Tamworth's rise, and their incompetent board

The history so far.

Tamworth won Blue Square in 2011/2012 in a season were the board was expecting us to fight bravely against relegation, as the season before. We also won the FA Trophy. Colin Larkin was player of the year, averaging 8.05. Sebastian Lake-Gaskin runner up with 8.02. Top scorer was Lake-Gaskin with 34 goals. Larkin ended 3rd on this list with his 26 goals. I was honoured as manager of the year.

In 2012 Tamworth is making it's debut in L2. As 2011/2012 ended better than the weirdest dreams, the board does not expect anything else then a relegation battle. But there are some promising youngsters in the squad. So we'll see.

November 28th, 2012

Tamworth is cruising at the top of League 2. 47 points in 17 matches. In the quarter final in the League Cup. Knocking out Portsmouth (after extra time) and Swansea (on penalties) from the Championship and Leicester (penalties) from the premiership. In the FA Cup we're in the 3rd round. Beating Port Vale from L1 on the way. Tamworth simply refuses to loose. We are out of Johnstone's Paint in 2nd round on penalties against L2-fellow Torquay, but loosing on penalties... The economy is secure: the transferbudget is 55k, the wage budget 36000, current wage totals 33000.

Today's match is against Reading from the premiership in the League cup. Lake-Gaskin scores in the second minute. In the 8th minute our star defender Jamie Lewis is sent off. Argh. After 21 minutes Reading equalises. This is going to be tough. Then in the 43rd minute Lake-Gaskin is there again. 2-1. In the second half the players are tiring. Being one man down since the 8th minute is hard. Against a premiership team. Then Reading has an equaliser again. 62 minutes. 6 minutes later they're there again. 2-3. Our tired L2 players are fighting hard. Lake-Gaskin has a few opportunities, but Reading now has control. Loosing for the first time this season.

December 1st, 2012

Got an update from the board today. Just before the match against Burton. They are satisfied, but are saying that the wages are still to high? Doesn't make sense. Checking the budget numbers. The wage budget has been cut with 9000. Down to 27000? Without any explanation. We beat Burton though 4-3. Didn't like the performance though. We were up 4-0 at half time. Two of the youths scored, Nick Eckersley one and Lee Grant two. Nice. Lake-Gaskin scored the forth, just after Colin Larkin (top scorer and player of the year in last seasons Blue Square) had to come off with an injury. But the late collapse in the 2nd half is worrying. Burton scored 3 goals from the 73rd to the 83rd minute. And were damn close an equaliser several times as well.

March 30th, 2013

The winter has been tough. Loosing Lake-Gaskin to MK Dons and our young goalkeeper Robert van der Linden to Bristol Rovers due to the big club release clauses in their contracts. The months December, January and February were horrible. Loosing every second game. More or less. Darlington, Bury and Lincoln came closer and closer from behind. Should we miss direct promotion? Loosing against Reading was obviously hard to swallow. But in March we came back on track. Increasing the gap again. We are not unbeatable as before December. The economy is again ok. van der Linden and Lake-Gaskin out together with a few other expendable players reduced our total wages to 29000, and also gives som money in. Moving all money from the transfer budget to the wage budget increased the wage budget to 29000. The board is now satisfied with the finances.

April 6th, 2013

Promotion secured! Tamworth Morecambe 6-0. 3 goals by Lee Grant in the first half, Steven Thompson, Colin Larkin, and the 17 year old Nathan Jordan scored one each in the second half. With promotion secured it should be possible for the board to increase the wage budget a bit? Otherwise it would be hard to renew expiring contracts. But no. Not yet. The board turn the request down, but will inform me immediately if the situation changes. Damn. Will have to wait with renewing contracts. But it's not disastrous. Seven players have expiring contracts, none of them essential, and probably only three of them will be offered a new contract. Checking the finances just to verify that nothing has changed. No. Still 29000 in wage budget. Nothing in the transfer budget.

April 13th 2013.

Checking the board confidence. Finances is low again? Checking the numbers. Arghhh. The wage budget has been cut again. Down to 26000. Without any notice. How can they? They say they're delighted with promotion, but totally refuses to inform anything on finances. On top of that is the media speculation on Damien Delaney. He has a big club release clause, Huddersfield is supposed to be preparing a 190k-bid. And Delaney himself refuses to discuss his contract. If the speculation is true he is probably gone. Huddersfield seem to secure promotion to the championship.

So to the follow up. Is it any kind of bug that the budget changes so much without any notice? After all the board has shaved the wage budget with in total 12000 a week, down to 26000. It's 30%. Surely the manager should have been informed in a proper way? Or maybe not. Seeing how some clubs are run her in Norway, I should probably not be surprised at all. :-)