mr carra

Mr Carrow, I think we can all accept that the club almost certainly spent too much time and effort on non-football matters and they became a distraction from getting things right on the field (as suggested in our new Chairman''s comments). I don''t accept your basic proposition that this affected us financially though.  Your statement that Preston in 2008 could afford to spend more of their ordinary revenue on their team than we could  is not born out by the two clubs accounts - you keep stating it as though it is an incontestable fact but it doesn''t actually appear to be true.  They couldn''t.

Sorry, Mr. Carrow - name checked you by mistake there.  It was T''s comment about the cash flow, not yours.  Humble apologies!!

[quote user="T"]As they say there are 3 reasons: cash, cash and cash. Cash is king!!! You have to look at the cash flow statement not the P+L!!![/quote]   Yes, Mr. Carrow, lets look at the cash flow.   Our cash went down by £2.2m in 2008 , after we took out new  loans of £300k - so without the new borrowing we were about £2.5m down. Preston''s cash went down in 2008 by £4.9m, after they took out new loans amounting to £4.7m - so without the new borrowings their cash flow was down £9.6m (over £7m worse than our cashflow performance!!!) . And if you check out their 2009 accounts they have had to borrow another whopping £13.4m - that''s an extra £18m of new borrowing in just 2 years!!   The more you look at their figures the more they look like financially they are one of the worst run clubs out there - a total basket case (if you check their balance sheet there debt, astoundingly, actually exceeds the total value of all their assets - at least we have assets far greater than the value of our debts).      

Can''t believe Mr. Carrow is still spouting (like some sort of mantra) his Preston 2008 rubbish.  The reason he is obsessed by their 2008 results is because that is the year they sold Nugent for loads of money and this one transaction distorts their results. Their pre-tax loss for 2008 was £1.1m.  If you take out profit from player sales their loss was £6.8m. Our pre-tax loss for 2008 was £2.8m.  If you take out profit from player sales our loss was only (!) £6.2m. Their playing wage bill was no bigger than ours that season and yet they still managed to lose more money than us in normal operating activity.  Hardly an argument that they could mysteriously afford higher wages because we wasted all ours on other commercial activities.  His £5m figure for ''affordable'' wages for Preston is totally phony.  

Well, whenever they leave, even at the best deal imaginable for them,  they''ll clearly be out of pocket.  I don''t think there''s any doubt whatsoever about that.

Most of his key work at Birmingham was done in the nineties and up to about 2002/3 - there weren''t so many millionaire-owned clubs then (and player wages were much lower) so his job was much easier (and took a lot less money) than he''d find it would to do the same thing now.  Presumably another of the reasons West Ham are so attractive - not only are they his fave team but they are already in the Prem (although given the details of his proposed ''deal''  for them he unfortunately doesn''t actually seem to have enough money to buy an existing debt-ridden Prem level club)

The test of whether it is a ''fantastic offer'' will be whether they accept or not.  If it is indeed a fantastic offer I''m sure they''ll accept it - if it is in reality just a terrible offer accompanied by a concerted campaign of media spinning (this article was clearly planted by the Sullivan camp) to try and apply pressure to the current owners they''ll almost certainly reject it.   Time, as always, will tell... 

[quote user="mickey phelans tash"] Ok .Its last game of the season and we need a win for automatic promotion, but we have also got a Cup Final coming up. Do we play a weakened team for the league match so we have a full strength side for the "Day Out". Promotion every time for me. [/quote]     This is an easy question.  You would pick your best team available for both games.  Footballers (unless they are grossly unfit) can play two games in a week easily, any suggestion otherwise is just a modern myth put about by blame-shifting managers.  You should never need to play a weakened team for that reason.

