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« on: March 19, 2021, 08:10:09 PM »
If you look at that Tony Sanders managed team from his arrival to us reaching the pinnacle, the evolution was not dissimilar to what we are seeing today.
You had mainstays like Ivan Crossley and Mickey Brooke becoming squad players - but still playing an important role (Brookes goal at Droylsden taking us to White Hart Lane for example); you had a raising of the bar seeing upgrades from (eg) Mickey Moore to John Rogers, and a falling by the wayside of the (eg) Joe Flaherty's of this world. You even saw the odd big name signing coming in and failing to make an impact (Tony Webber as example)
And the main thrust was strengthen the squad each year - Johnson and Webber in 76/7; Rogers, Bailey and King in 77/8; Barry Howard in 78/9; Graham Barrow and Barry Whitbread in 79/80. And we ended up with a squad that had replaced (eg) Alan Heathcote with Graham Barrow
The arrival of Ceesay, Mooney, Senior, Colclough, Kosylo and Smith (the new Graham Barrow) is part of the same dynamic.
Coincidentally, the board is expanding to a similar size as it was in the late 70's - ambitious young dynamic business leaders (and me!)
The root cause of the demise from 80/1 onwards was that we felt we had to give the team that missed out on FL another go, and their momentum carried them to a second title. Unfortunately they all reached the end of their career at the same time (albeit at Wembley). We should perhaps have wielded the axe in 1980 and given new talent time to grow
