Perspective

[Wynonie Harris]

Originally Posted by Stanleymad

£3 million is what he wants for it

That's really depressed me...because, in my view, what it means is that Eric has taken the club into the football league and sooner or later, he will be taking us out of it.

Never mind, Mrs H always did like a mooch around York.

[lancsdave]

Originally Posted by Wynonie Harris

That's really depressed me...because, in my view, what it means is that Eric has taken the club into the football league and sooner or later, he will be taking us out of it.

Never mind, Mrs H always did like a mooch around York.

Thats not including stock in the club shop, so add a tenner on

[Tin Monkey]

Originally Posted by Give us the old gree

When was the last accounts published and when was the last AGM recorded ???

And better still, when was the last shareholders' meeting? There hasn't been one since Eric took over.

[Give us the old gree]

Originally Posted by Tin Monkey

And better still, when was the last shareholders' meeting? There hasn't been one since Eric took over.

Do you know why ??? because we dont count

Tinpotidness

[Stanleymad]

Originally Posted by Give us the old gree

Do you know why ??? because we dont count

Tinpotidness

Are you a shareholder then ????

[Tin Monkey]

Originally Posted by Stanleymad

Are you a shareholder then ????

We're a select bunch

[maccawozzagod]

Originally Posted by Give us the old gree

When was the last accounts published and when was the last AGM recorded ???

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...ims-24259.html

which a couple of weeks later must have prompted this

Accrington Stanley

that was on the 6th December so they must be about due for publication again!



***edit**** link does not work properly


Club statement ( Wednesday 6th Dec 2006 )

accounts FYE May 2006

The accounts to the end of last season show a turnover of £667,846, with a small profit of £30,277. This is fantastic news as it shows that we made the return to the Football League but kept within our budget, and most importantly didn’t spend money that wasn’t coming in. Further details of the accounts for this period will be published in Saturday's match day programme for the game against MK Dons.

Playing budgets

This season we are on target for a turnover of around £1m, and once again our expenditure on player’s wages is budgeted accordingly to ensure that we don’t spend more than we have coming in. However this means the average annual salary of one of our players is half of that of the average for a player in League Two. To put it simply, this is the reason why we are missing out on the players that Coley has tried to bring in, and in recent months four or five players that we showed an interest in coming to Accrington went to other clubs who could offer more money. It is why we have young players on loan instead of experienced Football League players. Our annual playing staff costs for this financial year will still be in excess of £600k, without the salaries of the managers and coaching staff etc. If we are to stay in the Football League, and indeed continue to progress, our playing budget must rise. But before we can do this we need to make sure we can cover the increase either by improving existing revenue streams or introducing new ones.

Increasing revenue

Of course it would be great if there were people who wanted to donate money to the club to help fund an increase in our playing budget, but we don’t expect anyone to do that. All we ask is that people try to support the club in a number of small ways.

Attendances have been a little low compared to other clubs that we have competed against in recent years, however as we have never budgeted for big gates this has not affected the financial stability of the club. It does however have an impact on our ability to take the club forward, and we will continue to look at ways of attracting more supporters to the club. Our family tickets have been very successful this season and we continue to expand our work with local children with our holiday soccer schools and Saturday morning coaching sessions. Once again we would urge the people of Accrington and the surrounding area to come down and have a look at what we have to offer.

Those that do come to games we would ask to maybe pick up a programme if they don’t normally, probably one of the best in the league in terms of quality and content with plenty to read. Perhaps have a go on our half time 50/50 draw, only £1 a go, or stop after the game and have a few drinks with us in the Sports Bar. All these are small things that cost a few quid, but which are vital to the club in increasing our revenue.

Even people that maybe can’t get to matches can still support the club, we run a weekly draw with a £2,000 first prize each week, a £5,000 each month and a £10,000 prize twice a year. There are also hundreds of other small prizes, with much better odds of winning than the National Lottery! Most importantly, over 65p in every pound comes direct to the club to be used to take Accrington Stanley forwards, and also this is an income we can rely on 52 weeks of the year. Finally we have some great items to suit all budgets in our Stanley Store here at the club and in our outlets at the Fraser Eagle Store in town and at Oswaldtwistle Mills, why not get someone in your family something from the club for Christmas?

Spend your pennies with us

Every single penny that comes into the club is used to take the club forward. It would be great to have one person give us £10,000 to spend, however it would be even better to get 10,000 people to give us a £1, that way there are far more people involved and there are more people that feel a part of the club. Every time you spend even the smallest amount of money at Accrington Stanley you are helping us, not just to survive but to continue to progress.

The future

Looking to the future we are also aiming to developing other revenue streams, we hope to transform the Sports Bar to make it a more modern facility that we can use for hospitality on match days and also conferencing during the week, and we plan to add other hospitality areas to fulfil the demand for match day sponsorship. We are also expecting good news regarding grant funding for the covering of the North Terrace in the next few weeks.

Longer term we have had some initial discussions regarding relocating to another site, though these are at a very early stage and obviously any developments would be several years away. We do have to decide over the coming months though whether we spend money developing the present site or look at other options for the future.

[Haz66]

Its kinda funny as on Saturday night as i was waiting for my numbers to come up on the lottery, my son asked me if i`d buy Stanley if i won the jackpot, i answered yes, then we started to work out how much we thought it was worth, and we sort of came to a rough figure of around £1.5M / £2M Tops, so not sure where the other £1M comes from that he`s asking for, i cant see anyone in their right mind paying £3M for Stanley, unless they have unlimited amounts of cash at their dispossal.
I think we should go on the Dragons Den and see if we can get them to buy the club, i think if they were allowed to go through the books though that they would come up with a far smaller figure than the £3M asking price, they`ed probably offer £40,000 for a 50% stake, as seems the norm .
Or maybe we could all write Bill Gates a nice letter asking him to help us out, as it would be a drop in the ocean to him.

