Attracting Players to our area…
- Thread starter Ex Footy Legs
- Start date
18MFC76
Well-known member
Plenty in Nunthorpe... Matt Crooks, Dael Fry, Mogga, Woodgate, Jamie Pollock, Downing lived in Nunthorpe for years, only just recently moved I think.
festa5
Well-known member
Basically the only "issue" in terms of the area is proximity to London (so the same issue as any northern side then) or, if players somehow have the impression they have to live in Middlesbrough. As others have said, they can easily live in, or in close proximity to Leeds and Newcastle. It really shouldn't be an issue (bar the London thing).
An hour's drive to training is nothing. I'm willing to bet half the players based at London clubs face similar commutes getting across London.
I think in recent seasons where we've lost out is usually because championship rivals have been willing to beat us on wages. It's as simple as that. Usually to their long term detriment (Derby and Waghorn for example). One of the reasons Gibson is so hot on ensuring FFP I think.
An hour's drive to training is nothing. I'm willing to bet half the players based at London clubs face similar commutes getting across London.
I think in recent seasons where we've lost out is usually because championship rivals have been willing to beat us on wages. It's as simple as that. Usually to their long term detriment (Derby and Waghorn for example). One of the reasons Gibson is so hot on ensuring FFP I think.
r00fie1
Well-known member
So whats the problem?
None.
r00fie1
Well-known member
Im saying that its not the only area in the United Kingdom to have some of the issues you mentioned.So your saying Middlesbrough is one of the best places to live in England?
Where`s the source of your smear about "benefits"?
Says more about your attitude towards other people than anything else.
NorthumberlandBoro
Well-known member
But London is a huge draw for players(from abroad especially) and any clubs in that vicinity will doubtless benefit.
Bigstrongman
Active member
Ok not the whole of the north east but you get what I was getting at. The vast majority of where we are is wnak.
If your saying that then I could say you can’t say Middlesbrough is a fantastic place to be because of wynyard up the road which is a part of Hartlepool. Sick of people saying Middlesbrough is class because of what’s on our door step. It’s going against what your saying, Middlesbrough isn’t one of the best places at all.
“Boro is one of the best places because we have Yorkshire dales just down the road” That in itself doesn’t make sense. Surely then the Yorkshire dales automatically becomes a better place. If Boro was that good you wouldn’t need to venture out.
If Boro offered the same amount of
Money to a player as another club offered …. Everything being equal, wages, length of contract etc most of the time the player will choose somewhere classed as a big city. Purely based on the Middlesbrough town reputation
No they don’t live in the town centre but that reputation in itself will put players off. Some players did hang around, but an awful lot have left
If your saying that then I could say you can’t say Middlesbrough is a fantastic place to be because of wynyard up the road which is a part of Hartlepool. Sick of people saying Middlesbrough is class because of what’s on our door step. It’s going against what your saying, Middlesbrough isn’t one of the best places at all.
“Boro is one of the best places because we have Yorkshire dales just down the road” That in itself doesn’t make sense. Surely then the Yorkshire dales automatically becomes a better place. If Boro was that good you wouldn’t need to venture out.
If Boro offered the same amount of
Money to a player as another club offered …. Everything being equal, wages, length of contract etc most of the time the player will choose somewhere classed as a big city. Purely based on the Middlesbrough town reputation
No they don’t live in the town centre but that reputation in itself will put players off. Some players did hang around, but an awful lot have left
Bigstrongman
Active member
Do a quick Google search and you’ll find about 60% of households in the north east are on benefits. That doesn’t suggest the north east is a good place to live at all To me it suggests no work, or scammers
Bigstrongman
Active member
This
www.statista.com
This
Don’t judge a town on what’s near us, judge it on what’s going on inside it
UK state benefits by region 2022 | Statista
In 2021/22, 60 percent of households in Nort Eas England and Wales were receiving a type of state benefit, the highest among regions in the United Kingdom in that reporting year.
