The striker waiting for international clearance

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H1987
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The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by H1987 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 10:40 am

As per the echo a week ago.... that's gone quiet hasn't it?

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divas
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by divas » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:28 am

Yes

H1987
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by H1987 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:39 am

Weird. When you're waiting for clearance, the deal is agreed and done isn't it?

I know these things sometimes take some time to go through, depending on which FA is being relied on... aren't the welsh FA notably terrible at doing this promptly?

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by PierremontQuaker03 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 2:26 pm

I detect TW going back to his old ways. He mentions in his latest interview that Liam Hughes will be back for the next game, which will free up Ainge to play back up front again. We need a striker (whether it be on loan or free transfer) and we need competition for places otherwise we will start flirting with the relegation zone again.
“If you can't hit a driver, don't.”
Greg Norman

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divas
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by divas » Sat Jan 26, 2019 2:43 pm

We’ve got 4 loanees, we can only bring one more player in and there are no funds for a permanent signing. He’s therefore trying to find someone who is good enough who won’t cost a penny in wages. Not easy.

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by Darlofan97 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 2:56 pm

I’m quite staggered that we have no money for permanent signings. We have sold Heaton, Turnbull, Syers, Gillies, Styche & Saunders for fees, and made a cost-saving on the contracts of Collins & Caton until the end of the season.

The club has 18 players, four are loanees (Smith, Kokolo, Palmer & Saunders). One is out on loan (Vaulks) and one is a kid (Glover).

Ridiculous for the management to give out silly two year contracts over the summer. We were burnt with an injury prone Collins & an unproven Caton.

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divas
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by divas » Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:06 pm

Most of which went to balance the books on last seasons stupid playing budget. We’d have been finished without them

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by onewayup » Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:17 pm

Reality is we are a fan owned club, as such we cannot be seen to put the club into a situation where the club becomes untenable, by not being able to service the debts. So the board are determined to prudently run our club within its means, so until the club can afford to allow movement of players we are where we are.
This board are doing the very best for our club and should be applauded for the efforts and time they put in. Onwards and upwards with Darlington fc

H1987
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by H1987 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:01 pm

No, of course no one wants to see us gamble with the long term future of the club, but presuming we received a fee (and I would imagine a decent one at that) for Saunders, how exactly can we not reinvest *some* of that in another player? I’m not saying *all* of the money, but we surely were not budgeting on the assumption that Saunders would be sold, so this income is a welcome bonus.

I’m absolutely not saying spend the whole lot of it, but bring in someone else to help the squad out. Even if it’s someone on relatively low wages who has been banging them in at a lower level. There were whispers it might be Kneeshaw until the end of the season? Whatever. But do *something*. We all appreciate the need to get the club on an even financial footing, but we can’t just do it overnight and expect the club not to suffer. I’ve raised before the impression that we are trying to wipe the debt in a year so we can get a loan for future development. That’s a hell of a gamble if we end up going down.

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divas
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by divas » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:08 pm

Of course we weren’t budgeting on Saunders being sold but we were budgeting on other items that haven’t come to fruition therefore there are shortfalls in other areas that have had to be plugged by that money. As it is the Saunders money alone isn’t enough and more is needed so unless we want to put our hands in our pockets as benefactors to fill the current gap to get us to break even and then some more to sign a forward (£50K would probably do it) we’ll have to let the board of directors manage the current position as best they can until it’s resolved one way or another.

Gates are down and therefore so is the projected revenue - even a small average drop has a large impact over the course of the seasons. Commercial revenue has also been nowhere near what was budgeted for - this is improving with the addition of a commercial manager but it can’t be solved overnight. There were also a coupe of decent sums of cash that the club was expecting towards the end of the season that haven’t materialised. When that sort of thing happens you have to make cuts elsewhere to balance the books and the playing staff is one of the few non fixed costs that you can do that with.

I’d also imagine that the Saunders deal is heavily weighted towards performance related payments given he’s got potential but not a lot else at this stage.

50 years
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by 50 years » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:23 pm

I assume that we will have had to pay up Collins and Catons contracts, (although there may have been a slight reduction by paying up early), which will have been a fair bit I expect. Sensible thing to do as overall saving but that will have been free flow cash which the club simply has not got any spare, so further will be needed to get us through the season.

Saunders transfer was said to be a good deal, but suspect that most of that is future performance delivery rather than large cash in advance.

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by Darlopartisan » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:24 pm

divas wrote:Of course we weren’t budgeting on Saunders being sold but we were budgeting on other items that haven’t come to fruition therefore there are shortfalls in other areas that have had to be plugged by that money. As it is the Saunders money alone isn’t enough and more is needed so unless we want to put our hands in our pockets as benefactors to fill the gap and then some more to sign a forward we’ll have to let the board of directors manage the current position as best they can until it’s resolved one way or another.

Gates are down and therefore so is the projected revenue - even a small average drop has a large impact over the course of the seasons. Commercial revenue has also been nowhere near what was budgeted for - this is improving with the addition of a commercial manager but it can’t be solved overnight. There were also a coupe of decent sums of cash that the club was expecting towards the end of the season that haven’t materialised. When that sort of thing happens you have to make cuts elsewhere to balance the books and the playing staff is one of the few non fixed

costs that you can do that with.

I’d also imagine that the Saunders deal is heavily weighted towards performance related payments given he’s got potential but not a lot else at this stage.
So how much does the club need to get us to the end of the season? It’s not an unreasonable question to ask, what are we talking 10K /20K?

