www.altyfans.co.uk

Hello there,

Doesn't time fly? Anyway, it's that time of the season for the visit of the once mighty now sh*te York City to Moss Lane, Altrincham FC.

Myself and a mate of mine have taken the day off and are intending to roll into Manchester the lunchtime side of 2pm before heading to sunny Altrincham for a low-key pub crawl around the town. We will obviously be starting at the pub opposite the station (mainly to check if my City scarf is still there) and going on from there, aiming for the bar at Moss Lane probably around 7pm.

Clearly you are all invited to join us whenever you are available, as some of you probably have jobs and stuff and so can't come out to play until 5pm.

Also, if any of you steward types who post on here fancy slipping me a couple of crafty passes to get into the bar at half-time that would be most kind of you, I promise not to start a fight with Hughesy or Ballers (we will be 2-0 up so they might be a little bit upset) and will be nice as pie. After all, I do sponsor your pitch so I am, in effect, a VIP!

After the match, unless we have been completely humilated to the tune of 4 or 5 (possible), we will be hanging around for a few pints before heading into Manchester and then getting the train at quarter past 1am.

See you on Tuesday.

I heard your chairman or somebody from your board (I can't remember exactly who it was) saying the following:

"We'd had a good season where we reached the playoffs. The next year we took a gamble and upped the playing budget, but the gamble didn't work".

I actually like York City as a football club and York as a place but I really think to be making a £400k loss in this league is absolutely absurd. If it all goes tits up it's the fans who will suffer.

They took a gamble LAST season and the losses are covered by the owners of the club, but half of the loss is ground-related.

This season the budget has been slashed. You saw our side for yourselves a few weeks ago - did those players look like they are paid over the odds? If we really WERE going "sh*t or bust" we would be at the top of this league with the other "sh*t or bust" clubs like Torquay, Crawley etc.

Every club has their own stages of development. We will become profitable once we have moved out of our resource-sapping ground into the new stadium. Until then, we have to bite the bullet and pay off loan interest to the tune of £200K+ each season.

In past Alty used to lose money yet the people running the club managed to turn it round. However, part of that success came from exactly the same source as ours will - sale of land owned by the club. You have sold yours and are now doing fine, as we will when our deal is finally resolved in 2012.

As an aside, had Altrincham FC not sold that land would you have made a loss? And, if so, would that mean you were being managed badly as you are claiming York are? You see, it's easy to look at figures and come to the wrong conclusions if you don't analyse them properly.

These figures are for season 2007-8 not for this season, where we have the 8th smallest budget in the Conference.

£200,000 of this loss is the debt incurred by having to buy out the tosser who asset stripped the club, and is not reckless overspending as it may appear.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qjRpa350mF4

York City 3 Altrincham 0 (Brodie 16, 35 Boyes 88)
Att: 2,450 (156 Alty)

It should be a good game tomorrow chaps.

We are actually in pretty good form and should have gone 2-0 up at Burton yesterday and gone on to win the game. Unfortunately we went on to lose but it was a creditable performance. Obviously you are on a high after your derby victory yesterday and are above us in the table so have nothing to fear coming over here.

As always, all Alty supporters and officials will be made welcome in York, come and visit the bar before the game and I shall be in there after the game for a few pints if you want to join me as has become our post-match tradition.

Have a good journey, it's a bit frosty today but hopefully it will clear.

If you need any info then send me a PM although I think you've all been here before!

Sorry chaps, drinking session cancelled as I am now filming the match on behalf of York City so will have to go on the coach.

We'll try again at Christmas!