www.statista.com
This
The most dangerous places to live in England and Wales revealed as crimes including robbery and sex offences ranked
THE most dangerous places to live in the UK where residents are most at risk of theft, sex crimes and violent attacks can be revealed today. Sun Online analysis of the the latest government figures…
www.thesun.co.uk
Don’t judge a town on what’s near us, judge it on what’s going on inside it
SilentProf
Well-known member
We’re seeing with Wilder that it’s a lot easier to recruit decent players when you have a proven coaching team and play entertaining football. If players are choosing to go elsewhere based on how close it is to London or some other major city, that’s a failure of our recruitment team to properly sell the benefits of being here.
Nobody could argue that the town itself is an amazing place, but playing for the club allows our players to live a life of luxury on far less money than just about anywhere else in the country. In the premier league that might be less relevant, but at our level a £500k country mansion within half an hour of either Newcastle or Leeds and Hurworth or the equivalent property in London should not be a difficult sell.
If anyone is more concerned about their social opportunities than their professional ones, they’re probably not going to be a success here anyway.
Nobody could argue that the town itself is an amazing place, but playing for the club allows our players to live a life of luxury on far less money than just about anywhere else in the country. In the premier league that might be less relevant, but at our level a £500k country mansion within half an hour of either Newcastle or Leeds and Hurworth or the equivalent property in London should not be a difficult sell.
If anyone is more concerned about their social opportunities than their professional ones, they’re probably not going to be a success here anyway.
r00fie1
Well-known member
"Benefits" is not a dirty word. The fact that [according to some statistics] 60% [of who?] are reportedly on "benefits" is a complete condemnation of 12 years of Tory government - who have lined their own pockets and those billionaire mates in finance, the arms industry and dirty money in the City of London. The rich have got richer on the backs of the poor. The biggest single growth market in the North East are food-banks: a direct result of economic policy over 12+ years - where families are having to rely on charity to ensure school children dont go hungry and ordinary people in poverty have some food to survive on.
Mark Rashford has done more to help put food in childrens mouths than any Tory Government in the last 12+ years.
A newspaper owned by a billionaire foreign oligarch, doesnt deserve any credence.
Its castigation of workers striking to defend wages and protect jobs, its support for racists like Johnson and Farage, and its continued support for attacks on the many not the few to protect the rich - isnt worth giving serious consideration.
[Source: https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/universal-credit-cut-will-hit-millions-working-families-and-key-workers]
"Benefits" includes those working families on low incomes.
It includes those who have long-term disabilities which effect their ability to work.
It includes those who work part-time.
It includes people with terminal conditions.
It includes people with long-term mental health issues.
It includes those who require care and support.
The North East is one of the most economically and socially deprived regions in the United Kingdom - not because people are lazy benefit scroungers. Ask the workers who lost their jobs at Redcar when the fires were finally extinguished on the making of steel on Teesside. They had no choice. Neither did thousands of others in the 80s and all the other industries supporting the supply chain. You might appreciate looking back just 50 years to read up on the economic history of Teesside. You might get a realistic appraisal of what has happened to the area`s economy and underestand how this has effected the region.
The North East has high rates of child poverty and relative deprivation - with 12+ years of Tory cuts to schooling, youth services, day centres, social services, cuts in support for the elderly and disabled, closures of libraries, local community centres, reductions in Sure Start services, cuts in provision for child care, closure of mental health wards in hospitals and privatising essential services - channelling public money directly into private pockets via profits, for the rich.
The selling of public housing stock to the "market" has created an acute housing shortage - especially in the rented sector with affordable rents.
The area has experienced structural economic decline and has been stripped of its assets by private companies of previously nationalised industries.
Its per-capita investment in infrastructure is significantly below that of the South - with poor railway and public transport investment.
If you want facts - leave the Newspapers and dig a bit deeper.
The poor are poor because the rich are rich - and thats the root of asll todays issues - whether in the North East or anywhere else.
