TUFC

[Dave]

We have seen a lot written on this and other forums about this weekend's cup match,and post match reactions of fans on both sides,i have picked up on a lot of things that have been said and it has got me wondering more than ever about the future of Tufc ,what direction we as a club are going in,wand whether my perception of our club is correct.

As a fan i have allways been willing to accept that our club has to manage its finances strictly,and the likelyhood of us ever being much more that a league 2 is slim to say the least,however is this one of the problems we have at the club,are we to willing to accept second best,we have limited funds,and seem allways to struggle to hold our attendances up to a reasonable level.

A crawley fan suggested that our club are just to nice,this got me thinking is this person right,are we to nice,looking at the way both clubs handled this game on and off the field and the fans reaction to it this person maybe right in my opinion.

We do not need to go in to the fact that our club handled things wrongly regards this match,i thing we all agree the club got it badly wrong,however Crawley took a very hard nosed attitude to there fans over this match ,they did not give a monkeys ar#e whether the individual had never been to a match or had supported there club for 40 years,they 1100 tickets first come first served buy as many tickets as you like,and if you were a loyal fan of many years and you missed out tough sh#t,yet at worst our fans had to que up for a long time(which should not have happened)and i have now read a few our fans saying because of it they are not coming to matchs again,to me this highlights another problem,yes the club got it wrong we all know,however rise above it,boycotting matchs only damages the club we all love and support,iam sure if we had maintained the 3200 average from our first conference season the board may well have been encouraged to take more of a risk with the playing budget.

As for the match itself,whether it was right or wrong,Crawley came in to this match with a we will do what we have to do to win,fair means or foul,fall over get a free kick...waste time,feel contact go down and stay down like you had been shot...waste time,take as long as you can get away with over set pieces..waste time...result match closed out and won,closing out matchs is something we have failed to many times this season,and if we had known man.u away was waiting and the boot was on the other ,would we have used these tatics..no,if we had and won using those tatics would us fans be complaining..no,is this yet more proof that we are just to nice,i remember us leveling the same accusations against Bournemouth last season of unsporting tatics,a club that looks to be on for another automatic promotion,bit of case closed maybe?

We can moan all we like about the match and the way we lost however the difference is,we can dress ourselfs up in pure white clothing,we are liking our wounds and sobbing,as all we have show for our cup run is 100k if we are lucky,Crawley on the other hand with there tatics and all ,are now jerking themselves off over a 1million plus pay cheque,and there investor paid off with profits,the nice guy does not allway get the girl.

For me if the club wants to progress up to league 1 and maybe beyond,it has to change,it has to become more hard faced and aggresive in the way it deals with its on and off the field buisness,market it self aggresivley to local football fans,and win back those former Tufc fans who now stay at home,get them excited about coming to games again,give then something they can believe in.

Us fans need to change as well,we need to reignite the passion and fire in our bellies for our club,instead of chucking our arms up in the air at every mistake made by the club,or run of bad performances,and say thats it i am never coming again,we instead need to say ram it,i am fan things are not going to plan right now,but i do not care i am not giving up on my club.

Why do we as fans just accept league we are a little league 2 club and will never be any more,this weekend got me thinking about my first full season as a Tufc fan 1981/82,some of the teams we played season in and out around that time,on the divisions they rose to over the last 15 years or so,and where some of them are still today,if they could why not us,i will paste a copy of the final table from 81/82 and judge it for yourself,thanks for reading.feel free to reply if you wish with your thoughts.

1 Sheffield United 46 27 15 4 94 41 96
2 Bradford City 46 26 13 7 88 45 91
3 Wigan Athletic 46 26 13 7 80 46 91
4 A F C Bournemouth 46 23 19 4 62 30 88
5 Peterborough United 46 24 10 12 71 57 82
6 Colchester United 46 20 12 14 82 57 72
7 Port Vale 46 18 16 12 56 49 70
8 Hull City 46 19 12 15 70 61 69
9 Bury 46 17 17 12 80 59 68
10 Hereford United 46 16 19 11 64 58 67
11 Tranmere Rovers 46 14 18 14 51 56 60
12 Blackpool 46 15 13 18 66 60 58
13 Darlington 46 15 13 18 61 62 58
14 Hartlepool United 46 13 16 17 73 84 55
15 Torquay United 46 14 13 19 47 59 55
16 Aldershot 46 13 15 18 57 68 54
17 York City 46 14 8 24 69 91 50
18 Stockport County 46 12 13 21 48 67 49
19 Halifax Town 46 9 22 15 51 72 49
20 Mansfield Town 46 13 10 23 63 81 47 *
21 Rochdale 46 10 16 20 50 62 46
22 Northampton Town 46 11 9 26 57 84 42
23 Scunthorpe United 46 9 15 22 43 79 42
24 Crewe Alexandra 46 6 9 31 29 84 27

[Modgull]

No we are not too nice and nor are a score of other clubs who I have watched play good football to beat us fair and square.

