Annual General Meeting and Open Forum

From NTFC Supporters Ltd www.ntfctrust.co.uk

AGM
Annual General Meeting and Open Forum
By
Nov 12, 2007, 15:09

Below is a summary of some of the questions and answers from the latest Open Forum that followed the Fourth Annual General Meeting held at Sixfields Stadium on Thursday 8th November.

The Open Forum Speakers were Ian Sampson (First team coach), Jim Barron (First team coach) and Sean Parrish (youth team coach)NTFC Supporters Ltd would like to thank all the speakers who very kindly gave up their time to attend the meeting.

What happened against Bristol Rovers?

IS: We had played really well against Southend but 8 or 9 of the players really let themselves down against Bristol. We didn’t work hard enough on or off the ball. We had a lot of possession, but we didn’t match their work rate and that was the disappointment. When you play badly you are looking to grind out a draw and move on but we let in from a set play. We haven’t been out-battled too many times this season so at this stage we will put it down to a one off, and look for a reaction in our next few games, But, if it keeps happening, will be looking at the squad.

JB: It wasn’t good enough and we need a reaction in the next few games. If you get 7 or 8 of the team on a 7/10 performance you will get a result, but against Bristol most of them were 4 or 5 out of 10. Once we started badly the lads got nervous and the safe thing to do is go back and go deep to keep possession and that is what we started doing. It was not a tactic, it was individual decisions at certain times. To go forward you need the players ahead of the ball to be available, making space and showing for the ball. If not, and nothing opens up for the man on the ball, it is natural to go back to keep the ball. When the opposition work hard to close the space down, you have to work harder to create space and if you don’t, you will struggle.

When we see what the players are capable of (eg v Southend) but then we see the performance v Bristol Rovers, do you think we set high enough standards and are we hard enough on the players when they don’t perform?

JB: At this level, the man-management is as important as coaching. I have seen a lot of managers and I think Stuart Gray is excellent at man-management, both at giving out praise and kicking backsides when he has to.

Congratulations to the youth team on their FA Youth Cup win over Ebbsfleet. What do we expect from Tiverton in the next round?

SP: They beat Yeovil and we know they are a strong, physical side. They will come here fancying their chances but if we are professional and play to the best of our ability we are confident against anyone at home.

JB; Sean and Geoff Harrop have worked their socks off for the youth team both from a financial and a player development point of view and now we are starting to see the rewards of that pay off with more and more young players coming in to the first team squad.

It would seem there is not much money for us to throw around for a while yet, but of course we want to progress. How far can the youth system go to help us progress?

SP; You have good years and bad years at youth level. We are in a good run at the moment with Liam Dolman, Danny May, Mark Bunn, Alex Dyer etc all coming through or players who have come through recently. We have seven 2nd year scholars who we have to make a decision on at the end of this season and that will be up to the first team management as to who does and doesn’t get offered teams. We just want the lads to give it their best shot and give it everything. The young lads train with the first team and play in the reserves and they do get their chance here.

IS; It is important for any club to have a successful youth system. Maybe in the past clubs at this level haven’t given players between the ages of 18 and 21 long enough to develop, but that is because of pressures of budgets. If you have a smaller budget, you need to have players who can play for your first team now, but with a bigger budget you can leave a youngster in the reserves for a couple of years and let them develop. There is not so much pressure. With a bigger budget you don’t need instant results from your youth players, and hopefully with the redevelopment the youth system will be even more successful as they will have more time and less pressure.

Are we working enough with local junior clubs to get the best players through?

SP: We have a lot of scouts who do go to and cover a lot of games each week (most of them go about their work un-noticed) and we often get a lot of players in for trials. Sometimes junior clubs are reluctant to release their best players and let them join us because they want to win trophies in their league and sometimes those players themselves want to stay and play with their mates. We are building bridges with local clubs and we regularly invite local managers in to meet with us and make sure we are seeing or are aware of the best players locally. Geoff Harrop is getting plenty of local boys into the Centre of Excellence and the numbers are going up all the time.

IS: My lad plays in the local league and I see a lot of games. There is a massive gap between local league level and our Centre of Excellence and the size of that ability gap shocked even me. Geoff is making big strides building the relationship between NTFC and local clubs and I think we are heading in the right direction.

Does this team have enough heart and desire?

JB: At the moment, everyone is very down about the Bristol Rovers performance. That was easily the worst performance of the season, but you go back a few days and everything was positive. Southend are right at the top of the league and we battered them in general play. The odd performance aside, we feel we are moving the right way but we have a young side so we will have our ups and downs, but those downs should gradually become less. I think we can surprise a few people as the season goes on. On Tuesday we had a long chat and the players left the ground with their heads down and feeling really low. That defeat and performance hurt They came back in on Thursday and now they can’t wait to get to Darlington on Saturday to try and put things right.