First Trip to Donny for Crawley

DONCASTER ROVERS

 - V - 

CRAWLEY TOWN

Crawley Town today become Doncaster Rovers' 116th opponents in league football.  We  have  also never met in the Conference so this match is a rather rare occasion for Donny these days.  Crawley probably get a lot of this being relatively new to the league, but its unusual for Donny, especially as we have done some time in non-league and are familiar with some off-road places in English football.

So Crawley - Donny, Donny -  Crawley.  That's the introductions over, now lets have a good game of football!

DONCASTER ROVERS

If Kyle gets 20 goals, I think two things are likely to happen - he’ll be worth about £2m to £3m in the transfer market and we’re more than likely to be in the Championship, which is worth about £5m to £6m - John Ryan

Everything on the pitch is on course for Donny at the moment.  They looked imperious against Walsall last weekend, but were made to work a little harder by a resilient Bury side, who to be fair, took me a little by surprise.

When I write these blogs in early season, there's more reading about players' achievements to be done and less looking at videos.  For my money, in defence, Adam Lockwood was likely to be partnered by Andrai Jones.  I felt the pair was in for a tough evening at the hands of Billy Paynter and Chris Brown.  Bury fan forums were concerned about Kyle Bennett exposing their full-backs and at the other end of the field, I saw no threat at all in the Bury forward line.  It looked an easy win.  Looking back now, well we got the win but probably needed Bury being reduced to 10-men to achieve it.

First of all, after just 4 minutes the twin-towers, Rob Jones and Jamie McCoombe, came crashing to earth when Bury took the lead from a corner.  Adam Lockwood got in front of Jones and his header was helped in at the near post by Joe Skarz.  Rovers, were losing, and the goal came from a set-piece.  Memories of last-season flashed back briefly.

Bentley in the Bag for Bennett?

Parity was restored with a great move around the Bury area being ended by Kyle Bennett smashing through the middle of the Bury defence to get on the end of Tommy Spurr's return pass.  Rovers deserved that but had been made to work as Bury had had a couple of chances to extend their lead.

Eye-brows are quite rightly being raised about Bennet's abilities, not least from John Ryan.  The Doncaster Chairman has apparently offered Bennett his Bentley should Ryan net 20 goals this season.  With the attention he's already receiving, I would think if he hits this total, the move he could get would enable him to buy his own!

The battle continued in the second half, but with Rovers gradually getting the better of things.  Bury were still holding out though but when Steven Schumacher saw red for a 2nd bookable offence, Rovers simply held too many good cards not to win the game.  Chris Brown ended up with time and space in the Bury area and with 12 minutes remaining, picked his spot perfectly.  A win, but hard work for the Rovers.

Other gossip around the club - James Coppinger, will he stay or will he go.  Well he rejected a loan deal with Barnsley out of hand.  Quite right too.  As Dean Saunders told us when reacting to Copps' decision, just 2 months loan with no guarantees as to what would happen afterwards.  Not a deal to take with the transfer-window still open.

I think its clear though that Dean would like somebody to leave the club to enable him to increase the size of the squad.  I also think that Coppinger is his preferred choice, probably because he is the most likely to command a fee and because he is confident in the abilities of Kyle Bennett and David Cotterill.  Its sad for Copps though.  The longest-serving and most gifted player Rovers have being reduced to barely a supporting role for the greater good of the club.  I hope something good eventually comes of this for him.

CRAWLEY TOWN 

So who are Crawley Town, this team we've never met before?  Crawley's rise has some parallels with Doncaster's.  They had an ex-chairman jailed, so did we; they achieved double-promotion from Conference to League 1, so did we.  But Crawley's rise has been quicker and somewhat perversely, less smooth.

Crawley made it to a national league for the first time in 2004 and their first season went well.  12th place made them the highest ranked part-time team in the country, but then things started to go wrong.

After being bought out, the club's new owner turned the team into a full-time outfit.  It didn't go well.  They dropped to 3rd from bottom of the Conference and went out of the FA Cup in the qualifying round.  The downturn was accompanied by fans staying away and lack of funds required the wage-bill to be halved,  Now doesn't that sound familiar!  A good run to the end of the season, preserved their conference status for the season, but Crawley were forced into administration.

A rescue package was made with the club within an hour of folding.  In the next season, 2006/07 the ship was steadied and Crawley, with their 10-point penalty just avoided relegation on the last day.   2007/08 saw Victor Marley take the position of Chairman at the club.  Marley has found significant investors in the form of Prospect Estate Holdings Ltd. and the financial worries were over.

Well not quite.  Another winding up order was served by HMRC in 2010 due to an allegedly unpaid tax bill.  There had been issues over taxes.  One of them resulting in the imprisonment of former chairman, Azwar Majeed for fraud.  

But this action proved to be an embarrassment for HMRC as the case was dismissed due to Crawley proving the bill had been paid and co-owner, Susan Carter, stating that the club's efforts to be honest and up front about their finances were not being helped by the Inland Revenue's inability to get their admin right.

