Non-league / Gary Boswell / 29 July 2009 / Leave a comment

Gary Boswell tells us why tranquility in the Boardroom ranks highly in terms of importance, alongside managerial and playing strength, when trying to find the value for this year's Blue Square Premier winner.

Histon deservedly come out top of the chart as their backroom staff headed by John "Beck and Steve Fallon are by far and away the best remaining in the league for this year. Boardroom is tremendously progressive, whilst also realistic, and the club is on a fantastic upward curve through the Football Pyramid."

About two months into last season I responded to an observation of my own in pursuit of the candidate for BSP Champions 08/09. I called it the B&B chart with the acronym standing not for Bed & Breakfast but those two equally fundamental life qualities in terms of football success - Boardroom and Backroom Staff.

I've always highly valued the performance factors of the Boardroom in relation to a football club's long term success or lack of it. Likewise, the competency of management, medical and coaching staff that compromises a club's backroom team has a profound influence for me on how a football team performs over a season.

I decided to get formal and give each club a rating between 1 and 5 for its boardroom and backroom competency. In scoring the boardroom, I took into consideration financial management and current liquidity situation at the club, stability and consistency of personnel and their relationship with management - positive or negative - and the general ability to form a successful long term plan.

The backroom was scored on touchline efficiency, motivational quality, physio and training effectiveness alongside the more obvious factors of team selection and tactics.
When I completed the exercise in October 2008, the two clubs that scored highest in BSP were Burton Albion and Torquay! Need I say more! Especially as I kind of ignored the findings in relation to Torquay, who I always thought had insufficient on-pitch personnel to escape from the league.

Chastened by the Gulls' play-off success and buoyed by the way the chart helped me identify Burton Albion as a tremendous Back to Lay opportunity for this column, I have created a pre-season chart for 09/10 in BSP. I have also added my perceptions of each team's playing squad to create a score out of 15, which when you compare it with current prices in the Betfair BSP outrights market, gives you plenty of ammunition to know which clubs to back and which to lay in your pre-season portfolio.

Histon deservedly come out top of the chart as their backroom staff headed by John Beck and Steve Fallon are by far and away the best remaining in the league for this year. Boardroom is tremendously progressive, whilst also realistic, and the club is on a fantastic upward curve through the Football Pyramid. The win against Leeds United in the FA Cup last year and the 3rd place league position were no fluke and I fully expect them to kick on again this year so that the price on offer of [34.0] on Betfair is one I consider to be absolute top drawer in the value stakes. I presume others are going that long because of the loss of a few significant names from last season - most notably perhaps striker Jack Midson, who will line up for Oxford.

These personnel changes don't worry me though because what marked the Stutes out last season was the way they played as a team without relying heavily at all on any one individual. Well organised, excellently supported and the same sort of progressive non-league profile that Burton Albion and Morecambe had as promoted teams from seasons before. An absolute must back for your portfolio.

Other high scorers whose price is attractive include Kettering ([27.0]) and AFC Wimbledon ([17.0]) with the latter obviously being extremely interesting in view of being the original Supporters Trust team now on the verge of emulating their namesakes from the past and making their way into the Football League. A tough ask to expect them to do it at first attempt in so competitive an environment but I underrated Torquay on the chart last season and paid for it and I don't intend to do so with the Wombles, who can perhaps also be given extra points for the sheer quality of their fan base which is of course directly linked into their boardroom.

High scorers whose price is miniscule include Luton [3.7] and Oxford [5.0]. Both would normally appear on my lay list in such a competitive league at those pre-season prices and indeed Chris Wilder's Oxford may yet feature there as their boardroom financial performance has been very much the root of their underachievement in previous seasons. Despite improvement in the latter half of last season with the canny appointment of Chris Wilder and good summer news with the arrival of the Whitehead money to plug the gap caused by the Setanta UK crash, the jury is still out really on Oxford as title candidates. They do seem very,very short in the betting. As do Luton of course but the Hatters could literally be anything in this league and have to be treated warily until a few games evidence is in the bag. They resemble Carlisle when they came down as a club. Carlisle didn't win the league the following season (I hear you retort and that's true) but there's a part of me that thinks they might have done if they hadn't been so terribly afflicted mid-season by the after-effects of the flooding which devastated the town.

In any case I'm being cautious with the Hatters until I have more evidence of their on-pitch strength and am instead restricting my pre-season lays to Stevenage ([9.4]) and Cambridge ([13.0]) both of whom score particularly badly in the boardroom sphere which is where I consider the campaigns of the past two seasons to have cost them.

Cambridge, in particular, are in turmoil again following their second successive play-off final defeat and seemingly obligatory sacking of the manager. Chairman George Rolls is not someone to be relied on to create harmony between boardroom and management! A rock solid lay for The Boz's portfolio!