You can't keep a good man down
Following the sob story last week about Stevie Hayes the BFP are doing their best to get the man back on his feet with a nice advert ...sorry well-researches journalistic piece about the honoured man.
http://m.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/14345173.Former_Wanderers_and_Wasps_owner_attempts_to_restart_business_career_after_police_probe/
Silver picture frames all round is what I say.
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I wonder what made him think of property development as his new business venture.
Im sure he just wants to get on with his life, afteral the CPS found no evidence so doesn't matter what anybody says on here.
Yes he was so wrong trying to take the club to Booker but other than that he did his best for the club in the main, John Gorman would never have done the job he did or have the players he did without the backing of SH.
@rmjlondon you mean give the club loan notes to spend more than we could possibly afford making the situation unsustainable?
The CPS never said he was innocent by the way. Just not enough evidence to prosecute. Different thing really.
Also @EwanHoosaami summed it up really about the loan notes. Pretty much Mr Hayes's business model for his company lending with reckless abandon
Another Groundhog Day series of posts. Bit like the BBC local news recycling news every couple of months.
The only thing I've not said about Hayes but probably should is .....
..... No smoke without fire
"No smoke without fire" is one of the most insidious phrases in the English language. I hate it.
And actually @TheAndyGrahamFanClub yes it does mean he's innocent, that's how our justice system works
Agreed @eric_plant. It's easy to create smoke.
Spot on @eric_plant
No smoke without fire but who can tell who started the fire in the first place?
@eric_plant I never SAID he was either if you read my post. I said the CPS didn't say he was innocent.
I hate this smiling face. I don't feel any sorry or sympathy for him or any of his kind.
Of course you could always ignore the thread and come up with some exciting comment of your own to entice us away from the 'obsession'.
Didn't realise it was up to me @arnos_grove
I'll ask your permission next time
Not required - just a suggestion.
Thought you might like to offer some original content to counter the Groundhog Day posts.
Obviously not.
So now that the big bad wolf is gone we are up to 700K put in by 300 fans. Also loan notes of a sort, just coming from the grass roots supporters (and a generous 100K from AH).
What can we do to get this figure up? In our current capitalist system mvh ney talks, in this case the interest gained from a loan. Is the lack of interest earnings a hinder for getting more pledges or simply lack of supporters with enough left over to invest?
Better than selling the Quarters to some Arabian sugar daddy (or any sugar daddy for that matter!), the key question being how to get more people to invest their oen cash for the betterment of WWFC?
Thinking about it, 300 fans is pretty poor when it constitutes less than 10% of the regular home attendees. There are just too many regulars who just want to pay their cash to watch a game and have no further involvement. The Trust has to convince those people that it's 'their' club, run for their benefit and the club needs more than just gate receipts in order to survive (at least until gate receipts improve significantly).
But making donations to the club via the Share Scheme, which at the moment is effectively what's happening, is somewhat alien to most. Getting something for nothing is OK. Getting nothing for something? On yer bike! Can't see an easy answer I'm afraid.
They could put prices up, then all fans would make an additional contribution to the funding of the club. Not convinced that would be popular though.
@LordMandeville I'm sure there are a fair few, like me, who would love to invest but simply don't have the money. It's all I can afford to save for a season ticket each year.
I think it's a pretty arrogant and short sighted view that, quite simply, more people should invest. Plenty can't afford it and others do just want to 'pay their cash to watch a game and have no further involvement'. I can't see a problem with either scenario and would hate to see these people harrassed to put money in.
I think the club would do better getting investment if they stopped pleading poverty. People would be more engaged investing in a project rather than just filling a hole. I read another Ainsworth article this week saying we had six or seven more years of 'austerity'. I hope that doesn't mean six or seven more years of these articles and bucket shaking.
It's all gone very quiet on the youth development scheme too. I would happily invest in this as it has a goal. Some far though it's been used to deflect people at a public meeting and get some PR. I've not been able to get an answer from anyone about if this scheme is actually happening or if we are waiting for more people to fund it.
