The Blame Game

[ferrarilover]

Completely false logic. Football income, even at this level, has shockingly little to do with how many you get through the gate. It's also untrue to say that if money hasn't been spent on the training ground, it could have been spent elsewhere. Aside from that... Oh, there's none of your argument left. Oh well.

Matt.

[Dave]

Ok I accept may have this wrong. But tell if numbers through the gates isn't the main income of a league 2 club, what is ? And if £200k could be spent on a training ground, why couldn't it have been spent elsewhere ? Please do try to answer it would help me understand how I've got this so badly wrong.

[Sunnysideup]

Sunnyside, yep aware of wage caps but it still doesn't add up, as of March the 1st Rochdale's average home gate bearing in mind they have played more home games than us stands at 2,724, Torquay United's stands at 2,734 add in Rochdale's current form to their remaining games, they will secure a top 3 finish and gain promotion.

Then compare Dagenham's average gate March 1st which stands at 1,857 nearly 1000 less than ours, on their current form, they are looking at a final points total somewhere around 57-60 football league survival, as attendances are the main income driver for league 2 clubs , theirs one club working off a budget equal to ours and another working off some way less, one could be going up the other is staying up.

Difference, they've made better use of their small budgets than we have by some distance.

Forever, I wasnt picking fault with your point. Just offering it as maybe a reason for not pumping extra money in the team. I assume all the various sponsorship bits and income from advertising etc will be included in the income we can use the 65% (or whatever the figure is) of.
Perhaps the likes of Rochdale have a better sponsorship deals? I would hazard a guess Rochdale also had a big boost to their annual income with their cup run as well...

Does make you wonder how the likes of Accy and Dagenham can survive though...

[tomogull]

Forever - I'm not disagreeing with you about the £££s spent on a Training Ground because you have more info about this than me, but don't we need a Training Ground? It seems that virtually every other league side has a training ground (we often hear Exeter's Cat & Fiddle mentioned for example) and previous managers have complained about the lack of training facilitles, having to resort to training on Torre Abbey sands if the tide happened to be out during the day. We also leased land at Newton Abbot Racecourse which - guess what? - couldn't be used for weeks on end because of flooding - even in a good year!

You mentioned Coach Road, Newton Abbot, on another thread. This land is low-lying and also liable to flooding? Are you saying we shouldn't have a Training Ground but continue to rely on the likes of Paignton Community College to allow us to use their facilities? Thinking of some of the players on our books this season, the other option is to train at Torre Abbey at high tide .......

[AustrianAndyGull]

I think the OP talked about the apathy from the fans so I found this interesting. Wimbledon home first game there were nearly 3500 there which dropped to well under 2500 in the space of less than 2 months. Why? Because the football was so shit. Why was that I wonder? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Fonda]

All clubs have peaks and troughs in terms of attendances. And I suppose the ability to handle that depends on what percentage of a clubs total income relates to match day revenue. I imagine ours is quite high, because I'm not sure what else the club uses it's facilities for, other than the Gulls Nest dishing up roast dinners? Maybe other clubs have other funding streams, that mean they can better cope with low attendances?

[Sunnysideup]

I think the OP talked about the apathy from the fans so I found this interesting. Wimbledon home first game there were nearly 3500 there which dropped to well under 2500 in the space of less than 2 months. Why? Because the football was so sh*t. Why was that I wonder? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Try looking back at previous seasons as well. We always start with above average crowds which drop as the season goes on (local derbies excepted) before going back up again for the last couple of months when the weather improves (and there's more riding on the games). Its happened every season and isnt just this one.

[Dave]

Sorry Sunnysideup, hadn't meant my post, to sound as if I thought you were picking faults, with my post. no I'm not suggesting our club didn't need a fit for purpose training ground and academy base, I'm suggesting this could have come about in time/future , I know the Seale Hayne ground well, it was the home of Newton Abbot 66 youth football club before TUFC took up the lease on the ground, I can present this as a fact, Newton 66 YFC had a heck of a lot of games cancelled due to waterlogging and remember that's when it still had a slope running down towards the road and several streams were water could run off, so building a sodding great retaining wall and levelling, well, it was hardly going to improve it, re; waterlogging.

I suggested Coach Road because it's flat and since Newton Abbot Fc closed it's pretty much lying idle, it has facilities, such as changing rooms Devon F.A is there, with office space and conference rooms, drive past it often and even through out the spell record rainfall never saw standing water on the pitch, and a pitch not used regularly can suffer from soil compaction.

Abbrook farm was suggested on another site, that is used by both W.B.B senior and youth football clubs, I currently work for the youth football club, that ground is flat as a dab, but would have needed work to bring it up to scratch , limited facilities. The team have recently trained on the top pitch at Buckland's Homers Heath ground, was a deal to be there, then you can look at big open football fields such as Decoy country park, ok that's council owed public space and far from ideal, but all of these suggestions would not have been suitable long term, would have been a lot cheaper and something the club may have been able to use on a short term basis, until the club was in a position to genuinely afford it's own fit purpose training ground, and a suitable site found.

