Ryan on Yorkshire Radio

[Chris Black come back]

Not sure who you are arguing there with mate, but it's not me. We have to improve attendances if we want to be in this league that's for sure,and one certain way is to be push for promotion - anyone remember the crowds when we last won the league? I had an ST then so it didn't matter, but loads of my friends who 'support' Rovers were locked out. I'm pretty damn sure they'd be back wanting tickets next lockout time...

No argument comrade. Just making point that we have made progress in recent years. We do need to make more progress but bums are being put on seats. Slowly.

[Viking Don]

More progress on the pitch than off though.

[RoversAlias]

Would clubs \"show-case\" their players if we dropped into League One? I'm not sure they would, so I'd be interested to see how this idea worked if we were to go down this year.

But, going back to my original query - let's use Tommy Spurr as an example. Assuming when he's fit again he'd like to play, Illunga would be keeping him out of the team. So he'd eventually want to leave. Then assume Illunga gets his big move at some point. Who's left? Another McKay fella to come straight in? Does he have a constant stream of decent left-backs? Apply the same logic to every position taken by a McKay player and I begin to question the sustainability of the club.

With regards to the Sharp point, no we cannot afford another. But neither could Scunny when they sold him. So they bought Martin Paterson. And then they bought Gary Hooper. And they kept turning a profit on these players. For a club with 5k crowds to have had two stints in the Championship and now comfortably sustain a League One club shows to me that the model works.

rtid88 - this is in no way, shape or form a Sean related argument. I'm not sure why you would seek to make it one.

Totally and utterly agree with that, that's how I thought we were being run.  The fear of being relegated back to our more natural level seems to have taken hold of the board, first resulting in big money signings like Sharp and now this \"strategy\".

Am I really the only one who'd prefer us to return to the model we had in the first (couple of) Championship seasons where the defecit was smaller (and covered by the benevolance of the board) and we sold players like Wellens and Mills in order to fund the gap?  Am I really the only one who doesn't see relegation and a clearing of the financial decks as the end of the world?  Am I really the only one, who having seen so called stars of other teams in our time in the championship, isn't wetting my pants at a couple of foreigners who are coming in for three or four games and pissing off again?  Am I the only one who thinks that Doncaster Rovers is better than being a shop window?  Am I the only one who doesn't believe that Saunders will have a free hand in team selection (ie picking a loan player over an established first teamer...how are they going to earn moves elsewhere if the established player is better than them and they can't get in the team)?

I know JR has done this with the best of intentions but I have to say I'm really disappointed.  This is my 20th season and it's a world away since that first game v Halifax.  There are people on this thread who are obviously geniunely excited about Chimbonda, Diarra and the numerous other show ponies who are about to trot around for a month to earn a move somewhere \"better\".  Me?  I've seen a lot of friends and people I knew in the first ten years melting away (after the Conf years, not before!) after becoming disillusioned with various aspects (ticket prices, the Keepmoat, etc).  I'm going to have to have a long hard think about how I spend my money and time and as I finally understand why.  If you find yourself questioning your love for your spouse then you really shouldn't be there at all.

You ask one question over and over again...\"am I the only one?\". No you aren't, because I agree 100% with what you're saying. It seems very few others share that opinion though. We'll have to see if that tune changes if the results don't turn around and we do get relegated. Which certainly wouldn't ever have been the end of the world under the previous 'methods' of the club.

Hang on a minute. These players that are coming in for 3 months are being paid a quarter of what some of our existing players are being paid.
How is the agent selfish?
Who are the mercenaries?
I think you are living in a dream world. Our great reputation as a nice club is going down the toilet, and I think some people may lose (or already have lost) sight of what going to football is all about.

I think those days are long gone sadly!

Some fair points but I don't think I'm living in a dream world at all. The attitude of \"everyone is corrupt/disloyal/a bas**rd so let's join the club!\" irks me somewhat, because we have gotten to ridiculously heady heights (for this club) in the last decade without having to resort to anything like that. People are taking on the view, one that seems to have been conveyed by John Ryan, that the two options here were \"Stay with the model we've had and go down\" and \"bring in an agent and a load of short-term fixes and go upwards\" when that just isn't the case at all. Anybody who believes that is, in my opinion, the one living in a dream world.

People on the previous page have made the excellent point that we have done fine before by making up the deficit with big money sales like Mills and Wellens. Those two players (and Greeny) left, we brought in a couple of cheaper options as replacements and by and large were just as if not a little bit more successful the following season. Only when we spent beyond our budget to bring in Billy Sharp did it start to go downhill, because whilst Sharp was a great signing and has been our most valuable asset since he came here, the other signings of that summer were severely lacking, and the turnover of players that summer made our squad worse for wear.

And tbh Don I've no idea what you're on about regards the attendance. The first time I went to a game at Belle Vue there were about 800 people there. How on earth have our attendances not increased? We have to compare to the other teams in this division? Why do we? Our stadium is 15000 capacity, lower than I believe every club in the division with the possible exception of Peterborough. It's relative to the club itself in my opinion, we are never to be expecting similar crowds to teams in this league such as West Ham, Derby and Leeds.