I think you are missing the point Wendoverman. We all know we have been unlucky with injuries and that we don't have an open chequebook. The point really is, are we still too cash strapped or maybe even insolvent, meaning we simply cannot replace the senior players who have left our squad since last season.
It isn't being negative at all, it is simply trying to understand our position.
I'm sure I wasn't missing @Wwfc2015_ 's point @Blue_since_1990 which is to carp about everything and anything. I share your concerns about the squad signings and injuries and the need to know more about the finances. All of which are legitimate concerns. My remarks about negativity were directed more towards the sky is falling brigade...
Point taken Wendoverman. I certainly remain optimistic about our season ahead but as you say, those underlying concerns about finances and lack of signings are there right now.
Few things in life are entirely a good thing with no negative consequences. You just have to balance the negatives against the positives and conclude which way the net positive lies.
@DevC There were only five teams in League 2 last season who had a 20-goal-a-year striker – that’s a lot of “sugar daddy” teams who didn’t. In the season before (2015-2016), one fan-owned League 2 team had a 20-goal striker. In the season before that (2014-2015), the only player to hit 20 goals played for fan-owned teams - Portsmouth and Wimbledon (on loan).
There’s no obvious evidence to suggest that being fan-owned means you can’t attract top quality players, you just have to work that bit harder and take slightly greater risks in your recruitment. I’d argue that the biggest obstacle Wycombe have in unearthing such a player isn’t signing them in the first place, but playing expansive football to supply them with enough goal scoring chances.
There is no guarantee of success or failure under either a fan or privately owned structure, even at Lg2 level. There is no compulsion for a private owner to inject money into a club. They often do however and while there may be many benefits t being fan owned, one disadvantage is that paying budgets are likely to be lower than competitor clubs and that means it is harder to attract proven talent. We try to overcome that, for example by offering two year contracts to experienced players, but inevitably proven talent is more likely to go to Mansfield or Luton than WWFC. GA has had great success in overcoming this disadvantage (albeit perhaps playing a style not welcome to some) but probably will not succeed every year. You must balance the advantages and disadvantages of the two ownership models and may well conclude that fan ownership is the best model. That is fair enough. To pretend there are no disadvantages to go with the advangages of either model is frankly unrealistic.
A club our size with our wage budget is unlikely to be signing a proven striker. Far more likely we must sign a young kid (who may prove to be what we want) or an experienced old hand (eg Tyson) who might just come good.
My expectation for this season ? Stay fan owned and finish broadly mid table. I see nothing intrinsically wrong with that.
@Blue_since_1990 re your last one: Naturally, the club will take on some expense in posting out the season tickets.
Re your earlier one: Did any particular event in the past two or three years make you think the club was flush with funds with which to buy whatever players took our eye? It's still a fan-owned club - no mysterious Chinese backers, no secret source of income. We've gates a little below average for the league (last season) and no meaningful assets outside of the ground and the squad. Of course we've not got much money.
If you want to do something to help, assuming you're not a mysterious Chinese backer, turn up at the next volunteer day and put some time into the club so that the money saved there can go to wages for more or better players. Or volunteer to help on the bars or in some other way. I think John Derben, a Director of the Trust, may be the best person to speak to about helping out. His email, as well as that of the other directors, is here: https://www.wycombewanderers.co.uk/fans/wycombe-wanderers-trust/
@Blue_since_1990 I think you may be a little overly-pessimistic about our financial position. Logic would suggest we tried out a few trialists with the hope that if they were deemed suitable we would take them on. The fact that we haven't (yet) suggests that they didn't come up to the mark (as per AP at Bristol). Presumably there was a budget (of sorts) to take on any trialists which can now be presumably used for any other trialists still looking for clubs at this stage or, more likely, loanees from higher up the ladder when they become surplus to requirements th their first team squads.
There could also be a KH factor. If the runes are suggesting that he may be on the move AND we are the beneficiaries of an impending windfall, it is possible that we've had a change of strategy and are thinking of higher quality additions than we may have been a week or two ago if all the pieces fall together.