As for the Cat + Fiddle, been on a it few times myself, yep it's big, it's flat, but the facilities are pretty dire, it has double stacked potakabins for offices, and a oversized garden shed badly in need of refurbishment, and like Sid James the toilet stinks.

[BayGull]

FACT

Five seasons ago the 'break-even' figure for a home game attendance was 2,500.

With the increase in costs, wages, staffing levels etc - heaven knows what it is today!

[Sunnysideup]

Sorry Sunnysideup, hadn't meant my post, to sound as if I thought you were picking faults, with my post. no I'm not suggesting our club didn't need a fit for purpose training ground and academy base, I'm suggesting this could have come about in time/future.

Agree totally. Something about running before you can walk springs to mind.....They used to use the pitches at Quinta Road. Dont know what use they get now but ideally situated for the club.

[ferrarilover]

Ok I accept may have this wrong. But tell if numbers through the gates isn't the main income of a league 2 club, what is ? And if £200k could be spent on a training ground, why couldn't it have been spent elsewhere ? Please do try to answer it would help me understand how I've got this so badly wrong.

Depends which club you're talking about. In L2, the gate money is much more important than in the Premier League, but the advertising, the money from the big boys, the FA funding, sponsorship, private investment and a host of other things make up a big percentage of the income for small clubs like ours.

Re: the training ground cash, I'll give you an example which I'll bet you can relate to directly (if you can't, consider yourself the parent of an excellent child). Your boy comes to you with his laptop in hand. He spins it round and shows you the screen. The website displayed is the Nike iD page, and on that page is a £195 pair of customised LeBron XIs. They're lurid green with orange laces and glow-in-the-dark soles. He asks you for the cash to get them, for they shall make him the coolest kid in school. They'll ensure that he tries really hard in his exams and he promises he'll mow the lawn every Sunday for two months. You, of course, say no, because you don't have that kind of cash knocking about. A week later, your car goes in for its MOT. You take it to the Council place, drop off and head with the boy to the Sunshine cafe for a cup of tea to pass the time. An hour later, you get a call. It's the MOT place. They say that your car has failed, but that it's a simple £195 pound fix to get it a pass. You, of course, agree to the work (albeit reluctantly). Your nipper hits the roof. "But Daaaaaaaaaad", he protests, "you said you didn't have £195 knocking about!" He's right, of course, you did say that, but then, it was true. The thing is, you haven't got £195 for a pair of shoes, but you have got £195 to fix your car.

It's exactly the same here. We haven't got £200,000 for a striker, but we have got £200,000 for a revamped training ground.

It's similar to the situation with the pitch covers (although I don't necessarily disagree with you in so far as I think they would be a wise investment, if they work as you seem to think they do, which is entirely probable). Thea is sufficiently wealthy that, were she so minded, she could offer us a playing budget this year of £5,000,000. We could go around, throwing money at players left, right and centre. We could sign O'Toole from Rovers for half a million and pay him five grand a week. We could sign Constable and Midson and Renshaw and O'Kane and Duke and all manner of excellent players. But that's not a sustainable business model for lower league football. It's been proven time and time again. Sure, if you do as Plymouth did and as Swindon do about three times a season and as Portsmouth have done and spend miles beyond your means, your option is to live a good life for about 5 minutes, then have to struggle like crazy and royally shaft about 500 local businesses in order to claw back any semblance of your former selves.
Accordingly, Thea must set a budget at the start of the season and that budget must be rigidly adhered to (with certain emergency exceptions). If we go to her for £25,000 for pitch covers in November, and she says yes, then what happens when we go to her in January for £100,000 for a superstar striker? She can't say no, she's already said yes once before, and besides, an extra £100,000 to a woman worth £15,000,000 and rising really isn't much at all. That's like asking me or you for a fiver. It's exactly the same reason that all rich people say no to all charity requests. I imagine Thea must get 10,000 letters a week from strangers begging for money. Little Timmy needs a brain operation. Little Johnny wants to swim with dolphins before he dies. Little Jack needs braces etc. If she says yes to Timmy, she can't say no to Johnny and before you know it, she's given away all her money to worthy causes. Very noble and I'm sure it's what a good Christian would do (they're never hypocritical, are they, religious sorts?), but not really the point.

As I say, I think pitch covers might be a bit of an exception to the rule, in so far as a £25k investment will last for a long time and will likely pay for themselves in a few years. That said, I can also see why Thea might have made the decision that they weren't sufficiently exceptional to warrant breaking the rule at all.

This truth follows for things like sacking managers. All season I've been telling people (correctly) that we can't sack Knill because we can't afford it and that sacking him will relegate us for sure. That was absolutely the case, and we're seeing the fruits of that in things like the signing of Danny Stevens and our failure to resign Marquis, it's coming home to roost now. No, it's not right to say that if we've got £100k to sack Knill that we've got £100k to give Knill to spend on transfers (for the reasons aforementioned). I didn't think we'd dispense with Knill this season, but then I underestimated the depths to which some members of our Board would sink.

Anyway, that's how it works, any questions?

