Future funding of GTFC - is this possible?

Personally I think STB is on the right lines...the club need to cut their cloth accordingly. Not saying we should go part time yet but there's plenty of money being spent that needn't be.

As regards the share issue..hate to say it but kind of agree with the above..it's ok having the shares but at this moment in time they are worthless. Unless someone comes in with finance to back the shares up then it's just bits of paper..like yesterdays news in a chippie. Getting supporters to pay throughout a season, maybe a direct debit monthly is fine and dandy..but it wont generate much monthly..certainly not enough to keep things going.

The be all and end all is you need someone who'll put 4 or 5 million in..2 million to get rid of the current/ex chairman, and the rest to sort the club out gradually. That isn't going to happen. Other than that you need a board that will ALL contribute financially equally, all work together for the good of the club and not become a monopoly of anyone person. Again....not going to happen. Too many ego's and self pride around..put enough in and want my return...others thinking 'why should I put in under the current climate'..people unable to work with each other..and the really hurtful/honest bit...the 1500 or so who REALLY care and want to do something, probably are aware they can't, as much as they'd like to or want to..they can't make a vast difference under the current circumstances.

Sorry if offends anyone, just the way I see it.

Good job some of you werent around in the war!

We'd have given up, maybe even switched sides.

im definitely in the cloth cutting group.

in this divison we should not need a benefactor. we have something like the 3rd biggest average gate, so that should provide us with a competitive playing budget.

when we got relegated to this divison,  what i hoped we would do was sign young players and focus on the youth setup instead of bringing in reams of ex league players. we had neil woods, whose expertise was developing youth players, but instead we gave him a comparatively huge budget and non of our youth players really got a go.

obviously if we concentrate on developing kids from our own youth system and picking up kids released from premier league/championship systems, it will take a good couple of years for it to click, but we will have guaranteed our survival and built and extremely good base to try and do a doncaster.

**** overly ambitious idea*****

what i would like to see is GTFC youth system spun out into a company on its own, with the supporters trust and fans in general investing in that system, with the intention of creating the best youth system in the world.

obviously that would be very expensive, it would probably cost as much as the current GTFC playing budget, if not more. but the difference is, that should we invest heavily in that system we would be almost certainly guaranteed a profit every year...eventually.

imagine if for every home match you attend, you were to put £1 , £2,  £5 into a jar, you would be left with £23, £46 or £115 to invest at the end of the season. if every fan did that it would leave us with a really healthy amount of money to invest in the youth system. and thats before you think about the chance of a mike parker investing alongside the fans. (when he came in he said he wanted to focus on the youth system, so its no impossible to imagine)

if we were to spend that kind of money emulating the Ajax and Barcelona academies, albeit on a smaller scale (as in having smaller numbers of players), we would have secured our future forever and given ourselves a really good chance of at least getting to the championship, if not better.

like i said it is an extremely extremely ambitious idea, extremely difficult to achieve, but certainly not impossible.

What we need is a way of tapping into folks disposable income.I know times are tough but people have more leisure time and money to spend than they did in years past.

We could do with a Grimsby Town Supporters Club,and by that i don't mean a commitee of people but a proper clubhouse,run by the fans,for the fans and profits going to the football side of things.

Somewhere to go at weekends for a night out and some entertainment,without getting your leg lifted like you do in Meggies.Places like the Carr Lane club are thriving because of the recession,not in spite of it.Annual membership would apply like most clubs and you could run a couple of football teams,cricket team,darts,doms,pool,snooker and owt else you could think of.All sorts of ways of getting punters in.Somewhere to go before a match and have a pint and some decent grub.

The club say they "don't need business acumen" but i think they are sadly lacking in drive and ideas to bring in some extra coin.It's like the Titanic saying we don't need lifeboats,ridiculous.You only have to look at the p1ss poor catering and drinks available at the ground to see no-one has a clue.We are supposed to be a Food Town FFS.

Anyway,the stumbling block is obviously the money needed to acquire some premises and possibly refurbishment.Just finding somewhere local and available would be the first hurdle.Raising money and interest in the venture,a whole other ball game.

Probably a stupid idea but hey ho.

Quoted from ginnywings

What we need is a way of tapping into folks disposable income.I know times are tough but people have more leisure time and money to spend than they did in years past.

We could do with a Grimsby Town Supporters Club,and by that i don't mean a commitee of people but a proper clubhouse,run by the fans,for the fans and profits going to the football side of things.

