Club Statement - Pettit named new Chairman

Some hugely positive news in that interview.

The owners are converting debt to shares. A move that needs to be applauded, doesn't burden the club with huge debt to an owner and really shows positive intent, it is the best thing for the club.
The huge debt to Fenty allowed him to control and threaten through fear he'd pull the plug.

Probably part of the reason we will see new investment. We don't know who these investors are yet, but it makes a massive change from years of suggestion that nobody wants to invest in the club.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

But you have also got to remember what we've spent so far enabled us to finish 4th bottom of the 4th tier.

Most of us are delighted to have these owners on board including me but it is an interesting discussion as personally I think players hold all the aces and it is a fact of life that they do cost a lot of money regardless of any model of sustainability.

It's not a criticism just an observation.

In a way though last seasons poor performance underpins their idea that just injecting capital into a playing budget doesn't always correlate with relative success ; obviously there are one's with heavy investment who did well-  the top 3 are the obvious one's but they also have decent infrastructure with relatively long term managers for these times .

But for every Mansfield , Wrexham and Stockport there is a FGR , Salford and Colchester who seemingly sink a lot of cash into it without much reward or even disaster .  

I suppose the question is : can you do significantly better with average resource , the data ,cute recruitment , a good manager? , solid ownership and improving infrastructure without sinking a load of cash in on the playing side ?  

It's one that we can't answer yet in our case ,as the process has hardly started but at least it's a direction of travel of which we didn't see for the previous 20 years .

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

But you have also got to remember what we've spent so far enabled us to finish 4th bottom of the 4th tier.

Most of us are delighted to have these owners on board including me but it is an interesting discussion as personally I think players hold all the aces and it is a fact of life that they do cost a lot of money regardless of any model of sustainability.

It's not a criticism just an observation.

It's not just what you spend, it's how you spend it.

Stockport and Wrexham have spent big, and been rewarded for it. Equally, FGR's accounts paint a picture of a team with a huge wage bill and they finished bottom of the 92 this season.

Barrow, Crawley and Wimbledon probably all had lower budgets than us. Crawley finished on 70 points in the last play off place and are now 90 minutes away from League 1. Barrow were a point behind them and Wimbledon finished on 65 points, so it really does come down to how you spend your budget.

Quoted from headingly_mariner

Some hugely positive news in that interview.

The owners are converting debt to shares. A move that needs to be applauded, doesn't burden the club with huge debt to an owner and really shows positive intent, it is the best thing for the club.
The huge debt to Fenty allowed him to control and threaten through fear he'd pull the plug.

Probably part of the reason we will see new investment. We don't know who these investors are yet, but it makes a massive change from years of suggestion that nobody wants to invest in the club.

Mike Parker was very keen on converting debt to shares. One of the reasons he was so annoyed with Fenty I think, when Fenty put his half of the cash in as loans, resulting in that spat about ownership, Parker dumping shares on the Trust, who were blackmailed into handing them to Fenty.

Improving playing and training conditions soon could be.a big factor in new player attraction.

The work on the Main Stand posts will help those supporters who have poor views.

Bringing in new investors will help reduce ongoing debt in a far better way than worrying about one person holding the strings.

None of these get 3 points on Saturday guaranteed, so any progress without on field guarantees shows a business like set up, rather than mad money being thrown at "star " players.

My own preference would be a team and squad who can be fit for 90 minutes, no long term injured signed players, no huge egos, and enough talent to play a good on the ground possession and passing game, hopefully at a faster pace than the last 46 games.

The Crewe game did come as a surprise to many people, as that potential actually showed up for once and was s treat to watch. Sadly, not provided often enough last season.

Bated breath waiting for page 100 on the transfer thread to start spitting signed names out !

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

But you have also got to remember what we've spent so far enabled us to finish 4th bottom of the 4th tier.

Most of us are delighted to have these owners on board including me but it is an interesting discussion as personally I think players hold all the aces and it is a fact of life that they do cost a lot of money regardless of any model of sustainability.

It's not a criticism just an observation.

Doesn't mean the amount you spent was too low, potentially just means that the manager spent it badly. Given that under Hurst we spent fees on Hunt, Green, Vernam, Conteh, Eastwood, Mullarkey and Rose, just how many of those could you qualify as a success? Rose definitely, Conteh definitely. But there's huge question marks over the others.

  This thread has turned into an interesting discussion about the need to balance long term and short-term benefits, namely infrastructure and results. Both are necessary for success, and both require some investment.
   The better the facilities and the player support the more attractive the club will be for prospective players, but also players, quite rightly, will look after themselves and tend to sign for the club that offers them the best deal financially. So yes, absolutely we need to try to unearth those hidden gems, but we also need to be able to compete for some proven talent, and those players, especially the ones who operate at the top end of the pitch, come with a price tag.
  I've been reading the Fishy long enough to know that top of everyone's mind is always the latest result and performance on the pitch. I'm yet to see any comment after a disappointing result that takes much comfort in the fact that the training facilities are better than they used to be.
  I just hope we can get the balance right. Time will tell.

I think it's quite an interesting discussion on how clubs at this level make the best of the hands they have. For example unless you have a shed load of money, you aren't going to be competing with the clubs that are spending big amounts. Wrexham, Stockport etc, have an edge with the vast amounts they can spend. So if you realise that quickly, come to terms with it and don't try to compete you can then try and find ways to get an edge. You don't just give up cause of the gap in finances, you find other ways to do it - it isn't easy though.

Barrow have built a training ground in a very convenient location for players that don't live in the area. That's how they can attract players they maybe couldn't before and move some of the costs the players incur through travel as well as time lost in to the positive column.

Crewe pride themselves on producing young talent that can supplement their team at a smaller cost and then eventually move on for decent money to increase revenues to re-invest. That does however make it liable to be abit more of a cycle but is an 'edge'

I guess the theory is, if we can create the infrastructure and facilities some teams at this level don't have, coupled with fishing smartly in an ever increasing pond, buying, developing and moving on for profit - it will in time start to have an effect. The data we have access to isn't the magical answer on it's own, but it is more information than the majority of clubs in L2 and L1 and with better information we all generally in life make better decisions. Implementing a 'game model' I think also provides some continuity incase a manager leaves as well as it been a way to plan on how you progress. Instead of what happens time and again at this level. Manager leaves, another one comes in, doesn't fancy the team - the club then spend 18months cycling players out with new ones costing a fortune, just to repeat again in 2/3 years if they haven't got lucky. It works sometimes - and doesn't in others (Scunthorpe, Colchester and many many more) That's how we want to create our edge.

I am still however convinced that the long term aim for Jason and Andrew is to get us fit and proper on and off the pitch, up a league or two and hope a bigger investor fancies the look of us because of the low debt and high infrastructure (both physical and process/staff etc) in place over other L1 clubs that have the debt and very little else to show for it other than a league position. There always has to be some speculating to accumulate however they have done that in a way that isn't, from the outside, unsustainable and liable to leave us in danger if the music stops.

If you have a wider interest other than Town there is a very good interview with the Stockport owner , about how they are trying to do it - long term sustainability is an aim but they have used capital to get to league one . It's an interesting listen .

This may have already been posted but I would imagine turning the loans into equity is an enabler for new investors coming in. Nobody would want to invest in a company with too much debt on the books.