Walking Down The Halbeath Road

[Clangers]

Taylor Sutherland was by far the best player on the pitch tonight, that boy has some great skills, definitely not be a bench warmer this season.

[Well over Par]

Auld Reekie, tonight is a worry. No positives other than young Taylor 

[Hedgecutter]

With the Pars' recent record against Fife sides, you'd almost fancy Cowden to do another number on them if they played any time soon.

Fancied a trip to the Cove game, but looks like I'll be away.

[DA Baracus]

How were the team set up last night? Same as most of last season?

[SRB]

4 at back, 1 holding, 2 cm, 2 wide players and 1 up top for both teams 

[Heaton]

He has said he wants us more attacking and creating chances. Fingers crossed.

On last night's result. I wasn't impressed seeing the score but look at the starting and ending 11. Mcpake said he wanted to use two different 11s and did. We know the depth isn't there to have two strong 11s. Not even anywhere near. So that result and game was about match time for the players and nothing more.

On the academy debate and costs. It's not just an academy it's also our own training development facility and the idea is it will help attract players knowing we have good infrastructure at the club. It's happening and time will tell. Let's leave it there eh.

The relegation and associated costs in pay offs and lost revenue following the covid period as well, along with the desire for the club to be self sufficient means we're not going to be spending to try win the league this or any season.  It's not great when our nearest neighbours obviously are doing this as are a couple of other clubs. But it's a gamble that our owners won't take.

 

Edited June 29 by Heaton

[da_no_1]

3 minutes ago, Heaton said:

He has said he wants us more attacking and creating chances. Fingers crossed.

On last night's result. I wasn't impressed seeing the score but look at the starting and ending 11. Mcpake said he wanted to use two different 11s and did. We know the depth isn't there to have two strong 11s. Not even anywhere near. So that result and game was about match time for the players and nothing more.

 

On the academy debate and costs. It's not just an academy it's also our own training development facility and the idea is it will help attract players knowing we have good infrastructure at the club. It's happening and time will tell. Let's leave it there eh.

The relegation and associated costs in pay offs and lost revenue following the covid period as well, along with the desire for the club to be self sufficient means we're not going to be spending to try win the league this or any season.  It's not great when our nearest neighbours obviously are doing this as are a couple of other clubs. But it's a gamble that our owners won't take.

 

Sensible post

[HoBNob]

23 minutes ago, Heaton said:

.

On the academy debate and costs. It's not just an academy it's also our own training development facility and the idea is it will help attract players knowing we have good infrastructure at the club. It's happening and time will tell. Let's leave it there eh.

It's quite possible to have a training facility without an academy? The cost of the facility while being an initial cost you could argue will help save some money with regards to not paying for pitch hire (I appreciate you will have upkeep costs), it will also help attract players, hopefully. 

 

 

The cost of an academy is seperate from that, and a quite considerable expense. All your coaches, the extra kit and equipment, travel to and from games etc soon starts to add up. If we want to have a good enough academy so that we can stop the top youth talent from travelling 20 minutes along the road to Hearts it gets very, very expensive. And with the tiny fees you get for players at this level it's just quite simply, not worth it. 

Edit - On the point of being self sufficient we're not even being that, we posted a massive loss last year, we're posting a big loss this year, we're spending allot of money and that isn't translating to us being a good team to watch us at the weekend, everything in the club should be geared towards that. Either players in this squad are seriously overpaid, or we're spending money in the wrong areas. 

Edited June 29 by HoBNob

[Arab_R_us]

how did the united Trialist Duffy play ?

[HoBNob]

10 minutes ago, Arab_R_us said:

how did the united Trialist Duffy play ?

Got given a bit of a torrid time by the East Fife number 16

[Arab_R_us]

1 minute ago, HoBNob said:

Got given a bit of a torrid time by the East Fife number 16

that dosnt sound good. Cheers

[Rob1885]

How did the goalie look?

[United1973]

16 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

How did the goalie look?

Think he was only playing to make number I don't think he is signing 

[HallglenPar]

21 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

How did the goalie look?

Didn’t look comfortable 

[starshot131]

1 hour ago, HoBNob said:

 And with the tiny fees you get for players at this level it's just quite simply, not worth it.  

