Welcome, Guest.
Please login or register.
Fishy Forum Fishy Boards Classic Threads › Message from John Fenty
Moderators: Moderator
Users Browsing Forum
No Members and 10 Guests

Message from John Fenty

  This thread currently has 72,305 views. Print
35 Pages Prev ... 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Next All Recommend Thread
Quagmire
November 9, 2011, 5:24pm

Table Wine Drinker
Posts: 777
Posts Per Day: 0.13
Reputation: 93.41%
Rep Score: +19 / 0
Approval: +929
Gold Stars: 43
What would your business and financial plan be Forza, other than blind optimism and unwavoring support of the man that has brought the club to this point?
Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 280 - 348
MuddyWaters
November 9, 2011, 5:45pm
Barley Wine Drinker
Posts: 14,028
Posts Per Day: 2.60
Reputation: 68.15%
Rep Score: +48 / -24
Approval: +31,880
Gold Stars: 230
Quoted from Quagmire
What would your business and financial plan be Forza, other than blind optimism and unwavoring support of the man that has brought the club to this point?


You could save 50k a year by having one manager instead of two!
Logged
Private Message
Reply: 281 - 348
forza ivano
November 9, 2011, 5:53pm

Exile
Posts: 14,678
Posts Per Day: 2.47
Reputation: 80.18%
Rep Score: +73 / -18
Approval: +15,134
Gold Stars: 265
Quoted from Quagmire
What would your business and financial plan be Forza, other than blind optimism and unwavoring support of the man that has brought the club to this point?


i would be somewhere between the 2 camps. my ideal solution was for parker to take over,because he has many of the attributes of fenty (local, rich and a fan!) but seemed a bit more sensible and hard business minded. from what i understand parker simply wants out, so that is not an option. the romantic in me would love to see the club run with or by the Trust, with a team packed full of youngsters, but i fear that if that were the case then i would be watching bsp north footie!
therefore the head says that fenty is the only option. I don't blind, unwavouring support for him but i tend to take 'the better the devil you know' attitude. i'm hopeful that the fact that the trust are now a major player may help to mitigate his excesses and that if he has been so badly hurt by the opprobrium heaped upon him that he may start to think first before opening gob, and maybe start listening to others around him. the fact that he took 5 hours of his time to talk to bigeasy (would you or i have done the same? ) is a hopeful sign
Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 282 - 348
80sglory
November 9, 2011, 5:57pm
Guest User
Excellent post Quagmire.
Logged
E-mail
Reply: 283 - 348
barralad
November 9, 2011, 6:29pm
Mariners Trust
Posts: 13,791
Posts Per Day: 2.33
Reputation: 81.03%
Rep Score: +86 / -20
Approval: +9,193
Gold Stars: 121
Quoted from Quagmire


As simplistic as it sounds you only have a deficit and a requirement for a benefactor if you spend more money than what comes in.

To that end with over 50 full time staff and 1.8 million per year wage bill this is where I'd start.  Assuming the playing budget is 900k per year as has been reported we are spending 17k per week on other salaries - at our level do we need over 50 full time employees?  Could we manage with 50% of that number? I think Lincoln are looking at reducing their full time staff number which, from what I've read, is already down to just 20.

An extra £1 per game ticket increase  x 2800 people x 23 games = extra 65k

Directors expenses no longer paid by the club = 50k per year savings based upon this years accounts.

Mr Fentys pension payment renegotiated to be repaid 'when the time comes in' saves 50k

Reduction in playing budget for 2012/13 - no idea here re potential savings but allowing players whose contracts expire in 2012 to leave would free up funds. Kenny Arthur @ 700 pw guesstimate = 36k saving

A full-on campaign to try and entice the stayaways back to boost revenue.

Whatever happens we have to move away from this dependency on outside investors to keep the club going.

I would like to see increased emphasis placed on the youngsters and in particular something created so that players between 18 and 21 are kept on longer and developed longer term rather than very few 'making it' with the rest jettisoned - and yes I realise this will cost the club financially.

At the end of the day wages are our biggest cost and we need to find a way to start controlling this aspect and I think a greater reliance on producing our own rather than already established pros is probably the only way forward.


Some really good stuff in here Quagmire IMO. I guess the issue is that some of the loss we are making comes directly from the interest charges being levied on the money we owe our bankers, which makes the point elsewhere about Chester starting from scratch again a very relevant one.

