Berwick Rangers, Sleepwalking Towards Relegation!

There are alot of good things happening at Berwick Rangers. The club is probably more stable than its been in decades, fan ownership means that threat of some rich businessman moving the club to East Lothian and becoming Tranent Rangers isn’t there anymore, and the finances are healthier than they’ve ever been.

The main aim of the supporters trust set up in 2003 has been achieved, and although some work needs to be done to mend the reputation of the club in the town and community, things off the field are in the main, heading in the right direction. Despite this however, I am worried that all the good work done off the park could be blown apart by a lack of ambition on it.

Since the promotion season of 06/07 the teams representing Berwick Rangers have done pretty much nothing of note on the park. That’s six and half long years. A kid who was 12 on the day we were promoted will now be 18 and what has there been to inspire them to continue attending our games? Some may point out that reaching the playoffs last season can be seen as some kind of success, but at the end of the day we reached 4th place despite losing more than we won and went out of the playoffs at the first hurdle against a pretty poor East Fife team. A team who were in turmoil at the time with a manager who had seemingly lost the plot.

Despite the playoff failure I think alot of fans left Bayview last May pretty confident we were heading in the right direction. We haven’t kicked on since that day though. Eight months later and we still haven’t signed the striker we need, we still haven’t got the leadership on the park so badly missing for at least the past 5 years and the same things keep happening. I don’t think anyone can deny we play some decent football on occasions but we’re so brittle. I’m never confident when we go a goal up. We keep surrendering leads and fall apart at the first sign of trouble. Away form is still very poor.

Despite the football being easier on the eye, I don’t actually believe we’ve moved on much since Jimmy Crease was sacked over 2 years ago. In my opinion there are worrying signs that the players hold too much power and that the manager isn’t prepared to strengthen the squad. Is this because he is unable to attract the players we need, or is he unwilling to sign these players, preferring to develop what we have? We’ve been told he has the money but isn’t spending it. It’s all very well looking to develop young players, but it’s quite clear that many of the players who now sit on the bench week in week out who have come through the reserves aren’t capable of helping the team to challenge at the right end of the table.

Fair enough, Little received a boost to his budget very late in the summer transfer window, but I think it was painfully obvious we were short. Little should have at least been lining up signings to make in early January, especially considering the horrendous run the team has been on, but still we wait for any news. The only rumours we seem to hear are of Paul Currie, Darren Smith and Kris Renton, two of which are former players who the manager will already know. The question we need answered is what ambition is there from the manager to bring in the players needed, or is he just out of his depth.

People are also starting to ask questions about the ambition of at boardroom level. Vice Chairman, John Bell recently answered questions put to him over the clubs Facebook page. It’s great that we are seeing communication from the boardroom and some of the work going on behind the scenes concerning a new stadium and the explanations regarding a 3G pitch is good to see, but I have to say, some of the answers were simply not good enough when the question of ambition was raised. The most worrying answer for me was when questioned about aiming for promotion, especially considering the introduction of relegation from League 2 next season. The answer was:

“I think Berwick Rangers has the resources and ability to comfortably remain within the top 41 Clubs in Scotland, whether it’s this year or next.

If promotion isn’t achieved this year, then we should be able to retain enough confidence in our ability not to panic about the prospect of relegation next year. Panic brings bad decision-making.”

Whereas I agree we shouldn’t be hitting the panic button, I do think we need to be demanding alot more than what we’re getting. Now is the time to strengthen and now is the time to have the correct managerial structure in place to aim for promotion. We can’t be complacent. Look at the number of old league clubs in England who have sunk into non-league despite being comfortable league clubs in the past. Look at where Stockport County are now! They were beating Manchester City in the league barely a decade ago. The teams below us will most likely be better next season. You can’t see Elgin or Queens Park being as bad. Every club in our division could claim to be confident in remaining as one of the top 41 clubs in Scotland, but where is the evidence for us? John Bell claimed that we match other clubs in our division in terms of wages. That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, especially when the current manager has been unable to fix long term problems with the team. Excuses about the population density of the area and the average wage in Berwick have been used, but the fact remains that teams we used to compete with and regularly beat, like Stenhousemuir, Forfar, Brechin, Arbroath, Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton and Stranraer look a long way ahead of us.

We may strengthen a bit and we may be safe next year, but what about going forward? There are teams in the divisions below us who will show ambition. Some of them will be promoted at the expense of a team like Shire, Montrose, Queens Park or god forbid, us. They won’t want to go back to where they came from and they will be looking to compete at this level. Unless things change and we show some more ambition, I’m not that confident we will stay ahead of ambitious non-league clubs like Spartans, Cove and Formartine United. It’s not like we’ve shown Annan Athletic who’s boss since they joined the league from the East of Scotland. It’s them with the new stand, them with the 3G pitch, them with the play-off final and them with the Challenge Cup semi final place to their name. A few new clubs could easily do similar and currently we’d be one of the first clubs looking below us at the trapdoor. Will we use the excuse of oil money in Aberdeen for Cove, population density in Edinburgh or a team being bankrolled in the Highlands?

I might be being a bit dramatic, but I do believe that if we continue to stand still and don’t fix the obvious on field problems that have plagued us the the last few years, then the good work off the park could be wasted.