As canveyshrimper has said, Little's spell at the club was little short of (potentially) ruinous. There are two sides two management: having a successful team... and balancing the books.
Sadly, 90% of fans appear not to give a toss about the latter... witness the wailing on here as yet another overpriced mercenary goes to another northern club that will shortly be on the phone to its creditors. Rotherham, anyone?
My recollection is that, under Little, players' wages alone (never mind staff wages, upkeep of the ground, etc.) were 123% of turnover.
Poor Little? My @rse. Under the combined auspices of Little, John Main and Peter Storrie, our club was going to the wall. You could have had half a season of us in 6th place... and then the club going bankrupt and reforming in the Ryman Premier.
David Webb saved our bacon the third time he came here, you'd better believe it. He's a key reason (along with Ron) as to why we're still here today.
And if the club has set its budgets for this season, then we'd better well stick to them. Better that we're still here in League One next season than spunking money we can't afford on a player who doesn't really want to be here and end up crashing in penury into the basement league. Let's not have another Jeroen Boere here again, eh? Once was bad enough for this lifetime.
Matt
As much as I echo your thoughts about Webby's final tenure in charge at the Hall, the picture you paint about us this season is a tad over dramatic.
Of course we have a budget to stick to, no one could possibly think we don't, but it is simply incomprehensible that we cannot compete with 80% of teams in this league when it comes to transfer fees and wages.
If we were in that kind of dire straits, then why is RM spouting on about how we were going to spend £200,000 on James Walker, and then even more on an unnamed striker later on in the month? If we can afford to spend half a million squid on 2 players, then it is unrealistic to think that there is no room left in the wage budget - if there isn't, then RM should say so and stop leading everyone up the garden path!
We are not the same club that Tilly took over 4 years ago, we have grown and evolved over that time, and all of it thanks to him, RM and Brushy. We no longer survive on average gates of 3,500, we are now averaging nearer 8,000, after a season in the Championship where we averaged 10,000, and received additional TV revenue, and not to mention transfer fees well in excess of 1.5 million pound with the sales of Freddy and JCR.
This is not the same small town club as it was 4 years ago, having to scrap the bottom of the barrel hoping we might come across someone who could turn out to be a star - we have much more clout than that now, and it does become a little tiresome when some people continue to think we are still that bottom of the table League Two side we were back then - if we're talking about history, most recently we were a Championship side - no, but we got promoted too soon, no we were punching above our weight, we were a Championship side, and with a couple of decent acquisitions this month, I see no reason why we could not be one again next season - at the very least, fighting it out in the play offs later on this season.
I'm sorry, but this theme has continued ever since Tilly has been in charge, and whilst it paid dividends the first couple of seasons, or perhaps lady luck was shining down on our injury list, it isn't working now, like it didn't work last season.
We need fresh bodies in to bolster this squad, pure and simple, and if none arrive, then I don't think any of the usual 'reasons' will cut the mustard with the majority of fans.