Since then, double promotion from the conference to league 1 and we meet today!

So far this season, its a very symmetrical record for the red devils.  A 3:0 win against Scunthorpe on opening day, followed by being on the wrong end of the same scoreline on Tuesday.

The goals against Scunthorpe came from a set-piece free-kick, with Hope Akpan nodding down for Gary Alexander to tap in.  The second was Alexander again, this time from the spot after he was hauled down in the box and Jonathan Forte finished things off, latching onto a long ball and rounding the keeper.  

Against Swindon, the goals in the opposite direction were firstly a piece of luck when a cross from Matt Ritchie somehow looped over Paul Jones straight into the net.  The second was poor from a Crawley point of view.  After allowing Rafaelle De Vita to get the first header in the box, the ball should have been cleared.  It went instead to Tommy Miller to drive in.  The third goal again started with a bit of poor defending.  Ball-watching allowed Swindon to continue to press and after some patient build-up work, in came the cross.  Craig McFadzean got a head to the cross but only enough to help it on to De Vita who had an easy finish.

All in all, I though Crawley mainly rely on getting high balls into the box to score their goals, a tactic that would suit the Rovers, so today, I would think they will be trying play Jonathan Forte in behind the twin-towers.  Height and strength should not concern the Rovers defence at the moment, but pace could be terrifying for them.

At the back, I think Craig McFadzean and Gary Alexander will provide the hardest test for the Rovers' front-pairing to date.  It should be a fascinating contest of brains and brawn.

From when I first saw the fixture list, I saw this one as a test for the Rovers.  After reading a bit and watching a bit of Crawley, my opinion has not changed.

Enjoy the match everyone!

The Only Thing Instant is Coffee

The only period when I didn't enjoy being a Rovers fan was when 'im on the left was slowly draining our life-blood.  That was just sad and painful.  

But wasn't surviving those awful times absolutely brilliant?

In the space of five short years we rose from Conference anonimity to competing in the second flight of English football and the seventh biggest league in Europe.  Its a remarkable story and all the more remarkable when you consider that the meteoric rise started only five years after John Ryan purchased the club for £50000 maintaining to this day that he was robbed!

I have said many times that this story would have made a fantastic film bringing even more people to regard Donny as their second favourite club, if not their favourite.

The observant will notice that I used the past-tense to begin that last paragraph.  Now such a film would be something of a joke with football fans all knowing "the most prolific bring-and-buy sale in history" now takes place every Saturday at the Keepmoat Stadium.

The title I have chosen for this article is actually a quote from John Ryan's excellent book.  Sage advice, but baring that meteoric rise up the leagues in mind, and Ryan's continual mentions of play-offs even when we are sitting at the bottom of the league, does he actually believe it?

There's plenty more sage advice in the book too.  Particularly in Chapter 11, "The Fan's Chairman".  I'd encourage anyone to give this chapter a read and try to square it with events at the club today.

Here are a few examples:

Rather than constantly seeking instant and risky solutions by signing endless players, he (O'Driscoll) takes it on board that he bears some of the responsibility, along with the rest of the coaching staff to improve what we have and utilise our resources wisely.

Now try to rationalise that with Dean Saunders' role of being the peace-keeper in a dressing room where good and loyal players are going to be asked to put up and shut up when their place in the squad is lost because some spoilt French brat hasn't had enough time in the Keepmoat Car Boot.  What responsibility does Saunders have when it come to getting the performance of the team to improve?  At the moment, he can just say that he doesn't have the right type of players and in six months he can blame it on the team not gelling, as it is unlikely to do with that revolving door on the dressing room.

Another?

I would wager that most of our fans could have named the side for much of last season and not gone too far wrong.  Continuity is a key factor of our club at all levels.  We've had continuity in the boardroom, continuity in management and, as far as possible, a settled squad......I don't see us as being a club that will suddenly bring in a dozen players in a transfer window.  I'm not sure I've got a chequebook big enough and in any case, it goes very much against the team ethic that we are at pains to promote here.

WOW!  When somebody writes what is effectively an autobiography, you would think what was written in the pages would be sincere stuff!  People change, I accept that but....WOW!  

What is even more incredible is that events over O'Driscoll's last 9 months in charge have unquivocally confirmed how correct Ryan was when writing his book.  Continuity in the team was denied O'Driscoll through a massive amount of injuries and we dropped like a stone.  So, deliberately disrupting the continuity that was proven to be correct must be a smart move!

And finally...

It is also important to me that we are a well-disciplined team.  This is another sometimes under-rated feature of our game that has been transformed over the last decade....I'd like to believe that Donny Rovers are one of the easiest clubs for referees to handle and that is indeed the feedback I often get from them.

Having staffing policy that promotes players being self-serving and hinders the building of team-spirit isn't going to help on the field discipline.  We are also talking, to an extent,  about disillusioned misfits.  Players who are dissatisfied with their lot on £25000 per week.  True, if they pick up red cards, they will be out of the shop-window but will these players have the character and presence of mind to think about that if a potential flash-point in a game occurs?

