- Print Topic - Archive

Reading between the lines, based on what Jolley said pre-season and what he implied in the post-match media after Mansfield, we don’t have the best budget.

I’m no Fenty fan, but to be fair, the club has allowed MJ to bring his own people in. It’s very easy to blame budgets but Jolley virtually had a blank canvass at the start of this season and was able to build his own team.

Most new managers aren’t afforded that luxury, and usually have to work with what they have and let contracts run down.

Look at Exeter for example. Whilst they’ve done well in terms of player sales, they aren’t exactly full of cash, but are able to build and rebuild teams that at least reach the play offs. Even after having lost their long-term manager and key players, they’ve still managed to buy well and put together a competitive side.

We have young players learning their trade from excellent coaches and old pros. What we don't have are patient fans.

Quoted from Southwark Mariner

We have young players learning their trade from excellent coaches and old pros. What we don't have are patient fans.

Has that yet been proven?

Quoted from Southwark Mariner

We have young players learning their trade from excellent coaches and old pros. What we don't have are patient fans.

Great trolling is that. 17 years and waiting but my patience is almost exhausted!

I think people underestimate how difficult it is to get players here.

People view Grimsby as a sh*thole. We have been a struggling clubs for many years now with an old dilapidated stadium and one of the lowest budgets in the league.

I'm sure Jolley had many players earmarked in the summer that either wanted more wages than we could pay or just didn't fancy the move. I believe Slade had similar problems the previous summer.

We used to be the club to go to in the region but now we are overtaken by all our closest rivals. Hull, who always should have been bigger anyhow then Scunthorpe and now Lincoln. We are the last choice, even if a players fances coming to the region. Thanks John.

Many of the players here wouldn't have been Jolley's first choice and it doesn't matter who we have as a manager, they will have the same problems.

The club needs a reboot with a new owner with fresh ideas. You can change the manager as much as you want, it won't make much difference.

Quoted from MarinerMal

I think people underestimate how difficult it is to get players here.

People view Grimsby as a sh*thole. We have been a struggling clubs for many years now with an old dilapidated stadium and one of the lowest budgets in the league.

I'm sure Jolley had many players earmarked in the summer that either wanted more wages than we could pay or just didn't fancy the move. I believe Slade had similar problems the previous summer.

We used to be the club to go to in the region but now we are overtaken by all our closest rivals. Hull, who always should have been bigger anyhow then Scunthorpe and now Lincoln. We are the last choice, even if a players fances coming to the region. Thanks John.

Many of the players here wouldn't have been Jolley's first choice and it doesn't matter who we have as a manager, they will have the same problems.

The club needs a reboot with a new owner with fresh ideas. You can change the manager as much as you want, it won't make much difference.

We need to get a few players from Sweden in who have never visited the country. ;)

Quoted from MarinerMal

I think people underestimate how difficult it is to get players here.

People view Grimsby as a sh*thole. We have been a struggling clubs for many years now with an old dilapidated stadium and one of the lowest budgets in the league.

I'm sure Jolley had many players earmarked in the summer that either wanted more wages than we could pay or just didn't fancy the move. I believe Slade had similar problems the previous summer.

We used to be the club to go to in the region but now we are overtaken by all our closest rivals. Hull, who always should have been bigger anyhow then Scunthorpe and now Lincoln. We are the last choice, even if a players fances coming to the region. Thanks John.

Many of the players here wouldn't have been Jolley's first choice and it doesn't matter who we have as a manager, they will have the same problems.

The club needs a reboot with a new owner with fresh ideas. You can change the manager as much as you want, it won't make much difference.

Any board worth their salt would counteract our location and largely undeserved reputation, with modern methods of communication. A tour of the residential areas will show any possible recruit that there are beautiful places to live; obviously, some players will never come for a multitude of reasons so we can discount those.

The main reason though is the lack of investment in the playing budget. If players have these preconceived attitudes to Grimsby then you have to pay a premium to overcome them, which is why it is so disheartening to have a board so lacking in any clout to attract new investment, or indeed not want it, unless it is entirely on their terms.

Just think where other players ARE going to - it is not Monte Carlo, is it? It's Mansfield, Bury, Oldham, Crawley Crewe or other mundane footballing towns. Scunthorpe don't seem to have trouble in attracting players or managers do they? Hands up those who think it is because it is such a beautiful garden town with a sparkling nightlife? It is money. Investment in players and facilities. Many of these mundane clubs have left us in their wake. We have not progressed one iota in 20 odd years.

