www.altyfans.co.uk

Dear Cult,

I think you are missing the point, which is that it is also ludicrous to talk of three relegations in a row.

We should have stayed up the first times, and other teams were quite justifiably thrown out etc. other times for being poorly run (cheating, some might say), unlike us.

Dear Uncle Globnasty,

Thankyou for your interesting post. To reply to your points...


1)Hugh, your loyalty is admirable, you may indeed be Mr Alty, but you really need to take off the GH blinkers and look at the bigger picture. Those blinkers are badly affecting your judgement.

I like to think not. And having said that, I think a number of people are responding "emotionally" to a rare good beating and a run where we have (somehow) not scored for a while. I still think 9 games with mostly a new team is too short a time to judge. Let's wait and see if we regularly get beat by genuine bottom half teams (and I heard we were very unlucky to lose at Eastbourne although admittedly lose we did).


2)Firstly, very few, if anyone, on here are saying that Heathcote has not been an excellent servant to the club, both as player and manager. Nobody is doubting his commitment, love of the club or his non-league knowledge. However, this is hardly the non-league of old. In no other line of work (or indeed in football) would someone be kept in their position, year after year, out of loyalty, whilst the company went down the pan.

To be fair someone used the word clueless. Fact. As I said, it is also three promotions in a row, and we would not have needed any of them if it was not for the FA's bizarre points deduction. Is this not true? And remember we were struggling against rtelegation from the NPL premier when he started here. Hardly down the pan if we're 21st (after nine games and a tough match) in the division above?


3) Secondly, nobody expected us to win at Satanage and we all realise they are in a false position at the moment, but they are not world beaters and what most expect is a little fight from the team. Everyone knows this league is going to be a struggle for us, given our constraints, that does not prevent us from making a fight of it.

I expected more to be honest. Having said that, they beat Burton 4-1, and Wrexham said they played better stuff than some league 2 teams. We are always going to have off days on tjhese long trips down south.

3) Thirdly, you keep on banging on about our improvement last season. I'm sorry Hugh, but what improvement exactly? We were relegated (and I don't count the AGM as a "promotion") and only showed any real fight in a handful of games.

We wouldn't have been relegated if Halifax had not been overspending (probably). After ten games we had 3 points. If we had got 6 points, or nine (which we will hopefully have after ten matches this time) we would have stayed up comfortably. Fact. And I don't look on last season as a relegation either. Halifax deserved to go. 2.5% - what? And after all our work paying off our debt! It frigging crippled me!

4) Fourthly, you keep on banging on about Dario Gradi as if he and GH are inextricably linked. I'm sorry, but there is a world of difference between the two scenarios. The similarity starts and ends with them having had to work within limited constraints in their respective divisions. Dario Gradi's teams were widely regarded as "playing football the way it should be played" (and they stayed up on their own merit most seasons). Now, Hugh, how many people do you think would regard Alty as playing football the way it should be played over the last few seasons?

A world of difference between division 3 and pt conference too.


5)Finally (I could keep going, but frankly this is depressing and soul destroying), you go on about the fact that a change of manager will do no good and we may be even worse of. I'm sorry Hugh, have you been polishing your crystal balls, because they weren't working too well last season when you kept on telling us how we were going to stay up (on playing merits)? You can not possibly know that and saying things may get worse if we make a change is hardly a valid reason for not making one. So Hugh, let's magine you have a personal physician and he tells you that you are going to die and that there is little that he can do given the tools at his disposal. Would you refuse the opportunity to get in another physician who may potentially save your life on the grounds that he may make things worse??
I was wrong last time (just). Things are better this time (fact). If it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt that a change will improve things then fair enough. Doubt remains. Wait a bit longer.

If you pick the worst result of the season at a time when we're struggling, a poll may well look like that. And perhaps this poll is not a representative sample anyway. See what people think at the end of the season.

Came better then. We had a bit of a run from Droylsden onwards (3-2 with ten men). With injury and other problems before Christmas, our form dipped badly. Then we had a decent run from Northwich away onwards, at which point I hoped we might get well away from trouble. It didn't happen of course, and that loan player being recalled didn't help. Having said that, we're in a better position than at this time last season (I think).

Of course we should keep Heathcote, any new manager would still have the same problems, without some of the advantages. Much better to be like Crewe, not Newcastle (remember Bobby Robson?) IT would be like sdacking Dario Grady because Crewe got relegated to the third (stroke 2nd stroke league one).TYhat's the reality of how hard the Conference is for us.

A quote from radio Five Live: "United fans are blaming Alex Ferguson's tactics". I was going to say enough said, but some people are getting a bit carried away so seemingly not. For those who find it difficult to understand, I will go through some of the problems we face, and why I think we have a decent manager (and decent man) doing the best he can do in difficult circumstances.

A couple of things that need clearing up straight away. Yes, we did better after getting rid of Bernard Taylor. If you remember, he had dispensed with Graham Heathocte as assistant manager by then. Graham had been a lot of the reason why we had been doing well (probably the same in 1991 aswell). The new assistant, if I remember rightly, was in fact clueless. That's basically why we needed a change.

As for Heathcote being clueless, that is absolute rubbish. And people who say this may realiase it aswell if they calm down and think about it rationally. He's been involved in the non league game for over thirty years.He reads the non-league paper thoroughly every weekend (a good source tells me). I have had the opportunity to watych countless training sessions that Heathcote has taken over the years, probably more than most people on here, certainly more than the muppets who are looking for any excuse to have Heathcote out, and I can tell you that he gave no impression to me of being clueless. I remember one tiome when he explained exactly how he wanted the players to deal with a particular opposition player (possibly for Emley?) - we did well enough in that league didn't we. As one person close to him said, he can tell the players what to do, but he can't do it for them.

