Pride, Passion, Determination, Belief

Quote: vastman "That's what I meant, there's more to offering a deal than just money. That said I'm pretty sure that when Snitch left the first time it was certainly down to us making a derisory offer. I like you tend to defend the old regime because we knew the pressures they were under, however I don't think it's unfair to suggest Ted could be a bit of a cheapskate where young home grown players were concerned.

I know like you that players and especially those close to them tend to paint there lad as a saint and BOD as evil monsters. This is most often not the case and it's usually the player deluded as to their own worth. That said I have heard it said time and time again that the old regime stiffed young local players and for a long time rightly or wrongly Trinity were the last team local players wanted to join. At best you have to say no smoke without fire - I reckon at least first time Snitch was one of those.

What you do highlight is yet another thing we need to rebuild, our reputation. Some players are stupid but most are not - and when it comes to deciding who to go with this is another issue that tips the scales against us.

We need the steady eddie Snitches of this world, in some ways more than the likes of Tim Smith.

Oddly the only player who seems to show genuine pride in the shirt and a desire to play for the club is Paul Aiton - he has 5 years left in him lets hope someones smart enough to build a team around him and a few others. Obviously our bad reputation never made it as far as PNG
I'm not out to defend anyone - I know they tried with some of them, but too often we were a club who tried to sell a deal we couldn't back up and hence players like Snitch would know what to expect - as opposed to what they were sold.

You are right that there is much more than money involved here and, for that, I believe the club are much much better than we were.

Someone else alluded to Glovers 10yr plan - I told him directly that I would judge the success of that by whether at that point we could rightly point to players such as Walshaw, Wildie and Trout as still being at the club. If that is the case then we will have done all the right things on and off the pitch for them to want to still be here.

As I said before - there is a gamble that we will, with time, improve towards where we want to be as a club and that, with a couple or so tweaks, we can move a bit further forward next year. We should, IMO, be further ahead than we are right now with the players we have, but there is still time to put that right and get a run going, but at the same time there are repetitive errors - as we see them - by both the players and the coaching staff - that give serious cause for concern.

They can do it, but will they?