Not so sure about tiny fees, qp have had two 6 figure sum transfers in the last year from our academy

Not to mention what we could've got for Robertson, shankland, Douglas etc

There must be at least one good prospect in Fife that can't be arsed driving to Edinburgh for training every time that yous can hook

[parsforlife]

 

11 minutes ago, starshot131 said:

Not so sure about tiny fees, qp have had two 6 figure sum transfers in the last year from our academy

Not to mention what we could've got for Robertson, shankland, Douglas etc

There must be at least one good prospect in Fife that can't be arsed driving to Edinburgh for training every time that yous can hook

Low 6 figure fees don't keep the lights on. You need McCarthy type deals to be move the needle and I think he's one of the only examples in the last 20 years or so to generate that sort of cash and that was after he proved he could do it in the top flight too.

[Chubbychops]

1 hour ago, HoBNob said:

It's quite possible to have a training facility without an academy? The cost of the facility while being an initial cost you could argue will help save some money with regards to not paying for pitch hire (I appreciate you will have upkeep costs), it will also help attract players, hopefully. 

 

 

The cost of an academy is seperate from that, and a quite considerable expense. All your coaches, the extra kit and equipment, travel to and from games etc soon starts to add up. If we want to have a good enough academy so that we can stop the top youth talent from travelling 20 minutes along the road to Hearts it gets very, very expensive. And with the tiny fees you get for players at this level it's just quite simply, not worth it. 

Edit - On the point of being self sufficient we're not even being that, we posted a massive loss last year, we're posting a big loss this year, we're spending allot of money and that isn't translating to us being a good team to watch us at the weekend, everything in the club should be geared towards that. Either players in this squad are seriously overpaid, or we're spending money in the wrong areas. 

Great point about the training ground/academy.

Exactly how I feel about the self sufficiency too.  The youth obsession has gone to far. How many years will it take to bear fruit too? How many years of neglecting the first team will it take for this grand plan to start paying off. We will be in league 1 with crowds of 1500 by then.

[Chubbychops]

45 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

How did the goalie look?

A total bombscare.

[HoBNob]

29 minutes ago, starshot131 said:

Not so sure about tiny fees, qp have had two 6 figure sum transfers in the last year from our academy

Not to mention what we could've got for Robertson, shankland, Douglas etc

There must be at least one good prospect in Fife that can't be arsed driving to Edinburgh for training every time that yous can hook

Those are tiny fees in relation to making money from the academy though. How much do you reckon it costs to run an academy? A conservative figure would have you at £200,000 to have one on a decent scale. 

The best academy I can remember at this level was Falkirk in the 2010s, they were selling players every summer for decent enough fees, and even then they dropped the academy in the end with the reasoning being that the player sales were barely covering the costs of the academy, they're expensive. 

I'd also argue that they're best player from that era didn't come through the academy, I'm not sure how much money Vaulks went for but he's went on to have a very good career. Likewise our two most sellable assets at the moment are Otoo and KRH, it's absolutely plausible to have the aim of selling young talent without sinking thousands into an academy. 

[Springfield]

37 minutes ago, HoBNob said:

Those are tiny fees in relation to making money from the academy though. How much do you reckon it costs to run an academy? A conservative figure would have you at £200,000 to have one on a decent scale. 

 

The best academy I can remember at this level was Falkirk in the 2010s, they were selling players every summer for decent enough fees, and even then they dropped the academy in the end with the reasoning being that the player sales were barely covering the costs of the academy, they're expensive. 

I'd also argue that they're best player from that era didn't come through the academy, I'm not sure how much money Vaulks went for but he's went on to have a very good career. Likewise our two most sellable assets at the moment are Otoo and KRH, it's absolutely plausible to have the aim of selling young talent without sinking thousands into an academy. 

We had an academy that many provincial clubs couldn’t get near, produced some great youngsters and made some decent pounds with sales.
Virtually closed it overnight dumped a vast array of coaches/players of the future on the shiter.

Statement that followed was brutal, and told we couldn’t afford the costs associated with running an academy, by imposters brought in to run our club. Figures of up to 400K/yr were being widely bandied about, and I’ve absolutely no idea what the true costs were. Don't think 200K+ is too far off. 

Not blaming the Academy for the last five years, but certainly didn’t help. We  are slowly putting in little blocks with the youth again, but unless we find an investor with millions to burn, like yous guys a full time academy is pipe dream at present. 

Look forward to the fixture again.