Ferguson, Beck and Bartlett were three of our best players. Whether them leaving will turn out to be a positive will depend on how our management respond to all this and implement their plan to make sure we are competitive in this league.

There is no investor so your entire argument is fucking waffle.

It is what it is so if we want to bring in new players - cos your best mate Mart left us an overpaid, bang average squad - we need to sell players to make room.

The bottom line is that we need to live within our means. Or die.

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“Everybody knows where that club is going now, so I’m out of the way. They can carry on, it’s their club, they can keep it." - Raj Singh, 2017

Beck has contributed nothing this season so he doesn't count as one of our best 3 players. We are better off getting someone who can actually play.

I can't believe Harrogate have paid money for him - he's injured - great deal!

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“Everybody knows where that club is going now, so I’m out of the way. They can carry on, it’s their club, they can keep it." - Raj Singh, 2017

Most people aren't against "investment" (people say investment, but let's be honest, people want a sugar-daddy) from what I gather. Just not from the person that Gray tried to sneak in the back door.

And yes, even if we're challenging near the top of this league, players wanting to leave for full time football will be something we have to get used to while we are part time.

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https://fundraising.darlingtonfcsupportersgroup.org/

http://buytickets.at/dfcsg

It was Singh who was the investor though. He wanted 51%.

Can you see a little problem here Quakerlad?

Fuck me!!!!!

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Mr Singh said this " I'm not expecting to get back any of the money I've already put in, I'm prepared to write it off for the future of the club. I'm not hanging in to make any kind of financial gain in the short or long term - if someone was prepared to come in and take the club off my hands, I'd be more than willing to discuss it"

Tamworth matchday programme 26 Nov 2011

Beck proved last season that he can score goals and create them when he's fully fit. Being forced to play when injured didn't help his cause this season.

So we're not near the top of the league due to underperforming players and injuries and so according to Quakerlad players want to leave. Well truth be told I don't want anyone here who's not up for a fight. They can do one.

We’ve got the release clause fee for someone who is injured, may not recapture his former self, and doesn’t want to be here.

Best case scenario.

But that was last season. This season is not last season.

This season he has been woeful, injured, immobile, missed countless sitters, and still has an ongoing injury. We need someone who can play NOW, not maybe later. Especially when you think we've been paying out a wage that could be used on a fit player.

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“Everybody knows where that club is going now, so I’m out of the way. They can carry on, it’s their club, they can keep it." - Raj Singh, 2017

Bit like Brodie? Who had been woeful for years

Have to agree with Quakerz some good work by Tommy & the board. Beck is superb when he’s on form but it hasn’t happened this season. Both players wanted full time which we can’t offer.

In respect to any investor I can only see them wanting to invest if we have our own or part own the stadium where we can maximise profit. Until then we will remain fan owned which isn’t a problem but fan funded mean we can’t really move on above level with 1400/1500 fans.

We never dialled B, so we can't be sure.

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“Everybody knows where that club is going now, so I’m out of the way. They can carry on, it’s their club, they can keep it." - Raj Singh, 2017

We surely CAN move to the next level with 1400/1500 fans. IF we can retain them.

York, Stockport, Harrogate and Salford will not be here long.

Get rid of them and it's back to being a league with mostly smaller clubs than Darlo, mostly part time - eventually our sort of budget will be competitive again.

It might take two or three years to be promotion contenders again (by which time we can access more grant funding to get the ground up to Cat A standard), but it can be done.

What we need is a firm plan of action, manage fan expectations to reasonable levels, and more important than anything else - a stable club board and DFCSG board which both have continuity.

Our journey is not yet over and this is merely the first big bump in the road.

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“Everybody knows where that club is going now, so I’m out of the way. They can carry on, it’s their club, they can keep it." - Raj Singh, 2017

I'm surprised Beck managed to pass a medical to sign for Harrogate, given the length of his injury.

Bring back Liam Hatch!

Liam Hardy more like!

.

That sounds really bad, you can't expect to plug gaps in the squad with youth players and hope to do anything on the pitch, not at the level we are playing at. If what you say is true, then questions need to be asked as to why we let things get so bad budget wise, before having to take emergency actions to rectify the situation.

Yes the league may return to a more equal financial playing field BUT each season two clubs drop from the Conference National and there are an increasing number of money bags clubs below - South Shields we all know about being one. We are in danger of becoming stagnant that is the argument about investment/fan owned its how long and how progressive we want to be.

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"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

BUT it's none of that really at this stage.

We actually need to have some one interested in investing before it's relevant, at the moment it's not on the cards so no point worrying about stagnating beacause of it.

We have come a long way at a fast rate, work is ongoing in terms of developing the ground and making sure we are actually financially sound. We can't affect what South Shields, Spennymoor, Blyth or anyone else does but we can build our club up.