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divas
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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by divas » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:33 pm

Darlopartisan wrote:
divas wrote:Of course we weren’t budgeting on Saunders being sold but we were budgeting on other items that haven’t come to fruition therefore there are shortfalls in other areas that have had to be plugged by that money. As it is the Saunders money alone isn’t enough and more is needed so unless we want to put our hands in our pockets as benefactors to fill the gap and then some more to sign a forward we’ll have to let the board of directors manage the current position as best they can until it’s resolved one way or another.

Gates are down and therefore so is the projected revenue - even a small average drop has a large impact over the course of the seasons. Commercial revenue has also been nowhere near what was budgeted for - this is improving with the addition of a commercial manager but it can’t be solved overnight. There were also a coupe of decent sums of cash that the club was expecting towards the end of the season that haven’t materialised. When that sort of thing happens you have to make cuts elsewhere to balance the books and the playing staff is one of the few non fixed

costs that you can do that with.

I’d also imagine that the Saunders deal is heavily weighted towards performance related payments given he’s got potential but not a lot else at this stage.
So how much does the club need to get us to the end of the season? It’s not an unreasonable question to ask, what are we talking 10K /20K?
It’s not quite as simple as that - cash will probably be needed but there are different ways in which that can either be saved or raised - therein lies the skill of managing your cash flow and it’s something the directors have had to do on a daily basis.

Generally the way the club has done this in the past is to pull revenue forwards by selling early bird season tickets and 500 club membership. Obviously there is a limit to when/how much you can do this and it obviously affects future revenue. The pleasing thing this season is that savings have been made by cutting the playing budget rather than constantly pulling forwards revenue as happened in the past.

I’m sure if the club were given an unexpected £20k it would make their lives a lot easier but there would still be funds needed to be moved about and we’d likely get to the end of the season with a deficit which then needs to be rolled into next season which against means you’re starting off at a disadvantage. I’d expect a sum closer to £50K would make all the directors sleep easier at night and enable us to get to next season without cutting more costs or pulling forwards more revenue (we’ll have to do early bird season tickets regardless as we’ve done that for the last 3/4 seasons and once you get into that cycle it’s very difficult to get out of that routine unless you have a very large unexpected windfall)

In short the directors will continue to manage the position as they have for the last few months and if they can’t pull forwards cash through the usual routes the I guess there may be a cash call on the fans. I’d be more inclined to bung a few quid in if I saw the club was doing there bit which they are by reducing the playing budget where possible

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by super_les_mcjannet » Sat Jan 26, 2019 8:41 pm

Be good if the club shared where we are trying to get to in terms of finances, it always seems bad when we have a cash call or we advise struggling in particular areas.

We really need to smooth out our finances as best as possible, we have probably been lucky that we haven't had a bad winter as yet and missed out on all the games over Christmas etc.

Every club has similar scenarios just as fan owned it is discussed more openly and often looks a bigger problem as it's out in the open.

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by H1987 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:49 am

Yep, I think we all heavily appreciate everything that every single volunteer does for the club. We wouldn't exist without it. But, it is depressing seeing so many key players depart and not replaced, and perhaps it could be communicated a little better which direction we are heading. We seem to have the smallest squad in the division, after all.

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by al_quaker » Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:06 am

This talk about £20k being a massive help with debt shows just how damaging our woeful cup record has been. Even winning 1 FA cup match would net us £9k + gate receipts from the next round. Getting to the 1st round of the FA cup would have got us a minimum of £49k.

Obviously it's unrealistic to expect a cup run every season, and I've no doubt the players and management would love a run too, but our pathological aversion to cup matches is really not helping things

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by H1987 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:22 am

Even a bumper attendance from getting someone decent.

It's also the repeated failure in the Trophy as well... i know the prize money is nowhere near the same, but there's the possibility we can draw a proper side with a proper away following from the national, not to mention Gateshead or Pools locally. At some point, it is also unlucky, but we've entirely ourselves to blame this year. We have home draws in both competitions.

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by al_quaker » Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:34 am

H1987 wrote:Even a bumper attendance from getting someone decent.

It's also the repeated failure in the Trophy as well... i know the prize money is nowhere near the same, but there's the possibility we can draw a proper side with a proper away following from the national, not to mention Gateshead or Pools locally. At some point, it is also unlucky, but we've entirely ourselves to blame this year. We have home draws in both competitions.
Since being promoted to the conference north, we've had 5 home cup ties and failed to win any of them. 4 of those could be classed as tough draws, but you'd perhaps hope we'd win at least 1 of those considering we were at home. We drew at home to Marine in the Trophy in 16/17, but lost the replay. The only away tie we've been handed was in the same season at Lancaster, who were 2 divisions lower than us at the time, and we still conspired to lose.

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by al_quaker » Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:42 am

And a quick glance of wikipedia since 16/17 suggests that:

Halifax, Stockport (x2), Curzon Ashton, Brackley, Altrincham, Alfreton (x2), Kidderminster (x2), Telford, Gainsborough, Chorley (x2), York, Southport and Guiseley have all reached the 1st round of the FA Cup from the conference north. And with it they've earned the benefits of prize money, gate receipts, sometimes TV coverage, and perhaps just as importantly the good publicity and excitement that would generate. So it can be done...

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Re: The striker waiting for international clearance

Post by Yarblockos » Mon Jan 28, 2019 2:05 pm

I was under the impression that the sale of Styche and the departure of Syers had helped to plug the hole in finances. I would have thought the sale of Saunders on top of that would have kept us going, and we must have made a few thousand from the Durham Senior Cup game that was not budgeted for.

Is it now that case that income is even less than predicted and therefore we are still making a loss despite these cut backs? We were told the predicted income for this season was wrong, but does that mean December's prediction for the rest of the season was also wrong?

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