Charlton crowd?

[Brovion]

That saved me some typing.

Woo hoo! Welcome back!

Agree with you BTW.

 

[Driver8]

It's a posioned chalice though. A few seasons in the PL are fair enough, but unless you don't bother trying to be that competitive (like Watford did a few years ago) you'll end up back in the Championship with an albatross of debt. Things may have changed with regard to TV money, parachute payments etc in the intervening six years, but not a great deal I expect - Charlton were regarded as a model of a well run small PL club but when we went down in 2007 it was with circa 30m of debt. That crippling debt is the reason so many relegated PL clubs (see Leeds, Stains, etc) end up in League 1 a couple of seasons later. Personally I'd prefer just hanging around the Championship rather than the so often seen PL-L1 boom and bust model.

As regards ticket allocation, I suspect we were offered 2,000 sale or return and told if we wanted more we'd have to pay for them up front and our skinflint secret owners weren't prepared to commit to that. Reckon we could have brought up another 500-600 if available, not only because of the new stadium thing but because after SE London and NW Kent, Sussex and SE Kent are our next biggest supporter bases, and for many of those people the Amex is as close (or closer) as The Valley. PS I think even our cheapskate owners would have taken the maximum allocation possible had the game been yesterday as originally scheduled.

No one forces debt on the clubs though. The increased income from TV money should pay for team strengthening and any contracts awarded need to reflect the potential drop in income should a team be relegated.

I can see no excuse for running up huge debts and if a club doesn't have sufficient income to compete (although with TV money they should do) they should cut their cloth accordingly.

 

[tubaman]

I want BHA to win every game but I'm not fussed with getting promotion into the Prem. My worry is that the higher a team goes, the further away from the supporters the club gets. We are used to being the under dogs of Withers with supporters who are used to getting involved with club matters. What happens if we get into the Perm? The supporters will be relegated and money will take over (if it hasn't done so already).

 

[fataddick]

No one forces debt on the clubs though. The increased income from TV money should pay for team strengthening and any contracts awarded need to reflect the potential drop in income should a team be relegated.

I can see no excuse for running up huge debts and if a club doesn't have sufficient income to compete (although with TV money they should do) they should cut their cloth accordingly.

In an ideal world that's true, but until there is a proper salary cap in the PL, the reality is that the higher up the pyramid a club is the bigger the debts they accrue are. Man Utd are £360m in debt, Man City lost £98m last season and £197m the season before, etc etc. Albion are over £100m in debt. Yes it's interest free friendly debt not due to be repaid for a decade but £93m for a stadium + £29m for a training complex + the £7-8m a season operating loss quoted by the press is a metric f***tonne of debt in purely literal terms, surely?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Woo hoo! Welcome back!

Agree with you BTW.

Ta for that.

I am back from the NSC Priory. All is well.

Now - where are my tablets.

 

[les dynam]

So what's the latest crowd estimate then? I was in the ticket office (Queens Rd) earlier, and it was very busy.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

In an ideal world that's true, but until there is a proper salary cap in the PL, the reality is that the higher up the pyramid a club is the bigger the debts they accrue are. Man Utd are £360m in debt, Man City lost £98m last season and £197m the season before, etc etc. Albion are over £100m in debt. Yes it's interest free friendly debt not due to be repaid for a decade but £93m for a stadium + £29m for a training complex + the £7-8m a season operating loss quoted by the press is a metric f***tonne of debt in purely literal terms, surely?

The stadium final cost will probably hit £115M now all the work is completed , the latest cost for the training academy complex has been adjusted down to £22M at present. The operating losses were generally accepted for the first couple of seasons at The Amex , the figures that matter will be for the 2013/2014 season which will give a better indication of where we are as the stadium is up to the maximum capacity and new/increased revenue streams feed in.

 

[les dynam]

In an ideal world that's true, but until there is a proper salary cap in the PL, the reality is that the higher up the pyramid a club is the bigger the debts they accrue are. Man Utd are £360m in debt, Man City lost £98m last season and £197m the season before, etc etc. Albion are over £100m in debt. Yes it's interest free friendly debt not due to be repaid for a decade but £93m for a stadium + £29m for a training complex + the £7-8m a season operating loss quoted by the press is a metric f***tonne of debt in purely literal terms, surely?

Yes and no. The numbers are large, but as it's all going to be converted to shares it doesn't really matter. Our chairman is basically paying for the ground and the training ground out of his own pocket... and in return he will 'officially' own 100% of the club (he does anyway, for all intents and purposes).

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

27,163

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

So what's the latest crowd estimate then? I was in the ticket office (Queens Rd) earlier, and it was very busy.

I estimate it will be over 27k

 

[Blackadder]

I really enjoy this level but ultimately we need to play at the highest level.

The youngsters of NSC, ie the under 40s, must be fed up of us old 'uns going on about the good old days of top flight football. (and those good old days were quite tough).

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

I can understand fans of other Clubs looking at our financial spending and thinking we are barking mad, with a bubble that will burst anytime soon. I would agree that The Albions debts would be more of a worry if we had some unknown foreign JCL owner who parachuted in from nowhere then gets bored and jumps ship within a few years leaving us up s**t creek.

But Tony Bloom is a 3rd generation board member and lifelong Albion fan who is happy to fund our resurrection and then turn the debt into shares. For him it is very much a personal investment with no intention of seeking payback. We are very very lucky. Even so he is expecting the Club to become largely self funding and operate within FFP, so isn't exactly a bottomless pit of money. Of course it would be very nice to get our hands on the Premiership gold sooner rather than later and he is quietly steering us in that direction.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I can understand fans of other Clubs looking at our financial spending and thinking we are barking mad, with a bubble that will burst anytime soon.

There are fewer and fewer sticks to beat us with - so expect that one to continue. As long as we know. And as you say, we are very, very lucky.