Acouple more news articles for you

[sparkie]

Found both of these on team talk this morning :-

Accrington suffered a 2-1 friendly defeat against newly-promoted Blue Square Premier side Barrow on Saturday.
In what was Stanley's final away game of their pre-season campaign, the Reds struggled against a pacey Bluebird's attacking line which scored two before the half-time break.
Former Reds' striker Jason Walker netted twice before Stanley midfielder Ian Craney pulled one back late in the second half, the goal coming too late to have any effect on the final result.
John Coleman's men face a tough final friendly against Everton at the Fraser Eagle Stadium on Wednesday before kicking off the new season against Aldershot on August 9.

also :-

Aldershot manager Gary Waddock insists his side have ``something to prove'' when they kick off their League Two campaign against Accrington next weekend.
The Shots won promotion back to the Football League last season after 16 years of non-league football, and are set to reacquaint themselves with former non-league opponents Stanley on the opening day of the new season.
Following their 2-0 friendly victory against a Charlton XI on Saturday, Waddock told the club's official website: ``Our pre-season is now over.
``The results of the previous few weeks have won us nothing and we will now focus fully on preparing for our trip to Accrington next Saturday.
``Some of us, me included, feel we have something to prove following setbacks in our previous careers.''

Teamtalk has something on nearly every day stanley wise, I quite like it. Accrington | English League Two | Football News from TEAMtalk

[Tin Monkey]

It'll be a very tough opening game next Saturday. I was looking at the Aldershot squad and they have quite a few ex-Northern based players in there (Grant, Chalmers, Howells, Blackburn, etc).

In midfield they look very strong with Lewis Chalmers (ex-Alty) and Ben Harding being seen by many as a very creative and solid partnership. Did you know that we had Chalmers a few years ago, but we released him?

Be interesting to see how things go, won't it?

[Tommy McQueen]

So Sparkie, it looks as though we going to have a third season of struggling. I just hope our home form is better than last season, or there will be no one watching again. Can Eric not see further than his nose end? If he would speculate and pay a bit more to the players he would get a better team, winning more games equals more people watching,more money through gate,enabling him to pay bigger wages. If this season turns out to be as I suspect it will I will seriously consider stopping watching, even though I have bought my season ticket.I feel very pesimistic at this time, it's no wonder after watching the rubbish served up after the last two seasons. I know for a fact that I'm not on my own. Lets hope Coley proves me wrong.

[maccawozzagod]

Originally Posted by Tommy McQueen

If he would speculate and pay a bit more to the players he would get a better team,

well thats not strictly true though is it? There were seven teams last year that all paid more in wages than us but all finished below us.

I personally would like to see 'speculation' in terms of putting some money into the ****poor infrastructure. The people being paid to do a job must be allowed to do that job and if they need more money to do it then give it to them. The shop needs to be bigger and needs to stock more - if you aint got it you can't sell it. The beer huts need to be stocked - if you aint got it you can't sell it. And so on and so forth.

Each and every aspect of the club should be scrutinised and appraised in order to ascertain where it can be improved. Even a well oiled and functioning business can always improve. We are neither of those things. Improve the basics and the people will start to come back - but if they dont then we need to be able to get more out of those that do come (and not by putting prices up)

[JEFF]

Originally Posted by maccawozzagod

well thats not strictly true though is it? There were seven teams last year that all paid more in wages than us but all finished below us.

Please tell me how much we paid in wages last year and then tell me how much the seven teams who finished below us paid in wages last year, and I will believe what you say. Until somebody comes up with figures to prove that we pay the lowest wages in league two I wish that people wouldn't quote that when making excuses for Stanley

[cashman]

Originally Posted by JEFF

Please tell me how much we paid in wages last year and then tell me how much the seven teams who finished below us paid in wages last year, and I will believe what you say. Until somebody comes up with figures to prove that we pay the lowest wages in league two I wish that people wouldn't quote that when making excuses for Stanley

well i heard it from eric, Jeff,

[maccawozzagod]

Originally Posted by JEFF

Please tell me how much we paid in wages last year and then tell me how much the seven teams who finished below us paid in wages last year, and I will believe what you say. Until somebody comes up with figures to prove that we pay the lowest wages in league two I wish that people wouldn't quote that when making excuses for Stanley

well it was well publicised when we we announced that the average wage was £52k and we paid an average £27k

beyond that quote crowds and turnover seemingly went down so I would assume we are not paying substantially more than that now. I also concede though that an average is skewed by the higher earners such as Peterborough so the most common wage is probably nearer to £40k. But I take your point that nobody really knows.

What I do know is that;
Wrexhams average crowds of 4234 last season work out at £1, 655 494 over 23 home games based on a £16 (lowest adult) admission
Mansfield works out at £1 037 760 @ £16
Shrewsbuy works out at £2 342 412 @ £18
Notts County works out at £1 959 048 @ £18
Grimsby works out at £1 513 952 @ £16

Stanleys gate income on the equivalent formula equates to £488 267

and seeing as you can only spend 60% or whatever of your turnover on wages that leaves us - based soley on gate money able to spend
£5633 per week on players wages against
£19 101 @ Wrexham
£11 974 @ Mansfield
£27 027 @ Shrewsbury
£22 604 @ Notts County
£17 468 @ Grimsby

as I said that is based only on gate money but I would assume that every one of those clubs were making a vast increase on our turnover through programme sales, food and drink sales, club shop etc to name just matchday as income. The minimum hospitality at all those clubs is £1500 for matchday sponsorship and they all had superior numbers of packages to offer, as well as seated meals for anywhere between 50 and 750 people at a lowest price of £30 per head.

The numbers quoted for wages at all of those clubs (who all finished below us) will be significantly higher (available to spend) when you include their total turnover)

Just because you have it to spend doesn't mean that you will spend the full 60% (or more if you are 'inventive') but my guess is that most clubs will be somewhere near the cap. Except the poorer clubs who will be pretty much bang on it to get anywhere near competitive.

If we pay £27k (average) to 20 players that is a £540k annual wage and at 60% means we need to be turning over £900k annually to be able to pay that. Are we getting that through the gate? No.

So if the argument is that we are paying more than what we quoted then can you explain to me exactly how we manage that?

[Bagpuss]

I think like me you need to get out more Rob but that is a pretty good arguement don't you think Jeff?

[JEFF]

Originally Posted by Bagpuss

I think like me you need to get out more Rob but that is a pretty good arguement don't you think Jeff?

It may be a good arguement but it is all based on assumptions. Nobody can quote hard facts, so nobody can say for definate that we pay the lowest wages in the league. We can only assume that we pay the lowest wages in the league.