Well here it is again, WSA 18 no less, how time marches on. Since the last FA Cup induced fairly manic depressive issue things have barely got any better, except for the scraped the home win against fellow strugglers Darlington. Whilst they came to the 'Park' on the back of one defeat in seven games our record was similar in one repect at least, we had one win in seven. Home advantage and the fact that they had three experienced players missing should have tipped the balance our way and it did, only just. Darkie and I sat for a good few hours during a ritual Centrespot post-mortem of the game and eventually, after more ciders than I want to think about, I conceded that it was a good result. A few months ago if we had gone behind at home the wheels would have inevitably come off and we would not have recovered. In addition the debutant loanee scored a good goal, as did Danny (with his head!), Chris meyers came back into contention for a place in the team and we had another good crowd to witness a home win. Dispite all the positive things I was still a bit unsettled, things had gone to plan, but the self doubts within in me (if not the team) would not go away. The stark realisation of our plight was brought home to me travelling back from Brighton. Taking Brighton and Hove Albion out of the equation, assuming their resurgence of form continues, give both Darlington and Doncaster the three points for their game in hand and we would be bottom of the bloody football league again.

Perhaps its not for me to cast the seeds of self doubt, to be fair to Foxy he has stated in the Echo that he has not proached this thorny issue with the players, but I am worried, worried sick. The defensive frailties against Darlington were clear for all to see. We have to take encouagment from the fact that the long term injuries in the squad are now clearing up an the true worth of the first eleven can be seen. We experienced the best spell of the season prior to these injuries and things can only get better. Our fate will be decided if the other teams involved in the relegation melle fail to match our results. One thing is to be certain we cannot rely on any favours from Carlisle United on the final Saturday of the season, its as likely that they will need points for either the Championship or automatic promotion. I feel we are falling into the same trap as our Directors, I am sure this is effectively what amounts to the sum of their ambition i.e. look for a worse team that will finish below us at the end of the season. Elsewhere in the magazine I have printed an article kindly sent in which examines the run in of all the teams caught in the relegation quagmire. It remains to be seen whether the pessimism amongst supporters at the end of February was unfounded. If we continue to manage to string the odd result together and we avoid relegation, it would be wrong to sit back and assume that all is well and the fans are content put up with the aimless drift towards the wrong end of the table we find ourselves enduring. The fans do understand the importance of not slipping into further debt akin to the last mess this Board took us by throwing good money after bad with the ludicrous salaries paid to TC's Bristol rejects. Apparently the Board can only afford to give our manager the current level of resources to fund the squad we have at present otherwise our expenditure would exceed income. There has to be a compromise between suicidal spending and suicdal non-spending. This is the art of good managment, i.e. just how far we to pitch investmnent between these two unsavoury alternative options. Obviously we don't have it right just yet.

Peter Fox and Murray Couch kindly attended the last Supporters Club Committee meeting where we had a frank exchange of views. Needless to say we discussed this very thorny subject. It was agreed by Steve Darke and Dave Bennett who attended a recent 'clear the air' style meeting with the Chairman and the Chief Executive that the message conveyed in the Sunday Independent was repeated. That is on the lines of: the £100,000 proceeds would not be spent this season but be set aside to cover the out-goings for the Summer months and be the launch pad for Foxy's team building at the start of next season. Well I could not come to turns with this strange logic as our plunge towards relegation continued. This prompted my letter to the Echo which I have reproduced in full elsewhere in the mag. What would be the point is saving for next season if we go out of the Football League this year. Apparently, according to Murray (the relief was clear on Foxy's face) there will be investment next season. The £100,000 has been spent on other things sadly. The Club came out of administration with debts apparently at about £300,000, it would be chirlish to point out that we went into administration with a football stadium and debts of £250,000 as unpaid Inland Revenue taxes. Or so we were lead to believe. These debts were probably related to the release of the deeds to the land, held by the bank. If we wanted to sell the ground we would have to un-mortgage the ground (much like it says on the back of the Monopoly property cards). To do this more bank loans would have to be organised, the part of this resposibility fell upon one of the employees. These short term loans have been paid for by the Argyle TV money, so in effect the money has been "black-holed". Why there has to be such a cover up in the running of our Club has to be a complete mystery. If these facts were portrayed as they happened rather than as people want us to see them there would not be all the suspicion and the credability gap widens. If the cash windfall had to be ear-markd for the whatever reason bloody say so. This also begs questions as to the credibility of the business plan, is this a further reason as to it's secrecy? At the last Fans' Forum the Chief Executive promised a copy for the Supporters and we still wait. It has to be expected that the Business Plan will be superceded as the season progresses, and could be a useful tool for assessing the overall achievements of the company. So will there be a cash injection next season? Murray explained that the Football League is hoping to secure a deal with Sky TV and this will mean we end up with £200,000 windfall, as will everyone else in the Division. The difference is our Club now does not have significant debts unlike others and hence Foxy will get more than most Managers to spend. The trouble is that it is always cake tomorrow. Grecian fans are used to heartache and invaraibly some other unheard of debt or financial pressure will make itself apparent. For instance there appears to be no money put aside for the Taylor report forced redevelopment of St James Park. It is no surprise with the problems the compny has had we have missed the boat for a large grant from FIGIT as their funding is drying up with peoples defection from the Pools to the National Lottery. Murray explains that they are hoping that as we have still to find about 700 seats in a couple of seasons and we have not had any big moneywe maight get priority over some grant applicants that have complied with the law but just want to make their ground look nice. I suppose that we should be hoping for a change of Goverment so there might be a change of law preventing the need to redevelop St James Park. If do nothing we can be quite justifably keep the title of a third rate Club. Just look at our so called poorer relations so often the butt of our jokes I mean the likes of Hartlepool United, Scarborough, Torquay who have no such problems to be sorted by the year 2000.