Finnaldo

It’s certainly tough and it’s very difficult for the man on the terrace to place really. I won’t say who but by chance I happened to see a club that fits the description’s wage book and it was over a couple grand in weekly wages. At Step 5. Now there’s all kinds of maths you could apply but you’re talking almost five figures in wage bill over a 38 game season at the ninth tier of English football. But supporters of clubs like Coalville see a team getting five blokes and a dog clearly outperforming them and it’s frustrating. I do think it’s a bubble that will be corrected. This is only fun for these kind of investors when they’re winning, and as more and more money piles in at that level the winning isn’t certain and you’re left with the reality of a middling step 5 club. Money clubs will always exist of course, but you can surely only put so much money into your Coventry Sphinxes and St Andrews to no success before it becomes an inconvenience.

MFL Div 1 is a horrible league to get out of. Hinckley started there with an influx of similar large non-league clubs restarted with serious money behind them, now with the general influx of money into the lower leagues, the likes of Gornal and Sutton (who tbf seem a well-run club rather than just £££) and now St Andrews it’s probably worse than ever. Hinckley benefitted from a combination of a very weak league and our highest budget up to that point. The post-Covid non-league spike, whilst fantastic for these clubs, has also seen a rise in interest from village millionaires it seems. I’m genuinely concerned for the near future as there’s far too many clubs which blokes putting money in hopes of quick results and an ego boost, and as that increases and the money costs out more and more of these types, you wonder where these clubs which pre-investment were essentially step 6/LSL Prem level (and haven’t had their infrastructure pushed much beyond what is essential) are going to find themselves when the deep pockets get frustrated and walk. In the meantime Coalville seem to be going the right way about things but the above makes it a painful climb nowadays, the same is happening to Hinckley, the lack of stadium and costs that induces has an impact as well. That days of Barwell’s rise (a good team built under a good manager) and Coalville’s steady growth (gradual build over twenty years) is much harder when the money has doubled if not tripled in some cases in the span of six years.

Coalville’s owner had to pull out and voluntarily relegated them three steps. On their way back up but it’s unlikely they’ll ever compete to the same level again and even then they were beginning to hit their ceiling with what they had (middling National League North). Harborough are the closest and again have a ceiling- maybe tbey could be National League Prem but that they’ve shot up multitudes faster than Coalville and their infrastructure would need a rethink ať NLN. The reality is the county doesn’t have a second town- the likes of Mansfield or Chesterfield in Derbyshire are good examples of that, Nuneaton for Warwickshire/Cov. Hinckley, Loughborough and Coalville are small to middling (market) towns that aren’t really large enough to support upper non-league teams in this day and age. Harborough May buck that trend due to its affluence but that’s a big wait and see.

The money to even compete at step 4 is now mental, Corby are quite far off and still clearly well overspent. I don’t think supporters appreciate the cost ať that level and assume as it’s eighth tier it’s a pittance.

Nuneaton vs Hinckley tonight, interested what size crowd will turn up for it…

It got better, ultimately, because of his involvement and Pearson’s work. We aren’t a club with ambitions of being anything before him, and you’re right he took us down but that was very much a drain we were circling regardless, and with significantly less resources had he not been there. We didn’t have investors scrambling to fund us at the time. That’s not to say the 07/08 wasn’t honking, but we were somewhat deceivingly decent for a relegated team as well. We were four goals off a positive goal difference it was handled horrendously and the managerial roundabout was a joke, but we’d see the exact same with the Thais in the first couple season before Pearson’s return, granted with an even bigger budget insulating us from the real doldrums. The fact of the matter is he stuck at it rather than lose interest after relegation, something many owners fail at; and we rebuilt into a brand new Leicester City under Pearson under his ownership-he’s the one who gave him the keys initially. He’s not a ‘saviour’ and I don’t think anyone has ever accredited him as one, but he got involved when no one else was going to, ultimately made the right appointment and got us where he wanted to be- and he sold when the time was right and he couldn’t take us much further. Something his successors could have learnt from. Comparisons to Marinakis is a complete leap, Mandaric was a dodgy businessman no doubt but the Greek is an outright criminal. As from what I’m aware there was very little scandal during his time here. He was a dodgy bloke and an eccentric but he communicated with supporters it didn’t affect his stewardship here, so I’m not liable to care. Finally: it was reported at the time that it was that Thais who wanted a ‘name’ as manager and it was their condition that Pearson went, when you look at who they’ve appointed since who weren’t internal hires that pattern has often held true and would seem very likely. Ultimately a very very flawed bloke who did right by us in the end. RIP Milan.

