Thank you John for all your efforts. Your posts have been extremely important to me as through you I have felt close to the club and felt an understanding of its progress and development. You have set a standard that will be difficult to replace and your successor will not find it easy to maintain the same standard. It is sad that this season is going the way it is and I fear the consequences. This season can only now have one objective, survival in the Conference South. There are sure to be calls for change and Jason will be under huge pressure. I feel this is a shame as we will never find a more dedicated manager and true club supporter. I feel he knows what is needed, but is unable to do much about it. Despite all the good work that has been done by the BoD and others over recent years, the benefits have still not reached the player budget. Until Jason has adequate funding, it is difficult to see how we can ever be seriously successful.
Anyway John, good luck and best wishes for your future ventures
Bill as far as I know Jason has a bigger budget than any other manager has had at BTFC. However, in my eyes that is irrelevant. 13 games with no wins is not acceptable.
The game today was another disappointment. We started fairly brightly but didn't take any of the chances that we created. Chelmsford grew into the game & looked more likely to score. The goals they scored were too easy & they too often had too much time in midfield.
I guess Jason's one sub today worked as Macklin won the penalty soon after coming on. I was sad to see Manny Williams being the one replaced again but even more disappointed that no other changes were made. We needed something different in the last 15 minutes.
It looked like we just accepted defeat which is not good enough for me.
Bill, tell us what you know about the playing budget.
To me Jason's actions & body language for the final 15 minutes said it all (no subs, hands in his pockets, quieter than the church mouse) he's run out of ideas and he knows in terms of managing this club it's game over.
Last Edit: Oct 17, 2015 19:29:19 GMT by beeteeeffcee
In my view John Boyman's coverage of BTFC has been exceptional - comprehensive, independent, intelligent - and far above what could reasonably be expected of a regional newspaper reporter.
I expected John to move on to the national press eventually - he really is that good - but opportunities in journalism are limited nowadays and I wish him all the best in his new career.
I wasn't there today but am bitterly disappointed to hear BTFC failed to secure 3pts, never mind 1pt, after the FA Cup win.
I am also disappointed to read there were no changes in the last 15 minutes. For me, one of the many positive features of JB's management style has been a refusal to meekly accept defeat - if BTFC are going to lose under him it has hitherto been with all guns blazing, with two, three or even four forwards on the field come the final whistle.
I don't know the player budget relative to other Clubs - but the word I hear is it is about the tenth biggest in the division suggesting a midtable finish should be the minimum reasonable expectation.
Based on that, and based on results so far, yes, JB has not delivered so far this season.
But this is a guy who has been BTFC through and through since he was a kid on the terraces, had a superb playing career here, holds the UEFA A licence and is a modern innovative coach and whose overall track record as a Manager - play offs TWICE in three seasons - is the best of any Manager in the Club's history.
To his critics, who do you want to replace him?
Some old school has been player/never was Manager from the higher divisions? Or maybe some Del Boy, poor man's wheeler dealer with a contact book full of moderate mercenary players who will take the cash but won't commute to training? (I leave you to figure out which ex-Managers I refer to)
To get rid of JB would be a catastrophic step backwards in my view.
He ticks every conceivable box to manage the Club and while this season is now all about survival I still believe he is the best man to manage BTFC.
Spot on Ian Jason feels the hurt like most of us, I also have no idea about the budget but IMO in a town that's booming with business it should be a lot more than it is, pound for pound the loyal fans put far more in supporting this club. One thing Jason does need to do is get off that bench and motivate those players
If Jason was sacked tomorrow, I personally do not believe there'd be too many complaints from supporters despite it possibly being a little too soon? A week before a big game against Torquay. Its football and its a business.. I like Jason and yes he is the best manager on record at BTFC but all good things end and this could well be the end of his time at BTFC for now. I believe the players are no longer putting in the efforts and urgency seems at an all time low - this is due to player management and this is down to the management team. It appears he has lost the dressing room and the results on the pitch are ultimately out of his grasp.
