Vanarama National League 2016/17

[FGR Stroud]

Very confident of walking the league, there will always be a Cheltenham etc who will compete. Chucking money at everything left right and centre does not mean your professional. There is nothing professional at all about a business making massive losses year on year.

You only have to look at Darlington to see where you might be in a few years. Good luck, your going to need it.

Yes you are right LUCK always comes into play. It's not always the best team that get the results but the luckiest.

As regards chucking money at everything, this has been a common complaint against FGR for a few years.
More than half of it was paying off debts and then some over-the-top player purchases by a previous manager. Latterly the running costs of club have been reduced in line with that of other top non-league clubs.
As regards to Darlington and other clubs; the model that FGR has adopted is different to every one of them. The club have a sustainable business plan intertwined with our chairman's core business of Electrocity. They are mutually benefitting by this close association.
And with the club going vegan [yuk] the worldwide publicity is worth every penny of those £millions spent.
The difference is that FGR don't have a millionaire paying for success out of his back pocket until he is broke but has the backing of a £200 million business.

 

[Chris FGR]

As FGR Stroud says this isn't just one man throwing his money at a vanity project. FGR is a valuable advertising tool for a 200 million pound company which is growing rapidly. And any losses the football club make go against the company who offset it against tax anyway, so it's not a problem. We are sustainable and we have a very bright future. We're only going one way.

 

[Mariner2015]

As FGR Stroud says this isn't just one man throwing his money at a vanity project. FGR is a valuable advertising tool for a 200 million pound company which is growing rapidly. And any losses the football club make go against the company who offset it against tax anyway, so it's not a problem. We are sustainable and we have a very bright future. We're only going one way.

You are a tin pot club with no potential to develop. Dont kid yourself pal, Uncle Dale is getting bored and this is proven by him cutting your budget each year. Not by much but I am informed that it has been slashed. All pressure on Forest Green this season as Dale Vince has other interests I have heard.

 

[Chris FGR]

You are a tin pot club with no potential to develop. Dont kid yourself pal, Uncle Dale is getting bored and this is proven by him cutting your budget each year. Not by much but I am informed that it has been slashed. All pressure on Forest Green this season as Dale Vince has other interests I have heard.

Did you not read anything I just posted or are you too thick to understand it?

This isn't a hobby, it's mutually beneficial and there's no reason why it won't continue to be.

 

[FrankTheTank]

You are a tin pot club with no potential to develop. Dont kid yourself pal, Uncle Dale is getting bored and this is proven by him cutting your budget each year. Not by much but I am informed that it has been slashed. All pressure on Forest Green this season as Dale Vince has other interests I have heard.

Don't think anyone is going to bite on that one ... I think all these Grimsby fans are missing non-league already.

 

[FGR Stroud]

You are a tin pot club with no potential to develop. Dont kid yourself pal, Uncle Dale is getting bored and this is proven by him cutting your budget each year. Not by much but I am informed that it has been slashed. All pressure on Forest Green this season as Dale Vince has other interests I have heard.

Dale is now even more committed to FGR than when he took over the business. This has been confirmed to me by members of his family and his personal friends.
But you are correct he is looking further afield, FGR have just started officially sponsoring his pet charity SeaShepherd, which I admit I'd never heard of before. Apparently it is a more active charity than Greenpeace.
What you also might have read it that Dale is exploring the possibility of expanding his Ecotricity business big-time towards Solar Panels.
The guy is never out of the news.

 

[Pablosammy]

Yes you are right LUCK always comes into play. It's not always the best team that get the results but the luckiest.

As regards chucking money at everything, this has been a common complaint against FGR for a few years.
More than half of it was paying off debts and then some over-the-top player purchases by a previous manager. Latterly the running costs of club have been reduced in line with that of other top non-league clubs.
As regards to Darlington and other clubs; the model that FGR has adopted is different to every one of them. The club have a sustainable business plan intertwined with our chairman's core business of Electrocity. They are mutually benefitting by this close association.
And with the club going vegan [yuk] the worldwide publicity is worth every penny of those £millions spent.
The difference is that FGR don't have a millionaire paying for success out of his back pocket until he is broke but has the backing of a £200 million business.

If you honestly believe that funding an unsustainable (in isolation) football club all the way to the Championship (which will cost many, many, many millions) can ever be a cost-effective advertising tool for an energy company, then in my opinion you're deluded.

