[SaltergateBorn]

As Max Boyce would have said .....I WAS THERE!!!

I thought long and hard about whether or not to go yesterday but, as I`ve already said on another thread, I do like to follow cup runs occasionally - so I did. When they scored and we spent the first 20 minutes or so running around like headless chickens, I must admit the word "why?" went through my mind a few times but at the end of the day I`m glad I did.

Was it pretty to watch? Don`t be silly; we don`t do `pretty` these days, but it was worth going just to see the relief on MA`s and on the players` faces at the end of the game. I really do hope that this gives them a bit of confidence now. I said to the bloke standing next to me at half-time that I couldn`t see us holding out in the second half and even at 2-1 I`d still take a draw and a replay, but I was delighted to be proved wrong - again. After that early spell, I actually thought the back line looked pretty solid - and that`s something I haven`t been able to say for a while. Apart from the shot that hit the crossbar in the last few minutes I really can`t remember Fylde creating a great deal, even though they had a lot of possession.

Kiwomya looked lively and it looks as though we may be getting used to playing off Denton - he was certainly a handful for their defence. However, from the fact that all 3 goals came from set-pieces (free kick, penalty, corner) you may be tempted to think that there was a lack of creativity (again) and you`d be right. Still, that bloody run is over.

And I WAS THERE.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Well done SGB. Hopefully as you say we will have a bit more confidence running through the team. Is it 4 now undefeated? Wrexham wont be easy but at least now we might be up for it.

[SaltergateBorn]

Got a bit carried away, there; sorry about that, but I`d rather given up hope of seeing us win again after that run and I`m usually the Jonah who puts the mokkers on things by daring to turn up and putting an end to a successful run.

Seriously, I was disappointed at how few there were in the away end on Saturday; the contrast with Salford was mind-blowing. Is that down to disillusionment with the way the team has been playing or symptomatic of the decline in interest in the FA Cup in recent years? If it`s the former, no problem; the support will soon come back when results improve, but if the latter that saddens me. I love the FA Cup, but so many big clubs now treat it as an irrelevance at best and an inconvenience at worst that I suppose a decline in interest is inevitable. Sad.

I agree, Dancing, Wrexham will be far from easy. Before Saturday I wouldn`t have given us a cat in hell`s chance of getting anything from the game but now we just might. I`ve said before that I think there`s a half-decent team in there somewhere and if we can get some confidence in there we may actually start to see it.

[Devongone]

Wrexham will be the Denial Derby. The fans of both teams are in denial. Our fans all over Bobs had given up on the team before Saturday ......... and you can hardly find one who accepts where we are and realises we just need to get on with it. Mostly they seem concerned to slag off the opposition / the referee / the facilities / the league even though every team we play demonstrates on the field that we are down at the correct level.

In my entire lifetime we have never been higher than what is effectively the third division and so now we are in what is effectively the fifth division. How much of a shock can that be? Blimey I saw it was on the cards before we sacked Danny Wilson ..... because we clearly weren't investing heavily in the team, which didn't look as though it would change, and we weren't showing any signs that we were uncovering the good, cheap players hidden lower down the pyramid.

Wrexham have taken ten years plus to begin to accept where they are and to realise they have to fight for an entire season to get out of it. Perhaps the shock of our winless run, which has now now ended, might be enough to make us work out what we have to do and how difficult it will be. As Harrogate's manager points out there are fine margins at this level ...... and he is under no illusion how difficult maintaining their current slight superiority will be. Fylde have been scoring goals and not conceding at home, yet we won 3-1. The cup is an important source of income and publicity to smaller clubs; Fylde did not want to lose, so that is a good result, which I'm sure will have Wrexham worrying more than they would two weeks ago.

There seems to be epidemic of false memory syndrome about. I know that under Paul Cook we played some football that was both successful and good to watch BUT in Division One and Two substance and results vastly outweighed style. Even when we were doing well, how often were fans complaining that the opposition was poor and content to use any tactic to stop Chesterfield? How often was the ref' pants in the eyes of the fans? How often were the fans dissatisfied with their surroundings etc? How often did the fans want Paul Cook to do something different to what he was actually doing? There plenty of thorns in the bed of roses even then ......... Which fans suspected Eoin Doyle might be able to score goals every week when he was cast as lone front man?

The truth is some of our fans carry a memory with them of a time that never was. Paul Cook would have been well-satisfied with a 3-1 away win at Fylde in the FA Cup when we were in the EFL.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Agree 100% Dev, the majority of fans are fickle and have very short memories.
There is a little band of merry men on BB who think we should be way above the level we are at and yet they don't support the team ( financially or vocally by claiming diplomatic immunity - NAPM). There are maybe 20-25 posters who think they speak on behalf of everybody and that their opinion is all that matters.
Sooner or later they will come down to earth and realize DA isn't going to give up and just walk away.
Wrexham were always a bigger club than us as were Luton who also spent years out of the FL. Pretty soon our more gobby fans may just wake up put up and shut up.

[Devongone]

Well yes, I do think we have to find a way of getting back up, whilst we have DA! The alternative is that we all add to or create such misery throughout the club that we end up slipping down another level and find we still have DA - the club is more likely to drown than him unfortunately.

That means we have to be better at the things the more successful sides at this level do. AND we have to be better than a normal top of this division side ...... because we look vaguely like a league club (until they see us play) so they will all continue to want to beat us. Unless next season Notts County have come down to join us we'll be a major target (if we survive this season).

