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Bexley

People complainig about lack of money for signings

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If the message received by the club was......

1. The fans are sick of paying to watch uncommitted players taking them and the club for a ride.

2. The fans are sick of being told that we have ambition when we clearly have none.

3. The fans see shiny hotels and restaurants at the stadium but second rate garbage on the pitch.

4. The fans see inept manager after inept manager appointed and sacked, but those responsible hanging on.

5. The fans see us swallow up parachute payments and sell players for good prices yet see only a fraction of that money reinvested in players as we fall to our lowest level in almost 50 years and see ourselves outbid by the likes of Brighton.

6. The fans are some of the most loyal in football, but even they have a limit.

.....then, in my view, the message was worth it, whatever the short term pain.

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[quote user="Bexley"]


I don''t disagree that things have been run appalingly in the past - what I don''t "get" though is that people seem surprised that we have little money to spend as if something massive has changed since June which means we now can''t compete in the transfer market. It''s a genuine question - was "sending a message" worth it now the reality has sunk in that (allegedly) we can''t compete with the likes of Brighton in the transfer market?   

[/quote]

Bexley the rebate is a red herring (and a very divisive one at that). 

We still have 18,000 season ticket holders, far more than most other clubs in this division.  We should be able to compete in the transfer market as well as or better than most of our rivals. 

The only people who seem surprised are those who waived their rebates.  For the rest of us it''s a new twist but the same old story.  Under the current regime, the real reason we can''t compete is that we don''t really want to.

 

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[quote user="Beauseant"]

If the message received by the club was......

1. The fans are sick of paying to watch uncommitted players taking them and the club for a ride.

2. The fans are sick of being told that we have ambition when we clearly have none.

3. The fans see shiny hotels and restaurants at the stadium but second rate garbage on the pitch.

4. The fans see inept manager after inept manager appointed and sacked, but those responsible hanging on.

5. The fans see us swallow up parachute payments and sell players for good prices yet see only a fraction of that money reinvested in players as we fall to our lowest level in almost 50 years and see ourselves outbid by the likes of Brighton.

6. The fans are some of the most loyal in football, but even they have a limit.

.....then, in my view, the message was worth it, whatever the short term pain.

[/quote]spot on [Y]

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I`ll try and keep this simple.  A well-run third division club with virtually guaranteed 22-24k gates SHOULD have a playing budget significantly and obviously bigger than its competitors who only average 5-10k.  Had we been buying young players with very obvious potential such as Dickinson it would look as though we were using our advantage in this league, punching our weight and there would be less moaning.

Perhaps the OP should ask himself WHY a club with such big support and tens of millions spent trying to generate "other revenue streams" cannot seem to behave like a big fish even in the third division?  The rebates shouldn`t even be an issue.

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The number of fans is a red herring. We have 18,0000 ticket holders but the average payment is relatively low because Norfolk is not a particularly wealthy area. The number of fans is not the key differential, it is the wealth of the club''s benefactors which is the critical factor.

And why would we not want to compete - does not make sense?

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Te Brighton situation just proves the point - much wealthier benefactor.

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T,

What about all the clubs in the CCC without benefactors and much lower gates whom we failed to compete againts last year. No the real issue is that we paid out £2.7M last year servicng and repaying debt. How much of this debt was due to unnecessary and misguided attempts to dabble in non-football related projects.

Also last year we spen Â£1.1M on futher capex, which surely could have waited in order to have kept us in the division.

Lets not buy into the clubs agenda that you need a billionaire to win anything - otherwise we might as well give up now. I would settle for a competent and honest stweradship that attempted to genuinely reconnect with the fan base.

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Did you not see the article on big clubs relegated from premiership where it advocated spending on increasing sustainable revenue?

Loans are available for infrastucture not players.

300k was the property related interest

Our football budget last year was mid-table

Do you not think the new chairman, new director and new chief exec are competent and honest -their CVs suggest otherwise.

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[quote user="Desert Fox"]

Lets not buy into the clubs agenda that you need a billionaire to win anything - otherwise we might as well give up now. I would settle for a competent and honest stweradship that attempted to genuinely reconnect with the fan base.

[/quote]

Spot on! Competent stewardship and a well run club that sees "football" and "club" as being the most important words as opposed to "corporate" and "restaurant". If someone wants to go to a coporate restaurant on a Saturday afternoon for a networking business meeting dressed in a suit and tie that''s fine - but they don''t need to do it at the expense of a football club!

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Would be spot on if you ignore the fact that the catering operations are profitable. I think you will find catering facilities at most football clubs fo rthe very reason that they provide an additional source of revenue.

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[quote user="T"]

The number of fans is a red herring. We have 18,0000 ticket holders but the average payment is relatively low because Norfolk is not a particularly wealthy area. The number of fans is not the key differential, it is the wealth of the club''s benefactors which is the critical factor.

And why would we not want to compete - does not make sense?

[/quote]

If the number of fans is a red herring, why such strenuous efforts by the club to get people to renew (sacking Roeder and relying on "legend" Gunn''s honeymoon period to get the renewals in) and then to waive their rebates?  

In case you haven''t noticed we''re in League 1 now and D&M must be among the wealthier owners in this division.  "Poor little Norwich" just won''t do any more.

What I said was that they don''t really want to compete - balancing the books has long been at the top of the agenda where football ought to be.  Balancing the books is necessary of course, but it''s become an end in itself at Carrow Road at the expense of the core business ie. football.  The irony is that by failing to give football its proper priority they''ve got themselves into bigger financial trouble as a result of relegation. 

PS.  "Norfolk is not a particularly wealthy area".  Not like Hartlepool or Huddersfield then? . . . what a load of patronising nonsense.

 

 

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[quote user="T"]

Did you not see the article on big clubs relegated from premiership where it advocated spending on increasing sustainable revenue?

How much sustainable revnue has been generated from the various land deals? How much revenue have we lost by being relegated by a fraction and not investing in a quality striker last year?

Loans are available for infrastucture not players.

I am not asking for the club to extend its debt to buy players - but rather than to chnage strategy and reduce investment in non-football projects. Most of the mistakes are in the past and it is too late to roll them back, but signs of a chnage in approach would be welcome, but I suspect that the current regime are on a termonal journey of unkonw velocity that will have inevitable consequences.

300k was the property related interest

I would be interested how you know this since thsi ifnormation is not in the public domain. I ahve given you the benefit of doubt in the past, but my insticnt is that you are a current or ex-club isnider who is realy way too defensive when it come sto talking about the property deals.

Our football budget last year was mid-table

Again, this is speculation. Even if you are right (facts?) why is was it that we could not afford any decent transfer budget last year?

Do you not think the new chairman, new director and new chief exec are competent and honest -their CVs suggest otherwise.

I am waiting or evidence of any chnages in approach and have not detetced anything yet. The Board are perpetuating the behaviour that has increasingly distanced themselves from the fans - but I await with an open mind any signs of chnage.

[/quote]

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[quote user="T"]Would be spot on if you ignore the fact that the catering operations are profitable. I think you will find catering facilities at most football clubs fo rthe very reason that they provide an additional source of revenue.[/quote]

T,

Again this information is not in the public domain.

According to the accounts - which do not provide for segemntal reprting, catering generated £3.7M in revenue last year. However, accordin to the chairmen''s statement, £3M was spent on buying in food and drink. This means that there was a gross profit of circa £700K. Now once staff costs (normally circa 25% of catering turnover), depreciation and interest relating to the investment in catering and overheads are deducted, I cant see how we made any profit whatsoever.

And before you say that this information wa set out in Doomy''s financial analysis, this invidual has a long track record of being, lets say, economical with the truth.

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Yes it was worth it, because it would''ve made no difference if the ST holders took the rebate or not, the money wouldn''t have gone into transfers anyway. Even the remaining unclaimed rebate money won''t see the light of day. Watch this space in a months time to see this become a reality (again, like the previous 3 summers).

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Of course crowds help but it is not the number of attendees that matters but the revenue that you generate from those crowds that matter and here NCFC have a relatively rather low return - you get what you pay for to some extent. I think if you look at the leagues tables then benefactor wealth is a key indicator which explains why league position does not correspond to crowd size so you can not keep bleating on about crowd size and ignore the revenue per attendee/benefactor wealth/ or the ridiculously maligned other souces of revenue. Well you can ignore it but not if you want to make a rationale credible argument.

I agree crowd sizes and benefactor wealth should help us in league 1 but in the championship we were financially mid-table with poor manager/player decisions leading to relegation.

The directors have a legal obligation to run a business viably otherwise they are guilty of wrongful trading which would disqualify them as acting as directors: To suggest otherwise is illegal and immoral.

And I think if you do your research that you will find that Norfolk are neither blessed with high average wealth or a high density of wealthy individuals whether you like the reality or not

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DF, if catering is not profitable then please explain why every sizable football club I can think of offers corporate entertaining facilites?

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[quote user="T"]

The number of fans is a red herring. We have 18,0000 ticket holders but the average payment is relatively low because Norfolk is not a particularly wealthy area. The number of fans is not the key differential, it is the wealth of the club''s benefactors which is the critical factor.

And why would we not want to compete - does not make sense?

[/quote]

Lol.  No, your post is a red herring.  Let`s see some evidence that our prices are below average for our division and you might have a point.

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[quote user="T"]DF, if catering is not profitable then please explain why every sizable football club I can think of offers corporate entertaining facilites?[/quote]

Like Charlton and Southampton you mean?  Two other clubs who couldn`t afford a reasonable team last year because of £20m plus debts to pay for facilities.....

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"The directors have a legal obligation to run a business viably otherwise they are guilty of wrongful trading which would disqualify them as acting as directors: To suggest otherwise is illegal and immoral."

Are you suggesting that it is illegal for me as a fan to complain (on a forum for fans to share their opinions) about the incompetent way the club has been run and the disatrous impact this has had on the quality of football we have to watch?

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[quote user="T"]DF, if catering is not profitable then please explain why every sizable football club I can think of offers corporate entertaining facilites?[/quote]

It is virtually impossible to lose money on traditional matchday catering (e.g, bars etc). However, our club has invetsed a huge sum on catering infrastructure (£1M plus on kitches alone), and has diversified into a range of non-matchday catering operations which I doubt are marking any money. In adition, I would estimate that a considerbale amount of our 210 employees work in catering. Given that we have circa 25 home games per season and will be staffed by casula labour, I would be really interested to know how much income is being generated on non-matc days to justify this investement.

Using the clubs own figures (not mine!) catering does not look profitable. As you quite rightly say, if we strip out match-day profitability (on the basis that every clu runs such facilities) this does suggest that the fotball budget is susbisding  a catering operation which has been created to project the vanity of our dear leader.

By the way, please tell me how you know that catering made a £300K profit when this is not in the public domain?

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[quote user="T"]

And I think if you do your research that you will find that Norfolk are neither blessed with high average wealth or a high density of wealthy individuals whether you like the reality or not

[/quote]

Nor do many of the areas where League 1 clubs are situated.  It shouldn''t affect our ability to compete in this division. 

And in any case high average wealth and interest in football do not usually go together, except for some of the biggest Prem clubs and their wealthy hangers-on for whom an executive box at Stamford Bridge or the Emirates is a status symbol.  If football lost its current glamour and prestige they''d soon move on to the next big thing. 

 

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The key stat - is not the prices but the net revenue per attendee - the stats were in a newspaper article a while back when we were in the prem to be honest which showed we had the lowest revenue per head. The ticket strategy is go for lower priced season tickets to have a secure income rather than higher priced casual tickets, probably because of the securitised loan to build the stand.

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CC - I agree my point was more based on a comparison with prem rather than league 1 based on a newspaper article which showed we were bottom of the league in terms of revenue/attendee in the premiership.

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[quote user="T"]The key stat - is not the prices but the net revenue per attendee - the stats were in a newspaper article a while back when we were in the prem to be honest which showed we had the lowest revenue per head. The ticket strategy is go for lower priced season tickets to have a secure income rather than higher priced casual tickets, probably because of the securitised loan to build the stand.[/quote]

Your language smacks of someone who works for or who has recently departed the club?

Its funny, but in not one of your 700+ posts have I ever detected that you support the club or show any emotion about the position we are in.

The fact that you are mage defensive about the mechanics of the way the club has been run and the fact every now and aginb you let slip information that is not in the public domain reinforces my suspicion.

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DF _ I''d agree we have some additional catering activities which I suspect if you take the full investment costs off the reported 700k contribution are marginally profitable. 300k is the interest on the property loan which you can calculate from the accounts. Restaurants have one of the highest failure rates of any businesses so I suspect the whole catering operation is marginal anyway. I understood that the restaurants were kitted out at the peronal expense of DS/MWJ so I suspect that the catering debate is much about nothing and does not have a material postive or negative impact.

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so the fans should pay for the poor running of this club..

do you think the 350k plus foulgers promise will be spent on players ?

its not the fans fault nor should they feel bad for claiming money back to watch football of a lower standard .

you get what you pay for and lets face it watching norwich city with a load of crap loan players is not value for money as we have seen last season .

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DF, i have also noted that T never quotes figures direct from the accounts and i assume he isn`t a shareholder.  Yet apparently he`s an expert on NCFC`s finances......[^o)]

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Mr C,

If you notice, he is not particularly loyal to the Board either, but whenever there is any discussion about the various property schemes he/she is very defensive, almost to the point that you would get the impression that he/she is or was personally connected with the said initiative.

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[quote user="Bexley"]

the same ones who took the rebate "to send a message".

Hope the message was worth it to you.

 

[/quote]

Division 3 prices for division 3 football, nuff said [:)]

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[quote user="Bexley"]My point is should people who claimed their rebate to make a point / send a message (i.e. didnt need the money but took it as way of a protest) really be surprised if we cannot compete in the transfer market [/quote]Nobody should be surprised whether they took the rebate or not.There were no rebates taken last year and we were uncompetitive in the transfer market.There were no rebates taken the year before that and we were uncompetitive in the transfer market.There were no rebates taken the year before that and we were uncompetitive in the transfer market.Why should anyone suddenly be surprised and why should it suddenly be the fault of those who claimed rebates?

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