20-09-2016, 17:17
But we have this debate just about every year.
Has anybody got some detail on the Club's finances?
A year ago we all seemed satisfied that since Peace took hold of the Club (2003?) the Club had spent every single penny that came into the Club, having drained our Bank a/c of about 20 on Vic/McManaman/Chester/McClean etc.......there was nothing left in the Bank.....so we could have gone down the Leeds/Wolves/Blues route and gone into big debt to gamble on finishing 8th (say) instead of 14th, which would have earned us an extra 10 on League placing. We could, however, have got relegated, costing us serious money, not to mention losing the goodwill and Season Ticket money of people like Slick (above).
Gate money is pretty negligible (in 2014/15 it was £8m of our £96m Turnover, compared to Wages of £70m), so whilst the Club could have charged S/T holders 50% more over the Years, putting us on parity with most other Prem Clubs, I feel sure that gate receipts would not have given us any more "edge" - fair play to the Board for keeping the price down all these years - it is, after all a pretty impoverished part of the country. We don't really have much edge over any of our bottom-half rivals - tradition counts for nothing.
We've gone over all these points on this and previous Forums, but I'd be interested to hear/read some full data since 2003 because people really believe that Peace is Scrooge, whilst most other Clubs of our size have admired and copied his blueprint for the 10th to 30th placed Clubs. (How he's spent the big money since Ashworth left is an entirely different matter!)
Has anybody got some detail on the Club's finances?
A year ago we all seemed satisfied that since Peace took hold of the Club (2003?) the Club had spent every single penny that came into the Club, having drained our Bank a/c of about 20 on Vic/McManaman/Chester/McClean etc.......there was nothing left in the Bank.....so we could have gone down the Leeds/Wolves/Blues route and gone into big debt to gamble on finishing 8th (say) instead of 14th, which would have earned us an extra 10 on League placing. We could, however, have got relegated, costing us serious money, not to mention losing the goodwill and Season Ticket money of people like Slick (above).
Gate money is pretty negligible (in 2014/15 it was £8m of our £96m Turnover, compared to Wages of £70m), so whilst the Club could have charged S/T holders 50% more over the Years, putting us on parity with most other Prem Clubs, I feel sure that gate receipts would not have given us any more "edge" - fair play to the Board for keeping the price down all these years - it is, after all a pretty impoverished part of the country. We don't really have much edge over any of our bottom-half rivals - tradition counts for nothing.
We've gone over all these points on this and previous Forums, but I'd be interested to hear/read some full data since 2003 because people really believe that Peace is Scrooge, whilst most other Clubs of our size have admired and copied his blueprint for the 10th to 30th placed Clubs. (How he's spent the big money since Ashworth left is an entirely different matter!)
Start every day off with a smile and get it over with