If it's possible, the fact that you're touting FGR as some sort of corporate advertising tool rather than a club for the fans makes me resent the club even more than I did already. Who would want to support a billboard?

What do you think will happen if FGR's losses hit Ecotricity's headline figures to the order of tens of millions? Don't you think the shareholders will start to lose patience with this little vanity project?

We could debate this until we're blue in the face, and only time will tell. I'm boring the other forum members here, I'm probably boring you, and I'm definitely boring myself, so this is the last post I'll make on the issue I promise. I just don't think it will end well. As I've said, enjoy the ride while it lasts.

 

[FGR Stroud]

pablosammy

We could debate this until we're blue in the face, and only time will tell. I'm boring the other forum members here, I'm probably boring you, and I'm definitely boring myself, so this is the last post I'll make on the issue I promise. I just don't think it will end well. As I've said, enjoy the ride while it lasts.

I agree that this subject has been done to death and hopefully your example will be followed by others.
I agree that this season and possibly next and the one after that TNL is too small for FL football, but once we move we will have a huge catchment area in a bigger stadium.

 

[JE93]

Very confident of walking the league, there will always be a Cheltenham etc who will compete. Chucking money at everything left right and centre does not mean your professional. There is nothing professional at all about a business making massive losses year on year.

You only have to look at Darlington to see where you might be in a few years. Good luck, your going to need it.

How dare you! We built a much bigger stadium than these tinpotters and we were promised premier league in 10 years! FGR where is your ambition?

You'll all be sorry when you're watching Stroudtricity Green Rovers v Fleetwood Town in the champions league final 2027.

 

[Monkey Tennis]

As FGR Stroud says this isn't just one man throwing his money at a vanity project. FGR is a valuable advertising tool for a 200 million pound company which is growing rapidly.

Wish I had an advertising tool that I could turn up and cheer on from the sidelines on a Saturday.

 

[Jemfy]

"For example, Dagenham & Redbridge and York City will receive in the region of £700,000 in increased parachute payments over two years after their relegation from League Two. North Ferriby’s finance director Richard Watts says that amount of money would keep the club running comfortably for a couple of years."

See, that spend of about £350k a year for them is still quite high on average gates of 446 and high for the Conference North I imagine, bar 2 or 3 exceptions (Stockport, Fylde, Boston?).

There's a number of ways in which that statement can be read. He says that amount would "keep the club running comfortably for a couple of years". That can be read as he's putting in roughly 350k a year, or they have a 350k a year playing budget, or they have a 350k a year overall operating budget. If it's a 350k a year overall budget then it's probably around right to possibly slightly modest.

For example 15*500*23 (just to simplify the numbers) = gate receipts of £172,500 (i.e. half the required income). It's all speculative beyond that, maybe someone who has looked at more clubs accounts can accurately say what proportion of income gate receipts generally make up? 50% wouldn't be too ridiculous, not when you consider sponsorship, merchandise etc.

Seen and heard it before,Rushden & Diamonds,Kettering,Boston,Crawley,Fleetwood,First 2 are extinct Boston conference north,Crawley struggling,Fleetwood struggling and still got backers,forgot Grays Athletic who also went bust,the only one I can think of who survive without investment anymore is Stevenage, Surprised Chris hasn't bet they win champions league in 10 years

I've had to point it out on this forum before, but Kettering haven't gone bust. They've gone extremely close on multiple occasions but they still exist. I have no idea why that is a pervading opinion. I also believe Grays didn't go bust but voluntarily relegated themselves and ended up at step 5 as a result, but were (are) technically speaking the same club.

I'm not speaking up on behalf of FGR fans who are onboard the hype train, just suggesting that the facts thrown back to counter are actually true...

For those saying "Dale Vince loves the club" "Dale Vince is committed to the club". Sure he is, Max Griggs was committed to us, loved the club etc. There will come a day when Vince has to stop funding the club either through his own choice or through external factors. I hope for the genuine FGR fans' sake that this is done in some far off fantasy future where he has turned the club to be self sustaining. Rushden & Diamonds FC is the cautionary tale here, and if you claim there aren't very strong parallels then I'd like to hear your reasoning.

