On here and other social media sites I have read a lot of discontentment over how Dean Hoyle is running the club, from the desire for the South Stand to be a home end, the price of tickets to the money he puts into the club.
I thought given how no football happened this weekend (Men in Black style flashy lights work wonders sometimes!!!) I thought it was a good time to look at it in the round.
Firstly there is the “home end“ issue which I know many fans care passionately about. There has been a lot of effort put into this over the years and the use of the South Stand in League 1 on a couple of occasions has led to the creation of the North Stand Lower as a “signing section". There is clearly a committed core of people here who make it a fantastic experience for those in there and try to get the noise going in the rest of the stadium. The trouble is their numbers haven’t grown as I suspect that over time the experiment may not be proven a success. In this regard I think its fair to say there was an issue and the club listened to the fans and have given us the opportunity to prove demand for a longer term solution such as rail seating. Its not their fault if we fail to take it up.
In terms of ticket prices I must admit I found the season ticket price too high as I am currently struggling to get to as many games as I used to and I didn’t buy one for the first time ever. I however did get a Take 10 card which for me and I am sure many others is a brilliant solution for when you go to about 10 or so home games a year as you save a fair bit of cash and still help the club out a bit. The half season tickets I think are a bit over priced but I guess if they had them too low the full season ticket holders would moan about them getting shafted. All in all I think there was a real issue to be addressed but to be fair the club have done pretty well in this regard and provide a range of options. I think they should still look at how some games are categorised as they are too high but a few more £10 entry games and its hard to complain!
The final and main point of this thread for me is the finances as this is something I have read just the other day people being unhappy about. I downloaded the Financial Statements from 12 months ago as the current ones haven’t been fully published to the public yet as far as Im aware (last year it was at 28 December 2013). The numbers may have changed a bit but the table below shows the headline figures for the last 7 years, which is very helpful for taking a longer term view of things.
| Item | 06/07 £M | 07/08 £M | 08/09 £M | 09/10 £M | 10/11 £M | 11/12 £M | 12/13 £M |
| Headline Turnover | 3.97 | 4.73 | 4.32 | 5.56 | 7.99 | 7.39 | 11.23 |
| Recurring Turnover | 3.91 | 4.02 | 3.79 | 5.05 | 5.87 | 6.52 | 10.42 |
| Underlying Contribution | 2.11 | 2.67 | 1.33 | 2.37 | 2.79 | 3.05 | 5.47 |
| Stadium Costs (inc rent & interest) | 0.69 | 0.71 | 0.81 | 0.83 | 0.84 | 0.86 | 0.89 |
| Total Football Expenditure | (2.35) | (2.49) | (4.06) | (5.61) | (7.21) | (8.09) | (13.05) |
| Profit in Player Trading | 0.19 | 0.11 | 0.20 | - | 0.31 | 2.36 | 7.11 |
| Overall Loss | (1.06) | (0.73) | (4.04) | (4.75) | (4.09) | (5.56) | (4.02) |
In addition to the above the club increased Tangible Assets from £1.27M to £3.89M with the investment in Canalside and players meaning last year our Total Assets were £4.59M. This reporting was before the shares were repurchased so from an accounting perspective this will be reflected when the next accounts are released. We owe about £0.49 to Ken Davy it appears as Dean paid him £2M in September 2013 as part of the shares deal.
From our income £3.81M was Match Day Income so what we put into the club, £4.39M from the Football League and TV rights (thank you Sky!), £1.51M from Commercial Income and about the same from “Other Trading Income" with a non recurring income of £0.81M.
So our squad costs us £13M and yet as fans we don’t even cover half that amount. Thats with the players we have now and without any lavish spending. What that means is that to just keep in business Dean has to put his hand in his pocket, let alone push onwards and upwards.
With player acquisitions, Canalside and buying the shares back Dean in that year put about £7M of his own hard earned cash into the club and for that will only get a return from the shares in the long run (when the stadium Senior Debt is repaid).
I know its not going to be a popular thing to say but I just think people should realise that we have it about as good as we are going to get it. The bottom line is we don’t have massive gates and so as fans we don’t bring enough money to the table to make it work. Thankfully Sky pay silly money for TV rights but this isn’t guaranteed long term especially with legal challenges to how the auctions occur and the old disclaimer of past performance not being a guarantee of future returns. The commercial income is pretty poor but given we are an unfashionable northern club then its probably par for the course. The only way we can spend more on players is if Dean Hoyle is prepared to lose even more of his hard earned cash.
Therein lies the issue for me; its a fantasy to own the club you love but the reality is its a burden and like the “One Ring" round your neck will drag you down eventually. He is a very rich man but I hate this idea that its never enough as say he did splash another £15M a year and got us edge of promotion there would be some saying spend more to get top 2. This ofcourse ignores the fact that with FFP he cant do this and this transfer window is the moment of truth, if FFP sticks we can see if it has a benefit to play within the rules or not. If it doesn’t stick I wouldn’t be surprised if Dean starts to plan his exit strategy as it will never be enough.
Ken Davy is a vilified man but from the results its clear he ran a tight ship that didn’t lose much cash. If we lose Dean then we are more likely to get another person like that running our club than a billionaire so I think we should learn to love the one we are with.