Simply not good enough

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Darlopartisan
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by Darlopartisan » Sat Dec 07, 2019 9:31 am

I think the only way round this is either we as owners raise a bit of cash , (not sure of numbers let’s say £10000) or we get someone in from a lower league that we can afford.

JE93
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by JE93 » Sat Dec 07, 2019 9:41 am

Darlopartisan wrote:
Sat Dec 07, 2019 9:31 am
I think the only way round this is either we as owners raise a bit of cash , (not sure of numbers let’s say £10000) or we get someone in from a lower league that we can afford.
Or we wait till January when we get Gary Martin and reassess from there.

I love our fans passion, and have no doubt we'd get the funds raised, but just simply raising 10k more every time we hit a bit of a stumble isn't sustainable. Whatever the small fee which is a stumbling block was, it will no doubt be doubled if we went back with the fans having raised £10k to support the transfer. Cant claim to know which players we were after and how far we got with each one.

But the loans come with some tough terms these days, far more common to see prem and championship clubs asking for wage contributions and sticking clauses in that their player must start if fit (similar to what happened for us to get Connell) and the lower leagues it's not as simple as saying get someone from the lower leagues, all those players are on contract these days and so fees etc would have to be paid if we wanted to sign one of their players.

We have someone lined up in Jan who even as just a stop gap will give us an extra option. If we can get in some loan support in the mean time excellent, if not that will just have to be a frustration for this season. But we certainly shouldn't be breaking into the piggy bank to spend money when some of the key objectives for the season have already been met.

Old Git
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by Old Git » Sat Dec 07, 2019 9:50 am

real_darlo_85 wrote:
Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:27 am
I am starting to think that AA is beginning to show signs of the same frustrations he had at Blyth regarding budget constraints in his pursuit of a striker. Hopefully, we can get out of this rut sooner rather than later!
Very frustrating indeed for him and us.I know this idea has been discussed before in regards to Liam Connell but surely we as owners of the club could do a Buy a Striker pledge. According to the Echo we were reluctant to pay a small transfer fee for a striker AA had at Blyth last season.If a small fee is in the region of £5000 or so I would be confident fans could raise it quickly for a Christmas present to us all.

Old Git
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by Old Git » Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:30 am

Just a thought but wonder if Bradley Fewster is one of those players we are trying to bring in as he had a spell at Blyth before joining Whitby this season.Believe he nearly joined us when Gray was in charge but opted to take the cash at the pride of Co Durham instead.Didn’t work out there but I think he has done ok at Whitby. A A will know what he could give us.

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divas
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by divas » Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:32 am

Ghost_Of_1883 wrote:
Fri Dec 06, 2019 10:02 pm
Gow9900 wrote:
Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:56 pm
With regards to us being over budget, I’d guess it’s due to the fact we’re paying three long terms absences so have had to bring new players in.

We have signed Connell, Storey and Hedley.

Say they are on £200 a week each (mid table players wages in this league), sums as follows:

£600 a week x 40 weeks part time = £24,000 (it could be more, I’d guess it was so probably more like an extra £30,000 on top of the original set budget)

That is why we will be over the original budget. If we hadn’t signed those players then not only would we have been ridiculously short I don’t think we would have got near the 1st round, so it’s speculating to accumulate.

Some might say that it’s risky, but on the whole so far those three players have been good additions.

Then you look at our crowds. 1200 in against Telford, we have neck end of 1,000 season ticket holders which I believe are always counted, so we probably only had 2/300 walk ups. Say 50% paid £14, 25% paid concessions and 25% were under 11 so free, we don’t make a huge amount when we get poor crowds like that. Some matches once we have paid the rumoured £1,500 to the rugby club we’ll make next to nothing. And we have budgeted for low crowds but if crowds got so low we will end up only breaking even on some home games, which then means cash reserves are then used to pay the say £20,000 - £25,000 a month wage costs (guesstimate).

Shame you feel you need to miss the game but attendance isn’t compulsory, just hope too many others don't decide not to go as collapsing attendances will mean any banked monies will then have to be used to bridge the lack of match day income.
Just regarding the season ticket holder thing, we don't count all STs as attended whether they were there or not, we only count actual people in the ground. Some clubs do it this way, as we do - for example that season when Hartlepool had 6,000 cheap ST holders yet in one or two matches got less than 5,000 as the gate. So they do (or did) do it too.

Other clubs do count ST holders as attended, for example if anyone remembers when Bradford had 10,000 cheap ST holders and were always announcing crowds of 13,000 yet many people commented that the ground looked nowhere near half full.

Back to our ST holders, I know that last season on average 600-650 ST holders turned up per match. We had around 850 last season. So maybe 750 turn up each match now. A gate of 1,200 will therefore likely generate 4-500 pay on the day rather than 200.

