Lincoln City

I think any club that is having significant sums pumped into it has a right to get nervous once it stops progressing at the current level of investment. Lincoln require £3m a year to finish mid-table in League One. The King's Lynn owner is now begging for investment and saying he won't plug the £300k gap in the finances this season. They are full-time with crowds of 800 in the NLN, and currently 21st. The original club, King's Lynn FC folded in 2010 after getting kicked out of the NLN for their ground not meeting requirements following promotion the previous year. I don't think there is interest in King's Lynn for a full-time team, but their owner has pumped money in, taken them to the NL, got relegated, almost got promoted last season, and now it's tough, he's spitting his dummy out. It happens all of the time and I do wonder when the Lincoln investors decide they aren't going to cover the losses anymore.

The bonkers thing at Lincoln, is that their fans are more concerned about the number of supporters watching games at home for free on dodgy sticks, than they are about the £3million pa losses. And the amount of revenue not being gained because of dodgy sticks, is a real slither and thin end of the wedge when it comes to their accumulated losses.

Quoted from DaleH

The bonkers thing at Lincoln, is that their fans are more concerned about the number of supporters watching games at home for free on dodgy sticks, than they are about the £3million pa losses. And the amount of revenue not being gained because of dodgy sticks, is a real slither and thin end of the wedge when it comes to their accumulated losses.

Yeah I read that and found it a strange argument to be honest it's hardly going to bridge a 3 million pound shortfall is it .

They have fell for the smokescreen I would suggest and are bickering about it .

Quoted from diehardmariner

That's always my question when it comes to Lincoln and their investors, what's the drive behind investment?

Not a chance in hell they're investing for the good of it, nor should they either.  It'll be the same when 1878 bring outside investment into the club, whoever is investing money in the set-up will want a return on it at some point.  

Will player sales bring that?  Probably not.  

If Lincoln get to the Championship, does that make them sellable enough to recoup in excess of £10million?  Or probably a better question would be how much more investment do they need just to get to the Championship.  Luton went through but to my knowledge they're not funded by outside investment.  Luton are historically a far, far bigger club than Lincoln with a far more established fanbase.  Their worst season was a 7th place in the Conference (12/13) yet they still average 5800 at home games that season.  Whilst Lincoln have averaged better than that  for the last 5 seasons, the last time they bettered it was 1977.  The same season Luton only got 5800 coming through their gate, Lincoln averaged 2100 in the same league.

I'm not close enough to say it's sustainable or not, I don't think any of us are.  I don't think a slight drop-off this season in gates is an indicator that the bubble has burst. Nor do I think their away followings are either, they've never travelled well and ultimately how many fans you take on the road has intercourse all input financially to your club.   But from the outside looking in, it doesn't look like a model that can take them any further than this position of trying but not quite breaking into those promotion challengers in League One.    

If I was a Lincoln fan I would be a little nervous that the position is very dependent on ongoing investment, but those investments keep coming and coming...

I am not sure if you are just being negative because it is Lincoln or not, but the population has grown by 30k in 20 years in Lincoln and continues to grow, so I think crowds, whilst lower this year have remained stable and may well do so. I don't think it is just because we are not playing that well that crowds have dipped, the economic climate will play a part. Lincoln is also a growing city, that has significant investment and lower crime so is an attractive place currently. I personally think the football club have seen this and tried to grow with it - With some success, and changes to the ground/pitch and training facilities which put us on an even keel with a lot of L1 clubs.

As for investment and going down the same root as Scunthorpe, I think that must be a joke - we will be nothing like them, we might dip to L2 occasionally, and flirt with the championship at times, but we are in safe hands. Investment is in shares, and Clive appears to be careful with who invests in the club - The Jabara family seem to be in for the long haul, so whilst I see some on here wanting us to go pop, I  think we will be fine.

Football wise, losing all our forwards to injury has been a freak, with Tyler Walker now ruled out for the season we have had some awful luck, so to be 9th I think we have done well, albeit it is a dull watch scoring a goal a game. However, I much prefer watching Derby away Thursday, and Bolton at home Boxing day than watching some of L2's fixtures. No being salty here towards Grimsby, I think Artell is a decent appointment - Your owners are good too, but if you think you are going to sail past us, without Millions of wise investment I think you are mistaken. I actually wish you good fortune, I like Lincolnshire clubs being in the league and doing well, so long as were doing the best!

