Steve Riches: I stick by my prediction of a play-off place
It's scarcely September and manager Stuart Gray is already in need of counselling for emotional trauma.
His preparations have been good but injuries and poor results allied to unattractive football is making supporters grumpy.
I stick by my prediction of a play-off place – the foundations are fine – but it needs some mighty hard work twixt now and then.
Bright spots have been the cracking victory at Premier League Bolton in the Carling Cup with hope of further progress at Sunderland on September 23, and a huge financial boost from the sale of Mark Bunn and Gabor Gyepes.
In both cases the Cobblers, the purchasing club, and the player have all hit the jackpot.
A fee of 200,000 for Gyepes was pure profit, while for Bunn I'd guess that as we'd already told Nottingham Forest to push off last season with their offer around 300,000 for Bunn, that his sale now to Blackburn Rovers is unlikely to be much under 500,000.
With add-ons that could head up toward the 1m mark.
Bunn will benefit from working with England goalkeeper Paul Robinson, he'll also be able to buy a flash car and, given some decent breaks, I'd expect him to be an established Premier League name in less than two years.
Everyone is pleased for him, and Jim Barron should have pride after his work with him.
In a sane world the new season would just be starting, but in a pumped-up sense of self-importance the game is expanding to eclipse summer at a time when Twenty20 cricket has already planned an invasion.
Family money and interest will only go so far. With the demise of the 'factory fortnight' at the end of July, August is the new family playtime.
Kicking-off a new season when people's minds and money are elsewhere is madness.
When we could not get to the Millwall home game on August 23 we tried desperately to give away our tickets to friends and relatives, nobody was interested because they were all doing something else.
Barry and Jenny Parker's family budget for just three games makes frightening reading.
Millwall at home: two tickets, restaurant meal and drinks, 130. Bolton away for two came to 68, and Tranmere away was 110.
That's 309 from the family budget in eight days.
Of the three games they say only one was worth watching.
League one clubs' revenues went up last season by 6m pounds to reach 102m, but that was just keeping in touch with inflation, and when you factor the Leeds and Nottingham Forest effect it doesn't say much for current belt-tightening.
Killing off the Johnstone's Paint Trophy would be a good start to cutting games, although we've already taken ourselves out of that competition with an inept display at Sixfields on Tuesday night.
I'm not suggesting that players should do just a couple of hours training a day followed by an afternoon in bed before visiting the nightclubs, but the increasing number of injuries and lack of consistent play must have something to do with the constant pressure of games and the long season.
We now have an enforced break until the big game at home to Peterborough on September 13.
This is because Stockport cited three international call-ups as a reason for postponing this Saturday's game.
Our travel clubs had already made their coach bookings and taken names of supporters, so to give them just nine days' notice is another example of how the game mistreats fans.
The three players concerned were Stephen Gleeson, in the Ireland squad for under-21 games against Bulgaria and Portugal, Peter Thompson for Northern Ireland against Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and Owain Fon Williams for Wales under-21s against Romania.
The merciful aspect of it is that Gray now has 10 clear days to revitalise our squad. The Stockport game has been re-arranged for Tuesday, September 16 at 7.45pm, so many who booked the original Saturday travel will be unable to go and travel clubs may lose money.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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