Either way, every gate of 1200 will eat into the budget going forwards if we've budgeted this season on last season's average gate of 1,400.
I would never read too much into attendance numbers tbh. Like you say, too many variables. We also have 50+ matchday volunteers who aren’t counted towards the total hence looking like a hundred or more season ticket holders don’t attend per game. Ultimately the important thing is how much revenue is taken on the gate per game which obviously isn’t announced. You could quite feasibly get a lower crowd with more revenue. Trying to guess financial performance from a number taken off a turnstile that may spin round more than once per person and has no idea of whether the person has paid or how much they’ve paid is impossible.

Also to try and work out performance vs budget by just taking an attendance figure given it forms less than 40% of annual turnover is futile. So many more elements make up annual revenue (commercial, retail etc) and that’s before you even start on cost performance vs budget....

LoidLucan
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by LoidLucan » Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:59 am

Just seen a stat about Andrew Johnson, who had a stint with us under MG . He's scored 249 goals in 296 appearances for Bishop. That's some record, shame it never worked out at a higher level. I remember one game in particular in which Gray was screaming at him in rage at his failure to track back and do some donkey work.

spen666
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by spen666 » Sat Dec 07, 2019 1:58 pm

LoidLucan wrote:
Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:59 am
Just seen a stat about Andrew Johnson, who had a stint with us under MG . He's scored 249 goals in 296 appearances for Bishop. That's some record, shame it never worked out at a higher level. I remember one game in particular in which Gray was screaming at him in rage at his failure to track back and do some donkey work.
He has been so good at Bishop, but for some reason it never worked at either Darlington or Spennymoor.

Years ago, I would gave said he was someone I expected to see at a higher level.

He knows where goal is (when playing for Bishop)
Last edited by spen666 on Sat Dec 07, 2019 7:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

EDJOHNS
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by EDJOHNS » Sat Dec 07, 2019 2:43 pm

theoriginalfatcat wrote:
Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:20 am
I agree with enpassent here, it’s not all doom and gloom, we’re just on a bit of a bad run that’s all.

And 50 years, I very much doubt that we would have paid up Burn’s contract in full - I mean, what we be the point in that? It would have meant “heads he wins, tails we lose” so there must have been a trade off.
The advantage to us would come if AA thought he was having a detrimental effect on the other players. If so, getting him out of the door would take more importance.

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divas
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by divas » Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:14 pm

He was training with the academy anyway and not involved with the first team

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theoriginalfatcat
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by theoriginalfatcat » Sun Dec 08, 2019 12:25 am

LoidLucan wrote:
Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:59 am
Just seen a stat about Andrew Johnson, who had a stint with us under MG . He's scored 249 goals in 296 appearances for Bishop. That's some record, shame it never worked out at a higher level. I remember one game in particular in which Gray was screaming at him in rage at his failure to track back and do some donkey work.
I remember this well - it was about half way through the second half, we were playing towards the petrol station end and Gray was going mental. I don’t think A.J. was seen much after that.
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super_les_mcjannet
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by super_les_mcjannet » Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:00 pm

quakersfan wrote:
Fri Dec 06, 2019 7:32 pm
super_les_mcjannet wrote:
Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:34 am
Yarblockos wrote:
Thu Dec 05, 2019 5:34 pm

It does feel like a big improvement on last season, but saying that, if we do finish bottom half then it probably isn't.
100k extra added to the bank from a cup run suggests even if we finish midtable it's a massive step forward.

Agree with most comments, it's disappointing currently and it was slightly before the cup run and O’Neill kicked in.
Losing O’Neill has lost us our way of playing, we work so hard that we need someone who can keep the pressure off and give the defence/midfield/wingers a rest at times. Without O’Neill this is missing and that’s before we talk about his goal scoring.

This season is all about setting us up for next season, however AA does need to try and keep some positive momentum by getting the team to pick up some points and keeping us midtable as opposed to looking over our shoulders.
Hear AA looking to bring in a CF but apparently funds aren’t there as we are over budget which is very strange bearing in mind we had an additional £100k from cup run.
Not sure what to believe anymore, that’s why I’m missing my second match this season.
So you missed the game because you heard a rumour, strange behaviour.

Vodka_Vic
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by Vodka_Vic » Sun Dec 08, 2019 1:24 pm

Two things are strange about this. Firstly, the strange behaviour, and secondly, admitting that strange behaviour on social media. Words fail me.

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theoriginalfatcat
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by theoriginalfatcat » Sun Dec 08, 2019 4:13 pm

quakersfan revealed he was going xmas shopping with his misses - he missed a dramatic afternoon with plenty of good footy and floodlight fun.
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LoidLucan
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Re: Simply not good enough

Post by LoidLucan » Sun Dec 08, 2019 5:59 pm

The reason offered up "Not sure what to believe anymore, that’s why I’m missing my second match this season" is more the sort of thing you would have expected to be written when we had George Houghton, GR or Raj Singh pulling the strings.

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