Until Fenty goes we are stuck, and it is only going to get worse.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Any board worth their salt would counteract our location and largely undeserved reputation, with modern methods of communication. A tour of the residential areas will show any possible recruit that there are beautiful places to live; obviously, some players will never come for a multitude of reasons so we can discount those.

The main reason though is the lack of investment in the playing budget. If players have these preconceived attitudes to Grimsby then you have to pay a premium to overcome them, which is why it is so disheartening to have a board so lacking in any clout to attract new investment, or indeed not want it, unless it is entirely on their terms.

Just think where other players ARE going to - it is not Monte Carlo, is it? It's Mansfield, Bury, Oldham, Crawley Crewe or other mundane footballing towns. Scunthorpe don't seem to have trouble in attracting players or managers do they? Hands up those who think it is because it is such a beautiful garden town with a sparkling nightlife? It is money. Investment in players and facilities. Many of these mundane clubs have left us in their wake. We have not progressed one iota in 20 odd years.

Until Fenty goes we are stuck, and it is only going to get worse.

You're so contradictory with what you want. From one minute with we need to spend more money to attract better players and then Fenty's benign loans are crippling the club the next. It can't be both ways, there are ways to get more money coming in that we haven't looked at, but they're not going to bring in millions that the sugar daddy's of Mansfield and Scunthorpe are putting in to their club's.

It's easy to sit behind a computer and beat a drum about how we could make more money. And in fairness, the club haven't done enough to try and explore other avenues from what I can see. But there's not a huge pile of money we're missing out on, we don't have the facilities to do a lot of things that other clubs do. I can't see how our income could be much more than 5% higher through non matchday income and getting more through the gate. Results is what will bring more people in, but that's too big a gamble to break the bank and hope that you get results, it just doesn't work that way.

You mention 6 clubs in that post. 2 have sugar daddies, 3 are on the outskirts of major metropolitan cities and Crewe are almost as sh1t as we are.

Very good post Pen Penfras

Quoted from pen penfras

You're so contradictory with what you want. From one minute with we need to spend more money to attract better players and then Fenty's benign loans are crippling the club the next. It can't be both ways, there are ways to get more money coming in that we haven't looked at, but they're not going to bring in millions that the sugar daddy's of Mansfield and Scunthorpe are putting in to their club's.

It's easy to sit behind a computer and beat a drum about how we could make more money. And in fairness, the club haven't done enough to try and explore other avenues from what I can see. But there's not a huge pile of money we're missing out on, we don't have the facilities to do a lot of things that other clubs do. I can't see how our income could be much more than 5% higher through non matchday income and getting more through the gate. Results is what will bring more people in, but that's too big a gamble to break the bank and hope that you get results, it just doesn't work that way.

You mention 6 clubs in that post. 2 have sugar daddies, 3 are on the outskirts of major metropolitan cities and Crewe are almost as sh1t as we are.

Just taking the two highlighted bits in isolation - first, did the 200k reduction in the loan account result in a 200k reduction in the playing budget. Let's not forget that the £2 million plus loans have been built up and been there for a long time - for example, in 2011's accounts they were £2.23 million.

Secondly, results will bring more gate revenue but, more seriously, bad results and 'austerity' will reduce gate revenue. Maintaining league status is not sufficient - this fan base deserves more. It just feels like we get a little pat on the head and get told to be thankful for what we've got.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Just taking the two highlighted bits in isolation - first, did the 200k reduction in the loan account result in a 200k reduction in the playing budget. Let's not forget that the £2 million plus loans have been built up and been there for a long time - for example, in 2011's accounts they were £2.23 million.

Secondly, results will bring more gate revenue but, more seriously, bad results and 'austerity' will reduce gate revenue. Maintaining league status is not sufficient - this fan base deserves more. It just feels like we get a little pat on the head and get told to be thankful for what we've got.

We can only guess whether or not that happened. I can't believe for a second that JF took money out at the cost of the playing budget. He's not done that before, so don't see why he would now. The other possibilities are that it was to repay another directors loans (Mullens or Chapman maybe?), the manager didn't spend all of his budget and the surplus was used to reduce the debt, we have a lot of cash in the bank so it's better to pay off debts than leave cash in there. It might even have been used as a way to reduce a tax payment.

Absolutely, but however you phrase it, it's a gamble to spend more money and hope for results. The budget is set based on a realistic attendance figures that we only just meet. To think that spending more would result in a significant improvement on the pitch and bring in enough fans to cover that cost is a gamble.

