Next seasons manager

[Medieval]

We need someone within a reasonable distance who knows the division, can scout & work late or whatever the job needs & who really values their opportunity at Harriers. Can`t see PB putting up with an overly disjointed lifestyle for our relatively small club.

I was under the impression following the Phil Brown Q&A that we will have a new chief scout shortly, and with Holdsworth as Director of Football the scouting and working late/disjointed lifestyle may not therefore be an issue?

Perhaps I didn’t put my view across clearly. Yes I am aware of the scout appointment, but my point is the manager going over & above to get success for the club. As I understand it Penn & O Connor did scouting in addition to their normal duties, even though we presumably had a scout or used scouts. Unlikely that PB will go to that length.

Richard Lane has a tough choice, he has already made a mistake in appointing PB once, is he willing to risk making the same mistake?

[pershoreharrier]

The key to this is Holdsworth - RL will undoubtedly accept his recommendation and go with it.

[Cal's Spongebag]

Broadway is around an hour from Kiddy- which is little more than the average commute. Southern end of the cotswolds probably 2 hours. I suppose it depends on exactly where he lives.

[Mayo]

I can't help but feel the commute element is a bit of a red herring (clearly if PB or anyone else appointed does not live in the immediate vicinity, there will be one, same for the players). You would think as a professional footballer / manager, travelling to away fixtures is just part of the job.

If he doesn't want to travel far, PB's options as a football manager will be pretty much restricted to clubs in the Broadway and Cotswolds Pub league.

[jim mankey]

Broadway is four miles down the road from me. Tommy whatshisface from Black Sabbath lives there and Rita Fairclough from Corination Street but I think Phil Brown lives in Burford, about another twenty odd miles further away from Kiddy.

As an aside if you go into Childswickham village hall (about a mile away from Broadway) there is a plaque on the wall with the name of one of this sites more frequent posters on.

[Northern Harrier]

We need someone within a reasonable distance who knows the division, can scout & work late or whatever the job needs & who really values their opportunity at Harriers. Can`t see PB putting up with an overly disjointed lifestyle for our relatively small club.

I was under the impression following the Phil Brown Q&A that we will have a new chief scout shortly, and with Holdsworth as Director of Football the scouting and working late/disjointed lifestyle may not therefore be an issue?

Perhaps I didn’t put my view across clearly. Yes I am aware of the scout appointment, but my point is the manager going over & above to get success for the club. As I understand it Penn & O Connor did scouting in addition to their normal duties, even though we presumably had a scout or used scouts. Unlikely that PB will go to that length.

Richard Lane has a tough choice, he has already made a mistake in appointing PB once, is he willing to risk making the same mistake?

I'm not sure why appointing PB once was a mistake? He gave us hope. He was the best person we could have hoped for at that point in time. Poor recruitment previously and injuries cost us in the end. He brought the club back together and that was very much needed. I'm not sure that Klopp would have done much more

Is he the best person to get us back out of NLS? That's another conversation altogether.

[matttrolli]

I got shown an interesting graphic yesterday (I'm trying to work out how to attach it off my phone). It was the firm guide for the last 12 games in the National League. We're 20th. So Marcus perhaps isn't as far off the mark as some would claim, especially as Brown has added his own signings to a squad he acknowledged himself to have ability, spirit and fight. (And if you want to "do the maths" re: the Rushall manager, surely you have to cobdider the lack of resources at his disposal at a village club that's reached the highest level in its existence).

Here we go again You can find just that on here (the last 10 games though)


https://harriers-online.co.uk/khfc/tables/#CF

Just want to say these tables are fantastic, thanks for including Phil!

Regarding manager, I'm still probably clouded by some of late season performances and therefore not entirely sure what Brown's chosen tactics are. Some of his signings left a lot to be desired but there's always the issue of trying to attract players to a team in a relegation dog fight post January.

All in all, one more season of Brown building a team around players like Omotayo and Lambert could certainly compete in the NLN but we absolutely need to build an identity and a level of consistency early. Gold hasn't become a bad player over the last 6 months, but we just need to work on getting regular, good quality service into the box. Signing 2/3 wingers who can cross the ball and have a proven record of assists would be my #1 priority. There's a reason he's banged them in for other teams!

[garthrockett]

Perhaps I didn’t put my view across clearly. Yes I am aware of the scout appointment, but my point is the manager going over & above to get success for the club. As I understand it Penn & O Connor did scouting in addition to their normal duties, even though we presumably had a scout or used scouts. Unlikely that PB will go to that length.

