Life in the Championship

bluepooch · 14-03-2015, 12:59

Ive been thinking ahead to when we get there Smile

and whats the best we can hope for .
Based on the fact that Rotherham have the lowest average crowd in the divison at 10000 its safe to say we will take over that mantle.
So based on that fact we will probably have the smallest budget and therefore it is reasonable to say we will struggle even with the brilliant Paul Cook in charge .
How will our fans react when this happens? I just hope they realise we would be a small fish in the big pond and will react accordingly and back the team ,however I know this wont happen and it could result in a disastrous situation where the home crowds dwindle to as low as 4k.
The only thing I can cling on to is that we can survive for at least one season and build the club from there .A sustained period in the championship would be the making of this club for years to come and would build a solid fanbase for the future .
Pooch

Devongone · 17-03-2015, 12:35

It's a difficult conundrum.

Most clubs now don't rely on gate receipts for their financial security. We'd need massively to develop income streams beyond Saturday afternoon.

If anything we ought to be looking at lowering ticket prices, producing great deals for season tickets (to improve our cash flow), even offering freebies for youngsters for some games ........ simply to grow our fan base and maintain the interest when we're finding the going tough on the field. (The more people you can get through the gate the keener sponsors are to splash you their cash.)

Rotherham is a much bigger place than Chesterfield. But their expenditure on players hasn't been provided only by gates of 10,000. Mr Allen probably could match their spending, but he shouldn't! If we are ever to get up there, the aim has to be to stay at that level (at least) and to achieve it we'd have to be extraordinarily innovative. And it's true that our LOYAL fan base is around 4-5,000. But that is simply part of the data. And once a club makes its mark at a certain level the data does change. Burnley can't possibly be in the Premier League. It's not big and it's not attractive. But they beat Man City 1-0.

AFC Fylde are advertising for a CEO. £50,000 pa. Their stated aim is the Football League by 2022 at the latest. We all want to be Burnley, but do we want to look like Sean Dyche?

bluepooch · 18-03-2015, 00:45

Tonights gate proves my point perfectly

Devongone · 18-03-2015, 12:10

Absolutely Pooch. I noticed that and thought of you. One disappointing home defeat, night match in March against a side too far away to bring a big following ...... showed our real level of support.

Your post gave me what is probably a stupid idea, but I'll run it by you anyway. Please pick holes in it. It may even be happening for all I know:-

There must be other Spires like me, who can never, or almost never, attend a home game. But it doesn't mean they don't care, or feel involved in the club's fortunes. So I was thinking I could probably afford a season ticket, but I just couldn't get there. How many other people are there like me who might be able to support the club to that level?

If there were a few of us, the club could raffle those seats at perhaps £1 apiece for every home game - effectively providing a double income stream on the seats involved, perhaps increasing interest in the club and enabling people a chance for people, who could barely afford the entry price, to get to a game. Maybe it could be called something like the Absent Spires.

It's probably a stupid idea. I'm full of them. (Yes Dancing I know, Darikwa's one ..... you wait and see! ..... who was it told you Talbot would be back? I have to be right occasionally.)

bluepooch · 18-03-2015, 21:16

Suggest it to the club Dev you never know .
We were awesome last night mainly due to the opposition being much more open in their approach to the game.Take nothing away from our lads everyone stepped up to the mark and special praise goes to Evatt who according to most was finished as a footballer at this level after Saturday and yes I do think time will catch up with him probably before his contract is up here but until Cookie feels we have someone to replace him then I'm happy to go along with him.
Clucas was brilliant and would be an obvious replacement for Doyle .

**spireitematt** · 18-03-2015, 22:01

I reckon if Chesterfield got into the Championship then we would have at least 8,000-9,000 a home match. Fans would come out and support the team and you would also get fans from all over Derbyshire watching us as well but what the club has to do is attract the younger generation and try and keep them hooked as they are future fans and need to attract the gloryhunters of United, City, Liverpool and Chelsea etc.

Dancingwilldoit · 19-03-2015, 22:02

The only additional income stream that would realise enough to matter is by selling players. We have the set up like Crewe did a few years back to bring good youngsters through then move them on for a fee. To make it in the Championship we would need at least an extra £3 or 4million on top of the 6million for just getting there.
Sorry Dev, the ST idea is a good one but it wouldn't bite a hole in the size of extra budget we would need to cover the higher wages. If we didn't hit it running there is no way the fickle folk of Derbyshire will turn out to watch us so we would have to budget for gates between 6 and 7 thousand. One good thing is that at least the away support would be better and bring a bit more revenue in.

Devongone · 19-03-2015, 22:50

I don't think any one thing would cover our lack of crowd Dancing. Apparently the wage bill is the only accurate predictor of success in the higher reaches, so it will cost a lot to go up. And if you come back down, sack the manager who brought you success, you can really crash like Yeovil. Selling players and improving your team at the same time is the real trick.

Bizarrely if you hit the premiership then Sky money makes you one of the hundred richest clubs in world football.