guest168
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Not sure about that. Exeter has only one other league club within 80 miles.
Not sure how much an 80 mile radius from Northampton would extend but probably south Yorkshire to Cambridge to all of London and all of the West Midlands.
and what is the population within that area, let alone those that actively go to games? Exeter have been making improvements to their ground over recent years and don't have big debt. So if they have a big land deal or sell another player for good money, they are in a good position. They are making slow, steady progress and building for the medium term. Meanwhile at Sixfields, any income generally is used to pay off our previous managers, coaching staff and players.
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guest168
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Thanks for digging that out. I posted something similar ages ago but couldn't find it the last time someone cited Exeter as a financial success story. I seem to remember they had been in the black for a few years but when you looked at the numbers they were still losing a good chunk of cash each year but it was being offset by dipping into the funds they received from selling a player for some serious money.
I'm not knocking them, fair play to them, they've clearly done well in the transfer market but you can't base your operating model around selling a really good player every few years. Yes, of course you can invest in upcoming players and tie them up to long term deals hoping they come good (a la Chesterfield with Tshimanga) and if it pays off everyone pats you on the back and applauds a superb bit of business, but if they do their ACL three games in and never play for you again you look an absolute mug and are financially screwed. There's a massive element of luck involved in that sort of thing, especially at our sort of level.
so is a model of loan players, sacking managers and their staff every year a better strategy then? Luck? well it's a case of.. the harder you work, the luckier you become. Obviously player investment is a risk at every level. Personally I would be happy to see a massive investment into the youth / younger player set up and play them in games, even if it meant we would be not getting promoted immediately. I know that the player pathway thing (sorry forgot it's name) is a major headache in developing players at our level but something has to change if we are ever to be established in L1.
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guest49
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Probably because we all squeal like slit piglets if we have signed 22 Ronaldos by July 1st every summer….. I know some clubs get lucky with getting it right…. We have occasionally. However, not spending and being successful on the pitch rarely go hand in hand do they? Spend…. Why are we in debt? Don’t spend…. Owners are milking the fans. Success…. Why aren’t we spending our extra cash? Failure….. we bought the wrong players, sack the manager….. more cost and so it goes on.
That's probably the most salient points in a nutshell. You can imagine the absolute sh*t storm if say we sold a player for £5m and then reported a profit of £4m and weren't winning the league by 10 points. There is a general expectation (I'm sure not exclusive to the Cobblers) that cash in the bank should be re-invested almost immediately into the playing budget...and TBH I understand that, which is why I never get excited around the transfer fees we receive, it makes little difference most of the time, apart from losing our best players. I can remember being gutted losing Richard Hill for £250k (or whatever it was) because we'd lost someone who had just banged in 30 odd goals after one of the best seasons ever. I can't really remember benefitting from the £250k as a fan. Maybe we had a good year on paper, woopy doo. The biggest kicker is that we have seen very little in terms of on/off the field improvement despite the millions we are in the red to the owners. In terms of the surrounding population points, I agree with TFAMH. It will take years to create some kind of footballing hotbed. The Saints didn't attract 15,000 over night and even then we may have well been labelled more as a 'rugby town', although I don't recall that as a kid. Demographics and history play a huge part in an areas culture, hence why you don't get rugby league down south but it's huge up north. Northamptonshire is full of misfits from out of London, abroad and country folk. It's not born and bred potential Cobblers fanatics, no more so than down the road in MK. We can cling onto the Wembley 90's but that was a different time, the daily Chron, first ever trips to Wembley, Sixfields was still in its relative infancy etc. We saw how that panned out and the difference with the Bradford game years later. So much has got to change before I believe we can attract real interest and buzz and we have never been further from it since the 1,500 crowds of the early 80's, although generally (and thankfully) we tend not to be battling it out at the bottom of Div 4.
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West Stand
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There will come a time when Exeter don't have the transfer income, the run of transfers won't continue forever.
And they haven't made it out of League 2 for sometime.
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guest3338
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Probably because we all squeal like slit piglets if we havent signed 22 Ronaldos by July 1st every summer….. I know some clubs get lucky with getting it right…. We have occasionally. However, not spending and being successful on the pitch rarely go hand in hand do they? Spend…. Why are we in debt? Don’t spend…. Owners are milking the fans. Success…. Why aren’t we spending our extra cash? Failure….. we bought the wrong players, sack the manager….. more cost and so it goes on.
I don't think any amount of squealing would change the clubs budget but a little more transparency and less B/S might win the minds of the more vociferous and critical fans.
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Manwork04
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Not sure about that. Exeter has only one other league club within 80 miles.
Not sure how much an 80 mile radius from Northampton would extend but probably south Yorkshire to Cambridge to all of London and all of the West Midlands.
80 mile radius would mostly be fields and sea not sure of you point, you seem confused.
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Rule Britannia
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guest2608
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There will come a time when Exeter don't have the transfer income, the run of transfers won't continue forever.
And they haven't made it out of League 2 for sometime.
That can’t be right…. According to Beds, if you have an atmospheric professional ground which is capable of hosting league one football, you’ll be an instant success!
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guest49
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Not sure about that. Exeter has only one other league club within 80 miles.
Not sure how much an 80 mile radius from Northampton would extend but probably south Yorkshire to Cambridge to all of London and all of the West Midlands.
That's a naughty and largely meaningless geographical stat Pedjy If you are going 40 miles east you are getting closer to Bristol and Bournemouth. It's a bit like saying that Aberystwyth is a potential sleeping footballing hotbed with little competition. They are more into pasty's and clotted cream down there. To support your point though, that is why I never buy our catchment argument. We have Leicester, Villa, Coventry, Watford, Oxford, P*sh, MK, Brum, Nottingham, Luton, North London...all an hour or less depending where you live in Northants. It would be generally interesting to know how many people regularly follow other teams who live in the county, because you can effectively cross them off. For example, my brother travels to Anfield. You have to draw them in when they are kids and find a way to keep them coming back, which is difficult at our level.
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BackOfTheNet
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so is a model of loan players, sacking managers and their staff every year a better strategy then?
I don't like loan players myself, but in fairness we only have 2 loan players at the moment - Etete who we couldn't afford to sign and Revan who is someone I see as a "proper" use of the loan system; bought in to cover for injuries.
The sacking managers part is a rather different issue. Personally, I think all the sackings have been justified. How long do you leave it? Until we're relegated or until the crowds stop coming or both? It's a difficult balance to strike between the cost of paying them off or the potential cost of not sacking them. Of course, the answer is to hire the right manager in the first place, but if we had the magic formula for that to sell to other clubs we wouldn't need to worry about redevelopment to make us better off! How many managers have Man U got through since Fergie left?
Luck? well it's a case of.. the harder you work, the luckier you become. Obviously player investment is a risk at every level. Personally I would be happy to see a massive investment into the youth / younger player set up and play them in games, even if it meant we would be not getting promoted immediately. I know that the player pathway thing (sorry forgot it's name) is a major headache in developing players at our level but something has to change if we are ever to be established in L1.
Wouldn't disagree, but this carries its own risk - as you say as a lower league club there's always the EPPP allows clubs higher up the pyramid to pilfer any prospects at a fraction of their worth.
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The Hotelend Grand National* Sweepstake Champion 2020
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Terryfenwickatemyhamster
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I think Exeter posted a £3M profit last year, Newport County, Accrington and Morecambe with less than half our fan base don't lose £800K a year. NTFC did run as a break even business for a few years under DC so why cant we now ?
Hardly any of them run debt free. It’s just that some clubs are propped up by money put in by benefactors, rather than it being set against the clubs as loans. In fact, DC told me himself that our position would have appeared much worse had he not used his and his fathers money to keep the books clean. I’m pretty sure he knew they would not get the loan, if the council thought it would pay off existing debt.
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Manwork04
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Hardly any of them run debt free. It’s just that some clubs are propped up by money put in by benefactors, rather than it being set against the clubs as loans. In fact, DC told me himself that our position would have appeared much worse had he not used his and his fathers money to keep the books clean.
I’m pretty sure he knew they would not get the loan, if the council thought it would pay off existing debt.
Sweet Jesus are you seriously using Cardozo as a reference?
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Rule Britannia
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Melbourne Cobbler
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Shock, horror football clubs run poorly, this isn’t a normal business and you cannot apply a binary logic to it. I’ll give you an example, most of a clubs capital is tied up in the players, this value depends on form wether or not they are injured etc etc. It’s just not like a s simple as you make out mate.
Sorry Manny I disagree. You simply must apply the same values as any other business. There are countless examples of businesses who have assets tied up, who also have to be prepared to deal with the unforeseen on a regular basis. It’s the fact that individuals don’t that invariably leads to issues and a primary couple of reasons why businesses fail. Any model, or any other term people care to wrap around it, based on indefinite greater expenditure than income is at significant risk of failure, it is that simple. This whole philosophy based on wealthy individual and the like handouts that had been allowed to evolve is a disgrace as far as I am concerned. As debated countless times on here, the primary alternative seems to be ground development to attract an increase in revenue. A strategy that has proven to have failed a significant number of clubs. Yet somehow we are touted as an example where it will be different and we will sink millions into a what I would describe as pointless folly in some potentially vain attempt to lead us to a brighter future. I’m not always right and make errors of judgment like anyone else. I accept it is possible that we may just pull it off because there are examples of clubs that do. However, to blindly continue along the path we and others like us are going without accepting there is a significant risk is also wrong and people need to start waking up to it and start providing better examples of security than “I reckon”. Because frankly that is what any projections seem to be based on from where I am sitting and I challenge anyone on this forum to provide a shred of credible data, research or other tangible evidence to the contrary.
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Not a real supporter but unelected chair of the Northampton Town Honorary Supporters Club. (Please note: any opinions given may not necessarily be shared by proper supporters. In incidents of conflict the views of real supporters shall take precedence).
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Terryfenwickatemyhamster
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Sweet Jesus are you seriously using Cardozo as a reference?
No… I’ve read it back a couple of times and can’t see where you even got that from. I was simply explaining, as so many need it, that debt appears in many ways.
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guest2608
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Sorry Manny I disagree. You simply must apply the same values as any other business. There are countless examples of businesses who have assets tied up, who also have to be prepared to deal with the unforeseen on a regular basis. It’s the fact that individuals don’t that invariably leads to issues and a primary couple of reasons why businesses fail. Any model, or any other term people care to wrap around it, based on indefinite greater expenditure than income is at significant risk of failure, it is that simple. This whole philosophy based on wealthy individual and the like handouts that had been allowed to evolve is a disgrace as far as I am concerned. As debated countless times on here, the primary alternative seems to be ground development to attract an increase in revenue. A strategy that has proven to have failed a significant number of clubs. Yet somehow we are touted as an example where it will be different and we will sink millions into a what I would describe as pointless folly in some potentially vain attempt to lead us to a brighter future. I’m not always right and make errors of judgment like anyone else. I accept it is possible that we may just pull it off because there are examples of clubs that do. However, to blindly continue along the path we and others like us are going without accepting there is a significant risk is also wrong and people need to start waking up to it and start providing better examples of security than “I reckon”. Because frankly that is what any projections seem to be based on from where I am sitting and I challenge anyone on this forum to provide a shred of credible data, research or other tangible evidence to the contrary.
A brilliant post 👏👏👏👏
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guest2608
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I'm absolutely delighted by this news.
Does anybody know at roughly what point in the process we can expect some c**t from the Liberal Demotw*ts to "call it in" and leave my dreams a smashed and broken carcaus lying lifeless in the dust?
9 years later….. deja vu
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guest49
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Do we know if anyone/who has been instructed to do a "sufficient" independent land valuation? I'd expect some kind of statement from the club at some point. It sounds as though this is going to put back for some time as stuff like that doesn't happen overnight. Maybe they want three quotes? - Ian Farmer Associates Factual Ground Investigation Report – October 2016 - Hydrock Ground Investigation Survey – December 2016 - Hydrock Desk Study – December 2016 - Axiom Structures Structural Engineering Report – May 2021 - Lambert Smith Hampton Viability Modelling Report – September 2021 "Site has significant Ground Condition and Remediation issues which were costed at £12,650,000" "LSH considered land value comparables and advised that appropriate land values were between £700,000 and £900,000 per acre. Adopting a land value of £900,000 per acre and allows for the Homes England Clawback and value of the respective Freehold and Leasehold interest, LSH advised that a value of £890,000 would represent Bets Value for the Authority" i.e. spend £12.6m (plus purchase cost) and get £21.3m back. In essence the council are challenging the 90 page independent report that they instructed and paid for. I wouldn't put it past them to have read the purchase price was per acre and they costed it as the whole plot. Absolute clowns. The legacy of the Cardoza mess continues. Just make a decision.
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Manwork04
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No… I’ve read it back a couple of times and can’t see where you even got that from. I was simply explaining, as so many need it, that debt appears in many ways.
For god sake man you use his name and the fact he told you something, that’s what a reference is. Not really a good example of a business man DC.
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Rule Britannia
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Terryfenwickatemyhamster
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For god sake man you use his name and the fact he told you something, that’s what a reference is. Not really a good example of a business man DC.
It wasn't as a reference at all. I just quoted what he said regarding keeping the club "apparently debt free" with reference to Rogers posts. So am I to assume that every time you quote someone, we are to assume you agree and endorse everything they say
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