Somewhere to go at weekends for a night out and some entertainment,without getting your leg lifted like you do in Meggies.Places like the Carr Lane club are thriving because of the recession,not in spite of it.Annual membership would apply like most clubs and you could run a couple of football teams,cricket team,darts,doms,pool,snooker and owt else you could think of.All sorts of ways of getting punters in.Somewhere to go before a match and have a pint and some decent grub.

The club say they "don't need business acumen" but i think they are sadly lacking in drive and ideas to bring in some extra coin.It's like the Titanic saying we don't need lifeboats,ridiculous.You only have to look at the p1ss poor catering and drinks available at the ground to see no-one has a clue.We are supposed to be a Food Town FFS.

Anyway,the stumbling block is obviously the money needed to acquire some premises and possibly refurbishment.Just finding somewhere local and available would be the first hurdle.Raising money and interest in the venture,a whole other ball game.

Probably a stupid idea but hey ho.

Not at all, it's a great idea and one I'm certain was in the pipeline for when we moved stadium. This all happens at new grounds but can't happen at bp. You only have to look at how few people go to the imp during the week to see there is no market around there for such a place. Match days are different, sure, but non match days far out number them & a boozer can't exist on 23 days of income a year! The idea if having pool, darts, cricket etc teams us an interesting one though. That would drag a few bodies in more regularly.

Quoted from ginnywings

What we need is a way of tapping into folks disposable income.I know times are tough but people have more leisure time and money to spend than they did in years past.

We could do with a Grimsby Town Supporters Club,and by that i don't mean a commitee of people but a proper clubhouse,run by the fans,for the fans and profits going to the football side of things.

Somewhere to go at weekends for a night out and some entertainment,without getting your leg lifted like you do in Meggies.Places like the Carr Lane club are thriving because of the recession,not in spite of it.Annual membership would apply like most clubs and you could run a couple of football teams,cricket team,darts,doms,pool,snooker and owt else you could think of.All sorts of ways of getting punters in.Somewhere to go before a match and have a pint and some decent grub.

The club say they "don't need business acumen" but i think they are sadly lacking in drive and ideas to bring in some extra coin.It's like the Titanic saying we don't need lifeboats,ridiculous.You only have to look at the p1ss poor catering and drinks available at the ground to see no-one has a clue.We are supposed to be a Food Town FFS.

Anyway,the stumbling block is obviously the money needed to acquire some premises and possibly refurbishment.Just finding somewhere local and available would be the first hurdle.Raising money and interest in the venture,a whole other ball game.

Probably a stupid idea but hey ho.

Ginnywings you are IMHO spot on my friend.  Living away from Grimsby as a I do I don't get to many games.  When I do get back (family are season ticket holders) for home matches I am amazed by the atmosphere (or lack of, and before anybody says I'm not talking about whilst the footy is on display) inside BP and I think that it comes from a lack of drive, energy, inventiveness and passion from the people who are presumably involved in making decisions at BP.  The catering always comes up at forums and is oft derided yet questions about it are always brushed off.  To me the catering is an essential part of the match day experience and the very fact that an outside source is willing to take on the contract at BP suggests that there is money to be made.  I struggle to rationalise the fact that GTFC doesn't employ an in house chef to make from scratch a couple of hunderd beef burgers for each game.  Someone (members of the youth team) should be outside the ground before kick off peddling good quality hot dogs (in partnership with Pettits if necessary) to all those who linger about the car park pre match.  At Exeter FC the club has the youth team mixing with the crowd throughout the game delivering hot or cold drinks from portable drinks containers strapped to their backs.

I can't understand why people go on about the playing budget which seems, and always has seemed, perfectly acceptable to me.  The playing side of things will always be subject to the vagaries of.......well of football!!  It is the controllables that need to be taken hold of.  We need to start operating like the small service industry that we are, stop thinking we are Billy Big Boll*x, and get a grip of the good ship Grimsby Town.    

Quoted from ginnywings

What we need is a way of tapping into folks disposable income.I know times are tough but people have more leisure time and money to spend than they did in years past.

We could do with a Grimsby Town Supporters Club,and by that i don't mean a commitee of people but a proper clubhouse,run by the fans,for the fans and profits going to the football side of things.

Somewhere to go at weekends for a night out and some entertainment,without getting your leg lifted like you do in Meggies.Places like the Carr Lane club are thriving because of the recession,not in spite of it.Annual membership would apply like most clubs and you could run a couple of football teams,cricket team,darts,doms,pool,snooker and owt else you could think of.All sorts of ways of getting punters in.Somewhere to go before a match and have a pint and some decent grub.

