Seventyseven

A cheap squad player for them and a high earner off our books.

Signed for 12m. Sold for 8m.

I’ve already wrote about this on the other thread that got hastily locked just after I posted.

They will be on similar money to what they were but nothing like that amount. Many don’t like travelling the country which you have to do in the National League. It takes them from their everyday jobs. Players like Step 3 due to the relatively low travel.

There is not a chance Harborough, or any club near this level are paying anyone over 60k per year to play around 40 games and train for one or maybe two evenings per week. Not sure why people ever believe these rumoured figures.

And some of those grass pitches are terrible. The clubs don’t have the funds to maintain them properly.

It’s really not shit or bust. We’ve been through this numerous times on here but there won’t be a club in the region that generate anywhere near the income Harborough do. The place is is constant use from the 1200 junior members going through every sat and Sunday, private hire to Football Development Schools two nights a week, the partnership with Brooke House. Not to mention the private hire of pitches to local groups and the bar for functions. Harborough don’t just rely on match revenue like many others do but even this has grown rapidly with gates hitting 700-1000 towards the end of the season (not even local derbies). And they do have some wealthy people/sponsors involved, I won’t pretend to know who puts in money but when the manager buys his old club a 5k stand for letting Harborough train on the grass it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he puts some in. It’s not like these players are on long term deals, if it doesn’t work out playing wise they go. It’s an exciting time to be a Bees fan.

I saw they ended up with Joel Carta after his release last season (via Corby). He didn't show anything after coming back from injury but really should have looked good at step 5. It doesn’t seem like many of Harboroughs current fringe players are staying with Malone, Forbes or Freddie Robinson not on the batch of retained players announced so far.

He will get us up. Our squad will be better than most in the league. Then he will be sacked in about October. At least it’s not Sean Dyche.

If this is the case I’d be very surprised if Mitch rocked up there. He’s very much one who does things his way and he has the ability to do that at Harborough.

Mitch was asking for an opposition for a home friendly (for Harbs) 1 hour after Laverys sacking, so maybe no one’s told him!

His name always come up when they change manager. Would be daft to, has autonomy at Harborough, he wouldn’t there. Higher expectations, more fans on his back when not going right. But who knows.

Certainly the farcical side of non league when all the end of season excitement counts for nothing with reprieve's.

I’m not sure they will be that bothered. Most have given up on CL and they are pretty much guaranteed Europa League whilst we head off to Portsmouth. I expect an afternoon of them taking the piss out of us.

Just seems an odd one, but not suggesting anything was done wrong. But thanks, only been following non league for a couple of years! It had potential last night but the amount of police on seemed to quell anything. I’d heard the young lads from both sides had met earlier only to be denied a scrap by the police who marched them to the ground. Would think it will be lively on Monday!

I hadn’t even known that had happened but can see why Harborough would have been unhappy with that. On police advice? That’s a new one on me. Should be a coin toss, not really sure police should be deciding who has the advantage, what did they think would happen?! But both sides took some abysmal penalties and as Mitch said, we were second best anyway. I think the comments are only made about the ground following many daft comments about ours. We are ecstatic where we have got and superb to see so many packed in the away end to experience a huge playoff game infront of nearly 3000.

I don’t think it was a change in tactics last night, we just couldn’t seem to keep hold of the ball and would give it away cheaply. And when we did win back the abysmal ref would just blow up for a foul (not blaming him for the defeat but definitely one to go with the home crowd).

Fair enough. A poll on their media outlets selected which team to follow, it’s an outlet thats sole purpose is to follow English football so of course an ex prem league player would catch their eye and add to it. Id hope for top 5 again with some fun along the way. Hopefully with a playoff home advantage as that’s massive. It’s a very hard league to win and yes you’d think Bedford would be up there, they looked decent in this years pre season so they will only be better.

Wondering how many times you have seen Harborough play? Not having a go here as it was certainly long ball at the start of the season but has evolved and I’ve seen very good football at times. If Paul Malone had scored the 4th I think we’d have been thorough and there would be no chat about Sandro being a waste of time. And I’ve no doubt the publicity of him and the FA Cup run is why the Spanish media are involved and who knows what that will bring with a pre season to Barcelona and Madrid lined up following 100 supporters coming over a few weeks back. Sandro doesn’t even take any money. It’s been very enjoyable having him around, and that’s largely a plus point of non league.

That’s rubbish mate. If Sandro’s cross field ball (that noone else on the pitch could have played) had led to the goal it nearly created right at the it would have been dubbed a master stroke. Yes he took a terrible penalty but then so did 3 others and it’s a problem we’ve had all season. And Burgess isn’t fit having got hurt at Redditch and was on crutches a week ago. And we’ve been playing decent football since change in style around Christmas.

Maybe so but after going 2 nil up after 3 we should have won that. Grubby ground and grubby fanbase. Odd lot. Hope Telford do them on Monday.

Whilst obviously a fair number of Leicester fans follow Harborough as well the fanbase is a real mix. Harborough is the sort of area people move too and has a large amount of London commuters. I really don’t think the attendances will drop at all when Leicester pick up again, if anything they will grow. It’s a new club really in a growing town.

Harboroughs 600 allocation for Kettering has sold out in 44 mins. Many left disappointed. Got mine 😀

Yet another cracking day following Harborough. Emphatic 5-1 win at in form Sudbury to ensure we got in the playoffs. Nice to see Sandro back too, really looked the part in his cameo and he’s a really decent bloke. A few hundred Harborough made the trip and again made themselves heard, can’t believe how much the club has grown this year. A tough game away at Kettering now but nothing to be scared of.

Sean Dyche 😀. Jesus wept. Might as well keep RVN, at least it will save a few million on his payout.