Friday, 11 April 2008
It's the economy, stupid
So the credit crunch is starting to bite. We're about to learn the hard way that an economy built on borrowing can't carry on growing indefinitely. All the experts agree that a serious downturn lies ahead. And as if Town's financial situation weren't bad enough, they say the country's probably facing a recession as well.
John Fenty tells us that we must leave Blundell Park or the club will cease to exist. I'm still not sure how this all adds up, because our support is average for a fourth division club. Barnet, Accrington and Dagenham are operating on attendances less than half the size of Town's, but you don't hear them go on about needing to build a new stadium at Pyewipe.
Thanks to the chairman's careful stewardship, however, the finances at GTFC are in much better shape than they were.
In 2002, of course, Town were left reeling when Carlton and Granada decided to get out of paying the £315m of TV money they'd promised Football League clubs by placing ITV Digital in administration. Even if they had stumped up, though, it would still have been scary hearing the rumours that we were paying Zhang Enhua twelve thousand quid a week.
Plenty of football clubs have followed Carlton and Granada's lead. Before it became punishable with a 10-point deduction, administration had become essentially a mechanism for clubs like Bradford and Leicester to sign lots of expensive players who were better than Town's, so they could keep beating us, and then get out of picking up the tab – a sort of football equivalent of legging it out of the curry house at the end of the night while the waiter's gone away to fetch the bill.
These days it is not an option taken quite so lightly. Rotherham, who visit Blundell Park tomorrow, have just called in the administrators for the second time in three years – and the points deduction has shattered their play-off hopes at a stroke.
As ways of having your play-off hopes shattered go, this is slightly less fun than being fatally distracted from a string of decisive league fixtures by a nice day out at Wembley in the final of a no-pressure lower-league cup tournament. Still, as Oscar Wilde put it during a turn as pundit on the popular Victorian highlights show Association Foot-Ball Splendid Sunday, to go into administration once may be regarded as a misfortune; to do so twice looks like carelessness.
So will the need for tighter finances herald a new era of prudence in football's boardrooms, and Rotherham be among the last clubs forced into administration? If I were you I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it. Especially given the way the economy is going.
John Fenty tells us that we must leave Blundell Park or the club will cease to exist. I'm still not sure how this all adds up, because our support is average for a fourth division club. Barnet, Accrington and Dagenham are operating on attendances less than half the size of Town's, but you don't hear them go on about needing to build a new stadium at Pyewipe.
Thanks to the chairman's careful stewardship, however, the finances at GTFC are in much better shape than they were.
In 2002, of course, Town were left reeling when Carlton and Granada decided to get out of paying the £315m of TV money they'd promised Football League clubs by placing ITV Digital in administration. Even if they had stumped up, though, it would still have been scary hearing the rumours that we were paying Zhang Enhua twelve thousand quid a week.
Plenty of football clubs have followed Carlton and Granada's lead. Before it became punishable with a 10-point deduction, administration had become essentially a mechanism for clubs like Bradford and Leicester to sign lots of expensive players who were better than Town's, so they could keep beating us, and then get out of picking up the tab – a sort of football equivalent of legging it out of the curry house at the end of the night while the waiter's gone away to fetch the bill.
These days it is not an option taken quite so lightly. Rotherham, who visit Blundell Park tomorrow, have just called in the administrators for the second time in three years – and the points deduction has shattered their play-off hopes at a stroke.
As ways of having your play-off hopes shattered go, this is slightly less fun than being fatally distracted from a string of decisive league fixtures by a nice day out at Wembley in the final of a no-pressure lower-league cup tournament. Still, as Oscar Wilde put it during a turn as pundit on the popular Victorian highlights show Association Foot-Ball Splendid Sunday, to go into administration once may be regarded as a misfortune; to do so twice looks like carelessness.
So will the need for tighter finances herald a new era of prudence in football's boardrooms, and Rotherham be among the last clubs forced into administration? If I were you I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it. Especially given the way the economy is going.
Labels: debt, economy, fentydome, finances, itv digital, rotherham
Friday, 14 December 2007
Four Yorkshiremen and a Yellowbelly
Some people are determined that there's nobody worse off than them. This is the premise behind Monty Python's famous Four Yorkshiremen, who argue over which of them had the most deprived childhood. Rather less well known is the sequel, Four Yorkshiremen and a Yellowbelly, which ends like this:
Fourth Yorkshireman: "We 'ad to live in a shoebox, get up at two in t' mornin', work 29 hours a day down t' mill, and when we got home our dad would slice us in two wi' t' bread knife."
