Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 2:54 pm  

How has it managed to run at a loss? I am not saying it hasnt, but I would be interested. I remember when I was commercial manager at HTAFC and opened a club shop in Westgate Market. OK, not the most glamorous of settings but it made a healthy profit year on year.

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 2:56 pm  

Greg Florimos Boots wrote:

So the main question is who runs the shop going forward and who covers the loss that the shop has traditionally made in the past? Some times the alternative is not as rosey as it is made out.

Agree here.Meetings i attended alweays gave me the impression that the small amount 1HX made from shirts etc was insignificant compared to what the owner contributed to the club in general.

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 2:58 pm  

Bubba wrote:

How has it managed to run at a loss? I am not saying it hasnt, but I would be interested. I remember when I was commercial manager at HTAFC and opened a club shop in Westgate Market. OK, not the most glamorous of settings but it made a healthy profit year on year.

Maybe Bosomworth not taken his shop answers that question.

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 5:12 pm  

Bubba wrote:

How has it managed to run at a loss? I am not saying it hasnt, but I would be interested. I remember when I was commercial manager at HTAFC and opened a club shop in Westgate Market. OK, not the most glamorous of settings but it made a healthy profit year on year.

I would guess miss-judgement of stock coupled with high rent probably caused difficulties. If rumours are to be believed things were also so bad in regards to relationships with kit suppliers that the current occupier had to pay upfront for supply something the club may struggle to do. Thats just hear say though so may or may not be true but given the clubs history would not be much of a surprise.

Id be amazed when all costings are taken in to account if a club shop could even bring in 10K a year(I would love to see a run down of that year by year). Like him or not, and it seems to be mixed on here, but the question is do you believe Ian Croad no longer been involved would mean the club had more income or less income. Personally in my opinion the one possible plus side of him not been involved is it might have been one factor stopping the football club and the rugby club working together and mybe the 2 clubs can move forward. It will take both sides though and by all accounts the Town board may see trying to forge relations with the rugby team as above them.

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:13 pm  

Regarding the DR point, we've done really well to have players coming through from the reserves and perform as they have. Without a big 1st team squad, having the option of DR players is still good to have though (imo). It's possible that we won't do so well with bringing on the reserves next season, and although any DR players coming in to play for us may not be stand-out performers, it's still a way of plugging gaps... if, and only if, we have to. Loan players are another option, but it must be harder to sort out, especially at short notice?

It's not an easy equation to get right for coaches, and the toughest part for a team like Fax (which thrives on team spirit) is to get DR players stoked up to give 110%.

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 6:23 pm  

Greg Florimos Boots wrote:

The squad as it is is more than good enough to make the top 4 but is clearly short of depth. Do we bring in a few more squad players to pack out the squad so it can last the season or do we try to bring in say a couple of quality players to improve the starting 17 but leaving us short in depth? Id go for quality and using DR to cover any possible injury problems and save money for quality. Last season was a disaster when we went for squad depth while not improving the starting 17 quality.

Why go to the trouble and not inconsiderable expense of a reserve side then? Also players being pee'd off with SL players coming into the team? I know of one lad in particular who wasn't happy with the situation. He's been happy lately though and one of our top performers. Sportsman shudds. Wylam Cascade 4.1% Mmm!

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:29 pm  

Bubba wrote:

The Shay will always run at a loss. There isnt enough going on down there for it to be otherwise i.e. there is only one stand that has facilities which can be used outside of matchdays. Some stadiums run on a profit but the rest, such as the Shay, should be simply viewed as a home and roof over the head.

To be fair the stadium is now very well used mostly by Council staff running courses and holding meetings which saves them money as it is their own facility plus they now have introduced car parking charges.
Regards the bars they are run by Franchise so again there is an income stream as they pay the Council for the privilege but as mentioned this means that the Franchise owner needs to cover this and staff costs so they charge top dollar and the clubs get diddly squat on matchdays.
My suggestion is that the clubs should get a 10% cut of the takings when it reaches a certain amount for the bigger games but the current franchise holders are not interested the only other idea would be to have a club beer like the Bulls do but then we hit that old chestnut there would have to be 2 one for Town and one for Fax.
The Council should stop them raising their prices for certain games though that is not on at all.

Re: Fans' forum last night : Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:35 pm  

Greg Florimos Boots wrote:

I would guess miss-judgement of stock coupled with high rent probably caused difficulties. If rumours are to be believed things were also so bad in regards to relationships with kit suppliers that the current occupier had to pay upfront for supply something the club may struggle to do. Thats just hear say though so may or may not be true but given the clubs history would not be much of a surprise.

Id be amazed when all costings are taken in to account if a club shop could even bring in 10K a year(I would love to see a run down of that year by year). Like him or not, and it seems to be mixed on here, but the question is do you believe Ian Croad no longer been involved would mean the club had more income or less income. Personally in my opinion the one possible plus side of him not been involved is it might have been one factor stopping the football club and the rugby club working together and mybe the 2 clubs can move forward. It will take both sides though and by all accounts the Town board may see trying to forge relations with the rugby team as above them.

My understanding is that Croady fitted out the first team with all their playing kit at his expense but in return he took the money from the shop until sales hit a certain amount at which point he gave the club some commission was it £10 per shirt?

Re: Fans' forum last night : Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:12 am  

Fax4Life wrote:

My understanding is that Croady fitted out the first team with all their playing kit at his expense but in return he took the money from the shop until sales hit a certain amount at which point he gave the club some commission was it £10 per shirt?

If that is/was the case then I have no issues, he was putting up front to ensure the Club were sorted first and foremost, the rest he could have lost out big time.

I guess we'll see what happens next season?

Re: Fans' forum last night : Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:50 am  

Fax4Life wrote:

To be fair the stadium is now very well used mostly by Council staff running courses and holding meetings which saves them money as it is their own facility plus they now have introduced car parking charges.
.

Not being negative regarding your post - but filling a large executive facility with "council meetings" suggests that the majority of income comes from cross subsidies from the Council - which obviously doesn't generate income.