I would love to invest but you can only do it online or in person. I live in Somerset and am too disabled to travel to home games, I have only been to Yeovil and Bristiol Rovers away this season as i had a lift to both games. Why can't i invest over the phone? Not everyone is internet savvy you know.
If the club isn't poor, then it wouldn't need the money. I can't quite follow the logic on that one.
I do agree that they'd get more donations if they were saying explicitly what is achieved from the expenditure - eg, such and such a signing has been made possible by the fan contributions. Likely to be a PR exercise rather than the truth, but if it works?
Robin, if you were able to register for this forum, you'll be able to donate online.
I already tried that several times bill. LOL!
Let me have another go at explaining @Chris
Nearly all football clubs at our level are poor. They all need more money. Some fill the gap with external investment and others simply don't care, run up huge debts, write it off and start again. We seem to constantly talk about how poor we are as if we are unique and I think this is stopping some people from investing as they wonder why Wycombe is unique and where is all the money they get is going?
I think you misunderstand my point about having a goal to invest in too. The club have PR'd the new medical equipment and the big screen as uses of the investment money but these aren't goals. These give people different decisions to make. I might not be bothered about the big screen and not want my money being used for it. I wouldn't invest as a result.
The goals need to be more aspirational. Getting the youth team back for example.
This 61 point goal and the five year plan aren't aspirational enough for me. It seems we are merely existing and I'm not sure that floats enough investors boats. Building an infrastructure in the club that brings home grown talent through. That's majorly different.
I agree with @Chris earlier in the thread. Given our trust-owned set up, I'd prefer to see ticket prices at the higher end of the League Two prices rather than the lower end. I'd be willing to pay three or four quid more each match to stand in the terrace, £13 to do so (if I book two days in advance) is ridiculously low. That would be a far better way of raising money than a share scheme - which anyone with a basic grasp of economics will realise is nothing of the sort (no extra say in how the club's run, no chance of making a return on your investment).
On the youth team, I stand by what I wrote straight after this was announced. It's a publicity stunt to mask the fact that the club will need to recruit more players to bulk out the squad next season due to new loan rules. Given the club will only be able to afford released youth teamers, it appears to me to be somewhat of a manipulation to then say that's a move to build a youth team (with the inference that will involve recruiting youngsters from a local area in their early teens and training them up). Any new funding will go to pay for the new coach that GA has clearly requested (c.f. Stevie Craig's rumoured return a few months ago).
The Share Scheme is a year old today. On the Trust web site there's a summary by Nigel Kingston of where that scheme is, what more needs to be achieved and what the contributions so far have been spent on (including aiding the purchase of Michael Harriman). My original post was not intended to be critical of anyone - merely an observation that less than 10% of regular fans have, so far, not invested. I think that's poor but Nigel Kingston says it's a 'remarkable achievement'. One of us is wrong.
'Invested', not 'not invested'.
@LordMandeville Being brutally honest I think it's you that is wrong. I haven't invested yet and would love to know a compelling reason why it is my duty to do so. So far the club has relied on blind faith but in an age where every pound is stretched for everyone why is investing in Wycome Wanderers better than my pension, a charity or simply a good night out?
I will probably invest at some stage. I'm just not ready or able to do so now. How does that fit in to your thought that the investment rate is poor?
I agree RitM, why should fans be expected to invest spare cash in WWFC when this could be given to charity? We really should be aiming at sustainability without fan donations, which I'm sure we are.
In terms of your earlier point, I think we are 'merely existing', and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Read it as 36% of their target in year 1 of 5 and it sounds pretty good it all depends on how you write the headline . Personally I shall invest this year but only after Mrs Ital has forgotten how much I paid for my season ticket.
We are a small club and will have supporters able to invest now , unable or unwilling to invest at all or who are looking for a sneaky way to get it past their partners at some future date there's no disgrace in any of them.
I really think we shouldn't get bogged down with the percentage of the regular supporters investing lets just concentrate on the overall figure over the 5 years and most importantly if it achieves the trusts goals.
As you say, we are 16% ahead of target which is an excellent effort. The club has forecast sensibly in terms of how many fans it expects to invest.