Yellowbelly: "You think that's bad? We 'ad to go an' watch Grimsby Town."
If you look at the balance sheets, though, there are quite a few clubs worse off than the Mariners. But debt seems to work in a strange way in football. Swindon are £5m in the red but this didn't stop them signing Chris Blackburn, Miguel Comminges, Kaid Mohamed, Steve Adams, Jon-Paul McGovern and Billy Paynter in the summer. Coventry's debt totals around £38m yet they maintain a second-flight squad of almost 30 players. And Town are pretty much unable to sign anyone because the club still owes HM Revenue & Customs about £350,000.
Another way to gauge who's worst off is to listen to football phone-ins on the radio. These don't give a very accurate picture, however, as they are invariably dominated by lengthy rants about their underperforming, poverty-stricken clubs by supporters of Fulham or Wolves.
But if you go by the league table, there are only four Football League clubs worse off than the Mariners. This is Dagenham & Redbridge's first ever season in the league, though, so they're probably enjoying it more than we are. Someone needs to tell them it starts losing a bit of its sheen after 107 years.
Lincoln are unexpectedly struggling after a string of top-seven finishes since 2003. But at least our county neighbours can take comfort from the fact that they are unlikely to suffer the heartbreak of defeat in the promotion play-offs this season.
The other two sides really are in trouble. Wrexham's former chairman tried to evict them from their ground, and then they dropped into the fourth division because of the 10-point penalty incurred by entering administration. Then they came within a week of being thrown out of the league. Still, they stayed up last season at the expense of Boston, so it's not all bad.
Probably the worst off of all are Mansfield, this weekend's visitors to Blundell Park. The Stags are still owned by the reviled Keith Haslam, who took interest-free loans out of the club and paid himself a handsome salary for running it. As they kick off tomorrow bottom of the league, many of their supporters would say he has run it into the ground.
Fourth Yorkshireman: "We 'ad to live in a shoebox, get up at two in t' mornin', work 29 hours a day down t' mill, and when we got home our dad would slice us in two wi' t' bread knife."
Yellowbelly: "You think that's bad? We 'ad to go an' watch Grimsby Town."
If you look at the balance sheets, though, there are quite a few clubs worse off than the Mariners. But debt seems to work in a strange way in football. Swindon are £5m in the red but this didn't stop them signing Chris Blackburn, Miguel Comminges, Kaid Mohamed, Steve Adams, Jon-Paul McGovern and Billy Paynter in the summer. Coventry's debt totals around £38m yet they maintain a second-flight squad of almost 30 players. And Town are pretty much unable to sign anyone because the club still owes HM Revenue & Customs about £350,000.
Another way to gauge who's worst off is to listen to football phone-ins on the radio. These don't give a very accurate picture, however, as they are invariably dominated by lengthy rants about their underperforming, poverty-stricken clubs by supporters of Fulham or Wolves.
But if you go by the league table, there are only four Football League clubs worse off than the Mariners. This is Dagenham & Redbridge's first ever season in the league, though, so they're probably enjoying it more than we are. Someone needs to tell them it starts losing a bit of its sheen after 107 years.
Lincoln are unexpectedly struggling after a string of top-seven finishes since 2003. But at least our county neighbours can take comfort from the fact that they are unlikely to suffer the heartbreak of defeat in the promotion play-offs this season.
The other two sides really are in trouble. Wrexham's former chairman tried to evict them from their ground, and then they dropped into the fourth division because of the 10-point penalty incurred by entering administration. Then they came within a week of being thrown out of the league. Still, they stayed up last season at the expense of Boston, so it's not all bad.
Probably the worst off of all are Mansfield, this weekend's visitors to Blundell Park. The Stags are still owned by the reviled Keith Haslam, who took interest-free loans out of the club and paid himself a handsome salary for running it. As they kick off tomorrow bottom of the league, many of their supporters would say he has run it into the ground.
Labels: coventry, dagenham, debt, finances, fulham, lincoln, mansfield, monty python, poverty, swindon, wolves, wrexham
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