Property developers and the death of non league football clubs

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Property developers and the death of non league football clubs

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Enjoyable night on Tuesday, Bromleys muscular direct football negated by a more athletic well organised Bristol Rovers. At no point did I feel that an upset was on the cards. After a very early goal Bristol by playing 3 at the back pushed their wing backs into midfield flooding it!

Chant of the night? Rovers brutal yet understated put down of the home of David Bowie and the Buddha of surburbia to the Bromley faithful, Your just a small town in Essex

Good to see a nice tight little stadium evolving which will be fit for purpose in the EFL should they get there.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

12 non league teams in round 2, alongside 15 league 2 and 13 league 3. Nicely balanced

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Where is the upset going to be? Would love to see Isthmian North (step 4) Maldon and Tiptree still running and at home

paulisi · Tennis legend

Maldon were unlucky to concede a late equaliser.
Solihull were cruising 3-0 up and somehow managed to lose 4-3.
The only chances of an upset are in the replays...

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I see Alex Bradley is on loan with Harrogate from Lincoln, hes a Worcester boy always a bit too good for Worcester City! although now trying to build a career having been released by WBA after being with them from 9-19. Very highly rated but suffered lots of injuries. He turns 21 in January just wondered how he is settling in?

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 7th of December 2019 07:50:58 AM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Hi oakland , I wish I could answer you, but I've not been along this season. Lifes been busy and footie has got dropped for now. I can see Bradley has played 12 times, so weaver clearly rates him , but in general I'm not sure what the fans think.

I can see he is a Finnish youth international from wiki, that one surprised me!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Bradley did just score after 10 mins just now versus torquay though !

Oakland2002 · All-time great

His mother is Finnish, not a bad move he probably wouldnt have to get to too high a level domestically to get full caps and the experiences that go with that. Quite a lot of players step 3 through to 1 playing International football for small Carrabian Islands etc ... Finland obviously have Pukki but also a lot of players from the Norwegian league which would be about League 2/National League standard.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Southport firmly in play offs at the moment despite switching to part time and reducing their budget substantially.
Kings Lynn are quality, but can they go straight up having got promoted last year. They must blip somewhere.
York are next in line, but we outplayed them when we went there.
Brackley are a good side, Spennymoor are in form and Boston are decent.
Chester may well fall away with their ageing squad.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Its interesting the full v part time schism at this level, we undoubtedly lost some talented players because they couldnt go full time, one in particular who was one of our most talented players and continues to thrive.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Southport's reason was that the chairman went to Huddersfield and left the directors with little wealth between then.
Standard wage for full time was 700 per week. That will be half once the contracts finish.
Southport cannot fund 14k a week on gates of 1000....
Lots of the other luxuries have disappeared....

Oakland2002 · All-time great

The reality is (with gates of 1000) if run as a business with the fans, merch, bar spend and some local sponsorship as the sole source of revenue it would have to run as a semi pro club. There is probably a case for caping salaries at regional national league level in order to protect the clubs which I believe are community assets not the playing things of the relatively but not abundantly wealthy. The major threat to any club is living mouth to mouth not paying tax and then in come the property developers.

Hamlet had a supporters meeting last night and I have to applaud the chairman and a tight group of very committed volunteers for the open and transparent nature of the meeting and with the caveat of lack of experience how well run the club has been over the last 12 months. Unfortunately despite being fiscally sound the club is really in the hands of the local council. The present stadium is not fit for purpose and at the most basic level approval of certain leases by the council essential to comply with National League regulations for next year have not been signed off and the clock is ticking. The council planning chair is only reviewing one planning application at a time.

It appears that once the club is run smoothly, ie. we make less mistakes have a stadium that isnt prone to calamity after calamity (we were literally in deep sh*t in the run up to the Cup game, with average gates of 2400, bar receipts etc we could probably run to a national league level budget AND pay tax.

It is amazing that most non league clubs survive on the gates they get, really sorry to hear your chairman has taken his money elsewhere. Unless money filters down from above there is a lot to be said for preventing rich owners investing on the pitch, no restriction on the stadia, training infra structure etc... ie the things that will attract fans and good semi-pro players

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 11th of December 2019 10:04:34 AM

paulisi · Tennis legend

Southport picked up another good win and up to third. Kings Lynn are well clear, but have some horrid Christmas fixtures(so do Southport!!!)
Kings Lynn are bound to have a bad spell at some stage.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Hamlet not too fussed about good wins, any win will do! Fortunately we did.

A really tough day for the club in that not only one of the clubs most devout supporters but also a major progressive force behind the clubs community ethos died yesterday. Mishi got an enormous amount of joy seeing Hamlet in the first round of the FA cup facing a league team for the first time in his 46/47 years following the club. We have been a step 3 club or lower for all but 2 of those years for clubs at that level the first round is but a dream.

He was interviewed briefly at half time on TV, to those that didnt know him, from the interview it would been very hard to tell what a progressive role he had in evolving the club into an organisation that is open and welcoming to all members of the community it serves, without writing an essay it is similarly difficult to portray in words. Sometimes immensely frustrating (particular his diet) but there will be very few fans who facilitate, drive and embrace such a cultural change in a club.

Hamlet have been dire since the cup loss in November, went out of the Trophy to Isthmian league Hornchurch. More than half of todays gate were Hamlet maybe as much as 200 of the 310, no way were we going to loose, it would have been disrespectful.

RIP Mishi Morath

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 21st of December 2019 10:09:36 PM