On the value of advertising. I'd question how much it would cost to advertise on a Premier League team's shirt for a year, in fact I did and found this... http://www.totalsportek.com/football/premier-league-shirt-sponsorship-deals/

Theoretically that's 7 teams in the premier league where the shirt sponsorship deal for last season would have been cheaper than £3.0m (well six and one equal). I can only use the published figures to estimate, but it's interesting to point out that the size of the market Vince reaches with FGR has got to be less than the the size reached by say, the shirt sponsors of Watford or even Nowrich (Leicester is an anomaly to be fair, given that it's the owner's company), deals which are less over the lifetime than Vince drops in to FGR (even if you say that losses would go down to 1M - a figure plucked from the air and pure fantasy IMO unless the club changes how it acts). I find it difficult to argue FGR give better sponsorhip value than those shirt deals.

On the tiredness of this conversation - it is stale. It will continue to be stale long after FGR are gone and another team does the same. It's a story that will get repeated again and again until there are checks and balances put in place to prevent it. Even then some will get around them. We're an extreme case, both in the rise and fall, but FGR are the side coming closest to us...

 

[Minstermen central]

There's a number of ways in which that statement can be read. He says that amount would "keep the club running comfortably for a couple of years". That can be read as he's putting in roughly 350k a year, or they have a 350k a year playing budget, or they have a 350k a year overall operating budget. If it's a 350k a year overall budget then it's probably around right to possibly slightly modest.

For example 15*500*23 (just to simplify the numbers) = gate receipts of £172,500 (i.e. half the required income). It's all speculative beyond that, maybe someone who has looked at more clubs accounts can accurately say what proportion of income gate receipts generally make up? 50% wouldn't be too ridiculous, not when you consider sponsorship, merchandise etc.



I've had to point it out on this forum before, but Kettering haven't gone bust. They've gone extremely close on multiple occasions but they still exist. I have no idea why that is a pervading opinion. I also believe Grays didn't go bust but voluntarily relegated themselves and ended up at step 5 as a result, but were (are) technically speaking the same club.

I'm not speaking up on behalf of FGR fans who are onboard the hype train, just suggesting that the facts thrown back to counter are actually true...

For those saying "Dale Vince loves the club" "Dale Vince is committed to the club". Sure he is, Max Griggs was committed to us, loved the club etc. There will come a day when Vince has to stop funding the club either through his own choice or through external factors. I hope for the genuine FGR fans' sake that this is done in some far off fantasy future where he has turned the club to be self sustaining. Rushden & Diamonds FC is the cautionary tale here, and if you claim there aren't very strong parallels then I'd like to hear your reasoning.

On the value of advertising. I'd question how much it would cost to advertise on a Premier League team's shirt for a year, in fact I did and found this... http://www.totalsportek.com/football/premier-league-shirt-sponsorship-deals/

Theoretically that's 7 teams in the premier league where the shirt sponsorship deal for last season would have been cheaper than £3.0m (well six and one equal). I can only use the published figures to estimate, but it's interesting to point out that the size of the market Vince reaches with FGR has got to be less than the the size reached by say, the shirt sponsors of Watford or even Nowrich (Leicester is an anomaly to be fair, given that it's the owner's company), deals which are less over the lifetime than Vince drops in to FGR (even if you say that losses would go down to 1M - a figure plucked from the air and pure fantasy IMO unless the club changes how it acts). I find it difficult to argue FGR give better sponsorhip value than those shirt deals.

On the tiredness of this conversation - it is stale. It will continue to be stale long after FGR are gone and another team does the same. It's a story that will get repeated again and again until there are checks and balances put in place to prevent it. Even then some will get around them. We're an extreme case, both in the rise and fall, but FGR are the side coming closest to us...

Good post,just catching up again on non league,I did think Kettering had gone bust,what has happened at Rushden,seem to remember you still have a team,what division are you in and what has happened to ground,think it was Nene park?made a couple of trips and enjoyed it.

 

[Jemfy]

Good post,just catching up again on non league,I did think Kettering had gone bust,what has happened at Rushden,seem to remember you still have a team,what division are you in and what has happened to ground,think it was Nene park?made a couple of trips and enjoyed it.

We did go under and reformed. We're now in the Northern Premier League Division 1 South (see Northern Premier League thread for updates throughout the season). We currently play at the Dog & Duck in Wellingborough, however have just been given a year notice by the landlord who has activated the break clause. Nene Park is owned by the former R&DFC owner Keith Cousins and his Conalgen company (registered in Panama, other investors/owners not known). They have just been denied planning permission to put a retail park on the site. The ground currently sits empty and unused.

