|
Post by tenacres on Dec 26, 2022 14:55:10 GMT
|
|
|
Post by efc21 on Dec 26, 2022 17:07:11 GMT
|
|
|
Post by charliecharles on Dec 26, 2022 18:52:06 GMT
Thought they played well in the first half and if they had taken their chances the game would have been out of sight. Sadly a change in formation and substitutions allowed Dorking to push on and ended up defending at our own 16yd line. 2 pouts lost.
|
|
|
Post by spiritofeastleigh on Dec 27, 2022 8:01:07 GMT
We have a manager who is negative away from home, getting a point is more important to him than trying to win the game. Yesterday was a fine example, first half played very well, 1-0 up. He tried to defend it second half instead of pushing on for the all important second and having some breathing space. He has got away with this just once this season, at York. Away cup performances at Woking and Dorking were excellent, exciting attacking football and two fine wins. Why is he afraid to unleash the team on away travel? This squad of ours is not under performing on the road through any fault of their own but rather because of the attitude of the manager and his tactics. He came in promising attacking football, he's not doing that in our away games. A lot of Eastleigh fans feel we have a squad capable of being up there in the play off positions, and while the table may say we are 1 point off such a position, the reality with others having games in hand is probably 6/7 points. We've a better squad than Woking, yet they sit 4th on 43 points, and in the recent cup match we played them off the park, had we won 5-0 there would have been no complaints from them. There is only a hard core now going to away matches, we need to get more support for the team but playing under the tactics the manager imposes, fans are not willing to spend their hard earned wages along with the time and effort to get to an away match to witness such drivel. It is almost certain our league will be allowed to have three teams promoted under talks currently taking place and it could come as early as next season, two automatic spots and one via a play off campaign. Our manager needs to be more positive and attack minded away from home, he thought we'd lose home games against Notts County and Wrexham before a ball was kicked, so if he thinks like that, he obviously thinks we will lose at Notts County, in which case, let the team go out and play attacking football, who knows we might even win the bloody game, but we won't win away if we don't try will we? If we want to see the return of Stewart Donald then we need the manager to show him it is worth investing his millions to help get us to the promised land, we know Stewart loves this football club and he is passionate about it, but he's also a hard nosed businessman when it comes to his money first and foremost. If he watched the dour tactics the team play away from home most weeks he'd walk away and not turn back round. So forget trying to hold on to a point, grab the bull by the horn and go for three!!!!
|
|
|
Post by bomber on Dec 27, 2022 9:34:47 GMT
You're assuming everyone wants Stewart Donald back..1)not everybody does..and 2)how do you know he even wants to?
|
|
|
Post by ajc on Dec 27, 2022 13:21:02 GMT
I’ve been to a few this season and apart from Dorking in the cup every game away I’ve been to have been way below the standard of our squad and some very odd selections and substitutions, Seems like we turn up at away games with a damage limitation approach.
|
|
|
Post by spiritofeastleigh on Dec 28, 2022 7:43:33 GMT
You're assuming everyone wants Stewart Donald back..1)not everybody does..and 2)how do you know he even wants to? It is a shame some fans don't wish to see the return of Stewart, they are entitled to that view, but the few are not the wish of the majority. Let's just take a step back in history. Before Stewart came in EFC were on the brink financially, quite literally of folding. We were playing, and struggling in Conference South football with a fan base of about 400 on a good day!!! The ground was old and tatty but to be fair was better than many I saw on my travels watching Eastleigh in Conference South. Where would we be without the investments made by Stewart? Would the club have suffered their first ever relegation? Would the club even exist? Today, EFC is playing National League football, the fan base has risen to 2,500 and we have a vastly improved stadia. We are quite rightly forever grateful to the late great Derik Brooks, and the same applies to Stewart Donald. He picked our club to rescue and build up, I'm told he was considering Farnborough at the time he was seeking to buy a club, our gain, their loss. In answer to the second question, how do I know he even wants to return. Nobody knows for sure, but the interview about a year ago now on Radio Solent was telling I think to most of us. In it, having made public he was selling up ownership of Sunderland, Stewart confirmed other financially struggling football league clubs had approached him to invest with them but he admitted the lure and pull in his heart for the love of EFC was difficult to ignore and that his business with EFC is unfinished. I spoke with Stewart on his first night as the new owner in the away game at Salisbury and I asked him how far he wanted to take the club, he responded with the comment, "To the Premier League" later I spoke to Mick Geddes and said Stewart is talking about getting to the Premier League, to which Mick replied, "That's probably too far but certainly the Championship is doable" That was the hype, that was the dream. Stewart really believes this can be achieved, he can probably invest on his own to reach League One but going further he'd have to find other big financial backers to come and join him. That is part of his unfinished business with EFC, the other is to complete the rebuild of the stadium into a family community football club. Stewart was 48 last week (20th Dec) he is still a young man, who knows where EFC might be when he is 60 when he returns to unfinished business which he made public.
|
|
|
Post by unknownquantity on Dec 28, 2022 23:22:59 GMT
I would personally disagree with the idea that the club was in danger of folding when Stewart came to the club. It is perhaps worth pointing that at the end of the 2001/02 season the club finished mid-table in the Wessex League, but three successive promotions in which we very much made improvements to the ground (even if nothing like the scale of more recent improvements) enabled us to reach the Conference South. In our first season as a Conference South club we moved away from being a committee run, a move in my view which made it easier for investors to buy into the club.