I'm beginning to think it would be far better for everyone concerned if a new breakaway club formed. It could only enliven grassroots in the area. Any football being played has to be a good thing in itself. AND the challenge might just push us to prove who the real professionals in the town are ...... Starting a new club is a wonderful thing, but you have to positively want a new and different club; not simply to destroy the one you used to love. And that's my fear - on Bob's the bitterness runs far more than skin-deep.

[SaltergateBorn]

Personally, I`ve no doubts whatsoever that if we survive the next couple of years financially (and that, like it or not, depends entirely on DA) we WILL one day make our way back into the EFL. Whether or not that will happen in my lifetime is another matter, however. `Bigger` clubs than us have dropped into non-league and had a hell of a struggle getting back out again and, as you say Dancing, I would certainly count Wrexham and Luton amongst them. In fact, as I recall Luton only dropped out of the league because of a colossal - was it 30? - points deduction so weren`t actually relegated on `merit`but still took several years to get back. Carlisle and Oxford have both gone from top flight to non-league so could consider themselves far 'bigger` than us.: Notts County would be another. Nobody has any God-given right to play at any particular level.

I agree, Dev, that DA in himself is no insurmountable obstacle to us getting back - unless he decides he wants to be. And why in the name of the Almighty would he want to do that? He has a very hefty personal financial stake in the club and the healthier the club`s position the more likely he is to get a decent return on his investment. He`s clearly a pretty stubborn character and like you I don`t see him just biting the bullet, upping sticks and walking away. He would have accepted the offer that was made pre-season, surely, if he was at all that way inclined.

I`m not at all sure about the idea of a breakaway club, though. It`s been tried a few times, as I recall, but is rarely if ever successful. It needs a group of people with a lot of business acumen, a lot of patience and and a LOT of financial resources to make it work. Also, it would inevitably split the fanbase - or whatever is left of it. It`s superficially an appealing proposition but in reality it would be an action based on bitterness and vindictiveness. As you say, its most likely outcome would be the destruction of CFC with no real likelihood that its offspring would achieve anything at all. What would we call it - Oedipus United?

[Devongone]

I agree with everything you say about the problems with a breakaway club SGB but it is such hard work and would require so much time and commitment it would focus away much of the energy currently expended on repeating arguments and complaints ad infinitum.

If you could create a club that would in a few years reach even Belper or Frickley's level that would be an enormous achievement in my book. You would then have a bit of a launch pad for creating an EFL club if Chesterfield were still a failing former league team. Otherwise you'd have a competitive AFC Mansfield type club, which could develop players and compete in front of a few hundred people each week, whilst Chesterfield down the road pushed for promotion in EFL Division One.

On Bob's I think they largely want to punish DA, miraculously create a rival club out of nothing and register their dissatisfaction. When you have Tuesday night training to organise, the kit to launder, and an important league meeting penciled in for Wednesday followed by a disciplinary hearing in Sheffield on Thursday night that clashes with a fundraiser ........... you need genuine, overwhelming enthusiasm to come through smiling. There are people behind the scenes in non-league who have done twenty, thirty or forty years of this ...... for nothing.

If all a new club wanted to do was to destroy Chesterfield FC, how far would they get if DA decided he quite liked the idea of a fight? It'd be like playing poker with Bill Gates.

[SaltergateBorn]

I`m not going to argue with any of that, Dev.

The idea of setting up an amateur club as a `feeder` club is quite intriguing. I`ve no idea whether or not AFC Mansfield was set up or functions on this basis, but that idea might have some potential. It would give the fringe players and the senior academy players (if there is such a thing) a taste of competitive `men`s football`, as MA likes to call it. The downside, of course, is the cost and, to be fair, there are probably one or two local junior sides already running who might be happy to be taken under the wing of a more senior club on this basis. A few years ago, I used to work with a bloke who was on the committee of a club who played in the Evo-Stik at that time; they were approached by Aston Villa, I think it was, to operate on that basis. They turned the offer down, as it happens, because they wanted to keep their independence. Interesting idea, nevertheless.

Realistically, though, the time for doing that was a few years ago when we weren`t in the financial mire that we are now. There would still be a cost that we clearly couldn`t carry at present.

[Devongone]

AFC Mansfield was I think set up as a reaction against Mansfield's misrule, but now it seems to be forging its own identity AND the old Mansfield are going along much better than us at the moment.

When you set up a team you may have aims and ambitions, but you can't KNOW what you are going to become. A few years down the line Chesterfield South End could have its own identity and at the Proact Dave Allen could be years-dead, control could have passed elsewhere and the fans could be singing again. The point is that the worst a new club could do to Chesterfield in the early days would be two take away two or three hundred supporters, who were probably totally disenchanted anyway. By the time the new club became any kind of rival everything at the Proact could be different - and even Brexit might have got sorted one way or another. Time passes and it changes everything in its path. And yes a new Chesterfield South End might be the ideal place for us to send our developing young players to gain experience. The two clubs don't have to end up as bitter enemies tearing the town apart. How great would it be to have a home match every week with a team worth supporting? Chesterfield South End? Chesterfield Revolution maybe - the Magpie from the coat of arms signifying the Revolution House....... Juventus shirts with a flash of green and purple added?