We have revenues of 400k+ which we spend around 300k on management/players, which is top half for this division. We probably need a paid Commercial Manager in at some point soon and start establishing ourselves in the community a bit more.

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[/quote] We have revenues of 400k+ which we spend around 300k on management/players, which is top half for this division. We probably need a paid Commercial Manager in at some point soon and start establishing ourselves in the community a bit more.[/quote]

Actually:
2016 accounts: Revenue £350,000. Costs other than playing and coaching staff: £253,000.
2015 accounts: Revenue £345,000. Costs other than playing and coaching staff: £238,000.

Not sure I can/want to believe this. David Johnston was brought in to make us financially sound and stop the boom and bust times. Yes, we had an operating loss from last season but DJ said that the Ferguson transfer money would cover that. Also, TW and AW and our board have kept saying that the plan is to keep going upwards, indeed DJ said he wanted to be in the NLN in 2 years at the start of the year. Gates are down, but again DJ said that we're not too bad as the prices on the gate have increased.
I'm sure that TW and AW wouldn't have come here with the brief to simply cut costs and survive, with relegation more likely than promotion. If this isn't the case, then we've all been fed a big lie, which I just can't see.

Of more pressing concern is player recruitment. When we had MG here, many players said that they wanted to come to play for him personally. Did he really have that presence, or is that footballer hot air and really they came because of the wages we could offer them?
Anyway, York, Harrogate, Spennymoor and soon South Shields will be hoovering up the best of our catchment area for footballers. We can't sell teams a big vision of going forward at the moment as we are in free fall. Neither can we offer them the wages that the above clubs can. Also, do TW and AW have the contacts that MG had? This is my big worry.

Yep 2015 was for Evostik North Season, 2016 was for Evostik Prem where we charged less and had lower average attendances, so revenues have certainly increased since then.

We also increased our budget for our first season back in the National League (according to the board) obviously not seen the accounts yet though and then we kept Gray's budget at last years level at his request. I would assume 400k revenue and 300k budget will be pretty close, hopefully we will find out very soon in regards to last season how close my guesstimates are.

Either way the point is we are not over achieving currently in our position or form and other than poor management/recruitment we shouldn't stagnate back to the Evostik. The other side of it is I do think Wright needs to overhaul the squad and bring in fresh faces really.

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How much do you think some of our players are on?

Don't be surprised to hear some are on £500 a week and those who have left were edging higher than that. In terms of spends we certainly match Spennymoor/South Shields currently, will that continue who knows.

The big vision is probably the key, if we are offering the same or slightly less than Spennymoor or South Shields which club would most of us pick for stability currently. I guess it probably wouldn't be Darlo.

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I'm struggling to comprehend how finances are so tight we can't afford to make 1 signing. We will average around 1500 this season as long as we get decent gates against Salford York and Blyth, which, while I'm sure lower than expected can't be that much lower than budgeted for (someone correct me if I'm wrong). And to counteract that we've received presumably upwards of 50K in transfer fees. And Ferguson, Beck and Bartlett were all probably among our highest earners. And we've cut down the number of non-playing staff (although I appreciate that doesn't necessarily equate to lower costs).

I know we have 'legacy' debt to service, and I understand the transfer fees being primarily be used for this (as frustrating as that is), but surely there's a bit of wriggle room in the playing budget purely from the wages we now are not paying. We're very quickly going to end up in a relegation fight if we don't discover some sort of goal threat.

And there's an argument that being relegated but having no carry over debt may be far more costly to the club than having to carry forwards a small amount of debt into next season but signing the right player to reinvigorate us

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https://fundraising.darlingtonfcsupportersgroup.org/

http://buytickets.at/dfcsg

Are you sure about that?

So we had £100k of playing / coaching staff costs. On a basis of having 20 'salaries' 16 players plus 4 staff that would mean an average of £4,850 per annum each. That equates to £105 per match.

I don't believe for a second our players are only earning £105 per match.

Players, Staff, Fees paid each season for players/signing on

2014-2015 - 238k (Player Staff wages only - 223.5k)
2015-2016 - 273k (Player Staff wages only - 249k)

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Losses for 2016 were (£174,000), and 2015 (£78,000).
Unless the other costs can be cut back, it's easy to see how much is actually available for players and coaches

Agree, very interested to see last years accounts and each season now should get easier to budget for really because we should level off as opposed to the fluctuations we have seen over the last five years.

Also season 16/17 had an increase of 45% (Approx. 500 extra per game) in attendances with an increase in actual charge for those attendances. So clearly a large chunk of those losses would be removed, although what extra costs have come in.

We did increase budget though (according to the board) from what was given in previous accounts so not sure where that leaves us fully. AGM must be soon so shouldn't be long and we can pick the bones out of last seasons accounts and hopefully a forum which gives us insight into how this year is progressing financially.

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Those losses also include 68k of Amortisation of Goodwill each season which in reality I don't believe is money going out of the club. Although I am no accountancy expert.

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