If we had a plan what would you like to see in it.

[GlossopLatic]

Right lets get our thinking caps on.

 

You are Abdullah Lemsagam you have just bought a football club and you have a blank sheet of paper infront of you. What do you want to see the club do within the next 5 years?

 

If its upto me Id like to see us build a strategy around (or even go back to) signing and developing young hungry players.

 

We all know the history of Joe Royle's team and while getting the likes of city Everton and Leeds to send us their cast offs their will be clubs who will be prepared to let some of their youngsters go and it is now and has always been our opportunity to give those types of players a home. We also need to exploit the loan market here, sign the older head to play slongside them such as a Sheridan, Eyres, Gregan, Kuqi or a Clarke and that should be how we recruit players. Infactvits the only way we've ever been sucessful.

 

So where does this leave the #frenchlads well Im not against us signing players from the french lower leagues. Their is bound to be a rough diamond in there but unless you are going to invest money in scouting them then its not worth it. Overall Id like to see us kick the can down the road but I get the impression that that isnt going to happen. So a more refined strategy should be pursued concentrate on players under 23 who can adapt to the English game.

 

Interms of the stadium well I dont think we need to do anything to it Id leave it as it is maybe at most find a tennant for upstairs in the Joe Royle Stand maybe put a bar up there possibly move the fans back to the Chaddy end depending on the consensus amongst the fans. If money is available a decent pitch.

 

However what Id like to see if we were to to make any serious infrastucture investment is improve the training facilities so that we have a facility all year round as we appear to lose training days in the winter which probably doesnt help us at all, and something for the youngsters. We dont need sonetging the size of the ethiad campus we dont even need to become an academy just something better than what we've got.

 

So in conclusion Id like to see us build a strategy around young hungry players who we can develop and give them an environment to thrive. We might have sell one or 2 of them but if we do well enough at it we will 1 or 2 things aswell. Not revolutionary but it would feel like Oldham Athletic and it can be successful and sustainable and I think all the other shit would take care of itself if we did this.

 

What do we all want to see happen?

 

 

[lookersstandandy]

 

[GlossopLatic]

4 minutes ago, lookersstandandy said:

 

 

We know you want a plan but what do you want in it? You've asked questions in that post but what would you want his answers to be if you could sit down and ask him?

[Bobledgersheart]

The problem with getting premiership academy cast offs is the ridiculous wages they're on ( ten grand a week teenagers who've never played a competitive match ) so they'd automatically be our top earners with little or no pedigree.What we need to do is develop our own, play them and be sufficiently funded that we don't have to sell them for a song when the offers come along.

[latics22]

If it was as simple as picking up prem cast offs and sell them for a tidy fortune everyone would be doing it. The only reason we did it under joe was because, we could offer a decent whack in wages, Even in comparison to the big clubs. The land scape has completely changed, I was going to say it nearly impossible to do it without a massive injection of funds from some rich guy. But if I’m honest I think it’s not nearly impossible it is impossible. It’s shit but that’s how it is, unless the prem bubble pops.... I don’t think we are going anywhere fast. The championship with a amazing amount of luck, is the best we can dream of.

[GlossopLatic]

15 minutes ago, Bobledgersheart said:

The problem with getting premiership academy cast offs is the ridiculous wages they're on ( ten grand a week teenagers who've never played a competitive match ) so they'd automatically be our top earners with little or no pedigree.What we need to do is develop our own, play them and be sufficiently funded that we don't have to sell them for a song when the offers come along.

 

We can get them on loan though plus I was thinking more championship level clubs while we were at league 2 level. Their will be players available who have been cast a side by bigger clubs who will find a home here if we look for and pick them properly

Edited August 17, 2018 by GlossopLatic

[lookersstandandy]

1 hour ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

We know you want a plan but what do you want in it? You've asked questions in that post but what would you want his answers to be if you could sit down and ask him?

 

If money was no object;

- Buy the assets of Brassbank, The Joe Royle Stand, OEC & finish the top floor to include an indoor Junior Latics facility. Make it the family stand.

- Knock down the Chaddy End, rebuild it with cantaliever roof/bar facilities, rail standing/seating & rename it the Roger Palmer Stand. Make it the singing stand & home end. See if he can cast an enormous shadow on the houses behind it such that Brassbank struggle to sell them.

- Knock down the Main Stand & rebuild it being sympathetic to the brick wall fascia & tunnel/stairs that lead down onto the pitch.

- Encourage - by agreeing to gift some money to the budget - GMPTE to extend the tram from Oldham past the hospital/Boundary Park to make it easier to get straight from Manchester to the ground for away supporters.

- Install undersoil heating & lay a new reliable pitch with suitable equipment to maintain it.

- Find a location in Oldham to build us a new purpose built training facility from which to also house the ‘Tony Philliskirk’ Academy & Andy Ritchie Indoor centre.

- Make the facilites available to the community.