If our goal is to eventually return to the Football League, in an era where money talks no matter which league you are in, the temptation to spend to get out must be nearly overpowering. It will take a brave chairman/board to go to the levels you are talking about when there is no clear evidence that having a robust youth policy will provide the personnel required to make the leap upwards. I never thought I'd say this but it may be best to forget about the Football League for the foreseeable future and give the youth option a try as clearly the spending hasn't worked. I strongly believe that the alleged plans to do away with the Youth system at the end of this season would be another nail in the coffin of the club-maybe even the final nail.
Over the past few years even the most ardent Town fan would have to concede that we haven't set the football world alight with our signings. Yet other managers seem to have the ability to seek out decent players. Is it down solely to the manager(s) or is it a failing in the way we approach searching for these players. As I understand it we have no scouting system worthy of the name. If that IS the case how are we going to find anyone who lives outside of a radius of fifty miles?


The aim of argument or discussion should not be victory but progress.

Joseph Joubert.
Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 284 - 348
grimsby pete
November 9, 2011, 6:32pm

Exile
Posts: 55,545
Posts Per Day: 9.83
Reputation: 81.7%
Rep Score: +126 / -28
Location: Suffolk
Approval: +17,753
Gold Stars: 221
Quoted from forza ivano


nice try but even doing all that only saves £650k pa and we're running a deficit of £900k p.a..



BUT

Fenty would be happy with that, he will only have to put in £250,000 pa,

Thats a good saving from his point of view.



                             Over 36 years living in Suffolk but always a mariner.
                             68 Years following the Town

                              Life member of Trust

                               First game   April 1955
                               
Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 285 - 348
Quagmire
November 9, 2011, 6:50pm

Table Wine Drinker
Posts: 777
Posts Per Day: 0.13
Reputation: 93.41%
Rep Score: +19 / 0
Approval: +929
Gold Stars: 43
Quoted from forza ivano


i would be somewhere between the 2 camps. my ideal solution was for parker to take over,because he has many of the attributes of fenty (local, rich and a fan!) but seemed a bit more sensible and hard business minded. from what i understand parker simply wants out, so that is not an option. the romantic in me would love to see the club run with or by the Trust, with a team packed full of youngsters, but i fear that if that were the case then i would be watching bsp north footie!
therefore the head says that fenty is the only option. I don't blind, unwavouring support for him but i tend to take 'the better the devil you know' attitude. i'm hopeful that the fact that the trust are now a major player may help to mitigate his excesses and that if he has been so badly hurt by the opprobrium heaped upon him that he may start to think first before opening gob, and maybe start listening to others around him. the fact that he took 5 hours of his time to talk to bigeasy (would you or i have done the same? ) is a hopeful sign


Fair play.

This isn't a dig at the Trust but I don't really see them having any real input into how the club is run.  I don't think they are looking for a place on the board and I don't think they have the required resources that the current board members look for in potential board appointments.

I think, and personally fear, that Fenty will be voted back in and he, Elsom, and Chapman will continue to run the club as they have over the past few years.

Unfortunately from an outsiders point of view it appears that the 'plan' is to simply plough as much additional funds as Fenty is comfortable covering into the playing budget and then hope and pray that the manager(s) and players pull something out of the bag - which, if we're doing well, covers some of, if not all of the deficit that is projected at the beginning of each season.

What I dislike the most about the whole "Fenty has ploughed his millions in" is that to a certain extent this deficit is engineered by the man himself, it's not some out of the blue bill.  It's not like the club is a car that goes in for a service and you're suddenly hit with a massive bill because the head gasket has gone, with Fenty riding in on his white horse and telling us not to worry about this unexpected bill because he will cover it!

Fenty and the board have a decent understanding of the kind of average revenue the club will bring in as well as the associated costs of non playing staff and ground upkeep etc.  The major variable is what they decide to allocate for the playing budget - and for far too long we've overextended ourselves massively.

How long do we continue this policy?  How long is Fenty able to fund this policy?

There are plenty of clubs at this level that have a far smaller playing budget than ourselves who continue to outperform us - how do they do this and why are we (as a club) simply not getting value for money from our players and management team?

There's only so many more years where Fenty will be able to fund this yearly gamble - the law of averages suggests it will come good at some point seeing as it's failed so badly over so many years so far - but will Fenty's pockets be empty before that day arrives?

Personally I think we need to start taking some medicine now, and start to cut our cloth accordingly, with a greater emphasis on bringing our youth players through and giving them the chance.  It might not be pretty but we have to start to move away from this reliance upon someone loaning the club vast amounts in order to keep operating.

People will moan about flooding the team with youngsters and that in order to get out of this league we need x, y, z etc.

Supposedly to get out of this league we needed young and hungry players - which we've supposedly got.
Supposedly to get out of this league we needed 'Conference' players - which we've got.
Supposedly to get out of this league we needed 'Conference' managers - which is what we've got.

Yet we're 4 points above the relegation spots!

So nobody truly knows what kind of team we need to put out in order to be successful at this level.

You've only got to look at the Football League to see how many smaller clubs than us are in there - what is it that they are doing / have done that we are not?

Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 286 - 348
GrimRob
November 9, 2011, 7:00pm

Moderator
Posts: 12,630
Posts Per Day: 2.12
Reputation: 69.92%
Rep Score: +76 / -34
Approval: +13,343
Gold Stars: 113
Here's an interesting story in the press today about someone being sued for libel because of comments they left on Amazon's UK site.

http://www.independent.co.uk/n.....-review-6259431.html


'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Logged Offline
Site Private Message Skype
Reply: 287 - 348
cardiffmariner
November 9, 2011, 8:07pm
Table Wine Drinker
Posts: 653
Posts Per Day: 0.11
Reputation: 80.9%
Rep Score: +9 / -2
Approval: +1,293
Gold Stars: 23
Quoted from Quagmire


Fair play.

This isn't a dig at the Trust but I don't really see them having any real input into how the club is run.  I don't think they are looking for a place on the board and I don't think they have the required resources that the current board members look for in potential board appointments.

I think, and personally fear, that Fenty will be voted back in and he, Elsom, and Chapman will continue to run the club as they have over the past few years.

Unfortunately from an outsiders point of view it appears that the 'plan' is to simply plough as much additional funds as Fenty is comfortable covering into the playing budget and then hope and pray that the manager(s) and players pull something out of the bag - which, if we're doing well, covers some of, if not all of the deficit that is projected at the beginning of each season.

What I dislike the most about the whole "Fenty has ploughed his millions in" is that to a certain extent this deficit is engineered by the man himself, it's not some out of the blue bill.  It's not like the club is a car that goes in for a service and you're suddenly hit with a massive bill because the head gasket has gone, with Fenty riding in on his white horse and telling us not to worry about this unexpected bill because he will cover it!

Fenty and the board have a decent understanding of the kind of average revenue the club will bring in as well as the associated costs of non playing staff and ground upkeep etc.  The major variable is what they decide to allocate for the playing budget - and for far too long we've overextended ourselves massively.

How long do we continue this policy?  How long is Fenty able to fund this policy?

There are plenty of clubs at this level that have a far smaller playing budget than ourselves who continue to outperform us - how do they do this and why are we (as a club) simply not getting value for money from our players and management team?

There's only so many more years where Fenty will be able to fund this yearly gamble - the law of averages suggests it will come good at some point seeing as it's failed so badly over so many years so far - but will Fenty's pockets be empty before that day arrives?

Personally I think we need to start taking some medicine now, and start to cut our cloth accordingly, with a greater emphasis on bringing our youth players through and giving them the chance.  It might not be pretty but we have to start to move away from this reliance upon someone loaning the club vast amounts in order to keep operating.

People will moan about flooding the team with youngsters and that in order to get out of this league we need x, y, z etc.

Supposedly to get out of this league we needed young and hungry players - which we've supposedly got.
Supposedly to get out of this league we needed 'Conference' players - which we've got.
Supposedly to get out of this league we needed 'Conference' managers - which is what we've got.

Yet we're 4 points above the relegation spots!

So nobody truly knows what kind of team we need to put out in order to be successful at this level.

You've only got to look at the Football League to see how many smaller clubs than us are in there - what is it that they are doing / have done that we are not?



Agree with absolutely every word of that.  Best post I've read on here in ages.  

Perhaps if 5 years or so ago we had started to 'cut our cloth accordingly' we wouldn't have the deficit we have now.  How much could have been saved from a drastically reduced wage bill and money saved from paying off managers and players due to repeated sackings and subsequent squad overhauls?

It could have been done, it could have significantly reduced the deficit and we might not even have found ourselves in the position we're in now.

Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 288 - 348
pleasegoup
November 9, 2011, 9:07pm
Beer Drinker
Posts: 135
Posts Per Day: 0.03
Reputation: 84.77%
Rep Score: +3 / 0
if it was up to me, i would say have a playing budget, that would mean we break even next season.

if fenty and parker want to continue putting money in, they should concentrate on the youth development side, which will no longer get funding next year (i think)
Logged Offline
Private Message
Reply: 289 - 348
35 Pages Prev ... 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Next All Recommend Thread
Print

Fishy Forum Fishy Boards Classic Threads › Message from John Fenty

Thread Rating
There is currently no rating for this thread
 

Back to top of page

This is not an official forum of Grimsby Town Football Club, the opinions expressed are those of the individual authors. If you see an offensive post then click "Report" on the relevant post. Posts will be deleted at the discretion of the moderators whose decision is final. Posts should abide by the Forum Rules. IP addresses of contributors together with dates and times of access are stored. The opinions and viewpoints expressed by contributors to The Fishy are their own and not necessarily those of The Fishy. The Fishy makes no claims that information dispersed through this forum is accurate or reliable. Also The Fishy cannot be held liable for any statements made by contributors of The Fishy.