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SMALL STEPS TO HEAVEN [Liverpool Echo (England)](Liverpool Echo (England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LITTLEmore than three months after the conclusion of what became popularly known as "the season from hell" at Prenton Park, Tranmere embark next weekend on a new campaign with a new manager, Rob Edwards, working with a brief to take the club in a new direction. Rovers are entering unfamiliar territory. The opening League Two home game against York T City on Saturday August 9 will be their first experience of football in the League's basement division in a quarter of a century. They have not been here since Johnny King began his "rocket ride to the Moon" by piloting Tranmere to promotion as Division Four runners-up in 1989. The difference this time is that owner Peter Johnson will not be pumping resources into the project as he did 25 years ago. Rather, the chairman insists Tranmere'st attempt to make the League Two journey while t operating a regime of self-sufficiency. The intention is nothing new. Rovers worked harder to live within their means than most League One rivals after 2009, the year when Johnson returned to a more hands-on role as chairman. Even so, those economies were not enough to E keep the figures on the balance sheet from leaking into the red. What has changed this season is the depth of the cuts imposed, not just to the playing budget but in other areas of the club's finances. Jobs have been lost. Some familiar faces are no longer on the staff at Prenton Park. Relegation is by no means the sole driver of the economies. The drop into League Two means Tranmere's income from the Football League is expected to fall by around Pounds 150,000 this season. Revenue from visiting supporters is likely to take a bigger hit. There will be fewer occasions when the visiting team will bring a substantial following, as Wolverhampton Wanderers, Preston, Coventry City, Oldham Athletic, sheffield United and Bradford City did last season. Just as significantly, the latest set of annual accounts, published in April, before relegation was confirmed, showed how acute the club's financial position has become. The cold, dispassionate language of directors' and auditors' reports painted a worrying Picture . The accounts revealed Johnson had ploughed Pounds 900,000 of his own money into the club between July 2013 and April 2014 to pay the bills and the document said the Birkenhead multimillionaire businessman is "unable to confirm" he will continue to bail out the club in the future. In the accounts report, directors stated that while they believe there are sufficient resources to keep the company going for at least the next 12 months, they accept there are "a number of fundamental uncertainties regarding the future of the business". Those fundamental uncertainties include the failure to find a suitable buyer for the club following the failed takeover negotiations of last season, the reliance on the continued support of the principle banker (Alllied Iirish), the principle creditor (Johnson) and the success of the restructure put in place for this season. The document warns: "Should the directors be unable to secure the sale of the business or, if the restructure does not achieve the savings anticipated, the company may not have sufficient funds to meet its obligations as they fall due." Part of the club's response to the worsening " scenario was to lay out plans to change the way the football side of the business is run, onto a more economic model. Rovers go into the new season with a plan to develop and and use more home-grown players and to significantly reduce their reliance on loan signings, whether temporary or long term, which ballooned in recent seasons. Chief executive Jeremy Butler, the man recruited by Johnson to push through the restructure, is working hard to put a positive face on some tough decisions. Season tickets, smartly marketed, are close to matching last season's sales figures. Co-operation over the Johnny King statue Project and the decision to rename the Vice Presidents's suite after Warwick Rimmer show the club is learning to pay better attention to heroes from yesterday. A deal struck with the tranmere Rovers Trust, who will be donating Pounds 10,000 towards paying the wages of teenage goalkeeper Sam Ramsbottom this season, shows a spirit of goodwill and cooperation between supporters and the club has survived last season's traumas. Butler says Edwards was chosen as the managerial candidate who best suited Rovers' new course. ' After serving an apprenticeship as No 2 toPaul Tisdale at Exeter City, a club who have been producing good numbers of their own players on a tight budget for many years, Edwards has looked, from day one, like a manager who is on top of his work. Edwards' brief speaks of a long-term project. Developing a supply of home produced players cannot be done overnight. Finding and nurturing young footballers takes time. Blending them into a team a little longer. The short-term fix of a promotion challenge this season, though desirable, should not be the basis on which Edwards is judged or the club's recovery measured. The new manager deserves the time and opportunity to make his ideas work. So you hope that the club's hierarchy will give Edwards and his staff that time and the supporters will hold back on criticism if the team don't happen to be occupying a top six spot at Christmas. A football club in Tranmere's financial condition cannot be expected to run straight to the front of the pack in League Two simply on T the basis that they have been playing at a higher level for the past 25 years. Some patience and realism will help Rovers over the course of the next nine months. Edwards has made as many new signings as the budget - understood to be below Pounds 1million - will allow, bringing the squad strength up to around 20. Results in the pre-season games were mixed but then they are often an unreliable guide to early-season form. Much more clear cut is the impression Tranmere's performances have given about the kind of football we can expect to witness this season. Look forward to an emphasis on passing and movement, a high tempo. Certainly not the brand of football that fits the League Two stereotype of abrasive long ball tactics played by teams of giants. The stature of the squad put together by Edwards this summer is such that Tranmere will gain little by attempting to go route one. They will be out to show that small can be beautiful and successful - both in terms of the team on the pitch and the budget that sustains BORN: Professional career AS A PLAYER - 1991.99: 1999.2004: 2004.2006: 2006.2011: AS A COACH - 2007-11: 2011.2014: 201? GOALKEEPERS: Owain Fon Williams (retained from last season) Sam Ramsbottom (first year professional) ? DEFENDERS: Danny Holmes (retained from last season) Marcus Holness (new signing) Michael Ihiekwe (new signing) Danny Woodards (new signing) Liam Ridehalgh (retained from last season) Antonie Boland (retained from last season) ? MIDFIELDERS: Matt Gill (new signing) Jason Koumas (retained from last season) Max Power (retained from last season) Marc Laird (new signing) James Rowe (retained from last season) Jake Kirby (retained from last season) Abdulai Baggie (retained from last season) ? FORWARDS: Eliot Richards (new signing) Cole Stockton (retained from last season) Kayode Odejayi (new signing) Liam Davies (first year professional). (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |