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Berwick Rangers 2018/2019 Thread


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Decent presentation by the Chairman (elect) and also by the manager. 

All very positive and realistic stuff. Particularly enthused by the potential link with North East players and with the attached new training regime. 

Also pleased by a contribution from a regular on here, that negative stuff on social media is (usually) a reaction, not something that screws us up in the first place. 

And then we get today's awful performance. 

Listen, I love this club.  It has so much more going for it than manufactured plastic wannabees elsewhere. If I were a player, I reckon I'd see that too. 

Right now, we're having a bad time. But we've had great times. What goes around comes around. 

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On ‎29‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 06:22, Sergeant Wilson said:

Is there much support for "moving"? I'd wondered, but with limited knowledge, if a move to the Northern League might work.

Would the NL want you, the existing clubs might not fancy the travel?

 

On ‎29‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 13:06, Redcar said:

No. 

Outside of the Spfl, nothing makes much sense to be honest. 

 

On ‎29‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 17:02, NE63 exile said:

I wouldn’t think we would have to go the bottom. I’m sure the FA would accommodate us somewhere and my guess would be the Northern League for starters.
Would we better off in England I’m not sure. The travelling in the NL might not be so bad as the SPFL but the drawback is a lot of the NL clubs don’t bring much travelling support.

 

 


Moving to level 9/10 of England's pyramid would represent a huge psychological shift, particularly for Scottish fans, IMO. Maybe too much for many to swallow.

No idea on travel, tbh.

Even in LL you're only 1 promotion from returning to the Scottish League; and on the cup front you're a couple of rounds from a big tie in the Scottish Cup and top 4 play in the Challenge Cup. Relocating to Northumberland area football with narrower horizons could be a huge change in mindset. Looking at some of the attendances in the top level of that league, they're similar to us currently - before any drop - so if it reflects playing quality that might be the ceiling.

Certainly a far bigger question than simply what helped find new players. Chat rather premature, though.

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21 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

 

 


Moving to level 9/10 of England's pyramid would represent a huge psychological shift, particularly for Scottish fans, IMO. Maybe too much for many to swallow.

No idea on travel, tbh.

Even in LL you're only 1 promotion from returning to the Scottish League; and on the cup front you're a couple of rounds from a big tie in the Scottish Cup and top 4 play in the Challenge Cup. Relocating to Northumberland area football with narrower horizons could be a huge change in mindset. Looking at some of the attendances in the top level of that league, they're similar to us currently - before any drop - so if it reflects playing quality that might be the ceiling.

Certainly a far bigger question than simply what helped find new players. Chat rather premature, though.

Agree. My thought process was that getting north east based players is very difficult if they have to both train and play in Scotland, and having purely Central belt players would also be very difficult in the Lowland League. (Who would sign up for a 100+ Mile round trip for a home game, when you can get a similar deal from Spartans/Kelty/Bonnyrigg/Beath/Ed City/Shire etc etc? ) 

Now that the manager and Chairman elect have embraced the idea of split training, the notion of switching to English football, is fairly irrelevant. 

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7 hours ago, DutchBorderer said:

A good report and a few interesting points can't believe Harvey has his head in the sand so much about Albion Rovers.

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Sadly.the election of JB as chairman should have been done a couple of seasons ago. A decent man arriving as the cowboys leave the scene. The position we find ourselves in has come about from season after season of malneglect from above. The lack of football direction has left us hanging by a nail. We shouldn't be surprised by this, it's been on the cards. But the thing that bothers me is the wilful neglect. As for the manager, I agree with others there was enough time after Robbie to salvage the season. But I watch us play and still don't get what the game plan is with us. Haven't all season. Reckon the players don't either. We look like strangers half the time.I have just seen the video if Kevin Harper on Sky and was impressed by his enthusiasm and genuine honesty. In a short space of time he has got AR organised and battling. Don't want to just do the keyboard warrior bit, I feel like a bit of my whole world is coming apart, daft but believe me it's a hellish feeling. Only supporters of disenfranchised clubs may comment...

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23 minutes ago, DutchBorderer said:

Daniel McKenzie on leaving the club, alongside two other guys involved in the development setup;

D3KsFAOWwAAadwU.jpg

Jeez, this is a big blow. 

Daniel and his team can be proud of what they have achieved. 

Will the last person out turn off the lights. 

We need to find a buyer ASAP.