The club say they "don't need business acumen" but i think they are sadly lacking in drive and ideas to bring in some extra coin.It's like the Titanic saying we don't need lifeboats,ridiculous.You only have to look at the p1ss poor catering and drinks available at the ground to see no-one has a clue.We are supposed to be a Food Town FFS.

Anyway,the stumbling block is obviously the money needed to acquire some premises and possibly refurbishment.Just finding somewhere local and available would be the first hurdle.Raising money and interest in the venture,a whole other ball game.

Probably a stupid idea but hey ho.

totally agree!A supporters club is  a must to get the fans involved more with the club and to start generating funds to contribute into help run the club finanially!Over the last few years,slowly but surely the clubs leaders have made some(in my opinion)some ridicolous decisions in excluding genuine fans from partisipating in the clubs facilities!Far too many little "members clubs" within the club have been set up and now there finding them empty on a match day!simply putting membership fees at £150 each a season thats for adults and children has to be a thing of the past,and putting them down to something more realistic has got to be the way forward if we are to attract fans with their families to the club and spend their hard earnt money within the club and for the benefit of the club!in my opinion they have missed out in alot of revenue over the years and now could be the chance to change things!

Quoted from Biccys

Not at all, it's a great idea and one I'm certain was in the pipeline for when we moved stadium. This all happens at new grounds but can't happen at bp. You only have to look at how few people go to the imp during the week to see there is no market around there for such a place. Match days are different, sure, but non match days far out number them & a boozer can't exist on 23 days of income a year! The idea if having pool, darts, cricket etc teams us an interesting one though. That would drag a few bodies in more regularly.

But it could be more than just a boozer.They lose money because they are generally overpriced for largely poor fare.Pubs like Wehterspoons thrive because they sell decent beer and food at reasonable prices.

Social clubs have more going for them anyway and are used more during the week for darts,,doms teams etc.

Also it would attract punters who don't even go to the games if it was in the rght place,selling good food and drink at sensible prices.Then there is scope for summer barbecues,family days and the like.Hiring out a room for private parties and catering.All sorts of ways to make money outside of match days.

You may even get a gig there.

Quoted from ginnywings

But it could be more than just a boozer.They lose money because they are generally overpriced for largely poor fare.Pubs like Wehterspoons thrive because they sell decent beer and food at reasonable prices.

Social clubs have more going for them anyway and are used more during the week for darts,,doms teams etc.

Also it would attract punters who don't even go to the games if it was in the rght place,selling good food and drink at sensible prices.Then there is scope for summer barbecues,family days and the like.Hiring out a room for private parties and catering.All sorts of ways to make money outside of match days.

You may even get a gig there.

Ha! I'm in!
It just takes a bold decision by a chairperson and it could happen. This as I said before would have been on the agenda of the new ground but alas, we are where we are!

Quoted from ginnywings

What we need is a way of tapping into folks disposable income.I know times are tough but people have more leisure time and money to spend than they did in years past.

We could do with a Grimsby Town Supporters Club,and by that i don't mean a commitee of people but a proper clubhouse,run by the fans,for the fans and profits going to the football side of things.

Somewhere to go at weekends for a night out and some entertainment,without getting your leg lifted like you do in Meggies.Places like the Carr Lane club are thriving because of the recession,not in spite of it.Annual membership would apply like most clubs and you could run a couple of football teams,cricket team,darts,doms,pool,snooker and owt else you could think of.All sorts of ways of getting punters in.Somewhere to go before a match and have a pint and some decent grub.

The club say they "don't need business acumen" but i think they are sadly lacking in drive and ideas to bring in some extra coin.It's like the Titanic saying we don't need lifeboats,ridiculous.You only have to look at the p1ss poor catering and drinks available at the ground to see no-one has a clue.We are supposed to be a Food Town FFS.

Anyway,the stumbling block is obviously the money needed to acquire some premises and possibly refurbishment.Just finding somewhere local and available would be the first hurdle.Raising money and interest in the venture,a whole other ball game.

Probably a stupid idea but hey ho.

Without wanting to sound like I'm having a pop, there's a reason so many pubs are shutting daily in this country and the idea of using a supporters' bar as some kind of money-making device is just so far from reality you might as well have suggested sticking a fiver in the ground & waiting for a money tree to grow.

Also, to be frank, I think you'd struggle find many people who'd want to spend their free time in a place inhabited by some of the toothless, braindead mongs that inhabit the imp on a matchday and the stands come 3pm.