Fleetwood

Quoted from DB

I don't know about you but I'm thankful for JS & AP.

HHHmmm ..Indeed we thank our lucky stars !!
UTM 2023--24

Basically out of the whole premiership and EFL I would doubt if half a dozen clubs are truly solvent, the rest owe money all over the place, even  Brighton who are looked upon as a model club, in theory are a few hundred million in dept, ok it’s to Mr Bloom who currently says he doesn’t want his money back, a sort of “ benign loan”.

Quoted from Gaffer58

Basically out of the whole premiership and EFL I would doubt if half a dozen clubs are truly solvent, the rest owe money all over the place, even  Brighton who are looked upon as a model club, in theory are a few hundred million in dept, ok it’s to Mr Bloom who currently says he doesn’t want his money back, a sort of “ benign loan”.

Indeed. At every level of the game we find club owners willing to invest silly amounts of money to buy success. This pushes wages and transfer fees to such levels that it becomes almost impossible for a sustainably run club to compete. You either have to join the money go round or settle for relative mediocrity. Of course it often ends in tears when the profligate owners tire of flushing their cash down the toilet, leaving clubs in dire straits. But of course by then the circus has moved on to another club.  It’s depressing and I am not sure what the answer is.

There is a simple solution to the benign loan issue large sums of money owed to owners who coukd go rogue at any time and want it back .The football authorities introduce a rules that all money owed to owners be required to be converted to share capital after a certain period 1 2 or 3 years.

Quoted from HerveJosse

There is a simple solution to the benign loan issue large sums of money owed to owners who coukd go rogue at any time and want it back .The football authorities introduce a rules that all money owed to owners be required to be converted to share capital after a certain period 1 2 or 3 years.

They would just find ways around it. Maybe the loan comes from another entity not traceable to the owners. A Cayman Isles corporation for example. I am pretty sure we have seen that kind of thing before.

It's like the Fair Play rules. Want to buy a few more £80 mill players? Just give out 8 year contracts to get round the rules.

At the end of the day the kind of people we are talking about are no strangers to bending the rules and finding loopholes.Even wage caps never work. You just have third parties sponsoring image rights or some other ruse.

20 years ago we completed the last of 17 seasons that we had spent in the Championship over the preceding 22 years. We had a valid claim to be a championship club, albeit one punching above its weight. For most of that time were a well run club, with good players, some of them local.

Sadly I  think those days are gone. For a club of our size to spend several years in the Championship we would need rich owners willing to pump millions and million a year in.  I can't see how a club our size can compete at that level and be sustainable.

It pretty depressing to think about, but the reality may be that League One might now be the highest level we can realistically aspire to be regularly competitive in.    

Quoted from RonMariner

20 years ago we completed the last of 17 seasons that we had spent in the Championship over the preceding 22 years. We had a valid claim to be a championship club, albeit one punching above its weight. For most of that time were a well run club, with good players, some of them local.

Sadly I  think those days are gone. For a club of our size to spend several years in the Championship we would need rich owners willing to pump millions and million a year in.  I can't see how a club our size can compete at that level and be sustainable.

It pretty depressing to think about, but the reality may be that League One might now be the highest level we can realistically aspire to be regularly competitive in.    

During the two stints we had in the now championship we had ,

Moore bros, Ford, Drinkell, Wilkinson, Lund, all local lads plus Cumming, Croft, from the juniors with the odd class player like Futcher, Wymark and Nichol making us a well balance side.

Today we need more juniors coming through so we need only to sign two or three players to have a strong side.

Otherwise L1 would be out level.

Quoted from grimsby pete

During the two stints we had in the now championship we had ,

Moore bros, Ford, Drinkell, Wilkinson, Lund, all local lads plus Cumming, Croft, from the juniors with the odd class player like Futcher, Wymark and Nichol making us a well balance side.

Today we need more juniors coming through so we need only to sign two or three players to have a strong side.

Otherwise L1 would be out level.

The modern academy system makes that number of such high quality young players coming through for us impossible Pete, any young player showing such promise at a young age can be claimed by a tier 1 academy team for literally next to nothing. So even if we did have such a miracle in terms of the numbers and quality of youngsters they wouldn't be playing for us by 18 anyway.

Being competitive in the Championship is now almost impossible unless you have spent time in the EPL and have parachute payments coming in. It should be no surprise that there are teams yo-yoing between the 2 as they're not good enough for the EPL but too good for the Championship as they're buying players that others can only dream of.

The Luton v Coventry play off final actually backs this up - Luton finished 11 points behind Sheff Utd, Coventry 21 points! Add on another 10 for how far they were behind Burnley. So a team could get promoted who were 31 points worse than the champions.

In our division there were only 8 points between automatic promotion and the last play off place. 16 between the champions and the last play off place.

I think I would take us being higher end league 2  with the odd season in league 1 if it means the club is never in any jeopardy, running at a minor loss and making continuous improvement off the pitch as well as on it  .

The reality is the game has changed so much in the period we stood still it would take us longer and a silly amount of money to go through to The Champ - I would not say it's impossible we could get back but think it would take a decade at least with all the variables .

I would much rather us focus on retaining Hurst long term (I know the football is not always easy on the eye ) implementing a set structure to the playing side of the operation  and sticking with it .

Get the training ground , a new larger fan zone and spruce up BP if it's not viable to move ; maybe even try and make it a community project that people can be involved in.

I would love to see us try and keep ticket pricing reasonable - Mansfield,Bradford ,Morecambe and Accrington all offer season tickets in or around £200 for an adult and silly cheap for youngsters ; I am not saying to that level, but maybe trying to lower it a bit ,especially for younger fans at some point would be good .

It's nice to see the pitch getting some love to , people would always say we had one of the best pitches in the leagues , but it seemed to take a turn , even though it would have been comedy watching Honest John and Wraith trying to operate a tractor it probably didn't do the pitch any favours maybe even a mountain out of a molehill .

We have had a great couple of years ,I enjoy us being an unfashionable lower league club.It makes nights like the Southampton one's sweeter and days like the Brighton one special (even if we did get pumped )

They can shove the Premiership and Championship up their arses we will just beat them in the cups ,roll on the FA Cup Semi final next year

UTMM
Neil