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Sadly.the election of JB as chairman should have been done a couple of seasons ago. A decent man arriving as the cowboys leave the scene. The position we find ourselves in has come about from season after season of malneglect from above. The lack of football direction has left us hanging by a nail. We shouldn't be surprised by this, it's been on the cards. But the thing that bothers me is the wilful neglect. As for the manager, I agree with others there was enough time after Robbie to salvage the season. But I watch us play and still don't get what the game plan is with us. Haven't all season. Reckon the players don't either. We look like strangers half the time.I have just seen the video if Kevin Harper on Sky and was impressed by his enthusiasm and genuine honesty. In a short space of time he has got AR organised and battling. Don't want to just do the keyboard warrior bit, I feel like a bit of my whole world is coming apart, daft but believe me it's a hellish feeling. Only supporters of disenfranchised clubs may comment...

There’s been utter complacency going back nearly a decade and I’m afraid nobody can absolve themselves of ‘blame’ for the situation we’re in, including the chairman elect. Not disastrous mismanagement like Albion taking out a £100k loan at a ridiculous interest rate, but a slow and steady decline. Death my 1000 cuts.

 

It’s frightening doing a little search of some threads on here from even 5+ years ago, where we talking about the same things. Standing still, but really going backwards in comparison with others. The farce in the summer just accelerated things. Have a look at some of the things we were all talking about in here:

 

https://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php?/topic/218089-albion-rovers-v-berwick-rangers-sat-241014/

 

It was interesting when George Mathison presented to the Supporters groups recently and showed how little the clubs turnover had grown compared to inflation over the past decade, and this has been during a period where we’ve had money in the bank, Rangers x3, Celtic, quarter final run etc. We’ve shrunk. As much as Brian Porteous was prudent with the finances, we were too tight. When we had money we didn’t use it to grow and our last winning season (won more than lost) was the league winning one about 12 seasons ago.

 

Maybe it could have been different with one or two good managerial appointments over the past decade, but other than Cameron (who ultimately failed anyway), every appointment has been safe or unambitious. Crease, Yano, Coughlin, Horn and Harvey.

 

I wrote this in January 2014 after being frustrated reading an article in the Trust news letter which I believed at the time to be a list of excuses.

 

https://iceypie.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/berwick-rangers-sleepwalking-towards-relegation/

 

I don’t think much has changed tbh, and similar reasons/excuses were played out on Saturday imo. I was also disappointed to hear little of what I heard when Mathison put together a very good presentation late last year.

 

What we have on the board is what we have. I don’t see the point in demanding a whole board resign (like I see asked for by some on social media) when there’s no obvious replacements. But I also don’t think we should be fooled into thinking a new chairman means some kind of new era. I wish John all the best, but I’m with Disc Potato here, as a club we really need to be actively looking for some proper investment or for someone to take the club over. I said as much two summers ago after that shambles of a season that saw us scrape by Edinburgh on the last day.

 

Saturday for me I’m afraid was little more than trying to maximise income to stand still and even then the internet and social media didn’t get a mention when talking about it. It was almost like a 10 year old presentation. I don’t want to sound like ‘I told you so’, because there are no easy answers and truthfully, I can’t think of many at this stage. George Mathisons presentation was a good start and included many of the things people on here have been banging on about, but Saturday, including the game had me down in the dumps again.

 

In amongst all of the shite this season, there have been a few promising performances that give me a little hope we are capable of picking up some wins before the end of the season if we get a grip so let’s hope for the best, but it’s looking grim.

 

 

 

 

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Daniel McKenzie on leaving the club, alongside two other guys involved in the development setup;
D3KsFAOWwAAadwU.jpg&key=572693d03950c63d25ebdb1cac77375c35d02a9c4426cdc0937d6b3a9a516cd6
The volunteer time and effort given by Derek, Daniel and Mark over the years was truly outstanding. Not to mention Neil Oliver's involvement as a hugely positive part of the development coaching team. They also have a network that brought some very talented players into the 20's and reserve set-up; and on to the 1st team squad which will be lost.

I'm terribly sad to see this group leaving; I hope a new development backroom can be created soon to ensure we have a development pathway for the club next season, as I'm sure The Trust will continue to provide the financial support Michael Smyth was rightly credited for spearheading.

Thank you to the guys and very best of luck wherever they move to.
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I don't know if this is another sign of malaise within the club or not. Timing isn't great whatever the reason, and we paying fans are asked not to be negative! 

Some great posts above which have an obituary feel about them, but I'll wait for the fat lady before joining in any further on the blame game. 

It's a terrible situation, because as Sammyreidloyal says it feels like a piece of your world is falling apart and we fans just have to sit back and watch the show run it's course. 

I want to lash out but I also want to support the team. Right now, you can't do both, so I live in hope that Johnny Harvey can suss out what it is that occasionally makes his team tick. 

And tonight, the 10-man reserves drew 1-1......... at home to East Kilbride. 

Edited by Redcar
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38 minutes ago, gogsy said:

Out of those 20 players from the development squad that went on to play first team football how many made any impact?

Don't think that really matters, they were given the opportunity, it's up to them to take it. Jack Cook is one that springs to mind

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