The Falkirk FC Thread

[bairn88]

Statement by FSS. Much better wording. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by bairn88

[Springfield]

Been sent this by fellow supporter:
 

Our club issued a stark message yesterday: investment is needed. 

Falkirk fans always turn out in great numbers, buying season tickets, paying at the gate, subscribing to Falkirk TV, buying merchandise and in many other ways.  That means achieving the first part of this season's business plan the board set out earlier this year - halving the operating loss - is moving in the right direction.  

Some Bairns have however contacted us to say they thought that part of the club’s message was insensitive, given the cost-of-living crisis faced by families and businesses across the country.  We understand these concerns and have communicated them to the club, and asked them to reflect.  
 
We are extremely grateful to over 500 Bairns who have joined FSS, making the Falkirk fans-at-large the fourth largest shareholder in our club behind the Patrons Group, Phil and Carrie Rawlins, and Martin Ritchie.  This is an incredible achievement after just 10 months of existence, and a big welcome to those who joined since yesterday.  We want to continue to grow so we can not only help drive our club forward, but also be able to make a difference for Falkirk fans in the longer term. 
 
The fifth anniversary of Houstie’s departure reminded us of how long our club has been in the doldrums.  The harsh fact is that our club is facing financial hardship after years of decline.  
 
There are early but clear signs that this Falkirk side could succeed.  If John, Paul and the team can maintain momentum, there might be light at the end of what has seemed like an endless tunnel.  To get us through that tunnel, and in the absence of an unexpected windfall, our club needs investment.   

We know that this ask comes at the worst possible time for many. If you can afford to and want the club’s future to be driven by Falkirk fans, please join FSS.   

But please, only if you can, and only if you agree with what we're trying to achieve.

[knee jerk reaction]

I get the club has halved the operating loss to £400,000 but surely getting 3,500 to 4,000 fans per home game must be cutting into the loss? At £18 a patg fan per game, that adds up and we surely couldn't have been budgeting for crowds better than 2,500 to 3,000 after last season, unless the board have been criminally optimistic. The MSG were mainly ousted as our form on the pitch collapsed after Houston and some (very) bad communication. So far in the new set up form on the pitch has been terrible up to this season and a PR disaster yesterday that could've been released by any of our boards in the last 10 years, maybe people are realising it's not that easy to run a successful club as you'd think. I don't like to be negative and cutting loses and improving form on the pitch shows we're hopefully on the right track and again hopefully fans that can give more do rally round and we get through this. Another good result and big crowd tomorrow could be the wee boost we need going forward COYB.

[Newbornbairn]

Does this mean we're not getting a right back then?

[Springfield]

On a slightly different note, reading some of the dialogue on the new Sky TV deal. When you look at the gulf in riches, between the divisions, you can see why every club wants the golden ticket;

On Thursday, the SPFL announced a record turnover of almost £40m for last season, having earlier this week announced a new £150m Sky Sports television deal.

However, Gardiner points out that 82% of all revenues go to the 12 clubs in the Premiership, with 10% going to the Championship and the remainder to Leagues 1 and 2.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

1 hour ago, Back Post Misses said:

We will take no lectures from followers of Hoofball Athletic with your track record thank you very much. 

I’m pretty sure that poster stopped supporting Dunfermline and supports Brentford now but I’m not 100% sure - could be someone else. 

[FalkirkBairn2021]

17 hours ago, Shodwall cat said:

Why did  the bod give the manager an increased budget if it appears we can't even afford the original budget? That to me just isn't a sensible way to run a football club and is how we ended up in financial problems in the past. They should be tightening the purse strings instead of spending more cash and then hoping a white knight appears suddenly to pay for it. Crazy stuff .

This is what I'm bemused by. Exactly why are we about to 'run out of cash'? 

What forecasting was done on income that, in fecking September, not after a hard winter, we're fucked? 

I get that it's really difficult to put a decent team on the park with the dross we had, plus recruit a new management team, but this looks like Sevco type planning.

[Bigbri Bairn]

The 90%/10% comment is what everyone is focused on though so the rest of the message isn’t as impactful.
I really don’t get how a group of successful people, supposedly with a high level of business acumen could proof read that and not pick up on it.

I think they are trying their best on paper to get the people who nominally pledged to donate then have not. No one knows more than me the impact the current financial crisis is having on people and their families as i often work with the less financially affluent and see it ruining lives. But if this email can get a couple of hundred who perhaps can afford a small amount a month then it is great. Hope it does as selling shares to someone who has a different agenda to the fans would be very sad.

[Dawson Park Boy]

6 minutes ago, FalkirkBairn2021 said:

This is what I'm bemused by. Exactly why are we about to 'run out of cash'? 

