Legacy of our FA Cup run?

I’d say it’d be pretty defeatist to justify anything other than a good run at the play-offs next year. I’ve seen more reasons on here for why we can’t as opposed to why we can.

Stevenage and Carlisle were battling relegation last season and are 2nd/3rd this season, it’s not like they’ve absolutely splashed the cash either. We have made probably the equivalent of close to a years budget from the cup run, that doesn’t even take into account the McAtee money either. From what I’ve seen of this league, it’s not that high in quality & everyone is beatable. I’ve also seen Salford, Mansfield, Bradford & Northampton cited as reasons we can’t keep up, those sides have been trying & failing to go up for years. All whilst Cambridge, Morecambe and FGR surpassed them and went up.

If we can wisely spend even a fraction of the probable 1.5m we made then there’s no reason next season can’t be a play-off season and if go so far as to say I’d be disappointed if we didn’t. The summer window is absolutely vital to that and the club needs to capitalise on such an opportunity.

Quoted from pontoonlew

I’d say it’d be pretty defeatist to justify anything other than a good run at the play-offs next year. I’ve seen more reasons on here for why we can’t as opposed to why we can.

Stevenage and Carlisle were battling relegation last season and are 2nd/3rd this season, it’s not like they’ve absolutely splashed the cash either. We have made probably the equivalent of close to a years budget from the cup run, that doesn’t even take into account the McAtee money either. From what I’ve seen of this league, it’s not that high in quality & everyone is beatable. I’ve also seen Salford, Mansfield, Bradford & Northampton cited as reasons we can’t keep up, those sides have been trying & failing to go up for years. All whilst Cambridge, Morecambe and FGR surpassed them and went up.

If we can wisely spend even a fraction of the probable 1.5m we made then there’s no reason next season can’t be a play-off season and if go so far as to say I’d be disappointed if we didn’t. The summer window is absolutely vital to that and the club needs to capitalise on such an opportunity.

I think back to Hurst’s time at Shewsbury. When he joined, they were bottom of League One after 15 games, 6 points short of safety with the worst goal difference in the league.

He had relatively little room to manoeuvre, making just three permanent signings in the January window - Toto, Alex Rodman and Bryn Morris. And yet they finished the season strongly and finished 18th.

The following season was totally different - they properly kicked on, finishing 3rd having been in the automatic positions for most of the season, before losing in the play-off final to Rotherham. They really should have gone up, but that was some turnaround nevertheless.

That’s a good barometer of what Hurst can do with the right set of circumstances. I think most would agree that last summer was difficult with something daft like a 6 week turnaround between the end and start of the season. Beyond that, the Fenty shadow was still looming large over the club, at least in the eyes of prospective signings.

I think events in recent weeks will have gone a long way to reminding those in the football world that Fenty is no more and that we a different proposition altogether. Reinvigorated, reinvented - a good place to be. Still, I see real value in finishing as high as possible. 11th or 12th looks eminently doable, and would be a great platform to build on for next season.

And I’m genuinely excited for what’s to come next season. We will go into it quite likely on the back of our highest league finish since 2006. We will have the biggest relative budget we’ve had also since 2006, with the club’s image and reputation in the best shape I can remember for such a long time. Improved infrastructure, a head of recruitment - all that good stuff.

And then we have the manager, a man with a great track record of building teams over time. He’ll have learned a lot about us and this division this year and I think we all agree, we have the best version of him yet.

I’d also like to think, with some positive early signings, we can maintain similar ST levels again this summer, which might have looked unlikely a few weeks back.

I do think we’ll see some significant squad turnover, with few out of contract players making the cut. I expect Amos, Cropper, Pearson, Morris, Wearne and Taylor will go. Some decent players in there, no doubt, but I think we need to evolve and I imagine Hurst will feel he can do better with the tools now at his disposal.

All the signs point to exciting times ahead. Work to do this season still of course, but looking beyond May I think it’s fair to say the good times are just beginning.

Happy to go with an approach of stats on players and look at being sustainable of buying them from lower leagues and sell them on for profit. Brentford and Peterborough have made good examples of this, the latter not being as successful as Brentford but you get the jist.

As the saying goes, things happen in threes.

Last year promotion via the play offs

This year was the F A Cup run to the quarter finals

Next year is for automatic promotion.

UTM

Has anyone looked at the age profile of teams that do well at this level? Is it normally experienced pros or hungry young’uns?

Looking at only contracted players and their age at the start of next season we’ve got:

Over 30- Waterfall 33, Holohan 32

27 to 30- Maher 28, Khan 27, Orsi 27

24 to 26- Green 26, Efete 26, Clifton 25, Glennon 24

23 and under- Hunt 23, Khouri 20

We’re neither a Dads army nor a bunch of kids. There’s room to add in all areas without getting unbalanced. Hopefully for me a bit more budget will let us take a chance and add some younger ones too. It seems the step from academy football to mens isn’t easy so would be happy if these have been playing a chunk of games, whether that be in the league or down to NLN and NL South. The problem if they are any good is they won’t be with us long (Mcatee, Pollock, Dembele etc.) but then again that benefits the finances and we might get a couple of years out of them.

Also might be an opportunity to offer year extensions to some now which gives continuity and avoids a total rebuild any time soon.

Quoted from GtfcGarner

Happy to go with an approach of stats on players and look at being sustainable of buying them from lower leagues and sell them on for profit. Brentford and Peterborough have made good examples of this, the latter not being as successful as Brentford but you get the jist.

I think there should be a little bit of this but at this stage it should not be the full operating model, you have to have infrastructure to be able to bring players along at the same time as making sure that things go in the right direction on the pitch, we're in better shape but I sense the leadership may want more stability.

The legacy may be better player coming in, I hope so, but also it might just be a confirmation that when all stake holders are on the same page a club can achieve some great things.

Quoted from gtfc_chris

I don't disagree but I think the balance point is how realistic the ambition is against the level of competition.

Like many on here, I supported Town through the 90s when we were often a Championship team and my early away days were at fantastic grounds, so I agree that all things considered L1 should be our level. But since we were in the Championship there have been a lot of Clubs that have surpassed their reputation and standing of that era and progressed, whilst we declined. That isn't to say that it means we should now be happy to simply be in L2, but that more teams are realistically competing to play at that L1, meaning reputation and history aren't the markers they were 10/20 years ago.

Our ambition should certainly be to be playing in L1 within the next few years, but if we as fans try to expedite that ambition and expect too much too quick, we risk re-creating the discord between team/manager/owners/club that existed under Fenty, despite the fact everything about what we're doing right now is geared towards improvements in every area. After all the good that has happened in the last 18 months, I would be so downhearted to see fans turning away because they held the same ambitions as the Club but were too impatient/too demanding of the timescales to see it happen.

This.
From now on instead of posting I will PM Chris my view and let him write it up 😄
Seriously though, this is kind of where I was trying to go with it. I am very excited for the present and future of OUR club. Utm

Just one legacy bit, I hope the extra cash allows us to put in a position to make a serious bid for Andy Smith.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Just one legacy bit, I hope the extra cash allows us to put in a position to make a serious bid for Andy Smith.

Agreed. And I think Khouri will be like a new signing next season, he’ll step up.

Even with the cup money we will still not have a top 6 budget .If county and Wrexham come up they will outspend us as will a couple of those coming down especially the vegans .Then there will be some of the bigger spending teams who will still be in this league
Salford
Stockport
Northampton
Doncaster
So I think we need to accept the cup money is great but still leaves us way behind the spending power some of these clubs have or the risks they will take for success