- Heavily advertise Latics to the boroughs of Oldham and Tameside as the family alternative, by attacking the social injustice of a Premier League footballer earning £100k’s week when the local average wage will be c£20k a year, while offering £100 adult season tickets & £50 concessions.

 

In reality, I’d be delighted if;

- He committed a budget toward the youth set up by increasing number/quality of coaches, extended the scouting network to find more kids/pick them up when discarded from bigger/wealthier clubs, which was designed to increase the number of players we can blood into the 1st team squad each year.

- Find a way to lease/rent the top floor of the Joe Royle Stand & using it for the benefit of supporters and to make a profit from which to add to club funds.

- Work closely with OACT and do some low cost advertising & hold events locally to encourage the populous of Oldham to attend.

- Stability - assuming competence - in management appointments & recruitment (players with promise on 2/3 year contracts).

- The loan market was used sensibly, not a constant procession & revolving door.

- The #FrenchLads were limited in number each season and discernibly made a difference.

- Accepting we are a selling club, demonstrate a strategy to transfer policy. We held strong on assets - selling them for good money - to be able to reinvest some of the income on new players.

 

I expect the following to be hygiene factors;

- Pay employees on time.

- No winding up petitions from disgruntled creditors.

- No negative press/journo stories.

- No culture of fear over losing your job.

- Player drama - suspensions, social media attack’s from ex players, links to signing convicted criminals, sackings - infrequent events.

Edited August 17, 2018 by lookersstandandy

[mikeroyboy]

I am comfortable with what he has 'allegedly' done - repaying the debt. Investing in players to repay debt is riskier than the stock market.

 

I now hope AL has some luck with Bunn and Rhodes being able to produce the magic ingredients to create a decent mindset and camaraderie between our young loan players, young home grown players and our own experienced players, including Baxter and Byrne.

If, we can then manage the top half of table by Christmas and keeping the fans onboard I would like to see Al release some funds for two or three fan pleasing signings in January.

 

I would also be happy with comfortable consolidation this season. I am prepared to give AL a fair go, there not being a alternative helps focus on the impracticality of expecting others to take financial risk on my behalf and hobby. 

 

Comparing Joe Royle's achievements is way off the mark from where we are now. He struggled early on. He did manage to make a few shrewd free signings, Irwin being a perfect example but good money was made available to him also. Holden 165,000, Adams 100,000, Barret 30,000, Linighan 45,000, Richie 50,000 are some his expensive (at the time) signings, we were also in the 2nd Division. A Royle was also given a time.  

 

 

 

 

[RoytonLatics]

37 minutes ago, mikeroyboy said:

I am comfortable with what he has 'allegedly' done - repaying the debt. Investing in players to repay debt is riskier than the stock market.

 

I now hope AL has some luck with Bunn and Rhodes being able to produce the magic ingredients to create a decent mindset and camaraderie between our young loan players, young home grown players and our own experienced players, including Baxter and Byrne.

If, we can then manage the top half of table by Christmas and keeping the fans onboard I would like to see Al release some funds for two or three fan pleasing signings in January.

 

I would also be happy with comfortable consolidation this season. I am prepared to give AL a fair go, there not being a alternative helps focus on the impracticality of expecting others to take financial risk on my behalf and hobby. 

 

Comparing Joe Royle's achievements is way off the mark from where we are now. He struggled early on. He did manage to make a few shrewd free signings, Irwin being a perfect example but good money was made available to him also. Holden 165,000, Adams 100,000, Barret 30,000, Linighan 45,000, Richie 50,000 are some his expensive (at the time) signings, we were also in the 2nd Division. A Royle was also given a time.  

 

 

 

 

 

Could the lower wages of the time allowed for the sort of transfer fees which we don't see anymore? 

[johnafoafc]

Don’t want to change or steer the topic away from the title. Joe did a lot of wheeling and dealing and paid those fees for players from the money that had been generated from player sales rather than him just being given a cheque book. Although another poster (prozac I think) has mentioned previously that we had a wealthy director at the time who underwrote some of the fees that Joe paid in return for a cut of any future profits.

Also there wasn’t such a gulf in wages between the divisions back then. A division two club could sign a division one reserve and not have to break the wage structure. I read somewhere that Denis Irwin had an offer from Chesterfield at the time he signed for us. They were in the division below and were offering him more money but he correctly chose to sign for us. As mentioned before there are youngsters in academies earning thousands a week without ever having played a senior game who would be unwilling to take a hit and drop down the leagues. This isn’t to say that it couldn’t be done again, it’d just be much harder.

Edited August 17, 2018 by johnafoafc

[johnafoafc]

Back on topic, all hypothetical, if money was no object, the first thing I would like to see is the stadium and surrounding land belonging to the club again, no more brassbank lurking in the background.