What forecasting was done on income that, in fecking September, not after a hard winter, we're fucked? 

I get that it's really difficult to put a decent team on the park with the dross we had, plus recruit a new management team, but this looks like Sevco type planning.

I’m only guessing here but I think they expected to get rid of quite a few but, when the players saw how good M and S were as coaches,  they probably fancied their chances of improvement and decided NOT to leave as was their right thus worsening the budget.

[HopeStreetWalker]

49 minutes ago, knee jerk reaction said:

I get the club has halved the operating loss to £400,000 but surely getting 3,500 to 4,000 fans per home game must be cutting into the loss? At £18 a patg fan per game, that adds up and we surely couldn't have been budgeting for crowds better than 2,500 to 3,000 after last season, unless the board have been criminally optimistic. The MSG were mainly ousted as our form on the pitch collapsed after Houston and some (very) bad communication. So far in the new set up form on the pitch has been terrible up to this season and a PR disaster yesterday that could've been released by any of our boards in the last 10 years, maybe people are realising it's not that easy to run a successful club as you'd think. I don't like to be negative and cutting loses and improving form on the pitch shows we're hopefully on the right track and again hopefully fans that can give more do rally round and we get through this. Another good result and big crowd tomorrow could be the wee boost we need going forward COYB.

You have to factor in that the Council back charge the club for services provided, staff, energy, water charges etc and you can be rest assured there will be a healthy mark up. Normally facility management load the charge for anything they can with mark up's of 300-400% being the norm. Justified by management, administration etc.

£50 for a lightbulb is not an uncommon charge in such agreements.

We may be on a peppercorn lease (no laughing there) for the stadium but these dictated behind-the-scenes oncosts take a few vital £ thousands out the club every week.

 

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Springfield said:

On a slightly different note, reading some of the dialogue on the new Sky TV deal. When you look at the gulf in riches, between the divisions, you can see why every club wants the golden ticket;

On Thursday, the SPFL announced a record turnover of almost £40m for last season, having earlier this week announced a new £150m Sky Sports television deal.

However, Gardiner points out that 82% of all revenues go to the 12 clubs in the Premiership, with 10% going to the Championship and the remainder to Leagues 1 and 2.

This is why I think there should be league reconstruction to provide better protection for full time clubs. It doesn’t do Scottish football any good if more clubs are forced to go part time as part of being stuck in a league with little finance or support.

Yes it’s our fault for being here but there are always likely to be full time teams stuck where we are due to the league set up. Even one season here could be enough to determine the status of a club. Could be temporary or the start of a downfall that sees fan numbers dwindle. 

[HoBNob]

2 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

We will take no lectures from followers of Hoofball Athletic with your track record thank you very much. 

Our track record had us posting a profit at this level in 2/3 years we were in it, that's not bad IMO. 

2 hours ago, gav-ffc said:

Less have come in than have left.

I get that but you still have a pretty big squad don't you? I also get that some members of that squad are absolutely gubbins but surely if you're skint that's just the way it goes? It's an unfortunate fact that there's just simply not allot of money kicking about at this level. 

38 minutes ago, Grangemouth Bairn said:

I’m pretty sure that poster stopped supporting Dunfermline and supports Brentford now but I’m not 100% sure - could be someone else. 

That'll be me but it's not quite like that. I absolutely still support Dunfermline and they're my main team, after years of living close to, and then going to Brentford games though I like to watch them when their games don't clash. Much easier in the prem.

I live back up in Scotland so I'll be at far more Dunfermline games. 

 

[Springfield]

5 minutes ago, Van_damage said:

This is why I think there should be league reconstruction to provide better protection for full time clubs. It doesn’t do Scottish football any good if more clubs are forced to go part time as part of being stuck in a league with little finance or support.

Yes it’s our fault for being here but there are always likely to be full time teams stuck where we are due to the league set up. Even one season here could be enough to determine the status of a club. Could be temporary or the start of a downfall that sees fan numbers dwindle. 

Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas unfortunately. Until the arse cheeks finally get their wish of leaving for further riches, unfortunately it’s never going to change.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

29 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

Our track record had us posting a profit at this level in 2/3 years we were in it, that's not bad IMO. 

I get that but you still have a pretty big squad don't you? I also get that some members of that squad are absolutely gubbins but surely if you're skint that's just the way it goes? It's an unfortunate fact that there's just simply not allot of money kicking about at this level. 

That'll be me but it's not quite like that. I absolutely still support Dunfermline and they're my main team, after years of living close to, and then going to Brentford games though I like to watch them when their games don't clash. Much easier in the prem.

I live back up in Scotland so I'll be at far more Dunfermline games. 