It's about what's best for the foreseeable future of our football club and I for one do not want to see a relegation. The fans or Jason do not deserve that.
Anyway I really do hope Jason turns it around, this is a true test of his mental and managerial ability to get this club out of the rut its in, I hope he proves me and alot of supporters wrong..nobody wants us to do well more than him, i must say .
Support for Jason and the team is all we as fans can do now and hope for the best.
All I see as a fan who watches at least 90% of the games is that if things are not going well, Jason does not often make changes to affect the result.
We have a squad with some decent players who are not playing to their potential. Rightly or wrongly a manager is judged on current results. They are not good enough.
As for a replacement I have no idea. I am sure finding the right person at this level is very difficult.
I hope Jason can turn things around but things are now at a critical point.
Nonsense to say he has lost the dressing room. The tough decision the manager has to make concerns changes to personnel - indeed Boyman's parting comment - IMO there is now a need for two or three new faces in key positions. The difficulty is that he may have to lose two or three faces in the process. I seem to remember the poor run under Vines the year we went to Chesterfield - this season to date seems to be mirroring that one.
That season under Vines BTFC had a great FA Cup run, won at Chesterfield, were 15 minutes from a Third Round tie at Blackpool when Aldershot equalised and led them in the Second Round Replay before losing 3-1.
But in the league BTFC were dreadful under Vines that season, some thought he had run out of ideas and should be gone on New Years Day after a 3-1 defeat at Eastleigh when he kept Neville Roach on the bench until injury time but Vines somehow kept BTFC up on the very last day of the season.
Apart from his FA Cup tactical nous - "we've got to go up to Chesterfield and win first time because they would take us seriously at ours if it went to a replay" was the one and only intelligent thing I ever remember hearing him say - Vines was shocking tbh. He wasn't a highly qualified coach like Bristow. He was just a wheeler dealer who knew lots of commuter mercenaries, none of them much good. BTFC had something ridiculous like 35 different players pull on a first team shirt that season.
Vines never got BTFC in the play-offs - Bristow has done it twice.
This is why I am not so much angry as amazed anyone wants to be rid of him.
I totally agree this season's results are not acceptable and if it was Bristow's first season in charge I wouldn't argue with a replacement - though I would point out it was the first time in Club history the Board had been so ruthless so fast. Howe got 13 mostly moderate years before he got the bullet and Gray got a lot of time too, ditto Vines, who left in the end of his own accord.
If anything, Bristow deserves more time than any of them to turn it around - he has two play-off finishes on the credit side of his Manager's balance sheet.
I'll be astonished if Razzak sacks him tbh - appointing Bristow is the best thing Razzak ever did at this football club. It would be madness to ditch a dual play-off reaching young manager before the New Year in just his third full season, no matter how bad the league results are.
Some interesting comments on here. My only concern is that we avoid relegation this season. It would be great if JB is the man that achieves this but equally I believe in the here and now - quite frankly if a change is needed to do achieve this then that decision needs to be made. The question to ask is how much time is enough enough?
Let's put this into perspective - we are bottom of the league, winless and worryingly, don't really look interested. Tactically I think that JB has been found wanting no more so than yesterday - Chelmsford analysed the defeat and altered to neutralise the two in midfield. I really felt that we just turned up and showed no real thought as to what Chelmsford might do. We also seem to lack leaders on the pitch. Harper aside, we're quite a quiet team which doesn't help at times like this.
However, the ability is there, we saw that last season and its up to JB to get the team playing again. I actually thought that a win would see the team go on a decent run - if anything yesterday was one of our poorest displays so far. Something needs to change and if it's the manager then so be it, regardless of past achievements.
Let us see what happens on Saturday, but last season was last season, this is a results business and results have not been good enough. All what was achieved on and off the field last season is slowly fading away and that is reflecting in the falling attendances. Let us not forget that Frank Gray was sacked when the team was 8th in the league, had got to the 1st round of the FA Cup and 2nd round of the FA Trophy. I personally don't care how many coaching qualifications Jason has got, I care how many games BTFC win and this season none in the league.