The problem is that the revenue is not there to make it a worth while investment, unless you are looking at a really long term one, even if lets say somebody like Bill Gates steps in and throws money at the club and that we end up in the Prem, realistically what do you think the gate would be, my guess is that it still wouldn`t reach 10,000 because the fan base just isn`t there.
So if we accept that, we cant really set our sights on much more than where we are now, ok we might assemble a team that could one day take us to league 1, but i think thats probably about as far as a small club like ours could reach, its not about being defeatist its more about being realistic, that is of course unless a big money man steps in and is prepared to throw money down the drain to take us higher just for the pleasure of seeing Stanley back in the top flight.

[Stanleymad]

True Haz plus the fact of the ground still needs sorting to be proper league standard by end of next year, the carpark & surrounds of the club need the surfaces relaying.

[Wynonie Harris]

Originally Posted by maccawozzagod

However this means the average annual salary of one of our players is half of that of the average for a player in League Two. To put it simply, this is the reason why we are missing out on the players that Coley has tried to bring in, and in recent months four or five players that we showed an interest in coming to Accrington went to other clubs who could offer more money. It is why we have young players on loan instead of experienced Football League players. Our annual playing staff costs for this financial year will still be in excess of £600k, without the salaries of the managers and coaching staff etc. If we are to stay in the Football League, and indeed continue to progress, our playing budget must rise.

Depressing reading and that was based on last season's gates. This season's are even worse - we haven't even broken the 2,000 mark yet. But, as you can see, the club have admitted it themselves - to stay in the league, our playing budget must rise. Presumably, the playing budget hasn't risen and will be depleted even further by the cost of forthcoming ground improvements. It seems to me that the only hope we have is to sell the club to someone who has sufficient capital to invest and fresh ideas to attract the local public. Surely Eric must see that the club is going nowhere at the moment?

[Tin Monkey]

I don't really see the club being worth £500,000, never mind £3m. What assets are there? We don't own the ground, so what else is there? There's the name of course, plus the league status with attached TV rights, but what other assets are there? There isn't a large customer base and if anything, the existing number of customers is actually shrinking.

[Redash]

The value of the club should be equal to or less than, the amount of money you have put in yourself, so when you sell you are not out of pocket.
I don't think it's fair to profit from a club as small as ours.

[maccawozzagod]

we're worth nowhere near £3m as (as already pointed out) we have no real assets as such. The squad is worth diddly, the ground is worth nowt, Stock at Value is next to nil. The only saleable asset is the name. We have all thought for years that the name is more marketable than it currently is but that will rely on more money being spent on pushing.

Accrington could and would spend more on it's club was it shoved down their throats more. A shop in town WILL materialise but will not be sufficient without being pushed. We need to develop brand Stanley and have more partners in town willing to sell it for us. We need advertising boards around town, we need Doctor Proctor staring out of the back end of buses. These type of things will almost certainly not happen under Eric as he is not willing to spend money we don't have on something that may or may not have an immediate effect. We all recognise that we need to be looking for the fans that will come in five or ten years time and that is being targetted by the FITC team, but it needs to be backed up by other things as well. We are currently treading water with regards to these things and maybe a new owner would have a real push at them. But also a new owner may not be prepared to continuously put his hand in his own pocket to subsidise crap gates.

I think that Eric would be quite within his rights to try to make a profit on the sale of HIS club, but nobody sensible would pay more than £1m. And I for one don't want somebody not sensible. Eric will only leave Accrington Stanley in a box

[Owd Bob]

Two scenarios should be looked at:-

Club A - Who pay top wages, have a superb ground and debts of £30m
Club B - Who do not live in a fool's paradise. They work within a limited budget, and have no debts whatsoever.

Which is the most successful club - those with debts and no means of repayment, or little old Stanley? I believe Eric and the board are quite right to keep things in perspective, and not borrow money that the club cannot afford to repay in the near future.

In this, I think we are a unique club. Success in the next 5 years, in my view, would be maintaining league 2 status - We should not even think about promotion until the current foundations are firmly in place ie. more generated income via fans and corporate sponsorship. If this does not materialise, then let's be happy to just be competing at this level.

I would rather see us lose at home to Shrewsbury, than beat the likes of Leigh RMI or Barrow.

[Tin Monkey]

You're missing the point Owd Bob. Nobody is questioning the way Eric has run the club and I'm sure we all appreciate being debt free. However, we can't carry on in the same way we are doing now, otherwise we'll end up playing those very teams you mention in your post.

If the club is going to survive in the League then it needs to operate in a completely different way than it is at the moment, and with Eric at the helm it is never going to do so. You only need to look at the statement issued by the club to realise that it can't continue to operate in the way it is doing at the moment. The club needs investment and that can only come with a change at the top. There is no way that Eric can expect investors to come forward, whilst still holding onto the reigns with both hands, as he suggested last year.

Whether anyone is willing to take over the club and invest in it remains to be seen. If there isn't and the people of Accrington won't support it through the turnstiles, then maybe the experiment has failed and we need to go back to a level where we can exist within our means?

One thing is for sure, though, the club can't stagnate and wait for a miracle. Not even at this time of the year.