Welcome Gary Caldwell - new manager

[Colesman Ballz]

TBF if MT was still here he'd have the same problem, We are who we are, A relative small fish who has to sell to survive and if a player doesn't want to sign a new/extended contract, it is up to the club to get the best deal for ECFC. Even Tisdale had the same problem when last in L1, After finishing 8th, Virtually the whole spine of the team were on their way, Tisdale though ended up with "Inferior" L1 replacements and were back in L2 PDQ, I'm hoping that if we lose players in January/Summer GC is somehow better at finding replacements.

Let's not rewrite Grecian history. To finish 8th in League One, Tis and the Club Board had overspent BIG time, leading backwards toward bankruptcy ! There was no option of re-signing the likes of Nardiello and Co, there was no money in the kitty just a barrow load of debt. There was no alternative to "inferior" replacements, and that massive financial misjudgement led directly to relegation and the following years of strife. It was only after the installments of the Grimes transfer came on stream that the Club could haul itself out of massive financial hole it had put itself into.
I am just thankful that lessons were learnt, and that the rigid financial budgeting systems put in place protect us from a repeat of that nightmare scenario.
GC will indeed have to show us his ability in recruitment, but at least it will be in a position of a "substainable" budget rather than no budget whatsoever. Project 6000 is reaping its rewards already !

 

[SEA Grecian]

If Gary thought the fixture list for the first 9 games was tough, he's now finding out how tough managing transfers at Exeter City is. Its become obvious that three of the best players (Collins,Key,Brown) will be off in the summer. So to keep the squad even at the same level is going to need some spectacular work on transfers in 2023.

With Blackman and Stansfield also likely to leave that’s potentially half our first choice team who will need replacing. However, this has been on the cards for a while and is presumably something that will have been discussed as part of the recruitment process.

 

[Egg]

Good point.
Plus I also overlooked Terry Cooper’s playing record at Leeds and England and winning the title with us as Manager.

And, whisper it quietly, but Gerry Francis captained England which must trump leading the Auld Enemy! ;-)

 

[DB9]

Let's not rewrite Grecian history. To finish 8th in League One, Tis and the Club Board had overspent BIG time, leading backwards toward bankruptcy ! There was no option of re-signing the likes of Nardiello and Co, there was no money in the kitty just a barrow load of debt. There was no alternative to "inferior" replacements, and that massive financial misjudgement led directly to relegation and the following years of strife. It was only after the installments of the Grimes transfer came on stream that the Club could haul itself out of massive financial hole it had put itself into.
I am just thankful that lessons were learnt, and that the rigid financial budgeting systems put in place protect us from a repeat of that nightmare scenario.
GC will indeed have to show us his ability in recruitment, but at least it will be in a position of a "substainable" budget rather than no budget whatsoever. Project 6000 is reaping its rewards already !

I'm not re-writing history, I'm talking about the season AFTER we finished 8th, We lost our better players, replaced them with L2 standard and that is where we ended up for over a decade, I did say perhaps GC has more contacts to replace any players that leave in January/summer that might be L1 level, Also if the club spent Big to finish 8th, You need a plan to build on that great achievement, Not spend big to get there then let it go to waste, It would have been better to consolidate and build, Like what we are (Hopefully) trying to do now. "Project 6000" is not reaping rewards atm, That has to be consistant over time to do that not just after half a season into being in L1, The proof will be in what our playing budget is, Its started well and needs to keep going.

 

[Colesman Ballz]

I'm not re-writing history, I'm talking about the season AFTER we finished 8th, We lost our better players, replaced them with L2 standard and that is where we ended up for over a decade, I did say perhaps GC has more contacts to replace any players that leave in January/summer that might be L1 level, Also if the club spent Big to finish 8th, You need a plan to build on that great achievement, Not spend big to get there then let it go to waste, It would have been better to consolidate and build, Like what we are (Hopefully) trying to do now. "Project 6000" is not reaping rewards atm, That has to be consistant over time to do that not just after half a season into being in L1, The proof will be in what our playing budget is, Its started well and needs to keep going.

You can't just take our relegation season in isolation, without looking at the overall context. We had arrived in League 1 with a group of players that had just won successive promotions from the Conference. The first season was an exercise in survival, and we just managed it. Season 2 there was the need to rebuild, but Tis and the Board decided to go all out to chase their "Championship Dream". This involved coming up with a playing budget to support this aim, the problem was paying for it. The overall budget figures were balanced with some extremely optimistic figures for increased income revenue generation. The playing budget was duly spent, but despite the 8th place finish the increased revenue projections proved a complete "fairytale". All that remained at the end of Season 2 were some great memories but a "shed load of debt". This is the reason that we were unable to hold on to the spine of the team together and were forced to shop in the bargain basement for replacements, and suffered the inevitable relegation in Season 3 !
Of course there should have been long term planning, but certain members of the Club Board of that time and Tisdale were acting as if they were the Owners and considered themselves invincible following the double promotions.
Is that likely to happen again ? I think not, the financial safeguards are firmly in place. I mentioned Project 6000 purely as an example of the principles of sustainability that is now embedded in the Club. It is as you say a work "in progress" and so far so good.