Post by davidpartridge on Oct 19, 2015 19:33:49 GMT
Just to nitpick here the appointment of Jason was a decision by the Board, not by Razzak. tbh I no longer have any interest in following the club these days but having given my support to Jason then, I still believe him to be the right man for the job and to remove him now would be a huge error. I would hope that any decision regarding this would also be a Board decision but their time might be better served looking at the reasons why there are so many no longer interested in the club and where the real problems that beset it lie. They certainly do not lie with Jason.
Of course, I wasn't here for the glory years But, never mind, Nev'll Fix It!
Bit off topic towards the end there Dave? Posting about the topic set out then yes the problem is very much on the pitch rather than off it at this moment in time.
Thought Saturday was the worst performance of the season. We conceded two really poor goals and looked a shadow of the team that played so well the previous week. I think the squad needed freshening up over the summer with 3 or 4 new additions rather than the like for like replacements who haven't improved last season's squad. I mentioned this in a previous post but something doesn't feel right about the club this season. The feel good factors gone with the club no longer having the soccer am partnership, Simon Hood leaving the board and a lack of progress on the new ground. Ultimately the club's judged by the results on the pitch but those solely blaming Jason need to look at the bigger picture as IMO until the club gets it right off the pitch we'll never have success on it.
Fair comment in my view from Dave Partridge and Rob Paul.
However, my impression has always been that though there is a Board of Directors the Club continues to be dominated by its Chairman and majority shareholder and I doubt any decision of importance has ever been reached at the Club that the Chairman didn't agree with.
Regarding what is happening off the pitch, I am happy to just be a spectator nowadays - I am done with voluntary work, always caused me more aggravation than paid work! - and no longer have an appetite to immerse myself too heavily in the politics and economics of it all.
That said, I have always had the impression that football consists of Clubs with, for their level, high sustainable income, Clubs with low sustainable income and Clubs propped up by bubble money finance from wealthy backers.
Examples - Ebbsfleet have a decent fanbase and sustainable income, Margate look propped up by speculative investment to me, and BTFC is a middling Club for its level, trying to live within its means.
This means the Club won't go bust and plummet down the divisions but it also means it is always likely to find more monied Clubs hard to beat to that all elusive place in the next division up.
That said the near 2,000 gate for the Whitehawk play off shows the sort of league gates possible if BTFC ever did reach a higher level.
Time to seek a new owner for the Club who is prepared to speculate to accumulate?
Possibly - but I doubt Rafi Razzak will be departing until he has left a lasting legacy (a new stadium) to be remembered by.
After all, no one wants to own a Club for years then see someone else take it higher than they ever did.
The sooner BTFC's future home is set in stone the better for the long term development of the Club - for lots of reasons.
On that last point Ian, I seem to recall, the Council wanted to wait until the autumn of this year before coming to a decision about the new stadium plan. They wanted to explore other possible sites, but I would say we are now in the autumn, so they should be making their decision now. Has there been any indication of how their investigations got on and will we be hearing something any day now.
So what is needed to improve the clubs results then, is it just a turn of luck or some new blood as has been suggested or new manager?
Personally from talking to regular supporters, reading the reports and looking at the videos I would look at the current playing squad and maybe look to bring in some new blood.
If you look at the video footage available of games this season there seems to be lots of costly mistakes from players that are causing the team to ship goals and lose matches.