In our third season as a Conference South club we missed out on a playoff place on the final day of the season and in our fourth season we reached the playoffs despite making a budget cut in mid-season. The season Stewart came to the club we had made a further budget cut, having the previous season had a team that was comfortably good enough to finish in the top half of the table, but not got promoted, and replacing that by a team that was not likely to finish in the top half of the table, but good enough to avoid relegation. I think that our team when Stewart came to the club our first team was Barfoot, Herring, Jordan, Forbes, Green, Flood, Smith, Brown, Montgomerie, Slabber, Gillespie sub Bottomley and I do not think that is a bad Conference South team.
However until Stewart came to the club the idea of us becoming an established club in the National League, having four figure gates, developing the ground and increasing the club's commercial revenue streams to their current level is not one many of us could have envisaged.
For the reasons above we should be very grateful for what he has done. However I also think it is hard to do every job at a football club well and to please everyone.
|
|
|
Post by sattsy on Dec 29, 2022 11:39:42 GMT
Something i always remember in that last season under Paul Murray/Dave Malone's leadership, with Bairdy as manager, was that as we started releasing players to cut the wage bill, one of those released (Warren Goodhind) came back about 2 weeks latter saying he would play for nothing & he was immense when he came back. That to me showed the team spirit & love of the club was still there amongst the players. When Stewart came in, he was initially coming in as a shirt sponsor (Bridle) and when he told PM what he was willing to pay for sponsorship, he was told that he could practically buy the club for what he had offered. So they got around the table and a deal was done for SD to take over. I remember Bairdys last game in charge, where a certain Richard Hill was bought in to watch the side for a few games, At the time we were close to the bottom of the Conf South and SD asked Hilly if he thought he could get us into the play off's. Bairdy left the club and Hilly came in and performed miracles to achieve what he said he would, with us losing on Pens to Dover in the play offs. The following year we won the title. From then on, and maybe where in started to go wrong on the pitch, was that we were paying huge money for old journeymen, in the hope that they could get us into the FL, which never quite happened.
I would welcome SD back with open arms because he brought expectation and excitement during his reign and that has been lacking ever since. The club have done well enough under Kenny and now Tom, so we shouldn't expect too much, but if and when SD does come back, the expectation will go up several levels. Until then i think the fans have to accept that we will likely lose just as many as we win, but aslong as we stay in this league and maintain or improve on the current fanbase, we'll be doing ok.
|
|
|
Post by newspitfire on Dec 29, 2022 14:29:43 GMT
I would love to see Stewart come back. His drive, ambition and money of course, would give the whole club a lift. I keep looking out to see if Sunderland have any potential buyers but it all seems quite. If Sunderland do go up, I can’t imagine Stewart stepping back to National League.
|
|
|
Post by usspitfire on Dec 30, 2022 0:50:43 GMT
.........he brought expectation and excitement during his reign and that has been lacking ever since. ..... Spot on Sattsy! That sums it up perfectly. There was always an air of expectation and excitement leading up to games when both Dossie and Stewart were leading the way. These days it's just meh! made worse with LB's tactics being as exciting as a wet weekend in Southsea!
|
|
|
Post by sattsy on Dec 30, 2022 9:56:45 GMT
The other thing SD brings is an openness with the fans, which seems to have fallen away in recent times. Not blaming Tom for that, he has too much on his plate to do everything. SD was always willing to chat to fans, came in the bar every game before and after, and would give us his thoughts, and more importantly, would listen to ours. He would always tell us what his plans were, be them big plans or small adjustments, or about players he was interested in signing etc. I think he will have learnt a lot at Sunderland and if he comes back, he will be more experienced & better prepared for it second time around, despite the drop in levels.
|
|
|
Post by unknownquantity on Dec 31, 2022 16:15:38 GMT
I think that in the season that Ian Baird was replaced as manager, we had seven points from the first four games, but then lost to Dover after being 1-0 up, lost 1-0 at Dorchester to a late goal from a free kick and then lost a third game in a row 4-0 at Billericay which was his last game in charge, although if we had held on to our lead against Dover we could have been near the top of the table after that game.
When Richard Hill initially took over our away form was probably worse than it is now and in early January we had slipped to 21st in the table and then Richard asked Stewart for his support in making the signings he felt we needed and we went on a great run to reach the playoffs, which we would almost certainly have made otherwise.
Apart from the fact that signing journeymen players has not always worked I would also say that a) Players who do well against us, do not necessarily do well when they play for us and b) Players with their roots in the North of England do not necessarily settle in the area.
|
|
|
Post by tenacres on Dec 31, 2022 21:39:52 GMT
There used to be a site with the a given league table on a certain day, I think we would have gone top had we beaten Dover. It seemed only a few days from that to him being sacked. In truth Baird hadn’t really delivered in the 11/12 season, we made a number of signings after SD had come on and hadn’t really made much progress and I think finished 12th. We won the hants cup but that seemed fairly incidental IIRC.
In Hills first successful spell with us the squad was built on older/journeyman players with the likes of Todd, Collins, Southam, Strevens, McAllister, Constable, Midson etc
|
|
|
Post by sattsy on Jan 1, 2023 11:12:15 GMT
The signings of Chris Todd & Dean Beckwith as our new center half pairing that year was the catalyst for us building a very good side, even though it sadly led to the end of fans favourite Tom Jordan's time at the club.
|
|