With all the good feeling around the club and the money invested from only 1 open day we may actually have a season where we run with a surplus.

Im a financial geek and this really excites me. Surely this even increases the chances of moving back to Darlington even quicker if we can put a substancial deposit on a new site for development. Jesus, im feeling proud to be a darlo fan!

This will bring you back to earth...

Bishop Auckland's ground cost £1.2Million. That's the bare minimum we would need.

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I thought Bishop cost over £2million. That seems affordable if we can get some sort of cut of the arena land deal. Especially as we will have temporary stands in our ownership to transport back over.

a surplus would be difficult given the fact we are not allowed in the FA Cup. That could have been a great money spinner.

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This empty sanitised shell of a stadium, a cathedral to the vanity and narcissism of one man. It’s very difficult to fall in love with football amongst the rows of empty seats. The notion that a stadium has worth beyond its potential commerical value or it’s proximity to transport links – as a spiritual repository of the hopes,fears and agonies of generations of supporters, or as a physical manifestation of the football club in the community, is a dying one in football (Sam Volkman)

We never budgeted for any prize money from anything, as we figured we were building a prudent budget, and preferred to be pessimistic on that front. The gate money remained the same as we "lost" two cup games but "gained" two league games.

We might be able to up our budgeted attendances in light of the weekend's great season ticket sales though.

And I would totally agree with this cautious approach. Well done. The season ticket sales was certainly a promising start.

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This empty sanitised shell of a stadium, a cathedral to the vanity and narcissism of one man. It’s very difficult to fall in love with football amongst the rows of empty seats. The notion that a stadium has worth beyond its potential commerical value or it’s proximity to transport links – as a spiritual repository of the hopes,fears and agonies of generations of supporters, or as a physical manifestation of the football club in the community, is a dying one in football (Sam Volkman)

I'm not saying I know the ins and outs of the stadium project, but I'd hazard a guess that we're pretty much banking on a couple of million from an Arena land deal or going back to the Arena at some point if no land deal is done...

As we know, £2 million can get you a tidy, appropriate stadium like Bishop, we could use that as a blueprint for a BSN graded ground (bigger seated stand, bigger terrace behind goal, higher capacity, though higher cost too), and develop the rest as we go along.

Unless we can get that sort of initial funding though, say £2-3million, I personally can't see a way forward.

Certainly the £8-10 million probably required for a purpose built, fully finished ground of 6-8,000 capacity is a daunting thought.

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thats my thoughts...no point running before you can walk.

start of with something tidy and appropriate like bishop which I think is realistic and then see what we can do after that, very daunting though I agree.

How is stating off with a £2 million Bishop ground realistic when we don't have a pot to piss in? Like I said, I hope we have a major cash boost lined up otherwise we're going nowhere, how long would it take to raise £2-3 million just so we have a starter ground?

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like we both mentioned hopefully something off the back of the land!? will give us our starting block.

It's just a case of walking before running getting a secure ground that can house us up to evostick prem and won't take too much additional development to be suitable for BSN.

How many temp seats are we getting for the £40k (is that right) that was mentioned before? What level can you use temporary seating up to?

I just googled "Bishop Auckland FC new stadium cost" and it came up with this link. I'm guessing not many people will know the true cost, whether it's 1.2 or 2mill.

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2010/10/25/bishop-auckland-fc-get-new-home-ground-61634-27538395/

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If that ground cost £1.2million you would expect that the majority of that was spent on the main stand.

I know this is a very simplistic view but a copy of the Bishop Auckland ground with replica of the main stand on the opposite side and another tin shed could potentially cost around £2.4million (possibly less!?).

£1.2M or £2M .... it's still a lot of cash.
More figures for you... FC United of Manchester - £4.8M, Chesterfield £10M.

However, I understand that Bishop's ground is effectively unfinished and can be added to as and when necessary so no need to panic in getting all the funds up front.