 

[Martin Lawrence]

You can't just take our relegation season in isolation, without looking at the overall context. We had arrived in League 1 with a group of players that had just won successive promotions from the Conference. The first season was an exercise in survival, and we just managed it. Season 2 there was the need to rebuild, but Tis and the Board decided to go all out to chase their "Championship Dream". This involved coming up with a playing budget to support this aim, the problem was paying for it. The overall budget figures were balanced with some extremely optimistic figures for increased income revenue generation. The playing budget was duly spent, but despite the 8th place finish the increased revenue projections proved a complete "fairytale". All that remained at the end of Season 2 were some great memories but a "shed load of debt". This is the reason that we were unable to hold on to the spine of the team together and were forced to shop in the bargain basement for replacements, and suffered the inevitable relegation in Season 3 !
Of course there should have been long term planning, but certain members of the Club Board of that time and Tisdale were acting as if they were the Owners and considered themselves invincible following the double promotions.
Is that likely to happen again ? I think not, the financial safeguards are firmly in place. I mentioned Project 6000 purely as an example of the principles of sustainability that is now embedded in the Club. It is as you say a work "in progress" and so far so good.

Whilst I agree with the premise you are arguing, I don't agree with your analysis of the Club board and our finances from the time. We experienced financial difficulty due to a lack of financial resilience, which resulted from a period on low or no player sales. This, coupled with a downturn in crowds and commercial revenue generation (partly impacted by an economic downturn) culminated in an urgent need to cut the playing budget the following season.

Incidentally, i think the loss of "our spine", was more to do with players hitting the apex of their careers. Even without a large cut in the budget, I don't think we would have held on to players like Ryan Harley, Paul Jones and Matt Taylor, especially as they went to much bigger clubs where they would likely be on much larger wages than even an affluent ECFC could afford.

 

[Colesman Ballz]

Whilst I agree with the premise you are arguing, I don't agree with your analysis of the Club board and our finances from the time. We experienced financial difficulty due to a lack of financial resilience, which resulted from a period on low or no player sales. This, coupled with a downturn in crowds and commercial revenue generation (partly impacted by an economic downturn) culminated in an urgent need to cut the playing budget the following season.

Incidentally, i think the loss of "our spine", was more to do with players hitting the apex of their careers. Even without a large cut in the budget, I don't think we would have held on to players like Ryan Harley, Paul Jones and Matt Taylor, especially as they went to much bigger clubs where they would likely be on much larger wages than even an affluent ECFC could afford.

In reference to Matt Taylor leaving, this was on the cards twelve months earlier, however he had been persuade to stay on an additional season as part of an "extra tilt at the Championship".

 

[SaintJames]

You can't just take our relegation season in isolation, without looking at the overall context. We had arrived in League 1 with a group of players that had just won successive promotions from the Conference. The first season was an exercise in survival, and we just managed it. Season 2 there was the need to rebuild, but Tis and the Board decided to go all out to chase their "Championship Dream". This involved coming up with a playing budget to support this aim, the problem was paying for it. The overall budget figures were balanced with some extremely optimistic figures for increased income revenue generation. The playing budget was duly spent, but despite the 8th place finish the increased revenue projections proved a complete "fairytale". All that remained at the end of Season 2 were some great memories but a "shed load of debt". This is the reason that we were unable to hold on to the spine of the team together and were forced to shop in the bargain basement for replacements, and suffered the inevitable relegation in Season 3 !
Of course there should have been long term planning, but certain members of the Club Board of that time and Tisdale were acting as if they were the Owners and considered themselves invincible following the double promotions.
Is that likely to happen again ? I think not, the financial safeguards are firmly in place. I mentioned Project 6000 purely as an example of the principles of sustainability that is now embedded in the Club. It is as you say a work "in progress" and so far so good.

At least now we have the prospect of increasing revenue from commercial successes from a new commercial team making the most of our league one prospects .............................

 

[SEA Grecian]

I can understand the comparison with 2011 and it does feel that in the same way we are coming to the end of a cycle with a group of players who have developed together over a number of years starting to be ready on to move to bigger clubs. Even though we are in a much better position financially I still think it's going to be a real struggle to replace the players who are going to leave; ultimately I think our chances of establishing ourselves in League One will depend on how well the next group of youngsters do and whether they can have a similar impact as previous academy graduates have done. After all, for all the excellent decision making over the last few years the fact we are currently punching above our weight in the middle of League One is because of two factors. The first was producing one academy player who was good enough to go on to play for England and regularly in the Premiership. The second was producing an incredible group of players (Hartridge, Collins, Key, Kite, Randall, Sparkes, Amapdu) all pretty much within 2 years of each other in age who would both earn us millions in transfer fees and stick around long enough to play something like 500 games and help get City promoted.

 

[fred binneys head]

Fair points, I would add a third factor: our current group of academy players were brought into a League 2 side during Covid when there were no crowds so they had weaker opposition and less pressure.

It’s going to be incredibly difficult for us to stay in League 1 for a sustained period of time. The small clubs that have (Burton, Accrington, Fleetwood, etc) are funded by wealthy backers. Not super-wealthy, but wealthy enough to sustain annual losses. We aren’t.