 

Would also like to see the club signing young hungry players with potential to develop who could help us to move back up the leagues. Hopefully they would be sold for good fees with add ons if and when the opportunity arose. Ideally a good proportion of the fees received would be reinvested in the squad budget.

 

It would also be good to see the club being more active in the community and making efforts to boost the fan base. Obviously performances on the pitch would go a long way to achieving this.

[rudemedic]

More Jack Byrne.

 

 

 

 

[GlossopLatic]

8 hours ago, mikeroyboy said:

 

Comparing Joe Royle's achievements is way off the mark from where we are now. He struggled early on. He did manage to make a few shrewd free signings, Irwin being a perfect example but good money was made available to him also. Holden 165,000, Adams 100,000, Barret 30,000, Linighan 45,000, Richie 50,000 are some his expensive (at the time) signings, we were also in the 2nd Division. A Royle was also given a time.  

 

 

Its all to scale though

 

While we wont be able to pinch the best young players from Man City and Everton but their will be championship clubs even top end league 1 clubs will have young players who they dont want who we can have and can be successful for us in league 2 a small investment in young players can ofcourse bring dividends. We can also look at young non-league players.

[mikeroyboy]

5 minutes ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

Its all to scale though

 

While we wont be able to pinch the best young players from Man City and Everton but their will be championship clubs even top end league 1 clubs will have young players who they dont want who we can have and can be successful for us in league 2 a small investment in young players can ofcourse bring dividends. We can also look at young non-league players.

 

Is it to scale though. According to Joe's autobiography shortly after he signed he was instructed he needed to sell players to release much needed funds. Selling John Ryan, Paul Atkinson and Roger Wilde for a total of 445,000 and bringing in Mark Ward, Derrick Parker and Joe McBride for a total of 52,000. Then Martin Buchan and Tony  Henry arrived for free.

 

It was certainly a different world back then but that is the basic component of history. People and events are judged on decisions made and well chronicled results of those decisions after the event.

 

Joe Royle and Oldham Athletic was a one off and hardly likely to be repeated. He was also aided and abetted by local businessmen. A coming together of a perfect storm.

 

There is no blueprint for the way forward, each clubs circumstances are unique. 

[UsedtobeWozzer]

I just want graphs in it. No plan is complete without graphs. 

[L1onheartNew]

Jack Back!

[GlossopLatic]

1 hour ago, mikeroyboy said:

 

Is it to scale though. According to Joe's autobiography shortly after he signed he was instructed he needed to sell players to release much needed funds. Selling John Ryan, Paul Atkinson and Roger Wilde for a total of 445,000 and bringing in Mark Ward, Derrick Parker and Joe McBride for a total of 52,000. Then Martin Buchan and Tony  Henry arrived for free.

 

It was certainly a different world back then but that is the basic component of history. People and events are judged on decisions made and well chronicled results of those decisions after the event.

 

Joe Royle and Oldham Athletic was a one off and hardly likely to be repeated. He was also aided and abetted by local businessmen. A coming together of a perfect storm.

 

There is no blueprint for the way forward, each clubs circumstances are unique. 

 

Im not asking for Joe Royle levels of success in the next 5 years Im asking for an improvement from where we are now. Is having Oldham Athletic challenge at the top end of league 1 with a fighting chance of getting into the championship an achievable goal within the next 5 years? I think it is.

 

While many things in football and in life have changed certain things dont. I still dont see why implementing a strategy to go out scout recruit and develop young players vant bring success on the pitch and sustainability of it by buying cheap and selling on. Its only what Rochdale have done. I think we can do something like what they have done on a bigger scale and achieve bigger success.

[GlossopLatic]

12 hours ago, latics22 said:

If it was as simple as picking up prem cast offs and sell them for a tidy fortune everyone would be doing it. The only reason we did it under joe was because, we could offer a decent whack in wages, Even in comparison to the big clubs. The land scape has completely changed, I was going to say it nearly impossible to do it without a massive injection of funds from some rich guy. But if I’m honest I think it’s not nearly impossible it is impossible. It’s shit but that’s how it is, unless the prem bubble pops.... I don’t think we are going anywhere fast. The championship with a amazing amount of luck, is the best we can dream of.

 

We need to break this negative mindset that seems to be not just at the club but perhaps in the town of Oldham itself that nothing can ever get better, it can all it requires is a vision, a plan, some brains and a shit load of determination and things can and will get better.

[latics22]

22 hours ago, johnafoafc said:

Back on topic, all hypothetical, if money was no object, the first thing I would like to see is the stadium and surrounding land belonging to the club again, no more brassbank lurking in the background.

 

Would also like to see the club signing young hungry players with potential to develop who could help us to move back up the leagues. Hopefully they would be sold for good fees with add ons if and when the opportunity arose. Ideally a good proportion of the fees received would be reinvested in the squad budget.

 

It would also be good to see the club being more active in the community and making efforts to boost the fan base. Obviously performances on the pitch would go a long way to achieving this.

It’s all gone!