I have been to plenty of other clubs too who have extended a warm welcome to Gulls supporters and made our visits pleasureable if not always successful.

Remember Cloughie Senior and Leeds United - sometimes the good guys do come out on top.

The day we resort to cheating is the day I stop going to watch!

Please don't succomb to cynicism, Forever -its not like you at all!

[Dave]

I do not think i am sucumbing to any thing,maybe you miss-understand what iam on about here,i am not in way suggesting that we start in some way becoming nasty to away supporters,we should and do treat away fans in the same way we expect to be treated,also iam not suggesting that we start to cheat.

Just harden up a bit,for us all as a club to stop accepting we are just a poor lilttle club and do something about it,get the stay away fans back like say by giving them something to believe in,fans are staying away i think because they become fed up with the same old same old tufc that going no where,for us fans to stop bit by bit giving up on the club every time we lose a few games,or going gets tough.

Perhaps for the team to harden up a bit aswell,not out and out cheating,but maybe a little bit more bite around the centre,put a foot in if needed to break up an attack,waste a bit of time to close out a game if needed,i am getting more than a little fed up this season of watching throw away one lead after another 1.0 2.0 2.1etc it just keeps happening,and standing knowing it is going to happen,however like i said in my o/p as a fan i am prepared to say ram it,i will not give up on the club,i will be there tuesday,saturday,and come the summer i will buy a new season ticket,becuase i am a fan...thats my message.

[SuperNickyWroe]

i suppose some teams might see as a soft touch - being by the sea and all that.

i think the problem is that we "like to play football in the right way" instead of going and kicking the opposition and getting on the opposing manager/coach/subs/fans nerves. lets face it buckle wouldnt say boo to a goose, from what ive heard and saw shaun north is the "hard man!"
i know what forever means and looking at that table there are some teams that have done very well - blackpool, wigan and i suppose the de dars - sorry sheff utd to you lot, but they shouldnt have been down there anyway.
but then there are the yorks and mansfields et al that arnt in the league.

as ive said many times league 2 will do just fine for me - and on the clubs limited budget and attendances i suspect it suit the board (for now) at TUFC as well.

[Fletch]

There seeemed to be people singing in the grandstand on saturday. Dont use the stereotypical view on people that use the stand.

[Parry]

Yeh don't use stereotypical views on people who use that stand, we'd be speaken German if it wasn't for them !

[doogull]

YeH don't use stereotypical views on people who use that stand, we'd be speaken German if it wasn't for them !

he he ha ha bootiful.

[Plymouthgull]

Forever is exactly right! We do need to work at being more professional and the charge from a Crawley fan that we are just too nice rings true (its also why I believe some of those up the road tend to laugh at us) Personally, I hate the idea that we are 'liitle Torquay' and will always be so and therefore we should be grateful to have a league team at all. This smacks of the old regime.
Football is about dreams or it is about nothing at all!!

[GulldenBoy]

There have been a lot of over reactions following the result on Saturday. Yes we were poor on the day but you have to give it to Crawley, they got their tactics right, we didn't.

Saying that, the club is not in trouble and Bucks (like him or not) has done a lot for this club and some of the abuse he has received over the last few years has been completely unfair.

I've followed the club for just over 20 years and although I have dreamed of us climbing the leagues, this is never really going to happen unless our fan base dramatically improves or we get a billionaire owner. The arguments that if we spend the money the crowds will follow is misguided and has led to the ruin of so many clubs. Last time we were in League 1 are crowds never really increased.

Lets not panic, we historically are a lower mid table League 2 team who are either fighting relegation or pushing for the play offs. That's the level our club is.

