v Basingstoke

Marquess of Weston ‏@MarquessWeston
Mellor, Simmo, Brown, Ball, Gallinagh, Connolly, Stearn, Allen, Watkins, Keats Subs: Bowman, Low, Reid, Wilson, Rollo

one missing, is it Preece?

AK says it is Pratt

It's Preece - see the "Preece released"? thread

Apparently 0-0 HT.

Lost 1-0. Abysmal.

Cash refund required, I paid to be entertained.

That game certainly wasn't one for first time visitors to Twerton Park!

Well apart from Basingstoke fans   

roscopeekotrain wrote:Cash refund required, I paid to be entertained.

  See Peteboa's response on other forum

Beau Nash wrote:AK says it is Pratt

AK is correct (No. 9).

Preese never featured at all. I saw a sad Mark leave TP prior to the game.

That was terrible. I don't pay to be entertained at all. I have watched too much football to expect that. Although it was the worst that I have seen for a while, City's performance today wasn't all out terrible, it was just aimless and hapless. It looked like the players had never played in the same team and I can't help that deduce that Preece's removal had an effect on them. You can look at tactics, formations, player selection as much as you like but getting rid of a player in such circumstances is going to have a huge effect on the team.

I don't know who is to blame for this but it needs to be sorted.

Yes, it was certainly a very oddly timed decision. If it was for footballing reasons I would guess he might be the 1st of several in a clear out before August - this squad looks short of the necessary quality needed for a real promotion push.

Incredibly flat performance, following similar ones at Dover and Weston, and not a single goal from those 3 games. Something along those lines at Bromley and we are facing a hammering.

Why let him turn up with his kit to send him packing again? Another PR disaster

comrade powell wrote:Yes, it was certainly a very oddly timed decision. If it was for footballing reasons I would guess he might be the 1st of several in a clear out before August - this squad looks short of the necessary quality needed for a real promotion push.

Incredibly flat performance, following similar ones at Dover and Weston, and not a single goal from those 3 games. Something along those lines at Bromley and we are facing a hammering.

It didn't look like a team playing for their places.

Not a PR disaster, managerial disaster, the PR disaster starts now if the club don't release a statement to explain it!

Well it didn't take them too long to explain themselves! I make that half an hour after my post, which is much quicker than usual, so here it is:

In a shock move, Bath City announced today that they were releasing centre-back Mark Preece.

Preece, who had earlier arrived at the ground in his City training kit, was then seen driving away from Twerton Park just minutes before the match against Basingstoke commenced.

With Ben Adlesbury and Joe Burnell still absent through injury, it left City reverting to a flat back four, with Sekani Simpson, playing his first match back from injury, slotting in at right-back and playing a full 90 minutes.

After the match, City director of football Adie Britton described how and why Preece was released.

“We have spoken to Mark Preece today and we will be releasing him," said Britton. "It’s something we have thought about in the last few weeks. We went for a flat back four today as we decided to go with a little bit more pace and he was not part of that.

“Given that we don't have a midweek game this week, it’s a situation where we thought we had to make some improvements between now and the end of the season”.

Asked if Preece was not surprised at the suddenness of City’s decision, Britton commented: “Unfortunately that’s football. It doesn’t fill anyone with pleasure when a lad has to go, especially as he’s been with us a few years.

“At times he’s done well for us, but we have to say to ourselves, we are in a position in the top five, six or seven, or whatever it is tonight, and we are looking to go to the next stage and improve it again.

“We just felt the mix of the defenders we have got isn’t quite right. We know the kind of player we are looking for and for that someone has to be sacrificed and I’m afraid that was the move we felt necessary.

“I don’t want to go into the intricacies of everyone’s deal and the circumstances but financially if we are to make it possible to bring another one in, someone had to go and it was decided that was what we would do.

“We are looking if we can get a big, ball-winning, centre-half in at some stage. We really do want to bring one in, so for that to happen we had to get one out. So the decision was made on that basis.

“That leaves us a little bit short in both boxes for height but I thought in those areas today we didn’t do too badly. It means with a bit more pace in the back-line we can get out faster and look to condense play a bit more”.

Britton also indicated that this might not be the last move of this type.

“I think it might happen in a few other positions as well, but now is the time to make those changes and look at a few people with a view going forward, to improve it," he said.

Twenty-six year-old Bristol-based Preece started his career at Forest Green Rovers, for whom he made more than 100 appearances before, after a brief spell at Weston-super-Mare, joining Mansfield Town.

He was signed by City in the summer of 2011 and in his three seasons at Bath, he made 96 appearances, scoring seven goals.

Make your own mind up and possibly watch out for a new CB this week I guess!

Sorry, there is something very wrong there. If it is exactly as the club say then they have made a right cock-up. There is no way that that decision didn't affect the team today. They looked as if they were wondering what was going on as much as we all were. I feel very sorry for Preece, you don't treat people like that.

stillmanjunior wrote:

roscopeekotrain wrote:Cash refund required, I paid to be entertained.

  See Peteboa's response on other forum

Presumably the - "If you want guaranteed entertainment go ten pin bowling or to the cinema" response.

Just a thought but rather than slagging off, or rolling your eyes, at a dissatisfied supporters comments, perhaps the club and its few remaining supporters should consider what would happen if such a supporter, and possibly others, chose to follow this advice? It would hardly help to address the clubs debt or dwindling & ageing support problems would it?

This proud (if now exiled) Bathonion and former City supporter of 29 years, or 44 years if you include being taken to the match by your parents as a toddler, made the decision to do something else on match days in December 2009, only a few weeks after one of the best days of my life in Grimsby. Surprisingly I hardly missed going to the match and not even a play off final 6 months later could entice me to return to TP. Consequently BCFC has to date missed out on at least £1500 of income from myself. I did go to one away match 8 months later, but as I had lost touch with the team I was just bored. I left 15 minutes early. I am sure I am far from being the only ex-city supporter who has discovered that attending football is just a habit, that, given the right provocation is really easily kicked into touch.

I now enjoy all of my Saturday afternoons and the rest of my weekend as I don't have to put up with the kind of performances that supporters at yesterdays match are complaining about.

Ensuring that the team plays entertaining attacking football packed with players that excite the fans (for example Craig Davidge) and that the ground is a pleasant place to be, for instance ensuring that the popular side toilets are not running in water and remain open until after all customers have left, as opposed to them being locked by the head steward anything up to 30 minutes before the final whistle, as regularly happened in my final few seasons as a supporter, might be a good start in reversing the clubs seemingly never ending decline.

Roscoe - If you want your money back choose to pay £0.01 (you can't pay nil can you?) on 22/3 vs Chelmsford. The board and management of the club need to realise that football is very much an entertainment business, not a social club for the benefit of a chosen few.

The timing of Mark's release was bizarre; to do it just before a game was bound to affect the dressing room; why not wait until Monday?  There must be more to this than what is said in the statement?

Supporters are rightly upset at the performance of the team and are correct in their thinking that football is in the entertainment business and is not essential to life.  We all want the club to prosper and management usually get things correct but...

My prediction is that we will end up in mid table obscurity, 10th to 12th, so rebuilding for next season is probably the plan, finances allowing?

My guess at yesterday's attendance was very close, I started a poll for < or > 500 and this is the problem that must be solved;  too few to sustain the club...

The Chelmsford game is probably the only one I will attend, admission costs are TOO high for this level of football and don't represent value for money...

Congratulations are due to the ground staff "team" and they should receive an award for us being one of few clubs (who are the others, if any?) not to suffer a postponment due to the extraordinary weather.  

stillmanjunior wrote:

roscopeekotrain wrote:Cash refund required, I paid to be entertained.

  See Peteboa's response on other forum

I have seen it and I really really don't agree. Just have a look at the fans who turn up for games. The average age must be 55. There are less and less younger people.

They have a promotion for the Chelmsford game. With Adie/Archie in charge they are just wasting their time. Any new customers turning up will not be encouraged to return.

whilst it's no more than a feeling to me the last 3-4 years have seen greater number of younger supporters in the ground - certainly compared to 5-10 years ago

but maybe this is just because i'm getting older and it's 'the police are getting younger' syndrome

I think there is a good core of younger supporters at the club at the moment. Whilst my group of mates are now reaching our late 20s now there are a good few younger people coming to stand by us and join in the odd song or two. These are the kids who will hopefully be standing in our shoes in 10-15 years times and we need to ask them what more could be done to attract more people to Twerton Park.

