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Peter Atkinson, who was one of the four other hardy Bees who walked from Brentford to Hartlepool with me in February 2005, puts pen to paper to share his personal views in light of some some of the social media comments made  following last weekend’s defeat to Brighton.

We are a club in transition – a club that is evolving from long-time obscurity towards becoming a household name. This transition is never going to be a smooth one for anyone, be it off the pitch, on the pitch or in the stands. We are all learning together how this evolution affects the club we love and, as with any learning process, mistakes will be made. Learning from these mistakes is the key to success though and if we can all keep moving forward in the same direction, together, then we can all reap the benefits as we make progress.

Now that may all sound like wishy-washy crap when you’ve had to endure a frustratingly toothless and ultimately expensive game away at Brighton on a Friday night for a game that was inconveniently moved for TV (to those 1100-odd Bees fans, you have my utmost admiration), but it’s important to remember where we’ve come from and where we’re going to. No-one wants to go back to how things were before, do they?

Recently there seems to be an increasing level of criticism aimed at the club’s strategy in the transfer market. Let’s not forget though that we are still a selling club along with 95% of the rest of the clubs in the football pyramid. We simply cannot hold onto our players when they are tempted by bigger, richer clubs, as has always been the case. Last season put them well and truly in the shop window, so it’s no great surprise that we’ve now lost five or six of the regulars from that team. The big difference now though is that we have the clout and the nous to be able to fight our corner and get the best price for our players. Gone are the days of losing our best players for peanuts and leaving a gaping hole in the team (Gayle, Grainger, Forster, Mahon, Smith, Campbell, Turner to name but a few) but at least now we can hold our own and force the arms of the poachers into paying top dollar or shuffling off to find their next victim.

Until we have our new stadium and have spent a few more seasons in the Championship, this is probably the best that we can hope for, and any thoughts of being able to offer wage-structure-shattering contracts to a player who is looking elsewhere anyway are simply foolish. That only leads to a spiralling wage bill as existing and new players want parity with the superstar and then we’re in seriously dangerous territory. Evolution takes time and, whilst the temptation is to try to run before we can walk, I would rather take ten years to see the club I love reach the Promised Land as a stable entity than gamble it all on a massive extravaganza that could (and most likely, would) ultimately fail and see us plummet. Put simply, from the past decade I’d rather be Swansea than Portsmouth.

Some people talk about the club only being interested in making profit from the players, having an unhealthy obsession with the balance sheet as we buy ‘em cheap and sell ‘em big. Well quite frankly, why not!? That’s how we generate the money to grow the club, because for a club our size at Griffin Park we don’t have the revenue streams elsewhere to do that. It comes from clever buying and calculated selling. Yes it disrupts the squad, yes it may scupper our outside chances of the play-offs this season, but you have to look at the bigger picture. We always used to scratch around, desperately hoping to unearth a hidden gem that we could sell to keep the club afloat (thank goodness for DJ). Now we have an extensive scouting network that can actively source and buy in quality players who are almost guaranteed to earn us a few million quid profit within the space of a season or two as they develop and we benefit from their performances on the pitch. And hey, when they move on, we know we’ll almost certainly have an even brighter star to replace them with. I know which of those scenarios I prefer.

Whilst Matthew Benham is in charge, I have no worries about our status as a Championship club being under threat. As far as recruitment goes, mistakes were made last summer. These have been admitted and I genuinely think they will have been learnt from. But whilst we may have been a little Continental-heavy at the start of the season and we’re still a few players light after recent departures, by the end of the season our young squad will have another year of experience and a good six months of being moulded into the side that Dean Smith wants. If we can add to the squad with another four or five smart signings, I have no doubt we can have another play-off push next season.

So let’s not get too downhearted because of the current poor run of form and a few changes around the club. You can’t have silver linings without a few clouds as well. Let’s not let the multitude of ignoramuses in the media who spout drivel about the way our club is run have any sort of satisfaction from sensing any dissatisfaction in our ranks. Our club is on the up, for good this time. We are no one-season-wonders. We no longer have to pin our hopes on the likes of Fola Onibuje or Neil Shipperley. Whatever our opinions, we all have red and white blood running through our veins. Goodness knows we’ve suffered the past together, so let’s enjoy the future together too.

Peter Atkinson
@peteatkinson83