Preparation for league 2

Doyle, Scanz, Butterfield, Payne, Reeves, Wright and Riley will collectively earn £30k or more a week between them, the majority of the £2m over spend. But take those out of the squad, and you’re paying some of them to leave, lose the likes of Caddis and those whose contracts are up and you don’t have much of a side, certainly not one that will stay up in League 2. You’ve no strikers for a start.

If the club is losing £2m this season, with income from 15k £169 season ticket holders and the little money we got for Wyke, Wells’ sell on etc., you cab bet your last penny the club is losing money in League 2 on 5000 £149 season tickets even if they shift the big earners on. They have to bring players in too.

People who know said when he left both in private and in public that the finances left by Edin were bad but that relegation will hurt.

Expecting a loss is ok, but who is underwriting that loss? You can’t trade in an insolvent position, you have to have someone willing to cover the money you spend that you don’t have, an individual or a bank overdraft etc.

 

Rupp is covering it for now isn’t he? At least until end of season?

 

looking forward to the harrogate town game next season

 

He said so, but he’s not mentioned next season or has he?

 

Lower loss is easier to cover though and maybe more acceptable, also the potential of sponsors coming back even at less money. Better to have 20 sponsors paying £20k than 5 paying £40k - if you know what I mean.
Finally we're not paying he shall not be mentioned £10k a month or whatever he was taking! Pretty sure we can get a good exec on for 2/3's of that who knows what they're doing.

 

And, unless we go ‘bust’ and restart then we still owe the footballing debts! And my season ticket money down the swanny.
One inkling of hope may be read into JCT renewing - hopefully they have been given assurances rather than a get out!

 

The only way we would get a cup run would be if we kept getting a 'Bye'......

 

Concessions have gone and U11 tickets have risen to £25. A few kids will move up a bracket. The average price paid won't drop that much. Just estimate revenues on the crowd. I reckon we'll get 11,000 or so tickets sold next year v 14,500 this year. Revenue will fall by around 1/4. Commercial revenue tends to follow crowd levels so also down around 1/4. This season looks like £4.5m revenue and £6.5m spending - at a very rough guess. So if next year's revenue is down 1/4 to £3.4m, you need to cut spending by a hefty £3.1m to reach breakeven. Ouch!

Now these are guessed numbers, and commercial revenue might fall more slowly with multiyear sponsorship deals, but they give you an idea of the magnitude of cost-cutting needed. Another £1-2m loss would not surprise me, even after some significant cuts - unless we are in the promotion hunt and manage somehow to sell an extra 2000 match-day tickets every other week at £25 each. (Promotion might not be impossible with the players we will retain - if the club sorts itself out, gets them fit and motivated again, and signs a few players to fill gaps. Fingers and toes crossed on that.) A cup run generating £1m+ is a very low probability. As for a transfer windfall, who knows but it also looks a bit unlikely.

Football revenues and costs are very hard to predict but the base line looks likely to be another big loss. It might moderate in a year or two but the typical League 2 loss is about £200k. (Numbers vary wildly!) With us paying stadium rent, we'd might settle towards a £500k annual loss if we ended up a middling League 2 club for a few years. Now how much does Rupp want to sell the club for if it looks set to lose £2m next year, then £0.5m per year after? Somebody with £5m that wants to buy it will want to pay nothing and put £2m + £0.5m + £0.5m into covering losses for a few years and then another £2m of overspending across 3 years to fund stronger than average squads to push for promotion. So how much is the club worth? Thruppence ha'penny on my numbers. Who wants to pay for a business that will lose you £5m in 3 years if you try keep fans happy?

 

O’Donnel
Wood
Ball
Doyle

O’Brien - no chance not our player
Payne - no chance not our player

All too good for League 2, let’s not forget this poor team is full of ‘individuals’ - we won’t be seeing them if we get relegated. Footballers careers are short, they won’t be going down with us.

 

It had started well before that.

 

Which all in all will make for an 'interesting' season.
I'm looking forward to it

 

Could those nice fixture compilers pop us at Forest Green during the week of the Cheltenham festival.

Be jolly nice.

 

I would try and move on (the clue was in the word 'Keep' and they weren't underneath.

 

Very interesting season coming up in L2
I scared myself earlier watching the highlights of yesterday's game
We can't put a tackle in we can't mark a man we can't build an attack or even
shoot when we have an open goal Just watch the highlights of any L2 match and you will see teams doing exactly this The likes of Tranmere/Colchester etc would have a field day based on yesterday's performance
If we can't somehow move on the waste of space players we have seen this season then there is no chance of a top 6 would consider staying in L2 an achievement

 

Oh yeah. It’ll be great getting turned over by them.

 

Won't be the 1st time..

 

Yes, how many did they blast past us in pre-season, again?

 

We sent a team of young kids as we didn't want to risk first teamers playing on the artificial surface. So we didn't know it was artificial when we arranged the fixture? Just another aspect of the ginormous cockup pre-season was.