I'm glad the convo has switched away from the game, the less said about that the better (even though I have a match report to write today!)

Marc Monitor wrote:Sorry, there is something very wrong there. If it is exactly as the club say then they have made a right cock-up. There is no way that that decision didn't affect the team today. They looked as if they were wondering what was going on as much as we all were. I feel very sorry for Preece, you don't treat people like that.

IF "“We have spoken to Mark Preece today and we will be releasing him," said Britton. "It’s something we have thought about in the last few weeks. We went for a flat back four today as we decided to go with a little bit more pace and he was not part of that."

then why release Mark JUST before a match?

Harlech wrote:

stillmanjunior wrote:

roscopeekotrain wrote:Cash refund required, I paid to be entertained.

  See Peteboa's response on other forum

Presumably the - "If you want guaranteed entertainment go ten pin bowling or to the cinema" response.

Just a thought but rather than slagging off, or rolling your eyes, at a dissatisfied supporters comments, perhaps the club and its few remaining supporters should consider what would happen if such a supporter, and possibly others, chose to follow this advice? It would hardly help to address the clubs debt or dwindling & ageing support problems would it?

To me it seemed a lazy comment - "I paid to be entertained". If it was backed up by more than that I wouldn't have said anything, same as Peteboa I'm sure.

This is Conference South football, I've seen over 200 games at this level and know full well it's not always going to be thrill a minute, end-to-end action packed 90 minutes every week. Was yesterday bad? Of course it was, I'm not stupid, probably the worst performance of the season I'd say, even surpassing the Dover game back in September. I wasn't happy with the performance and unsurprisingly neither was anyone else following us. There have been far better games, home and away, this season, although the result hasn't always gone our way. Do people comment on that? No chance, whenever we win a few games the forum is a graveyard.

"Its few remaining supporters" - we had over 500 yesterday in a league where most teams struggle to get half that. I wouldn't have thought our average attendance is much down on last season? And if people are going to take my rather flippant comment to heart then I'm sorry. If I decided that comments from fans would stop me from going I would have found something else to do on weekends a long a long time ago.

Hold on, the timing of yesterday's decision was top clownery and, considering the effectiveness of our flat back for, the decision itself wasn't great and the match was absolutely awful. However it is just one terrible match, albeit on the back of a couple of disappointing away results. We are still in the play-offs - incredibly - and have had a decent run since Christmas. The second half against Whitehawk was one of the most exciting I have seen anywhere for a while and a lot of games this season have been good.

I have to take Harlech to task as, by his own admission, he isn't attending games which makes me wonder why he is contributing to the forum if he is that disillusioned. I have seen enough games in the period he hasn't to say that his perception is very wrong. I agree with stillmanjr that no-one goes to football to see entertainment. However glib the 'entertainment' comment was, it is never promised. It is sport. It is unpredictable and that is the joy of it. You have to have games like yesterday to make even just one half against Whitehawk cheer you so much. If we wanted entertainment and guaranteed succes, we would all support Barcelona.

Yes, the PR and marketing at the club is disastrous, a point made often and exemplified by yesterday's decision, however, there seems to be a desire to improve this and, as has been pointed out, 500 crowds, a lovely stadium and a team in the play-offs isn't the worst place to start. We could have been losing 4-0 at home to Hull with the club's history, heritage and identity stripped from us.

The attitude of those saying "don't expect entertainment" goes some way to explaining the seemingly never ending decline of a club like City. Football clubs survived in the past simply because there was little alternative entertainment and excitement.
This is far from the case now. For better or worse, the top clubs realised this in the 1990s, invented the premiership and put it firmly at the heart of the entertainment industry.
Yes, City may be pulling in bigger crowds than others in our league, but 500 average represents the bottom of a depressingly long trend.
Clubs cannot rely on the traditional working class fan base any more as it has simply disappeared in most of the UK.
While I personally would be happy watching us grind out results, I accept that new fans will only be attracted by seeing a Craig Davidge having a right go.