Web Analytics

BARRACLOUGH ON THE BALL – A season to forget

| May 5, 2014

As the final whistle blew last Saturday Wycombe fans were celebrating. Not winning the league or promotion, oh no, nothing as grand as that.

The fans were celebrating hanging on in the football league by the skin of their teeth and avoiding the humiliation of playing conference football. Next season the Blues will still be in the football league but this season has definitely been one to forget.

Winning just twelve games is appalling, drawing just fourteen games is dreadful and losing twenty (yes TWENTY games) is unforgivable. Notwithstanding this Bury won only thirteen games this season but finished in a sort of respectable mid table twelfth position with fifty nine points to Wycombe’s fifty.

Just nine points makes the difference between exiting the League and finishing in a safe mid table position. Some may say the League was a close run thing with around ten points separating fourteen teams. So it’s a valid question to ask if the current points structure is suitable for teams in the lower divisions as well as those in the Premier division? Maybe in League Two it should be four points for a win and two for a draw?

So now fans will start to ask who is responsible for Wycombe coming so near to exiting the League for the first time in twenty one years?

The manager is likely to come in for some scrutiny after all the buck stops with the one giving direction and supposedly masterminding the seasons efforts. Were the fans supportive enough of the team? Are the players good enough?

To win matches the players, fans and manager all need to be good. Poor performance anywhere in the game chain leads to problems.

But is there a more inherent problem at Adams Park? With the news earlier in the year that the Supporters Trust was looking to sell the club (but retaining the ground and memorabilia) is there a problem that a supporters trust simply can’t provide the inward investment and financial support required to lift the club out of League Two and into the higher divisions?

Gone are the days when football was a game played by a group of friends on a Saturday afternoon. The beautiful game is now a multi million pound business where the richest clubs get richer and the poor clubs suffer heartbreak.

Maybe Wycombe does need a rich sponsor to provide the investment to produce winning results? Only time will tell. At least the Blues are still in the Football League.

Come On You Blues!

Comments are closed.