Richard Lane has a tough choice, he has already made a mistake in appointing PB once, is he willing to risk making the same mistake?
Top

fair enough. I'm probably not alone in wondering how the administrative dynamic between Chairman/Manager/Director of Football/Scout will work in practice, especially during the critical recruitment period close season.
One advantage we do have with NLN is no transfer window in some aspects, so scouting the lower leagues for undiscovered gems will (I assume) be ongoing through the season?
Once the season kicks off I assume the Manager decides the formation, style and all match-time stuff.

At the moment so many questions and few answers.

[Marcus Garvey]

I can't get my head around this season at all!

We set a budget in the summer which seemed to be for the NLN (well the signings were)!
We lost Byrne and then Leesley and seemingly couldn't afford to replace them.
Penn then was given money for McGuire, Hobson, McClean, Tollet etc....I dare not think if there were many more!
Holdsworth came on board. Whatever that means.
Gold signed....for a fee??
Penn/O'Conner sacked.
Brown + assistant appointed.
More money found for a further 8 signings ...less said about them the better.

Where on earth did the finance come from for all of the above, and more importantly why wasn't a fraction more put in the summer to have saved all the later outlay with a possible more favourable outcome?

We seem to have thrown money away for nothing....I just hope lessons have been learnt and there is someone willing to throw good money after bad or otherwise we are heading in a very worrying direction of which fans of previous club's (Southend/Aldershot etc) associated with Brown/Holdsworth have all warned us about.....

[Mayo]

Many of the above signings were loans (and we've sent a number out on loan also), I'm obviously not privy to the financial workings of loan players in or out, but I wouldn't think there is much financial outlay involved, we possibly make (or receive) a contribution to wages, but I doubt it would be a great deal.

Everything relating to finances is speculative anyway, we don't have facts so it's not worth overly worrying about. I have no idea where the 70K for Gold came from but certainly not official sources. The only way we'll ever learn more is if PB covers it in one of his soliloquies

[Phil]

Many of the above signings were loans (and we've sent a number out on loan also), I'm obviously not privy to the financial workings of loan players in or out, but I wouldn't think there is much financial outlay involved, we possibly make (or receive) a contribution to wages, but I doubt it would be a great deal.

Everything relating to finances is speculative anyway, we don't have facts so it's not worth overly worrying about. I have no idea where the 70K for Gold came from but certainly not official sources. The only way we'll ever learn more is if PB covers it in one of his soliloquies

The remainder of his contract with Fylde. He had 18 months left on it.

[Medieval]

We need someone within a reasonable distance who knows the division, can scout & work late or whatever the job needs & who really values their opportunity at Harriers. Can`t see PB putting up with an overly disjointed lifestyle for our relatively small club.

I was under the impression following the Phil Brown Q&A that we will have a new chief scout shortly, and with Holdsworth as Director of Football the scouting and working late/disjointed lifestyle may not therefore be an issue?

Perhaps I didn’t put my view across clearly. Yes I am aware of the scout appointment, but my point is the manager going over & above to get success for the club. As I understand it Penn & O Connor did scouting in addition to their normal duties, even though we presumably had a scout or used scouts. Unlikely that PB will go to that length.

Richard Lane has a tough choice, he has already made a mistake in appointing PB once, is he willing to risk making the same mistake?

I'm not sure why appointing PB once was a mistake? He gave us hope. He was the best person we could have hoped for at that point in time. Poor recruitment previously and injuries cost us in the end. He brought the club back together and that was very much needed. I'm not sure that Klopp would have done much more

Is he the best person to get us back out of NLS? That's another conversation altogether.

My reasoning as to why I believe it was a mistake is because he was presumably brought in to stop us being relegated, we currently lie 7 points from safety, if memory serves same a RP when he left. The additional cost to the club just compounds the mistake.

[harry211]

Brown on the 72+ podcast on 5 Live last night and apparently talking about the club in the past tense. Near the top of the show. Worth someone listening and seeing what was said (I can't until a lot later on...)

[Phil]

Brown on the 72+ podcast on 5 Live last night and apparently talking about the club in the past tense. Near the top of the show. Worth someone listening and seeing what was said (I can't until a lot later on...)

11 minutes in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001yk92

It's a bit spread out.

[jim mankey]

Brown on the 72+ podcast on 5 Live last night and apparently talking about the club in the past tense. Near the top of the show. Worth someone listening and seeing what was said (I can't until a lot later on...)

11 minutes in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001yk92

Listened to it for a couple of minutes from the 11th minute, the only past tense I heard was from the past season. Nothing negative about the club, only praise, and he used the "we" word.