Those outfield mistakes from what I would say are experienced players cannot be levelled at Jason. Better on field decisions from players is needed, for example look at the Wealdstone game, the ball is cleared and poor control from a Basingstoke forward gives the ball straight back to a Wealdstone player putting the Basingstoke defence on the back foot, from the resulting cross its 0 – 1. If you take the Chelmsford cup game, whilst it resulted in a win take their first goal, poor play from a Basingstoke player who has the ball under control then inexplicably gives the ball away and a goal is scored, making the score 2 - 1. Shortly after that a goal mouth scramble due to another mistake and it could so easily have been 2 – 2 and then possibly a different game! In the league game on Saturday, Howe collects the ball and throws it to a Basingstoke player who has his back to 2 Chelmsford players and is immediately closed down, he loses the ball in a bad position due to a poor decision from the keeper to throw him the ball and with other Chelmsford players around it ends up in the back of the net 0- 1. All the while mistakes like these are happening it's going to make things hard. Erase these type of problems and you give yourself a better chance.
With regards to new blood coming in this will clearly be down to money. Money which at non league level is not easy to come by and requires a lot of hard work behind the scenes to get in. So I wonder how well the club worked behind the scenes during last season while in the public eye and off the back of the SoccerAm publicity stunt to boost the club coffers and to support Jason with his team building, anyone know?
Normal sponsorship deals involve clubs gaining financial backing over the period of the sponsorship deal from the sponsor, so other than a little bit of national publicity what did the club get out of the SoccerAM deal? Has attendances improved? Has the first team budget been enhanced from it? Was it overall worth doing and if so for what reasons?
On a serious note, I would treat the situation with JB separately to the ongoing progress of the club off the pitch. Obviously both are linked but any decision on his future should have to be made based on what happens on the pitch - I haven't seen that any issues with marketing, falling attendances, delayed stadiums, etc can really be blamed for us being bottom of the league.
If players are making bad decisions and ultimately we are losing games, then this is JB's responsibility. These are his players and this is his team.
On a serious note, I would treat the situation with JB separately to the ongoing progress of the club off the pitch. Obviously both are linked but any decision on his future should have to be made based on what happens on the pitch - I haven't seen that any issues with marketing, falling attendances, delayed stadiums, etc can really be blamed for us being bottom of the league.
If players are making bad decisions and ultimately we are losing games, then this is JB's responsibility. These are his players and this is his team.
manny, you are right they are his players and his team, however, there is a saying in football that once players cross that white line there is very little the manager or coach can do. If the team are playing with no idea no pattern no confidence then you can look at the manager and question whether he is right for the team or not but individual mistakes during 90 minutes cannot be a managers fault. Take a goal keeper for example, if he decides to comes for a cross he has no chance of getting and lets in a soft goal which happens from time to time, you see it in all types of football, high level and low level, are you saying that's the managers responsibility then!
RIP CAMROSE - SADLY AND UNCEREMONIOUSLY TAKEN AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE OF BASINGSTOKE . NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN
Prejudice is a great TIME SAVER. You can form opinions without having to get to the FACTS.
The table doesn't lie P W D L F A GD PTS 22. Basingstoke Town 13 0 6 7 9 23 -14 6
The manager brings in the players who he wants and who he thinks will do the best job that his budget will allow. He picks the team, chooses the tactics and selects the team formation. He coaches and motivates them and the results are the measurement of his success or failure to do the job that he has been employed and is paid to do. The bottom line is the buck stops with the manager.
"manny, you are right they are his players and his team, however, there is a saying in football that once players cross that white line there is very little the manager or coach can do. If the team are playing with no idea no pattern no confidence then you can look at the manager and question whether he is right for the team or not"
The manager can do things when the players cross the white line. Change tactics, make substitutions & inspire the team. As for your comment re lack of confidence, that is definitely the case now. Re no pattern or team shape - you are right - there isn't one. We have a back 4 & a centre forward, in between that we have a number of players who don't seem to know what their role is.
Again I hope Jason turns this around, at least it can't get any worse, can it ?
Agree with your points Steve but that's just the problem at the minute - it's not just a number of individual errors that are costing us but we have no pattern and no confidence!!
There is only 1 manager I would want in charge to get us out of the bottom 3 and that is Jason. As others have pointed out, this is the manager who has lead us to 2 play off campaigns in 3 seasons.
I think its a bit hasty to call for a new manager at this stage...