 

[Solihull Mooron]

Our captain Theo Streete is out for the entire season. I can't see how we're going to survive.

 

[Monkey Tennis]

Our captain Theo Streete is out for the entire season. I can't see how we're going to survive.

Have any of the promoted sides signed many players? Those four and Southport could be battling for 20th.

 

[Silver Stone]

Yeah we've signed a few, nothing too inspiring on the goal front but I'm hoping our defence will be good enough to keep us up.

 

[Monkey Tennis]

Ferriby look in real trouble. Just average Conference North players really - lost to Bridlington as well today.

 

[CrazyImp]

Ferriby look in real trouble. Just average Conference North players really - lost to Bridlington as well today.

Ferriby were in trouble the moment they won promotion - they aren't staying up, pure and simple.

 

[JaredSUFC]

Have any of the promoted sides signed many players? Those four and Southport could be battling for 20th.

We've only signed two so far, but I'm confident that our core squad from last season will be OK to decent at this level

 

[John Still]

A few weeks back I would have said play offs or at least top eight for us but with all the shenanigans surrounding us now I would predict 12-16th place come May, if we're still in business and don't have points deducted.

We have no depth to our squad and there will be no more signing.

 

[Chris FGR]

A few weeks back I would have said play offs or at least top eight for us but with all the shenanigans surrounding us now I would predict 12-16th place come May, if we're still in business and don't have points deducted.

We have no depth to our squad and there will be no more signing.

Realistic title contenders

FGR
Tranmere
Eastleigh
Dagenham

Good stuff, one down two to go.

 

[East Bank Shot]

We've only signed two so far, but I'm confident that our core squad from last season will be OK to decent at this level

Having watched you in our FA Cup game last season, I'd agree with you. Have you got a similar squad to the team that played that day? You looked organised and tough to break down but lacked any goal threat really. Have you still got Fitchett?

 

[Luke Imp]

Realistic title contenders

FGR
Tranmere
Eastleigh
Dagenham

Good stuff, one down two to go.

Tranmere have Brabin, so that's another down.

 

[White Army]

Tranmere have Brabin, so that's another down.

I don't think brabin will be given long enough this season to fuck it up. He's lucky to be given a second chance and the owners want promotion and have given him the money to assemble a squad capable of promotion.

 

[Chris FGR]

I don't think brabin will be given long enough this season to fuck it up. He's lucky to be given a second chance and the owners want promotion and have given him the money to assemble a squad capable of promotion.

How long do you think he'll last? And how good a chance is there that Harvey might replace him if he does go?

 

[White Army]

How long do you think he'll last? And how good a chance is there that Harvey might replace him if he does go?

If it's not working in the first 10-15 games I can see him going. He's already not popular with the majority of fans but most are prepared to give him a second chance as in the past sacking managers hasn't done us any favours. He needs a good start though.

As for Harvey, i'd imagine he would be first pick for a lot of people and he's still regularly seen in the suites after games. Would definitely be in the running.

 

[JaredSUFC]

Having watched you in our FA Cup game last season, I'd agree with you. Have you got a similar squad to the team that played that day? You looked organised and tough to break down but lacked any goal threat really. Have you still got Fitchett?

The majority of the team we fielded that day is still at the club. Including Fitchett who ended up with 21 goals, although they came in batches. When we played you it was before we clicked into gear. We ended up as top scorers in the division alongside our solid defence

 

[Steve_Wafc]

So that's what happened to Dan Fitchett. Last I heard about him was when he was at Aldershot. He was highly rated a few seasons ago. Obviously never set the world alight there..

 

[slaphead]

So that's what happened to Dan Fitchett. Last I heard about him was when he was at Aldershot. He was highly rated a few seasons ago. Obviously never set the world alight there..

He did alright with us, including a screamer at yours a couple of seasons back if I remember, but fell out with The Football Genius™ Andy Scott and ended up out the side for long periods, and playing as a winger if and when he got the odd 20mins. Scott sent him off on loan and we never saw him again.

 

[JaredSUFC]

We've had Fitch at the club since January 2015. I think at the time Shots fans were disappointed to see him go