[Fonda]

Unfortunately, performances like Saturday's are all too common when we have big crowds and expectancy. Bucks continues to tell us after games 'we're always going to give it a go', but the evidence just doesn't support it. Saturday's game was not only a golden opportunity for progression, it was a chance to showcase what TUFC is all about as a club - and most importantly as a team. I will never understand the need to play with 1 up-front in a home game - certainly against a side from a division below. Yes, they have some talented players, but a performance somewhere approaching our normal level would have been successful. How do you expect to convince the 'floating voters' that money spent at Plainmoor is spent wisely, when you dish up that level of 'entertainment'. "Come to Plainmoor and watch us try and cling desperately to a share of the spoils against Non-League opposition". Why didn't we at least try and play some of the football that made Crewe (who aren't a bad side) look average just a couple of weeks ago? Of course the tactics and performance of the opposition plays a part, but we didn't even show the right intent from the outset. How many of those that witnessed Saturday's game will be inspired to come back on Tuesday night? Is it fair to suggest it might have been a few more if we'd provided at least some kind of excitement on Saturday? And as if the opportunity we'd let pass by wasn't obvious enough at the time, just look what was waiting for us. Did anybody think that wasn't going to happen? Seemed inevitable. So whilst Crawley get their trip to Old Trafford in front of the watching TV audience (and upwards of 50,000 in the stadium), and get another huge pay check to top up an already healthy bank balance, we get to play Hereford in front of 2,000 loyal supporters all wondering what might have been. I imagine the players will take some time to get those thoughts out of their minds too - the players that remain that is. Who will have to leave as a result? I can hardly explain how gutted i am that we've let this pass us by. It was all laid out in front of us, and due to fear we didn't grasp it. If on top of the weekends disasters, if we lose any players today, even loyal supporters could be excused not finding the motivation to get there on Tuesday. We just don't help ourselves sometimes.

[numpte]

I'll be amazed if we get 2000 for Hereford on tuesday.

The emotion for everyone still seems a little raw. I reckon 1500, possibly fewer.

[royalgull]

Treating your fans like sh*t certainly isn't the way to go or entice people back.

it's a catch 22. People will watch a winning succesful team. To make a succesful team (without a Crawley style rich man) you need people to come and watch.

It's all well and good Bucks and people at the club saying 'we've got something worth watching here' as it happens 90% of the games i've seen this year I'd agree, but the casual fan doesn't see that. The casual fan picks up the paper, oh Torquay lost at home to Macclesfield this week. Torquay are 12th.

The football we play now normally is lightyears better than what we played in the conference, but in the Conference, we won. Regularly. Even with next to no away fans, more people would watch.

We are at a disadvantage with our location in trms of bringing players in, we are a small club that has small resources so we can't pay players who may um and ahh about coming here a bit more to make sure they come down here.

I think the new stand will help, I think the novelty factor and a slightly better stadium just does entice a few more people to come along, but unless Buckle or whoever is in charge can produce miracles in the transfer market, keep our best players and produce a winning team, i just can't see us ever getting to a level where say 4000 is a regular crowd for us.

It feels so raw watching Crawley draw Man Utd, not just because their fans have literally been supporting them for 6 months, but because our club 'does it right'. We don't spend what we can't afford, we run our club like a proper business, we've picked up some young talent made it better and we are trying to move forward step by step. Crawley aren't cheating but they've been given an enormous advantage over everybody else. It's not the non league fairytale the morons on the telly like to make out. Their budget is of a League 1 club at worst. Their transfer fees paid this year is more than both League 1 and 2 COMBINED. To see that fat f*ck Evans and his round partner getting these plaudits and getting rewarded so much with the draw, it just makes you feel as if there is absolutely no justice in sport.

What we need to do and it's tough is move on, it's good we're playing tomorrow night. We've also got the bottom 3 teams in our next 3 league games. We need to see some more ambition on the pitch to say we're taking this game by the scruff of it's neck and we aren't accepting 1-0 after 20mins, or accepting a draw. We need a minimum of 7 points from the next 3 games, no excuses.

Today is big for the club in terms of none going out, ideally be it today or whenever we need a couple of fresh additions. Give us a bit of a spark and a bit of a lift after what truth be told has been one of the toughest weekends folowing this club i've personally experienced. Including relegations, that Exeter game. This has hurt just us much.

[GulldenBoy]

We need a Jason Roberts esc loan signing! Hang on...maybe we can get Jason Roberts!