I can appreciate this and know those types exist but the reigning issue is that they’re American who continue to polarise and get more and more toxic everyday, there’s also a high chance this was edited to look more extreme in answers for ragebait. The biggest disservice you can do yourself immediately in the aftermath of these situations is social media. Frankly it’s an utter cancer and you’ll get the very worst in reaction as that is what’s ‘rewarded’. Being a forum with a recognised membership you can see a realistic reaction for the majority, which disagrees on the intrinsics but agrees this is abhorrent act anf shouldn’t happen. We might argue but none on here are particularly vile or encouraging of what’s happened and that’s a much more realistic reflection of the people around you than pits like Facebook and X.

It keeps getting said but on here outside one individual last night has anyone remotely close to celebrating? Charlie Kirk lived his life with the facts over feelings mantra, and the facts of the matter are: -Charlie shouldn’t have been murdered and it was an abhorrent act. -Charlie believed in order to enshrine his political opinions, that deaths such as his were ‘worth it’. -His career was (being honest generally quite poor) debates on extremely inflammatory subjects that in some cases meant wholesale stripping rights (such as abortion) from people. No death should be celebrated and this act should be condemned but no one owes it to him to grieve. It’s abhorrent a man has been murdered and left a wife widowed and children without a father, but it’s as much a disservice for me to pretend on a long drawn out prose how terrible this is when ultimately he himself saw deaths like his as acceptable collateral. He lived by the high-powered rifle and died by the high-powered rifle. I hope America can come to some sense but that’s two political murders following Melissa Hortman in a matter of months.and the place seems to be becoming more of a toxic hellhole every day.

Well it’s been a horribly busy three weeks personally and at Hinckley but we seem to be coming out of it now fantastic appointment in Ross, Adam & Chris. Already looking better organised than we have and the general application levels have improved massively. Really looking forward to where we can go with this setup

Most places on the continent the captain would be pleading his case and he forced to listen directly to the supporters in fear of being chased off the pitch. It’s a British phenomenon to hold up footballers as ‘heroes’ without any of the accountability that would naturally come with that title.

No. In fact I’d argue that these players, paid millions and bestowed some of the best modern facilities in the country to prepare in, and have in most cases had multiple seasons to prove their value and abjectly failed, owe it to supporters, who pay hundreds if not thousands to travel and attend these games and are the lifeblood of this club, to at least pretend they can be arsed. Instead they’ve handed out utter dross, why should they give them more than two and a half games of utter turgid shite when they’ve seen it all before over the last 18 months? If they can’t handle this due to ‘mental fragility’, they should agree to terminate their contract and move on, they won’t because they don’t care about supporters or the club, and working people paying significant sums of money to see a minimum level of effort shouldn’t just put up with it.

*South I agree actually, inherited a close knit LR group that’s likely too good for step 5. Will go under the radar and won’t be the scalp that AP, Cov United, Nuneaton or Atherstone are so might go under the radar. Should be a great game for the neutral on paper. Hoping Hinckley give it a good go against Long Eaton on Saturday, expect a rollicking but you never know in the Cup and with home advantage we can only go out there and give it our best, hopefully carry some momentum on from Monday and see another decent crowd!

I’m completely against King Power and I won’t be spending a penny at the club until they’re gone, but there seems to be a latching hope they’d sell up and we’ll immediately go up but the truth is we’re fvcked. We need a complete clearance. On the pitch, in the board room, a total restructure of the club beneath them as in its current guise it is unrecoverable. Everything Pearson built has been pulled out or rotted away and replaced with a substandard quick fix that has in almost all cases has failed utterly. If the club was a house the foundations would be rotted and it’d need pulling down before anything worthwhile could be done with the land. The uncomfortable reality is we need to accept at least a couple years of Championship mediocrity. New ownership, all the right people in behind the scenes, a financial reset and begin building up the team itself when that is done and we’re on steady ground. Even with Birmingham it took relegation to get themselves in position, and that is exactly happened to us with Pearson. Assuming we’ve got too much to drop (I’m not fully convinced), it’ll be some struggling but you like to believe if there is evidence of some vision and a plan the proper support will get behind it. KPFC loyalists will soon get bored and with their God-Hero gone hopefully they’ll slink off and take up The Hundred as is befitting. Theres no quick fix, 2010s era Leicester is dead and buried so betting on being back up in a year or two will likely just exacerbate the the panicked, strategy-vacant path we’re on. The sooner proper supporters withhold their money, and the club continues inevitably on its downwards trajectory, they will have to sell up and the real work can begin in earnest.

Some start to the season Drews are having jeezy peeps man

We’ll certainly take the point though! Thought it was a great advert for the level tonight, plenty of sting in the game, AP are always a good side and we stood up and battled against them well, in front of a good crowd with a decent atmosphere which was a massive bonus. Very affirming of my involvement tonight, we’re heading in the right direction on and off the pitch, the final piece is a ground of our own…