Matt.

[hector]

Depends which club you're talking about. In L2, the gate money is much more important than in the Premier League, but the advertising, the money from the big boys, the FA funding, sponsorship, private investment and a host of other things make up a big percentage of the income for small clubs like ours.

Re: the training ground cash, I'll give you an example which I'll bet you can relate to directly (if you can't, consider yourself the parent of an excellent child). Your boy comes to you with his laptop in hand. He spins it round and shows you the screen. The website displayed is the Nike iD page, and on that page is a £195 pair of customised LeBron XIs. They're lurid green with orange laces and glow-in-the-dark soles. He asks you for the cash to get them, for they shall make him the coolest kid in school. They'll ensure that he tries really hard in his exams and he promises he'll mow the lawn every Sunday for two months. You, of course, say no, because you don't have that kind of cash knocking about. A week later, your car goes in for its MOT. You take it to the Council place, drop off and head with the boy to the Sunshine cafe for a cup of tea to pass the time. An hour later, you get a call. It's the MOT place. They say that your car has failed, but that it's a simple £195 pound fix to get it a pass. You, of course, agree to the work (albeit reluctantly). Your nipper hits the roof. "But Daaaaaaaaaad", he protests, "you said you didn't have £195 knocking about!" He's right, of course, you did say that, but then, it was true. The thing is, you haven't got £195 for a pair of shoes, but you have got £195 to fix your car.

It's exactly the same here. We haven't got £200,000 for a striker, but we have got £200,000 for a revamped training ground.

It's similar to the situation with the pitch covers (although I don't necessarily disagree with you in so far as I think they would be a wise investment, if they work as you seem to think they do, which is entirely probable). Thea is sufficiently wealthy that, were she so minded, she could offer us a playing budget this year of £5,000,000. We could go around, throwing money at players left, right and centre. We could sign O'Toole from Rovers for half a million and pay him five grand a week. We could sign Constable and Midson and Renshaw and O'Kane and Duke and all manner of excellent players. But that's not a sustainable business model for lower league football. It's been proven time and time again. Sure, if you do as Plymouth did and as Swindon do about three times a season and as Portsmouth have done and spend miles beyond your means, your option is to live a good life for about 5 minutes, then have to struggle like crazy and royally shaft about 500 local businesses in order to claw back any semblance of your former selves.
Accordingly, Thea must set a budget at the start of the season and that budget must be rigidly adhered to (with certain emergency exceptions). If we go to her for £25,000 for pitch covers in November, and she says yes, then what happens when we go to her in January for £100,000 for a superstar striker? She can't say no, she's already said yes once before, and besides, an extra £100,000 to a woman worth £15,000,000 and rising really isn't much at all. That's like asking me or you for a fiver. It's exactly the same reason that all rich people say no to all charity requests. I imagine Thea must get 10,000 letters a week from strangers begging for money. Little Timmy needs a brain operation. Little Johnny wants to swim with dolphins before he dies. Little Jack needs braces etc. If she says yes to Timmy, she can't say no to Johnny and before you know it, she's given away all her money to worthy causes. Very noble and I'm sure it's what a good Christian would do (they're never hypocritical, are they, religious sorts?), but not really the point.

As I say, I think pitch covers might be a bit of an exception to the rule, in so far as a £25k investment will last for a long time and will likely pay for themselves in a few years. That said, I can also see why Thea might have made the decision that they weren't sufficiently exceptional to warrant breaking the rule at all.

This truth follows for things like sacking managers. All season I've been telling people (correctly) that we can't sack Knill because we can't afford it and that sacking him will relegate us for sure. That was absolutely the case, and we're seeing the fruits of that in things like the signing of Danny Stevens and our failure to resign Marquis, it's coming home to roost now. No, it's not right to say that if we've got £100k to sack Knill that we've got £100k to give Knill to spend on transfers (for the reasons aforementioned). I didn't think we'd dispense with Knill this season, but then I underestimated the depths to which some members of our Board would sink.

Anyway, that's how it works, any questions?

Matt.

It is easy to say that when it looks like it might happen but of course, it is nonsense. Why on earth would nobody at the club have considered this, if the oracle that is Matt had only shouted loudly enough and they listened. Knill was taking us down. For certain. The club have spent on Hargreaves and they have spent further on the likes of Cooper and Showunmi, players they apparently were not prepared to pay for under Knill. The fact that has not worked is immaterial, keeping Knill would not have changed anything - that's why they got rid of him.

[stefano]

.... if the oracle that is Matt had only shouted loudly enough and they listened. Knill was taking us down. For certain.

No it's not and it never will be. Certain that is!

[ferrarilover]

Ok Hec, you keep banging that drum, eventually someone will believe you.

Matt.

[tomogull]

Ok Hec, you keep banging that drum, eventually someone will believe you.
Matt.

....... but what you're saying is 'if we don't sack Knill, we'll be relegated' and 'If we sack Knill, we'll be relegated'. Appointing an inexperienced manager may prove to be a mistake, but something had to be done because there was not the slightest indication that Knill was going to turn things around.