I don't know what the answer is, our budget is definitely better than our position in the league. I would imagine it's somewhere in the middle once the sugar daddies are put into the mix along with average attendance. For some reason, since Hurst left, no manager has managed to get results on a par with that. I just can't believe that a man in the boardroom affects what happens on the pitch to such a huge degree.

Quoted from pen penfras

You're so contradictory with what you want. From one minute with we need to spend more money to attract better players and then Fenty's benign loans are crippling the club the next. It can't be both ways, there are ways to get more money coming in that we haven't looked at, but they're not going to bring in millions that the sugar daddy's of Mansfield and Scunthorpe are putting in to their club's.

It's easy to sit behind a computer and beat a drum about how we could make more money. And in fairness, the club haven't done enough to try and explore other avenues from what I can see. But there's not a huge pile of money we're missing out on, we don't have the facilities to do a lot of things that other clubs do. I can't see how our income could be much more than 5% higher through non matchday income and getting more through the gate. Results is what will bring more people in, but that's too big a gamble to break the bank and hope that you get results, it just doesn't work that way.

You mention 6 clubs in that post. 2 have sugar daddies, 3 are on the outskirts of major metropolitan cities and Crewe are almost as sh1t as we are.

You are conflating a number of issues there.

I am making the simple, but obvious point that it is the lack of money that is stopping us from getting the players we would like. It is the owner's responsibility to attract inward investment that we can use for better players, but he is unable, or unwilling to do that.

If you would like us to yo-yo between the bottom few of league 2 and the Conference then fair enough, that is what you will get with the current set up.

The clubs I mentioned were random - it was just to illustrate that we are not competing with Barcelona. If we cannot hope to compete with the clubs mentioned then it shows how far we have fallen in the last 20 years.

Quoted from golfer

Very good post Pen Penfras

Well I don't agree with it, but I admit it is far and away better than anything you have ever posted.

Quoted from pen penfras

We can only guess whether or not that happened. I can't believe for a second that JF took money out at the cost of the playing budget. He's not done that before, so don't see why he would now. The other possibilities are that it was to repay another directors loans (Mullens or Chapman maybe?), the manager didn't spend all of his budget and the surplus was used to reduce the debt, we have a lot of cash in the bank so it's better to pay off debts than leave cash in there. It might even have been used as a way to reduce a tax payment.

Absolutely, but however you phrase it, it's a gamble to spend more money and hope for results. The budget is set based on a realistic attendance figures that we only just meet. To think that spending more would result in a significant improvement on the pitch and bring in enough fans to cover that cost is a gamble.

I don't know what the answer is, our budget is definitely better than our position in the league. I would imagine it's somewhere in the middle once the sugar daddies are put into the mix along with average attendance. For some reason, since Hurst left, no manager has managed to get results on a par with that. I just can't believe that a man in the boardroom affects what happens on the pitch to such a huge degree.

Why is it definitely better??

The information I have suggests we have a bottom 6 budget, so anything above 18th is ‘success’.
For me the total lack of enthusiasm and engagement from the board is very sad and a primary reason why we cannot get started in moving forward. Just seems Fenty has pulled up the drawbridge and now pouring hot oil of the fans.
It isn’t his castle, it is ours!

Apart from the fact all GTFC support deserve better why should we expect a good budget? Finished near the bottom of the EFL last season, crowds declining, no cup run for years, blown any windfall in the past on expensive players not up to it, tight bottom directors...... etc.. etc..

Like everyone else I don’t like it but in reality we are not a big player in the 4th division at the moment.

Quoted from Cloudy

Why is it definitely better??

The information I have suggests we have a bottom 6 budget, so anything above 18th is ‘success’.
For me the total lack of enthusiasm and engagement from the board is very sad and a primary reason why we cannot get started in moving forward. Just seems Fenty has pulled up the drawbridge and now pouring hot oil of the fans.
It isn’t his castle, it is ours!

You don't have any information, you are speculating as am I. But mine is based on our average attendance vs other teams and then accounting for the couple of clubs where a benefactor sticks a lot of money in. Where does yours come from? A cynical view of everything John Fenty?

Most clubs don't release any financial information, so there's no way you have any solid information that leads to us having a bottom 6 budget. Nor is my "definitely" actually definite, but at least it's based on something.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Apart from the fact all GTFC support deserve better why should we expect a good budget? Finished near the bottom of the EFL last season, crowds declining, no cup run for years, blown any windfall in the past on expensive players not up to it, tight bottom directors...... etc.. etc..

