Bogratsteve wrote:Maurice_Peddelty wrote:I didn't say they shouldn't go. I said they could balance their priorities a little.
Why? They are free to do what they want and should not have to justify their actions for the good of the club or not, it's not a communist state last time I looked, so please stop implying they are doing something wrong it's very offensive and insulting.
Would love to know where you get your figures from to justify the claim that they go to away games and not home, I have seen little evidence of this having done a lot of away games and home and see the same faces at both.
I can’t make my mind up whether you’re a very sensitive soul or just petulant but this isn’t the first time you have played the ‘offended and insulted’ card whenever someone has made a suggestion involving modified behaviour of some kind. Either way, I’m guessing you were a teacher’s nightmare at school.
Evidence? I personally know of 4 Darlington
based fans that either only attend away games or certainly attach a higher priority to travelling away rather than going to Heritage Park. However if I was to name them on here the mods would have a field day. Although I know only 4 in my circle of acquaintances, I have no idea what the full extent could be, which is why I deliberately chose the word ‘some’ denoting an indefinite number. So please don’t twist my words.
Anyway, this is a distraction from the main thrust of my original post which was in response to Robbie Painter’s very valid point that based on current crowds at Heritage Park, the current playing budget is unsustainable based on the operating losses sustained in each of the 3 seasons we have played there. My point was that to be sustainable we would need an acceptance by a majority of fans that a fan owned club means
fan funded.
A significant number of fans do fully get the fan ownership/fan funded concept but currently they are very much in the minority as evidenced by the numbers contributing to the lottery, membership of DFCSG and the overall operating income of the Club. We would therefore need a shift in mindset to a point where a majority of fans get the fan ownership/fan funded concept in order to significantly increase the
regular income to the Club.
I haven’t had time yet to fully read through Martin Jesper’s financial report but Craig Stoddart’s summary published in yesterday’s Echo backs up everything I’m saying.
Darlo Pete’s suggestions aren’t the answer. The Football Club Board can’t set a budget based on the income that may or may not come from a series of events which may or may not happen in the future. We already have a Fundraising Group that has been operating for 3 years but after the initial burst of enthusiasm and success, the numbers involved and the level of activity has been in continual decline. The Fundraising Group has put on a number of events over the years; some well attended, some not so. But overall the amount of money raised for the Club has been relatively modest compared to the actual amount of money spent at the events. This is because the venue/performers invariably take the lions share. For efficiency, nothing beats putting money directly into
our Football Club. Whilst I agree with Darlo Pete that fundraising events do provide an opportunity to encourage contributions from those outside the Darlington FC fraternity, inevitably the usual contributors will end up going out of loyalty, so the burden will still fall on them.
Yes, you are right we do not live in a communist state and fans should be able to make their own free choices as they always have and always will do. But it doesn’t take a maths degree to work out the consequences of taking one set of choices compared to another.