Hobgoblin has taken most of the words out of mouth.  Neil must be tearing his hair out.  Off the pitch you can’t fault the progress ( I don’t like the seats behind the goal, they’ve contributed to killing any atmosphere but I totally understand why we had to put them in), we’ve got a brilliant new clubhouse, match-day hospitality, good PA communication, excellent social media, post-match interviews with the manager and players and an excellent club shop. In addition I believe there are plans to further enhance the ground.  Brilliant stuff.  On the pitch we’re having a very rocky patch and attendances are poor, but the fact of the matter is people like to watch a winning team, that’s the nature of football.  We’ve seen it all before of course, at least if you’re of a certain age.  Even in the relatively recent days of Steve White we went through a spell where we couldn’t win at home and had to dig ourselves out away from home.  Having said that we played with a certain style and had the personnel to at least entertain by creating chances and playing some football worth watching.  I didn’t see that yesterday.  I’m not necessarily an advocate of changing the manager, he’s no doubt working within a limited (for this league) budget but I do agree with many supporters on here and on the terraces - just why do we need more staff than Sainsbury’s in the dugout?  The temporary shelter for the subs is laughable. 
It’s hard to see a way out at the moment but Neil and the Board deserve all the support we can muster as they’ll have some big decisions to make in the coming days and months.  Keep the faith!

Yesterday was the first time I'd been since the start of the Pandemic and I have to offer my congratulations to Neil Blackmore and everyone associated with the improvements to the ground and the club in general.
I went to my first match at HP in 1970 in the Hellenic League era of Freddie Thompson (manager) and 'star player' Richard Legg. Thanks to Neil and his staff the club has come a long way since then, I would never have thought the club would be just 2 tiers away from the Football league.
On to yesterday's game, having not been to any other games this season I can only go on what I saw yesterday  but like other posters I found it very disappointing. For the first 25 minutes Chippenham's only strategy seemed to be to hump the ball forward at every opportunity (who needs a midfield) It was pub football. Also the amount of bickering and arguing amongst the team was depressing and this wasn't being helped by the manager or his (extensive) coaching staff.  I gather from some of the other comments on the forum  that Mike Cook has a fairly limited budget for this level but surely the team can come up with something better than yesterday's offering? There was no faulting the effort but they need to find some sort of unity  and that needs to come from the manager. Credit to Braintree in the second half  they went up a gear and took the game to Town and I know that Ricky Aguiar was injured for the last 15-20 minutes and could do little other than get in the way but they deserved their goal for the way they kept pressing.
Also, as others have said - why does the manager have so many staff? Surley if you have an Assistant Manager you only need one coach? 
Anyway I enjoyed the game, it felt more like a cup tie in the last 30 minutes and I hope to come down to HP again soon.
Come on you Blues!                  

In the interview after the game Cook said he thought we were good in the first half - he cant have watched the same game as me. Watched MOTD on Sat night and noted that pundits mentioned for both Spurs and Newcastle defeats that they were passing sideways and not forward through the midfield and sending long aimless balls up front with no game plan... sounds familiar?

Last edited by newfan (01/11/2021 10:41 AM)