Like everyone else I don’t like it but in reality we are not a big player in the 4th division at the moment.

Come on Herts - you are usually more positive than that! Our great support (you included) definitely deserve better. A whole lot better. We have good support, despite almost 20 years of stagnation and our history in the game is far better than our current situation deserves. The fans have put in millions more than the board, so surely we should expect them to match that at least?

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Come on Herts - you are usually more positive than that! Our great support (you included) definitely deserve better. A whole lot better. We have good support, despite almost 20 years of stagnation and our history in the game is far better than our current situation deserves. The fans have put in millions more than the board, so surely we should expect them to match that at least?

Completely agree!

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Completely agree!

Sorry - I slightly misread your original post!

Quoted from Southwark Mariner

We have young players learning their trade from excellent coaches and old pros. What we don't have are patient fans.

I've been patient since 2003 mate. I think our patience has run out with Mr Fenty in particular. Get him out.

Quoted from davmariner

Reading between the lines, based on what Jolley said pre-season and what he implied in the post-match media after Mansfield, we don’t have the best budget.

I’m no Fenty fan, but to be fair, the club has allowed MJ to bring his own people in. It’s very easy to blame budgets but Jolley virtually had a blank canvass at the start of this season and was able to build his own team.

Most new managers aren’t afforded that luxury, and usually have to work with what they have and let contracts run down.

Look at Exeter for example. Whilst they’ve done well in terms of player sales, they aren’t exactly full of cash, but are able to build and rebuild teams that at least reach the play offs. Even after having lost their long-term manager and key players, they’ve still managed to buy well and put together a competitive side.

Subject to budget

Quoted from sisapon

source within the club ,should be league rather than season.

And how does he know how we compare? Do they share budget information at the Portugal jolly when Shaun Harvey pulls the wool over their eyes?

Quoted from MuddyWaters

We'll know more when the accounts are visible.

We won't unless we've got access to the other 23 clubs' accounts

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Well I don't agree with it, but I admit it is far and away better than anything you have ever posted.

You have either got a bee in your bonnet or you have got piles you nasty bully person Vindictive bigotry .

I feel that location is as much to blame if not more than budget. Teams such as Accrington are far closer to big clubs than we are and players can't look forward to long commutes every day. So unless players can be sold the delights of what N E Lincs has to offer and unless we offer decent contracts to get them to relocate, they are more likely to sign for clubs near to home.

I don't feel Grimsby is any worse than any big town and there are lovely areas and villages to live in, the beach is as nice as any i have seen and weather wise, we are a little oasis, which almost daily misses the bad weather the rest get.

Get on with the new ground and show players what it's like here and give them a tempting deal and they might come. :)

Cleethorpes isn't a bad place to live ,plenty of nightlife,good eateries, well kept public gardens. New Waltham very nice,very clean and again good eateries. Humberstone ,the icing on the cake. Nice surrounding villages. The only thing spoiling these places is they are too near a scruffy dump.

Quoted from golfer

You have either got a bee in your bonnet or you have got piles you nasty bully person Vindictive bigotry .

Ouch. I blame Fenty ;D

So you are saying it's J.S.F.'fault that you have got piles. I suggest you get a petition up for cushions on the seats. No ! What have I done.?

According to Kieran Maguire, we have one of the lowest budgets in the league. This data was compiled using 2016/17 data from the 76 UK clubs that publish their data. Only Morecambe and Accrington pay less. The accounts for 2017/18 show an increase in wages but I'd attribute that to paying off Slade and Wilkinson.

Taken on wages alone, you could say that if Town avoid relegation, we will be punching above our weight. Horrible, but that is how far we have fallen. It also should serve as a wakeup call for anyone over-critical of Jolley.

[tweet]1057570229969211392[/tweet]

This doesn't actually tell us anything about the current budget, though. Figures from 2 years ago and even the information in the most recent accounts might indicate the budget may be similar, but we don't actually know what Jolley has had to spend before this particular season.

The fact that we reputedly had a 6-figure fee for Angol turned down might indicate that there some left in the kitty - possibly still unspent. That's unless the loan signings after the start of the season used a lot of it up.

We've got a lot of higher division league experience in the squad these days and I don't imagine that the likes of Welsh, Hessenthaler, Thomas and Cook came very cheap. Or Vernam, for that matter and McKeown would have been paid a decent amount to stay as well.

