mervyn":3sutrruq said:
Across all the pasoti forums, whatever the subject, someone inevitably brings out the routine, repetitive location problem when trying to attract new signings, and I do feel it’s time to seriously question this.
My children, who’ve moved away, and older grandchildren, simply don’t see Devon as an outpost. They don’t believe a 3 hour drive from London or the Midlands makes us inaccessible. People from these regions regularly visit here as a day trip. We’re becoming more Americanised in our attitude to longer journeys. We’re a small island, and nowhere in England is too far away. For the past ten years more people have moved to Devon and Cornwall than to any other region. Do they feel cut off from the friends and family they moved away from? Off course not.
I’ve spoken to four Argyle players who left other regions to come here, and the attractions of raising families here, the lifestyle, house prices and local schooling were all big draws.
I don’t want to antagonise anyone, but is this simply a view by born and bred Devonians who’ve never moved away, and are happy to subscribe to the ‘outpost’ view of our region. A view which isn’t held by the thousands like me who moved here, and are glad they did.
Two years ago I checked all this out in mid season by studying the new arrivals/departures headers on the fan forums for Swansea, Hull, Norwich and even Carlisle. None of these is any less isolated geographically than us. I couldn’t find one single fan’s concern about their club’s location or the difficulty it might pose in signing players. Three of those clubs have recent Prem experience to further prove the point.
So, it’s a genuine question. Do we really have a problem, or is it just one of those ‘same old Argo’ excuses that gets trotted out?
Which is Chudleigh I presume? Couldn't quite bring yourself to move that extra 45 minutes down the road?
I believe that our location does count against us, however, if we are willing to pay over the top in wages then players are more likely to come e.g. Danny Mayor. Having said that, we couldn't even tempt one of our own (Joe Mason) back because we couldn't pay enough apparently.
Our most recent successful time came when we had a team of Hungarians and Frenchmen which in itself demonstrates the lengths we have to go too in order to attract decent players. I guess though that as we're now using data to recruit, this option is off the table as we probably dont pay the upgrade fee required to have access to European player stats.
Players with a decent pedigree that do join us have either suffered major injuries or have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another and are looking for a way back into football e.g. Reeves, MacLeod, Edwards, Lameiras, Beglin, MacNamee, Ladapo, Quinn, Djokovic and possibly even Ennis falls into this category. There are countless others that I'm sure people could add.
Also, as someone has already mentioned, our own manager cant bring his family down despite saying on a couple of occasions that he is. If the manager cant sell it to his own family then what chance do we have of the players doing so.