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General Category => Altrincham FC First Team => Topic started by: Alty Dave on January 09, 2007, 10:43:46 PM
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Is the league going into meltdown?
Now Weymouth are in trouble as well as Rushden.
I think once you are in non league it is folly to stay full time unless you draw large crowds i.e Oxford?
I am glad we are nearly straight (financially) then we can hoefully build from there. :) :)
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Graham Heathcote has, for a long time, said that the Conference should be primarily a semi pro league to be sustainable.
Evidence would seem to suggest he is right and credit, once more, must be given to Mr Goodwin & the board for agreeing.
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Fully agree they have done a brillant job, long may they do so ;D ;D
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And so say all of us.......well me anyway ;D
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GH is right. The Conference should be a semi pro league. Last season and now this season it seems as though nearly every month another full time team living way beyond their means gets found out .i.e. Canvey Island, Crawley, Scarborough last season and now Weymouth, R and D and weird things seem to be going on at Grays. Seems that we can all see it but so many teams must think they'll be okay and the exception to the rule of living well beyond your means in this league. Craziness! As Smiffy stated, thank goodness Alty are well run, practical, and we are fielding a pretty damn decent part time team this season as we did last year. Just makes me wonder though if all our agonizing over points from each game and where we might get enough points from games coming up to stay up will all be for nothing because 4 teams will go belly up and therefore once again the relegation issue in The Conf will be voided this season as well. We'll see.... I'll shut up now!
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Not only are there weymouth, Crawley and Rushden who are currently in the news, but don't forget that we also have Halifax and possibly northwich too if you believe the rumours!
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I won't be impressed if Tamuff survive relegation again through other clubs misfortune.
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I don't think any Alty fan would take any great pleasure from seeing a club suffer off the pitch, particularly given our own recent problems. We learnt the hard way, others will have to do the same.
There are clubs in this league who CAN operate full time. The problem is generally with the traditional non-league clubs who spend beyond their means to try and compete and then fall apart when the money runs out.
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Let's face it if these teams keep gambling on promotion with overspending then its ideal for a club like Alty to try to stablise ourselves in this league, don't like to see teams go bust but dont like to see them having 20k wage budgets either!
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I went to a St Albans game at the end of last season with a couple of mates, and found myself standing next to former Weymouth chairman Ian Ridley. He commented on future meltdown as they apparantly had several players on contract on wages which could prove to be well above the conference wage cap levels. This appears to be substantiated by recent events.
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as we always say. "When will clubs ever learn" .. Kettering being another good , future example.
Whilst everyone is going into meltdown and struggling we will continue to do what we are and benefit as we won't have to restructure.
As I always said I don't understand how you can operate full time on crowds of less than 2,000, and of course other avenues of income.
Grays, Weymouth, Crawley ... all a bit obvious when you look at home support and money paid on wages. Obvious the sums don't add up. and to add to that Rushden who are £600,000 in debt.. JESUS CHRIST ! Then again Rushden do have possibly the worst commercial bloke in history as there have been hardly any sponsor boards around the ground whenever I have been.
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The root of the problem in my opinion was the Conference management's aggressive wish to have more teams going up and down from the Football League, thus flooding the Conference with clubs like Oxford, Carlisle, Exeter, York, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Chester, Cambridge etc. who were always going to raise the competition bar beyond the means of clubs like Weymouth, Canvey, Telford, Margate, Crawley, etc. not because they are/were better sides, but because their crowds, averaging a minimum of 2,500 and in Oxford's case over 6,000 (!), would always give them more money under the wage cap rule.
A well run part-time club like Altrincham will be here for years to come while the likes of Weymouth, Crawley, Gravesend, Accrington etc will disappear into the abyss precisely because these clubs cannot compete long term with clubs with a bigger financial structure. On a bigger scale, the same thing happened to Leeds - they tried to compete with Man United, Arsenal etc and managed it for a couple of years but it could never be sustainable. The ultimate in "sh*t or bust" football.
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The root of the problem in my opinion was the Conference management's aggressive wish to have more teams going up and down from the Football League, thus flooding the Conference with clubs like Oxford, Carlisle, Exeter, York, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Chester, Cambridge etc. who were always going to raise the competition bar beyond the means of clubs like Weymouth, Canvey, Telford, Margate, Crawley, etc. not because they are/were better sides, but because their crowds, averaging a minimum of 2,500 and in Oxford's case over 6,000 (!), would always give them more money under the wage cap rule.
A well run part-time club like Altrincham will be here for years to come while the likes of Weymouth, Crawley, Gravesend, Accrington etc will disappear into the abyss precisely because these clubs cannot compete long term with clubs with a bigger financial structure. On a bigger scale, the same thing happened to Leeds - they tried to compete with Man United, Arsenal etc and managed it for a couple of years but it could never be sustainable. The ultimate in "sh*t or bust" football.
You've hit the nail on the head! :)