Take that Kilmarnock, you cheapskates.

Quoted from pen penfras

You're so contradictory with what you want. From one minute with we need to spend more money to attract better players and then Fenty's benign loans are crippling the club the next. It can't be both ways, there are ways to get more money coming in that we haven't looked at, but they're not going to bring in millions that the sugar daddy's of Mansfield and Scunthorpe are putting in to their club's.

It's easy to sit behind a computer and beat a drum about how we could make more money. And in fairness, the club haven't done enough to try and explore other avenues from what I can see. But there's not a huge pile of money we're missing out on, we don't have the facilities to do a lot of things that other clubs do. I can't see how our income could be much more than 5% higher through non matchday income and getting more through the gate. Results is what will bring more people in, but that's too big a gamble to break the bank and hope that you get results, it just doesn't work that way.

You mention 6 clubs in that post. 2 have sugar daddies, 3 are on the outskirts of major metropolitan cities and Crewe are almost as sh1t as we are.

If you were to time travel back to the days of Buckley Mk 1 for example, the same arguments you use would apply then. So, how exactly did we manage to escape extinction? If you go back to the days of McMenemy the same things applied then. How did we attract and pay for the likes of Hubbard and Chatterley when we were in the old 4th/3rd divisions? We had no big sugar daddies then and noTV cash either.

We know we are at the end of the world in Grimsby. We know there are conurbations with lots of clubs and population elsewhere but not here. We know there are parts of the area that are not very nice and we know we don’t get a good press. But those things were just as true in 1970, 1980 ..... and we attracted the likes of Wymark, Nichol and Birtles . The difference is that now we cry about them and some folks make it sound as if there is no hope of ever.attracting anyone decent ever again and there is no escape. It’s like Kenneth Williams “They’ve all got it infamy!”

If JF wanted to find more investment for players there are ways he could try to do that. There are ways for someone else to do it too if he was to do the decent thing and fall on his flagpole. But sitting at a keyboard and wailing about other clubs having sugar daddies and crowd potential that we can’t have is no help to anyone.

The other side of course is that the club has actually had some windfalls from transfers in the past two seasons but where has that money gone? If it has gone into the playing budget then let’s be honest this management team has wasted a fair amount of cash on players who struggle to stay fit let alone play the pressing and attacking game Jolley promised us in pre-season. For the past few years in non-league and L2 we have had quantity over quality and managers more afraid of losing than they are interested in winning. The exception might be Bignot for all his undoubted faults. But the over-caution maybe reflects the attitude of the owner as much as the managers.

To my mind we have to keep pressing for a change of attitude from this “be patient” claptrap and keep pushing for positivity and ambition on the park either with or without Mr Fenty.

Quoted from mirrorballman

According to Kieran Maguire, we have one of the lowest budgets in the league. This data was compiled using 2016/17 data from the 76 UK clubs that publish their data. Only Morecambe and Accrington pay less. The accounts for 2017/18 show an increase in wages but I'd attribute that to paying off Slade and Wilkinson.

Taken on wages alone, you could say that if Town avoid relegation, we will be punching above our weight. Horrible, but that is how far we have fallen. It also should serve as a wakeup call for anyone over-critical of Jolley.

[tweet]1057570229969211392[/tweet]

I can't see any mention of salaries in Accrington's accounts. The holding company, 0404 investments, does have salaries of the entire company and it looks like he has divided the ratio of employees into the ratio of salaries. Since the holding company has a turnover of over 50 million, I expect there's some high earners in there and the number isn't entirely accurate. Unless I missed it.

Quoted from mirrorballman

According to Kieran Maguire, we have one of the lowest budgets in the league. This data was compiled using 2016/17 data from the 76 UK clubs that publish their data. Only Morecambe and Accrington pay less. The accounts for 2017/18 show an increase in wages but I'd attribute that to paying off Slade and Wilkinson.

Taken on wages alone, you could say that if Town avoid relegation, we will be punching above our weight. Horrible, but that is how far we have fallen. It also should serve as a wakeup call for anyone over-critical of Jolley.

[tweet]1057570229969211392[/tweet]

Crewe's salary also includes the holding company staff, of which doesn't seem to be a huge amount more income vs the football club, but there are 84 employees listed as management and 26 as admin, which it seems hard to believe are all involved in the football club's affairs. Also worth noting that they lost about £600k on that £3M budget whilst finishing only just above us.