I noted the age for senior concessions, which was 60 last year, now seems to be 65. It looks lack of trains out here in Essex knock the two February games on the head for me.

It.might be an idea to advertise.to anyone other than the choir.
The club have done the "bring a mate" to death and need to look at other ways to get locals through the doors. I've seen nothing or heard nothing whilst scouring local social media and AFC fan sites. The clock is ticking and I genuinely hope they don't flush thousands down the drain of Metro and the standard again.
It's depressingly "business as usual" from the Broncos who seem to think 2022 went OK?

I think any criticism of the recruitment is unwarranted. The strategy appears to be quality over quantity, and half of that is going very well. "Over Quantity" looks a success and is opening up the opportunity to extend the "Win a Spectator Box" to "Win a Place on the Replacements Bench". Anyway, who needs quality.

Seriously though the squad looks incredibly thin (17 players really) with just a few weeks to go. The December signing bonanza appears to have fallen through. With everyone fit and available the team looks okay. Will only take one or two injuries to badly derail the team. With just 10 days until the Skolars fixture, what quality of team will play that day. 1pm on a Friday for a pre-season friendly for part time players. Lots unavailable perhaps, not great for a thin squad.

Loan strategy last year wasn't great. Players appearing for one or two games. Or just not good enough (Ferreira). Davis was good and I guess the Prop (whose loan was at least a few more games) whose name I forget. Unless the loans are long term, are they really worth it? Or will they be needed due to desperation?

Potential Starting Line-Up?

Walker
Ulberg
Natoli
Grant
Macani

Leyland
Raiwalui

Albert
Davis
Bienek
Williams
Lovell
Parata

Interchanges:
Bassett
Horsman
Stock
Palumbo

Two backs as Interchanges isn't great. Natoli could start as a forward I guess, but makes Centre a weak spot (again). Maybe the club will try hard to get Siti to stay.

Everyone relax. Announcement just made. Won’t be rushed into recruiting wrong type of players. Hope to recruit a few by the end of the month. Cant really argue with part of that but in my opinion our squad is way too small and we’re in a bit of strife if everyone doesn’t hit the ground running or we pick up a couple of knocks. Literally a couple.

I think people could get quite tired of Cake's bull if he loses a few games.

What it looks like on paper is often different to the reality but on paper I like his clarity of thought and strength of purpose. However, ultimately, as at one month to start of season and a home game where a win/ good performance would drive up/maintain attendance levels, objectively our recruitment looks a failure.
From a retention point of view, although we have lost/let go more than we have retained (and bearing in mind how few players we have what does that say about our 2022 recruitment) we look like we have retained the best options and a few of the more ‘risky’ acquisitions have been let go. The problem, ultimately, is it seems to be difficult to recruit to a PT London club and the attrition rate of promotions from Academy is incredibly high (of the 7 over last two seasons whose contracts came up for renewal only Leyland and Horsman have remained and think about all the others from earlier seasons, Davis senior, Davies, Meadows, Hindmarsh, Boafo all gone one way or another). Also worth remembering for all the talk of a good second half of the season we are on a three match losing streak with two of those being home games. Crikey I hope we get off to a good start or it looks a struggle again.

We did not have a good second half of the season, it was average at best with some highlights (ie win v Fax etc) with some lowlights (loss to Haven etc). It only seemed good compaired to the disaster the first half of the season was

We had a decent bounce when Mustard was sacked and there seemed to be more motivation for a few games but things tailed off quite badly at the end of the season. Cake is totally unproven and the two assistants we were told would be in place still seem to be unannounced.

Was looking at the recent tweet from Natoli .
Aug 2022 working as a plumber in Sydney, Jan 2023 key members of the Broncos squad.

Well I suppose if nothing else we can put him to good use if the bogs get blocked at Plough Lane!

And to add to the misery whilst I saw us make idiots of ourselves against Widnes, Haven and Newcastle I missed the Fax game and the Batley one as well due to them taking place during peak holiday period. My highlights are seeing us turnaround a revolting 1st half performance against Sheffield....in Kent and beating the two sides who got relegated. Is it any wonder...... I really hope 2023 is better but we are a couple of injuries maximum from same again. Get recruiting ffs.

Interestingly you can buy entry for 2 adults and 2 Kids for £30.....so basically £15 a pop for adults and 2 free kids tickets.
Now, my maths is often wrong, but £95 for an Adult membership, £20 for the kid and then a tenner a ticket is £18.84 a game over 13 games?

Why would you pay £18.84 for an adult & a child when you can get in for £15 by booking the week of the game?

I despair sometimes at just how badly thought through some of the ideas coming out of the club are.

Yep, maths does not seem to be a strong point at the club. It was impossible to save money by buying a concessions membership over individual early bird tickets. Perhaps they are also struggling to count the number of players we have signed up.

So squad numbers now announced. When they get around to adding in Palumbo, unless he’s done an O’Donnell, that leaves us with 17 plus 6 kids who between them have played about 3 games. That doesn’t feel like a standard approach to squad building or ideal. We’ve forgotten to do it as a club so let’s say ta ta and all the best to the surprisingly large amount of players who came and went like a summer breeze last season with often no mention of their joining and even more frequently no mention of their leaving. Some good. More OK, Sadly too many not quite of the standard. Here’s to better days for our recruitment process.
Curran, Mocedreke, Ferreira, Latu, Foster, Gahan, Coates, Ramsey, Tuialatu, the Greehalgh brothers, Thorman, Juma, Vrahnos, Thomas, Blakemore, Oakley, Pelligra. And of course O’Donnell. Would he have been a world beater? As he didn’t make it to the start of the season we’ll never know.

Squad now announced on Twitter and Palumbo still not there so looks like he too has gone. Consensus seems to be, that the squad is thin. Naturally. Here’s hoping we add some more swiftly. I assume we’ll be playing our Academy side in the Capital Challenge...too risky to play any of our 1st team squad surely?