I lived in West Yorkshire for 12 years.coming back to this area makes me appreciate it so much more.Everywhere has good and bad to it but we are lucky to have some lovely beaches and countryside,some lovely areas like great ayton and people are more friendly in this area I find . Passionate football fans close to Newcastle,Leeds ,Whitby , Harrogate etc.Good to bring up children.
indeedido
Well-known member
And you are hard of thinking it would seem.
Someone talked about Middlesbrough being an anti draw as a place for recruitment.
I agree nobody is likely to live in the town itself, any more than in Blackburn or Reading themselves for example.
All I did was consider the actual Championship places as a comparison.
If you are looking at the surrounding areas and quality of life then I’m pretty sure we fair extremely well.
Either way I don’t see a disadvantage in going after good Championship quality players.
I do agree with NorthumberlandBoro’s point re London and overseas players.
Redwurzel
Well-known member
Merseyside always seem to get away with being a good area to live, but it has a lot of deprivation and crime and is not close to London. It also rains a lot. Liverpool FC and Everton FC to some extent have a pull that overcomes the negatives of the area they are located in.
Expat Smoggie
Well-known member
The club needs to get back in the Prem as for whatever reason as Premier league attracts major investment. I see a lot of “just because” type statements on here which are excuses for mistakes of the past— sooner or later you have to face up to the harsh realities and try to improve the situation by being positive and thrive with people who are perhaps like minded.
Uwefuchs
Well-known member
Liverpool City centre is fantastic and it probably has enough restaurants, bars and shops to satisfy a young millionaire.
The other side of that is the deprivation is just as bad in parts of the city as it is in parts of the Boro. Liverpool has a far bigger problem with gangs, gun crime and knife crime than we do.
For a young footballer Liverpool would be a far better place to live if you want the benefits which come with City living. If you are a footballer with a family and want to be somewhere quiet with nice countryside and coastline then you'd have a better lifestyle living around here.
Uwefuchs
Well-known member
But which Champuonship club are going to beat us to players because of the London draw? Luton? Reading? Millwall? None of them are going to attract players to join them over us.
Watford probably could but that's not just a London thing, its also due to the wages they could pay and they could provide a good chance of promotion.
This shows the London thing isn't a massive setback at this level, it would be different in the Premier league but thats because we'd be a small club in the Premier league and paying some of the smallest wages.
At this level we are decent sized club and I don't actually think the location thing is that much of an issue.
festa5
Well-known member
The reason we've not made as much progress in the market as we'd have hoped at this point isn't anything to do with location. It's because clubs are asking more for their players than we're willing to pay (possibly Goyorkes? See Wilder's comments on what we've been quoted for strikers) or because clubs aren't willing to sanction exits till they've brought in their own replacements (Armstrong).
It doesn't sound like we've even got to the "discussing personal terms" part with any targets yet.
In fact didn't Wilder say he'd already spoken to several players who'd indicated they were keen? From what Wilder has said it seems attracting the players isn't the problem, it's convincing other clubs to part with them in the first place.
It doesn't sound like we've even got to the "discussing personal terms" part with any targets yet.
In fact didn't Wilder say he'd already spoken to several players who'd indicated they were keen? From what Wilder has said it seems attracting the players isn't the problem, it's convincing other clubs to part with them in the first place.
r00fie1
Well-known member
Spot on
Do you reckon some clubs still think they can milk us because we have paid inflated transfers in the past?
Thinking of Savill, Fletcher, Brit, Braithwaite, ....[for example].
Maybe we set a president?
Either way, we have the support, the stadium, better facilities than almost every club in the Championship and the right Management / Recruitment team to get the right players in....
It's long been accepted that it's harder to recruit players to all the NE teams mainly because of the geography. Players are just normal people with more ££ than most and the same as the posters on this thread all will have somewhat different requirements for themselves and very importantly their families if they have them. Just because they can hop in a car with a driver or a train/plane to party doesn't mean to say their partners want to live 100s of miles away from friends and family.