Taylor on, a genuine missed opportunity I feel as he would have built on the momentum that Warne had gathered rather that take it all apart for a doomed new approach like Taylor did.

Sorry for yet another long post, I just feel now is the time where we really need to be realistic about what we want and can realistically achieve as a club. We've had a pretty dire couple of years and unless this is reversed I can see us going the way of Hartlepool, Scunny, Carlisle and other similarly sized northern clubs who we were competing with regularly not that long ago

Great post Derek with some very good points made. It sounds like that without Chris Rea's wealth we could on the road to hell!

[ragingpup]

Great posts Derek. Completely agree with your overview

[caytonmiller]

I think we have come close to getting the formula right doing it the Rotherham way in the Championship on a couple of occasions, but have just fallen short.

When I think about the Ronnie Moore years in the Championship I remember a squad that did the old cliched "punching above their weight" with a charismatic manager who was also a club legend. Looking back at our squad from around 2002-2004 we had a real mix of players including a number of our own (Hoskins, Hurst, S. Barker, Sedgewick, Monkhouse). We competed at that level for a few years and it was a great time to be a fan, but sadly what we achieved on the pitch moved a lot quicker than what was happening off it. Our ground, our infrastructure, our prehistoric business model, a chairman who was no doubt overjoyed with the success but not so happy with how much investment was required to keep us there. So naturally it faded and we saw a decline that led us to almost losing the club.

Fast forward to the Warne era. Much better infrastructure off the pitch but still the local businessman model. But Warne was so close to getting it right, like Moore he galvanised every strength he could with his man management and I feel he was on the right track. But the small squad playing high tempo, high discliplined football was too much to sustain in the Championship over a full season. A bigger squad, a couple of extra decent signings, who knows? Was it Warne not wanting to expand or Stewart not wanting to write the cheques? I honestly don't know but when Warne left we were doing well and as marketable as a club as we'd ever been with the manager documentary, recent promotion and cup win. Now we're back on the decline sadly.

There lies the problem Derek. Punching above our weight and getting the formula right is very fine margins for a club like ours. In the championship we get 1 great season and stay up then all the assets want to move or are sold. As frustrating as it is. I try to enjoy the whole package of a game day.
meeting friends. Getting away from the norm. Watching a game of football enjoying a beer.
I was chatting to a mate a few days back (before Evans got sacked) who's had enough. Not coming again. I asked. Ok what did you do last Saturday (international weekend). He thought for a few seconds and said "I don't know".
My reply. And what were you doing the Saturday before (Wycombe home game). His reply. Watching this sh?te.
Back to your original post "we are what we are" and some need to accept we won't be anything else. No matter how much we complain