Surely this would have to be the FA Cup - it would be the biggest achievement in the club''s history.  League campaigns generally aren''t memorable, whatever division you are in.  To see us actually win a major trophy (the best we have done in the past is the rather-Mickey-Mouse-really League Cup) would give you something to tell your grandkids about, and you are asking us to swap that for a place back in the Championship???  We have spent about 13 of the past 15 years in the Championship and they weren''t up to much to be honest - you''ll only be mentioning them to your grandkids to whinge about them! Whether we are in League One or the Championship makes little difference to me - both are just slightly different levels of mediocrity in the overall scheme of things  - but winning the FA Cup would be a Big League, literally Once-In-A-Lifetime fairytale (especially as no-one from the third tier has ever won it so we would be in the history books, probably forever). Well worth a couple of extra seasons at this level.   If you''d said swap the FA Cup win for a long-term place in the Prem (not one token season of making up the numbers) or take it and be at this level and below forever it might well have been worth giving up the FA Cup win, but for a mere place in the Championship???  No way!!!!!!!

I understood from Brum fans that the main reason their gates were so abysmally low despite his raising of the club''s profile and fortunes etc. etc. was that he had grossly jacked up the ticket prices.

Oh, and their accounts also include this paragraph "Whilst the directors believe the going concern basis is appropriate, the fact that the company does not currently have facilities in place to fund all of its projected cash requirements over the next twelve months may cast significant doubt on the group and company''s ability to continue as a going concern. The company may therefore be unable to continue realising its assets and discharging its liabilities in the normal course of business but the financial statements do not include any adjustments that would result from the basis of preparation being inappropriate."   In short, they are (like virtually all football clubs, including - shock! horror! incompetence! - us) a financial basket case. :

Since you seem so obsessed with Preston I though I''d look up their figures on the internet. http://www.nwcpnefc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3558&p=5849 Here is their Chairman''s Statement on the interim 6 months results to 31 December 2008: "The operating and financial climate has been particularly challenging in the first six months of the current financial year. Whilst turnover was 5% lower than the same six month period in 2007, wages have increased by 26%. This reflects both wages of new players added to the squad at the start of this season and also contractual rises for players who were already in the squad. This has inevitably contributed to an increased operating loss of £3.14m, £1.35m higher than the loss generated in the six months to December 2007. In addition to the operating losses, we made cash payments of £1.4m to other clubs for players purchased both in the current and previous financial periods. The resulting cash requirement has continued to far outweigh the income generated by the Group with the consequence that the Club has required significant further amounts of external finance from its major shareholders. The Board remain extremely grateful for this support which has also extended into the second half of the financial year." So they made a 6 month operating loss of over £3m! -  I believe far worse than ours for a similar period - and basically survive by being bailed out by the shareholders.  So basically they don''t come anywhere near being able to afford their playing budget.   So can you please stop going on about them now.  You''ve been rumbled!  

what is the point of just looking at players wages?  No club could just have players wages as an expense - all clubs also need coaching staff, medical staff, administrators, a training ground, a stadium to play etc. etc.   The income from gate money and TV needs to pay for all those things too.   So saying TV and gate receipts are sufficient to cover players wages doesn''t mean anything.  The players wages you can afford are those you can afford after paying for all the other things you actually need to have an operating football club - and our TV and gate receipts are not sufficient to cover our playing budget when you take that into account.  The statement that TV and gate receipts do not cover our wages is therefore actually correct (unless you think we live in some fantasy world where football clubs do not need a ground, training facilities, coaching staff, etc. etc.)

I seem to recall Man City fans forcing out Peter Swayles to be replaced by Francis Lee.  The y then proceded to get relegated from the top flight to the third tier in the space of three seasons.   The other point is that whatever fans like to think virtually no club owners are forced out through fan pressure (Robert Chase wasn''t for example, he went because he had to - the club was going bust and he wasn''t prepared to put a single penny of his own money into it to save it).  Owners leave when someone makes them an acceptable offer to sell.   No one has come close to doing that here and until it does fan pressure will obviously change nothing.  Efforts might be more fruitfully put in finding someone to make said offer.

Mr Carrow, Thanks for your reply.  Not sure Preston is an ideal example because  I thought they were being heavily subsidised (I might be wrong), but doubtless there are others.   One unfortunate thing is that there isn''t quite as much detail as I''d like in the accounts - non-player wages is a large and rather general category and I''d like to know in more detail how it is made up.  Does it include the manager, coaches for the academy etc, and if so how much of it relates to them?   I''m hopeful that if there are a lot of unncessary non-playing wages being incurred (and since I don''t know what they are being incurred for I''m in no position to tell) the new directors (given their reputation) will be able to identify them.