Now to the "strategy" in which Willie McKay is so confident and let's use his own example.

Herita Ilunga, is being paid £26000 per week.  He's out of favour at the Hammers and they can't get him a move.  So he comes to us and is in the shop window.  The idea being that someone sees him and transfers him to their club.  

Is Ilunga going to take a pay-cut or are his  new employers also going to be happy to pay him £26000 per week?  The only advantage Ilunga has had over staying where he was is playing championship football instead of reserve-team football.  It is a better stage on which to evaluate a player but the player isn't any cheaper and he still is not able to make the starting line-up of a leading championship side.  

So how does his cameo apperance in red and white hoops make him worth his wages?  Surely, any club interested in him will try to squeeze his wages because of how clearly he is displaying his desire for a move?  I'm not a football agent but I really struggle with the business model as far as McKay is concerned.  If the players McKay tauts are forced to take significant pay-cuts to get their football, surely word will get round.  How attractive will our shop window be then?

Using another example, Billy Sharp, I'd like to talk about the players I care about rather than those for whom I could not care less.  Billy has made no secret of the fact that he wants to move on from Donny to a top-flight club at some point.  Good for him!  I hope it happens.

But according to the Daily Mail article, nobody can come in or go out of the Keepmoat without McKay's agreement.  Does that include Billy and other real Rovers players?  What if Billy puts in a transfer request.  Can McKay say no?  When it comes to footballers, strikers are where the money is.  Freddy Piquionne has already been mentioned as a possible window-sitter.  What if another striker comes along, will they get the nod over Billy Sharp?  Personally, if anyone is going to sit in Donny's shop window, I would prefer it to be Billy, for the simple reason that if Billy is transfered, Doncaster Rovers benefit the most from what will be a very sizeable transfer fee (£3.4M at the last offer).  Well, at least it will be sizeable if Billy keeps playing.  How much does that fee drop if he stops playing?

Finally we have the fans.  I quite deliberately posted the Daily Mail article on ja606 without comment and read responses both there and on VSC.  I was quite surprised to see that a majority of fans, whilst appreciating the enormous risks being taken, are largely in favour of what McKay and Doncaster Rovers are doing.

That old joke about the difference between your wife and your football team being that your football team is for life certainly applies to me.  I love the Rovers.  I just don't like them very much at the moment.

But that said, when I read the Daily Mail article, I could not help wondering what I would be watching the next time I am lucky enough to get the chance to go to a match.  The closest thing I could reconcile with the image McKay and Neil Ashton painted for me this morning was a very sad image brought to me by a football documentry.

The documentry covered one of Manchester United's academies and the moment in question was a trial match played in front of a host of football league scouts.  The match involved two teams of young United Academy players.  These players had been told that day that they weren't making the grade at United.  They had then been put on a coach and told to play the best they could because if they played well, they may pick up a contract with a league club.  It was a meat market and such a pitiful one.

It's not going to be that bad at Donny.  The players are older and more seasoned.  But tell me it isn't a meat market.

The main issue facing the Rovers is, as ever, financial.  It is now obvious to me that at least one of the three musketeers is balking at putting his hand in his pocket to the extent that is being asked.  The wage bill did not become £8M overnight.  It was already £7M in 2009/10 season and McKay is correct, those kind of salaries are not sustainable with our attendances unless there is an Abramovich-style benifactor on the scene.

So, we need to either drop a league while maintaining that identity that we used to hold so dear, or we have to do what the club has misguidedly tried to do and find a model that works.

My opinion is that if you are going to restrict that model to a £4M wage budget, in a division where the average was 4-times that figure in 2009/10 it is going to be very difficult.  The only model that would maybe fit would be that of Dario Gradi's Crewe Alexandra of the late 90's / early 00's.

Crewe managed to stay in the second flight between 1997 and 2002.  After relegation, they yo-yo'd, and had another 3 years between 2003 and 2006.  Ominously, Crewe haven't returned to the second flight since parting company with Gradi in 2007.  He is now back with the club who have simply not found anybody who could do what he could.  Crewe are now a mid-table league 2 club.  I can't help worrying that this could join an already long list of parallels I find between Donny and Crewe.

So, if Donny want a model of low budget, high level football and they felt O'Driscoll had done as much as he was able why not give him some low-cost expert support.  Dario Gradi, I am sure would be pleased to act as a consultant to Donny. Dario has a vital piece of knowledge that he can offer the Rovers.  He knows where Crewe went wrong in their pursuit of continuing to punch above their weight.  He is also an expert in the development of young players, an area where Rovers under O'Driscoll failed to excel.  Dario's advice with Sean's tactics might just have brought about a strategy rather than borrowing Willie McKay's  Nescafé.


Please read the Neil Ashton's article about Doncaster Rovers and Wille McKay here