Ongoing we will need a very good fund raising committee who can bring the big sponsors in and we absolutely have to keep the support increasing.
A sum of the size we would need would have to be raised via some sort of corporate financing deal - however our CIC status may help us with grants - this has been mentioned somewhere on here.

It could cost a lot less to move back to Darlington if we are considering a ground share with Mowden at the proposed West Park site. I'm not saying I've heard we are considering it I just wouldn't be surprised if that ended up as our route back.

Chesterfields new stadium holds 10,000 and FCUM is meant to hold 7,000 to 10,000.

As I said before we need a land deal...but it was mentioned before things fell apart that there could be £2million in that land for the council if they move on covenants a bit!

Whether the council are interested in us after that is another matter, but we need to hammer them to give it to us! I don't think anyone suggests it's possible to raise from scratch the money to build a stadium with fundraising matches and sponsored walks!

A 10,000 capacity minimum has to be our long term aim - I have heard so many people talk about 6k being about right but I just don't like that figure at all.
I think West Park sucks as far as location is concerned - poor for public transport - 3 miles from the railway station and would just encourage more car use....and encourage the council to "discourage" car usage using the methods they know best!
Bear in mind too that the planning restrictions on car park sizing would mean a club car park would be quite small.

Blackwell Meadows, as a location, does not give much advantage over the Arena but at least some costs may be able to be shared with the Rugby Club and other sports clubs which may take up residency there - plus, as a council initiative, the council themselves are more likely to climb onboard.
However, if the council don't play ball with our future plans then the only solution is got voter power to trump them!

Does everyone forget the reason why we went down the CIC route. We can now apply for sports related grants. Im not suggesting the surplus will be in the millions but just down to the fact we will have a surplus is a massive boost to our club.

Im happy to stay at Bishop for the 2 seasons outlined previously. Maybe in that time we might have raised close to 150k-200k towards a future stadium.

The new temp stands are surely now a must also

West Park would be ideal I think, better than Blackwell Meadows. But I think we should take things one step at a time.

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Rather than increasing the budget predictions, even slightly. If it was me, I would leave it as it is, and then any surplus can go straight into the bigger picture of getting us home/paying of the player debt quicker. If however, the team isn't performing as well as we expect it to be come January time, we should by then have a nice pool to dip into for new players and so on.

I'm not increasing the budget with the aim of spending it - as the initial budget had a surplus at the end of next season it would be hoped that the surplus would just increase.

It is however vital, in my opinion, to be continually revisiting budgeted figures as time goes on to ensure that the financial situation is clear and realistic. The comment about adjusting projected season ticket and crowd numbers is just an element of that.

Very sensible and very welcoming to hear - where have you been for the last 15 years? I misinterpretted the intention. Happy

15 years ago, I was still in school (probably learning that cash in > cash out = good!)

Still a better grasp on what our previous budgets seemed to of worked on then

G man, it's HAVE not OF!!!!

Stop gripping my s*** or you can get the beers in when I see you next!!!

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Shush man, I'm not massively bright, and rely on predictive text to help with my posts.

I think it needs to be a steady process of growth on the pitch and off it.
We are starting afresh again and the lessons learnt must be adhered to if this club is to be successful.
If local businesses see that the business plan is sound and affordable then I do not think the money required to build a new stadium in the future will be a problem.
We just need to assess where we are and where we would like to be say in 5 years time.

Ok fair enough

You have to love forums....
....started off as a discussion about Darlo having financial stability and ends up discussing (Troll vs non-troll) the financial status of DMPRFC....

6 degrees of separation..what can we move onto next? I know!!!
Curses....on you go now

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Come on Darlo

I was wondering why on earth the post had been hijacked myself!

Anyway, im so excited for the forthcoming season and the financial stability with have to move OUR club forward!

Obviously it would be a good thing for the club to start running at a profit & have over & above the projected cash flow but would this ever come at the price of progression through the leagues? or will the board want a firm footing financially before they look to invest too much in the team? (thats based on a pessimistic view that the NL could be a hard league to crack)

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