Now about sacking managers. I remember hearing somewhere that statistically, teams are more likely to do the same or worse in the long run under a new manager. I would think this particularly would apply to an experienced manager with a proven track record (yes we nearly went down last season after a disrupted preseason in a difficult league. Btw it would be just as accurate to say we got promoted (for the sixth time in a row) at the end of last season (when Halifax went bust) as to say we got relegated), with a proven track record and who knows and cares about the club like Heathcote. Would United have done better if they'd sacked Fergy in the eighties? no. Would Crewe have done better if they'd sacked Dario Grady? no. Will we do better if we sack Heathcote? No. The conference is a hard league deal with it.

Now we had all this nonsense last season, and we turned it around, and Heathcote told some of the realities of life about the "boss team" and all the rest of it. So far this season we have played six top half teams, two bottom half teams (away) and one team who should be top half (away). Not much opportunity for being the boss team there I think (apart from Woking which we won, and Eastbourne which we were unlucky not to win but that's football). This season, we again have almost a new team, and surprisingly enough the manager is trying different things trying to find the most effective way of playing. And recently, our two best strikers have had injury problems, Little carrying an injury and Senior coming bvack from injury. Maybe there is a confidence problem by now aswell - thank goodness for the Cheshire cup!

Yes, we've got less problems than in the past, thanks to Goodwin and Heathcote )don't forget we had no right to get promotion in 2005, three years ahead of schedule). But even now, we didn't have a full preseason to prepare, the Halifax thing coming a few weeks after the end of the season, if earlier than the time before. Still, we ARE doing better. 6 points from 9 compared to 3 from ten last time, and we'll probably have 9 from ten by Saturday (although there's no certainties in football). I'm convinced the goal will come, it's just a matter of time. The end of the year would be a better time to assess if there's any assessing to bwe done.

I was wrong to say we could beat Stevenage, perhaps it was a bit of wishful thinking, it seems other people think we should have won. Well we got beat 5-0 by these teams in the past. Anyway our current position is not too bad. Look at the table and tell me which teams you expect to finish above.CRAWLEY TOWN  9 6 1 2 17 8 9 19      - no
2 SALISBURY CITY 9 6 1 2 13 7 6 19 0-0 probably not   
3 KETTERING TOWN 9 4 5 0 13 7 6 17 1-1  no   
4 MANSFIELD TOWN 9 5 2 2 17 12 5 17      no
5 CAMBRIDGE UNITED 9 5 2 2 13 8 5 17       no!
6 HISTON 9 4 3 2 15 11 4 15   0-1   maybe, but they've gort some money I heard
7 BURTON ALBION 9 4 3 2 18 16 2 15       no. Clough out too, they lost 4-1!
8 WREXHAM 9 4 2 3 16 9 7 14 1-1     no
9 KIDDERMINSTER HARRIERS 9 4 2 3 16 13 3 14   0-4 no 
10 BARROW 9 4 2 3 16 14 2 14 3-4     maybe but they're a bigger club, settled team
11 YORK CITY 9 3 5 1 12 10 2 14       no
12 FOREST GREEN ROVERS 9 4 2 3 10 9 1 14  no   
13 EBBSFLEET UNITED 9 3 4 2 16 10 6 13       no
14 EASTBOURNE BOROUGH 9 4 1 4 11 15 -4 13   0-1 maybe   
15 RUSHDEN & DIAMONDS 9 3 3 3 12 8 4 12 no     
16 WEYMOUTH 9 3 3 3 13 15 -2 1 maybe
17 TORQUAY UNITED 9 3 2 4 8 11 -3 11    no   
18 STEVENAGE BOROUGH 9 3 2 4 13 17 -4 11   0-3 no   
19 OXFORD UNITED 9 2 3 4 10 13 -3 9       no
20 GRAYS ATHLETIC 9 2 1 6 9 15 -6 7       
21 ALTRINCHAM 9 1 3 5 7 16 -9 6       
22 WOKING 9 1 2 6 8 13 -5 5   2-1   
23 NORTHWICH VICTORIA 9 0 3 6 10 18 -8 3       
24 LEWES 9 0 3 6 5 23 -18 3       
 

Perhaps you should count Woking, they're the only bottom ten side we've played (apart from Stevenage, who are clearly in a false position - there' I'm doing it now!). Think about it!

I think we can win this one. We've come a long way since we lost 3-0 there all thos years ago (ok, about 3 years ago).

I'm not scared by 4-1, Histon scored 5 after all after only scoring one against us, and we've got time to prepare for the match properly this time.

Only conceded two goals in three games, and we beat the last bottom ten team we played. As for the goals I'm sure they will come, we've been pretty unlucky not to score in the last three and definitely have the players to do it, keep supporting the lads.

And yes, Battersby has been solid, he hasn't let anyone down.

Remember we didn't win for the first ten last season. Again we have many new players, but I think we should find some form any time now.

I said WE could beat Croatia, and the same goes for Stevenage. Believe.

(Btw, I know the tables don't mean much at this stage, I just llike the idea of a sic pointer with them after all these years of Hitchin's rivals larging it!)

He's a good leader. Fact.