Anyway Merry Xmas!!

Quoted from DaleH

The bonkers thing at Lincoln, is that their fans are more concerned about the number of supporters watching games at home for free on dodgy sticks, than they are about the £3million pa losses. And the amount of revenue not being gained because of dodgy sticks, is a real slither and thin end of the wedge when it comes to their accumulated losses.

You're right, but I was surprised when it was quoted at between 150-200k.

From everything I know from Imp supporting mates is that the American guys are genuinely into supporting the club and their South African Chairman, Clive Nate’s, is a smart cookie and it’s him that has attracted the investment and only surprise seems to be that one of the American investors was supposedly going to take over as Chairman last summer but for some reason this didn’t happen.

Personally I think their crowds have stayed up pretty well as I know, much like ourselves, their performances and results in home matches has not been great and believe they still have over 6000 season ticket holders and an expanded ground capacity so they can have crowds of 12000 plus. In relation to the ground they are in a much better position than us to expand and/or replace or redevelop stands not yet touched. Plus the City Council is willing to let them build a new ground should they want in the now started western corridor which will see another 3500 homes built between the bypass and city centre. Lincoln’s current ground and surrounding area is also much better placed than BP to be turned into an area of housing.

To me their situation just demonstrates how financially difficult it is to progress up the football ladder and makes me wonder how we are going to manage given the state of our ground which is ultimately going to restrict the number of fans who can attend.

Love us to be back above them but think we are a little way of achieving this and don’t believe their demise is as imminent as some may have suggested in this thread. Don’t mind being wrong though.

Quoted from nealeardleyscrossing

I like Lincolnshire clubs being in the league and doing well, so long as were doing the best!

But you're not including Scunny in that, surely.....you, us and Boston playing each other would be fine but we all want Scunny to be 2 divisions lower.

Well what a load of balderdash you all speak !
You have a ground thats a dump,apart from one stand thats a weird construction ! I dont know how you all think your going to progress up the leagues without investment ,we have approximately 50 partners in the club plus some wealthy usa/south african investors.We have been investing in our structure for the last few years ground and players,whilst you have rotted away .

Please tell me how your going to progress up a division or 2 because your currently in the bottom 3rd of league 2 going nowhere.You aint going anywhere near the championship let alone league anytime soon without significant money !   UTI

Oooooh, touched a nerve there I think.

Quoted from mariner91

Of course all lower league clubs have ups and downs. But I would bet you can't find an example where short term success led to such a massive increase in attendances over such a short period of time as with Lincoln. Their attendances literally tripled over the space of a few months on the back of a great league campaign and an unprecedented cup run. Before that the city had turned it's back on the club and they struggled to get more than 2500 at home games. And, as we'll never let them forget, they brought less than 500 to a game at BP on a bank holiday not long before their success.

Conversely our attendances are up but not nearly to the same degree in percentage terms and they also didn't go up with any "success". We had more fans at home games from the off in the NL once Fenty had gone and still averaged higher than we had done in L2 during that horrific run of games where we couldn't buy a win. This was off the back of one of the worst seasons in the club's history too.

Lincoln's attendances are dropping even now with them being higher in the football pyramid than they've been for 40 years, you're telling me that the new glory-seeking fans will stick around when they have a relegation season? Some of them will but I suspect they'll see a big drop off in attendances quite quickly. Furthermore, if their attendances are dropping after their most successful spell in living memory but they're still losing money hand over fist just to stand still in L1 then as an investor you'd probably have to ask "what's the point?".

The City of Lincoln has also had plenty of development and financial investment along with growing University campus in very recent times. You could argue that historic Lincoln City didnt harness the potential support , their old board maybe like our old boards more "wealthy locals" rather than mega rich, their new board struck lucky (or did their due diligence superbly) with the Cowleys , the new board are better motivated and smarter at bringing in investment and they fully harnessed the promotion/ cup run interest and got in extra bums , but yes , "new" support still wants feeding success otherwise it loses interest and will drop off if it doesnt get hooked on either the team or the matchday experience.

From my own town watching career ,in the eighties we went from 10k average to 5k average over 5/6 seasons and then down to 3/4 k average which i think coincided with two promotions to new higher level and then a tail off as we ground to a halt and then went backwards.

Would be interesting to know the different social economic comparisons for both areas as that will also paint a picture.