@DevC whilst not particularly disagreeing with your view that the age of austerity should continue, a more left-field suggestion would be that the continued lack of growth in attendances could be stimulated by new investment in player quality.
Removing tongue.... if the existing financial plan to pay back creditors is sustainable and sensible and takes no account of potential one-off windfalls there could be some advantage in making the fare more attractive to discerning customers with some new fashions.
I think something like this argument reverberated around the club in the late 80's - early 90's
Hypothetically Booker, if you were chain and had debts of say £500k repayable in the next three years and you got a windfall that would not be repeated of &500k, would you get rid of debt or speculate on spending it on wages in the hope you might increase revenue by more?
Hypothetically @DevC it would depend on how robust and confident of my plans to pay back £500k. To give another (real) example if I was to get a windfall (early pension lump sum) that would pay off my remaking £75k mortgage would I do that, knowing that I have a sustainable plan to pay the remainder off over the remaining 10 years or so, or would I invest the money in a much needed extension that would improve the quality of my life and that of my family (I chose the latter). Does that answer your hypothetical question enough?
Quick recap on the cost of posting season tickets. Someone this morning said they were charged £1.50. I now regret trying to encourage collection as, on the face of it, that would actually result in a loss of income!
@micra said:
Quick recap on the cost of posting season tickets. Someone this morning said they were charged £1.50. I now regret trying to encourage collection as, on the face of it, that would actually result in a loss of income!
I've checked my invoice and there was no charge levied for postage. I don't see how there could be now unless they tried to take it from the credit card- which has now been replaced. And as we're now coming tonight the club has gained income so your conscience is clear in our case at least.
@Manboobs I'm not 100% sure but I do seem to remember the guy on the phone asking if I wanted it posting out to me and if I did saying it would be £1.50 (or something like that). That may be because I live miles away though and might not have been offered to everyone?
each to their own, booker. As far as I know Corbyn hasn't licensed the magic money tree to WWFC, so any future debt repayments will need to be made either from future gate receipts or from one off windfalls. With few windfalls appearing on the horizon after Hause, I would expect any windfall from him to be targeted towards clearing debts that need financing in the next 3-4 years rather than increasing the playing budget in the hope of attracting higher revenues as a result.
I agree re re debts @DevC. One thought re potential future windfall though. It's surely not inconceivable that the likes of Southwell, Gape, Freeman, Rowe and, in particular, Kashket (if only a cure for his cursed hip flexor problem could be found) might attract interest from bigger clubs.
Its possible of course, Micra with the most likely of the ones you list being Gape. I would have thought Southwell, Rowe and Freeman have a very long way to go before being vaguely a likely transfer receipt. Kashket could have been if he kept up his scoring from last season but injury sadly appears to scupper that possibility.
Interesting choice to pick Gape, Southwell, Rowe and Freeman over O'Nien, De Havilland and Muller all of whom roughly the same age. Of the seven there I would probably give Onien second place in potential transfer stakes with other five much of a muchness.
Kashket would have been real hot property without his limiting injury. But unfortunately, the "how have we managed to get him" has very quickly changed to "oh that's how". Fingers crossed for the future though!
O Nien would probably be higher on other club's radars before we switched him from goalscoring mid to deep lying clogger.
Gape might be along the lines of a Scowen. Hopefully we keep all three fit and well for a long while, as they're cracking players in our division/
Comments
I think you are missing the point Wendoverman. We all know we have been unlucky with injuries and that we don't have an open chequebook. The point really is, are we still too cash strapped or maybe even insolvent, meaning we simply cannot replace the senior players who have left our squad since last season.
It isn't being negative at all, it is simply trying to understand our position.
DevC, I for one totally ignore your comments as they come from someone who rarely attends a game.
I'm sure I wasn't missing @Wwfc2015_ 's point @Blue_since_1990 which is to carp about everything and anything. I share your concerns about the squad signings and injuries and the need to know more about the finances. All of which are legitimate concerns. My remarks about negativity were directed more towards the sky is falling brigade...
