Good post divas. Think you're bang on.divas wrote:I don’t get some of this train of thought at all. It’s not like the club have come out and asked the fans for money or are burying their heads in the sand like previous years, they are pro-actively dealing with a forecasted gap in the budget by accepting a good offer for a player that cost us less when we bought him. I’d much rather this than the alternative we’ve faced in recent seasons. Of course you’d like to get the budget bang on at the outset but that’s not always possible for a number of reasons. The next best thing is you manage it from operational revenue which we’re now doing rather than by borrowing or not servicing debt as we’ve done in the past.
As long as you have the flexibility in the squad to do that - i.e. saleable assets. The alternative would have been to get rid of key high earners like Styche in the summer and face a relegation battle (cue the comments re: us being in one... I think everyone will accept that’s not solely down to budget)
The real disappointment amongst fans if they are honest isn’t the fact that we’re re-aligning our budget (like any prudent business should) but the realisation that we can’t compete in a regional league with decent sized crowds relative to our opposition. Many need to take a reality check of where we’ve come from and what we’ve had to spend to get to this point both on and off the pitch.
The creation of an academy and the appointment of a full time commercial director is the club’s attempt at developing new revenue streams rather than relying on gate receipts which have shown will never be enough to get where we want to get to.
We’re looking at a good few years of consolidation under this model, or if people are that impatient then the other option is one where we’ve been before and is the root cause of us of having to start from scratch in 2012.
Budgeting for football without a benefactor to pick up any slack is incredibly tough. Under budget or get your cash flow forecasts wrong and you create cash problem. Budget too conservatively and you run the risk of providing a team that can't compete on the pitch in which case crowds dwindle anyway. It's a game where losses are unnacceptble, but so are significant profits.
At least what we're seeing is proactive financial controls in place. We have got an offer for more than what we paid for Styche, which I was lead to believe was a decent fee. It provides a cash injection into the club and lessens our liabilities.
Certainly gives even more importance to the FA Trophy and the potential prize money it could bring in. We enter at the 3rd qualifying round on the 24th November. Not as much as the FA cup but some very helpful sums if we could make it through a few rounds:
Third round qualifying (40) £5,000
First round (32) £6,000
Second round (16) £7,000
Third round (8) £8,000
Fourth round (4) £10,000
Semi-Final (2) £20,000
Final runners-up (1) £30,000
Final winners (1) £60,000
I also think we need to be making better use of the loan market. Gateshead are working on a highly reduced budget this season (albeit still probably more than their crowds can afford) but they have At least 3 squad members on loan from the big 3 north east clubs.