 

So I wasn’t wildly off mark then and I’m not as forgetful as I thought. Cheers for confirming. .

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Bairney The Dinosaur said:

That thing I took from the email is that, under the boards expectations, FSS as a third leg of the stool is at this point effectively over.

£250k raised by monthly subscriptions by May 2023. That equates to just over £31k a month... A 6 fold increase, starting today, on what is already being pledged monthly. Never going to happen. 

I'm fairly sure the initial timeline from FSS was for ownership of 7.5% of shares after a year from a starting position of 97,000ish (3%) shares. We are just short of a year and the last count I'm sure was over 250,000 shares which, admittedly using fag packet maths, must sit somewhere around the 7.5-8% mark.

Does this mean the plan was always to see a considerable 6 fold jump after a year or have the goalposts changed now that the money is drying up? 

 

The thing that’s missing from a FSS perspective has got to be an answer to the question “So how are you going to do that then?” I presume the FSS people will have had that target rolled out to them prior to yesterday.

The FSS revenue generation plan is going to be an absolute doozy.

The wording………..badly misjudged, and it clouds the message. It is as simple as that.

I believe one or two radical proposals were offered up to the Board. I am presuming those have still to be aired beyond the BoD and perhaps into one of our working groups? If speed is off the essence, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting on any bold ideas for too long. I am also presuming the “wants” expressed by the BoD have had some positive feedback on what is achievable.

I do worry that the FSS Committee will be feeling some pressure on this. Ultimately, FSS stands and falls by the good will of its members. To all intents and purposes, it’s a charitable wing, and putting them under pressure to raise five times as much as they do today is going to be wildly unrealistic.

As others have said, I don’t think there’s malice or even a TFS bubble at work here. They do however, need a quality proof reader, and in all honesty, a decent writer to put the Board’s thoughts into terms that don’t accuse, and don’t divide. It actually isn’t all that difficult to do.

 

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

Our track record had us posting a profit at this level in 2/3 years we were in it, that's not bad IMO. 

What sort of financial track record did you have before making profits in L1? Asking for an insolvency practitioner friend.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Caractacus Potts said:

True but as far as I can remember Waddle was funded by a fan and Stainrod was on a pay as you play deal. Maybe the same should have been done with Griffiths, then none us could complain.

Your last post criticised the board for Holts signing though so surely we’re in agreement that there are times when the board can question the value of some signings or put in place clauses that won’t hurt the club should they not work out?

All the signings are funded by fans.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, knee jerk reaction said:

I get the club has halved the operating loss to £400,000 but surely getting 3,500 to 4,000 fans per home game must be cutting into the loss? At £18 a patg fan per game, that adds up and we surely couldn't have been budgeting for crowds better than 2,500 to 3,000 after last season, unless the board have been criminally optimistic. The MSG were mainly ousted as our form on the pitch collapsed after Houston and some (very) bad communication. So far in the new set up form on the pitch has been terrible up to this season and a PR disaster yesterday that could've been released by any of our boards in the last 10 years, maybe people are realising it's not that easy to run a successful club as you'd think. I don't like to be negative and cutting loses and improving form on the pitch shows we're hopefully on the right track and again hopefully fans that can give more do rally round and we get through this. Another good result and big crowd tomorrow could be the wee boost we need going forward COYB.

I think when you take off VAT, concessions and free Under 12 the price we actually get per head is nearer £12. 

[Shodwall cat]

4 hours ago, LatapyBairn. said:

Promotion in itself would manage the projected loss, without being reckless the phrase “speculate to accumulate” applies here or we could easily become and Airdrie and rot away to a shadow of our former club if we were to remain in this league much longer. 

We've got to get to the end of the season first though. If the cash is going to run out by Xmas then speculating to accumulate isn't going to end well.

[Roboccop]

1 hour ago, Bigbri Bairn said:

19 hours ago, Grangemouth Bairn said:

The 90%/10% comment is what everyone is focused on though so the rest of the message isn’t as impactful.
I really don’t get how a group of successful people, supposedly with a high level of business acumen could proof read that and not pick up on it.

I think they are trying their best on paper to get the people who nominally pledged to donate then have not. 

My guess is that this was a daft wording rather than what they meant to say. They meant to try and get people to realise that things are not great but instead implied a blame that they didn’t really mean. I think if they apologise and clarify what they meant  there’s no benefit from obsessing on this.  

Regarding the income from the increased crowds - it is making a real difference to the first £400,000 the club budgeted as a target for from match related income but the other £400,000 (that we know will still be a shortfall) needs additional income from Patrons and/or FSS or some other source of funds. That’s still quite a way off being generated.