Point taken Wendoverman. I certainly remain optimistic about our season ahead but as you say, those underlying concerns about finances and lack of signings are there right now.
I'd say the biggest negative to accompany fan ownership is Dev's constant posting of the same point ad nauseum
Aside from that it is literally entirely a good thing
Few things in life are entirely a good thing with no negative consequences. You just have to balance the negatives against the positives and conclude which way the net positive lies.
@DevC There were only five teams in League 2 last season who had a 20-goal-a-year striker – that’s a lot of “sugar daddy” teams who didn’t. In the season before (2015-2016), one fan-owned League 2 team had a 20-goal striker. In the season before that (2014-2015), the only player to hit 20 goals played for fan-owned teams - Portsmouth and Wimbledon (on loan).
There’s no obvious evidence to suggest that being fan-owned means you can’t attract top quality players, you just have to work that bit harder and take slightly greater risks in your recruitment. I’d argue that the biggest obstacle Wycombe have in unearthing such a player isn’t signing them in the first place, but playing expansive football to supply them with enough goal scoring chances.
There is no guarantee of success or failure under either a fan or privately owned structure, even at Lg2 level. There is no compulsion for a private owner to inject money into a club. They often do however and while there may be many benefits t being fan owned, one disadvantage is that paying budgets are likely to be lower than competitor clubs and that means it is harder to attract proven talent. We try to overcome that, for example by offering two year contracts to experienced players, but inevitably proven talent is more likely to go to Mansfield or Luton than WWFC. GA has had great success in overcoming this disadvantage (albeit perhaps playing a style not welcome to some) but probably will not succeed every year. You must balance the advantages and disadvantages of the two ownership models and may well conclude that fan ownership is the best model. That is fair enough. To pretend there are no disadvantages to go with the advangages of either model is frankly unrealistic.
A club our size with our wage budget is unlikely to be signing a proven striker. Far more likely we must sign a young kid (who may prove to be what we want) or an experienced old hand (eg Tyson) who might just come good.
My expectation for this season ? Stay fan owned and finish broadly mid table. I see nothing intrinsically wrong with that.
Some further reading for the interested:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.pitchero.com/clubs/9969/Businessadvantagesofsupportercommunityownership.pdf
Broadly mid table could mean anything! Nice one Dev.
@Blue_since_1990 re your last one: Naturally, the club will take on some expense in posting out the season tickets.
Re your earlier one: Did any particular event in the past two or three years make you think the club was flush with funds with which to buy whatever players took our eye? It's still a fan-owned club - no mysterious Chinese backers, no secret source of income. We've gates a little below average for the league (last season) and no meaningful assets outside of the ground and the squad. Of course we've not got much money.
If you want to do something to help, assuming you're not a mysterious Chinese backer, turn up at the next volunteer day and put some time into the club so that the money saved there can go to wages for more or better players. Or volunteer to help on the bars or in some other way. I think John Derben, a Director of the Trust, may be the best person to speak to about helping out. His email, as well as that of the other directors, is here: https://www.wycombewanderers.co.uk/fans/wycombe-wanderers-trust/
Hard to see how broadly midtable could mean much else than broadly midtable - 9th to 16thish, Peter.
I'll read your article this evening or tomorrow when I have the time.
@Blue_since_1990 I think you may be a little overly-pessimistic about our financial position. Logic would suggest we tried out a few trialists with the hope that if they were deemed suitable we would take them on. The fact that we haven't (yet) suggests that they didn't come up to the mark (as per AP at Bristol). Presumably there was a budget (of sorts) to take on any trialists which can now be presumably used for any other trialists still looking for clubs at this stage or, more likely, loanees from higher up the ladder when they become surplus to requirements th their first team squads.
There could also be a KH factor. If the runes are suggesting that he may be on the move AND we are the beneficiaries of an impending windfall, it is possible that we've had a change of strategy and are thinking of higher quality additions than we may have been a week or two ago if all the pieces fall together.
I may be a little overly-optimistic here
I hope you are right Bookertease. Also, a percentage of any KH deal would be good.
As noted, elsewhere, KH, if at all, appears likely to be the last transfer windfall for a while.
As such I would have thought that the vast majority would be used for debt repayment rather than playing resources. Probably rightly so too.
Do you know the debt profile then Dev?
@DevC whilst not particularly disagreeing with your view that the age of austerity should continue, a more left-field suggestion would be that the continued lack of growth in attendances could be stimulated by new investment in player quality.
Removing tongue.... if the existing financial plan to pay back creditors is sustainable and sensible and takes no account of potential one-off windfalls there could be some advantage in making the fare more attractive to discerning customers with some new fashions.
I think something like this argument reverberated around the club in the late 80's - early 90's
@Blue_since_1990 , don't start him off please
Hypothetically Booker, if you were chain and had debts of say £500k repayable in the next three years and you got a windfall that would not be repeated of &500k, would you get rid of debt or speculate on spending it on wages in the hope you might increase revenue by more?
Hypothetically @DevC it would depend on how robust and confident of my plans to pay back £500k. To give another (real) example if I was to get a windfall (early pension lump sum) that would pay off my remaking £75k mortgage would I do that, knowing that I have a sustainable plan to pay the remainder off over the remaining 10 years or so, or would I invest the money in a much needed extension that would improve the quality of my life and that of my family (I chose the latter). Does that answer your hypothetical question enough?
@DevC I should point out I have no real problem with either path as long as spending the windfall doesn't derail the repayment plan
Quick recap on the cost of posting season tickets. Someone this morning said they were charged £1.50. I now regret trying to encourage collection as, on the face of it, that would actually result in a loss of income!
I've checked my invoice and there was no charge levied for postage. I don't see how there could be now unless they tried to take it from the credit card- which has now been replaced. And as we're now coming tonight the club has gained income so your conscience is clear in our case at least.
@Manboobs I'm not 100% sure but I do seem to remember the guy on the phone asking if I wanted it posting out to me and if I did saying it would be £1.50 (or something like that). That may be because I live miles away though and might not have been offered to everyone?
each to their own, booker. As far as I know Corbyn hasn't licensed the magic money tree to WWFC, so any future debt repayments will need to be made either from future gate receipts or from one off windfalls. With few windfalls appearing on the horizon after Hause, I would expect any windfall from him to be targeted towards clearing debts that need financing in the next 3-4 years rather than increasing the playing budget in the hope of attracting higher revenues as a result.
Conscience salved - thanks@Manboobs.
I agree re re debts @DevC.
Conscience salved - thanks@Manboobs.
I agree re re debts @DevC. One thought re potential future windfall though. It's surely not inconceivable that the likes of Southwell, Gape, Freeman, Rowe and, in particular, Kashket (if only a cure for his cursed hip flexor problem could be found) might attract interest from bigger clubs.
Its possible of course, Micra with the most likely of the ones you list being Gape. I would have thought Southwell, Rowe and Freeman have a very long way to go before being vaguely a likely transfer receipt. Kashket could have been if he kept up his scoring from last season but injury sadly appears to scupper that possibility.
Interesting choice to pick Gape, Southwell, Rowe and Freeman over O'Nien, De Havilland and Muller all of whom roughly the same age. Of the seven there I would probably give Onien second place in potential transfer stakes with other five much of a muchness.
Slipped my senile mind, Dev. In weak mitigation, I did say "the likes of"!
Kashket would have been real hot property without his limiting injury. But unfortunately, the "how have we managed to get him" has very quickly changed to "oh that's how". Fingers crossed for the future though!
O Nien would probably be higher on other club's radars before we switched him from goalscoring mid to deep lying clogger.
Gape might be along the lines of a Scowen. Hopefully we keep all three fit and well for a long while, as they're cracking players in our division/
I fear, Malone, that it's a case of both rather than all three.