Jump to content

Sons' sorrow


Recommended Posts

8 hours ago, Dumbarton Rock said:

A serious question.
How do you think leagues 1 and 2 could possibly survive a season extension when nearly every player will be out of contract and every club will have went a month without any income and couldn't possibly offer them extra money. Do you think they can rely on the good will of the players to play on without payment emoji848.png

It's not just the lack of payment factor, if they don't have a contract, they probably won't have any insurance against injuries etc.

Personally, I think they should take the chance that the extended season creates to change over to summer football. Extend this season to late in 2020, shut down for winter, then start a full season in early 2021.  But that's a different discussion for a different thread, probably.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be shocked if we don't start selling season tickets in the next two weeks. The only issue I see with that is, if we're using next seasons ticket money to survive a period of no football, what money do we use to fund next seasons team (whenever that season goes ahead)? 

Perhaps we could ask fans to pay the price of two home games each month instead? Set up a direct debit of £32 to come out on pay day. Obviously the majority of our fans have probably already paid for their season ticket and thus won't want to pay twice for games they can't even attend, but I think we need to be inventive here so that we can preserve the budget for a fresh season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

I'll be shocked if we don't start selling season tickets in the next two weeks. The only issue I see with that is, if we're using next seasons ticket money to survive a period of no football, what money do we use to fund next seasons team (whenever that season goes ahead)? 

Perhaps we could ask fans to pay the price of two home games each month instead? Set up a direct debit of £32 to come out on pay day. Obviously the majority of our fans have probably already paid for their season ticket and thus won't want to pay twice for games they can't even attend, but I think we need to be inventive here so that we can preserve the budget for a fresh season.

Laudable, but flawed. Many supporters too will be hit in the pocket with the current situation. Would a football club monthly donation be a priority?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Homer Sandoval said:

Laudable, but flawed. Many supporters too will be hit in the pocket with the current situation. Would a football club monthly donation be a priority?

Obviously people who don't have sick pay or are unable to work won't prioritise a football club. Those who can help out through donating cash will though. And those who can't pay might be able to help in other ways, whether that is helping out with other fundraisers or simply helping clean the stadium in a few months time. Point being, we need to be inventive and come together in the next few months if we still want a team to support when this eventually dies down.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Obviously people who don't have sick pay or are unable to work won't prioritise a football club. Those who can help out through donating cash will though. And those who can't pay might be able to help in other ways, whether that is helping out with other fundraisers or simply helping clean the stadium in a few months time. Point being, we need to be inventive and come together in the next few months if we still want a team to support when this eventually dies down.

 

I'm not at all sure that approach reflects the growing severity of the national and international situation right now.  I think clubs may be forced to consider simply cancelling all contracts and going into a care-and-maintenance basis for the foreseeable future, ie effectively shutting down.

Hardly ideal obviously, but the possibility of clubs limping by for a few weeks until the game restarts is receding by the hour and we all need to face that reality.  There will be a lot more serious issues to consider.

Edited by O'Kelly Isley III
Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I'm not at all sure that approach reflects the growing severity of the national and international situation right now.  I think clubs may be forced to consider simply cancelling all contracts and going into a care-and-maintenance basis for the foreseeable future, ie effectively shutting down.

Hardly ideal obviously, but the possibility of clubs limping by for a few weeks until the game restarts is receding by the hour and we all need to face that reality.  There will be a lot more serious issues to consider.

It had occurred to me that as conditions deteriorate the above may be the only feasible way forward. Cancel all contracts, fall into breach and hope for the best.

Hopefully the vast majority of employees at the club have other full-time work they can fall back on. Best of luck to them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I'm not at all sure that approach reflects the growing severity of the national and international situation right now.  I think clubs may be forced to consider simply cancelling all contracts and going into a care-and-maintenance basis for the foreseeable future, ie effectively shutting down.

Hardly ideal obviously, but the possibility of clubs limping by for a few weeks until the game restarts is receding by the hour and we all need to face that reality.  There will be a lot more serious issues to consider.

I have no idea what clauses are written into contracts, I just assumed that cancelling the lot would mean paying them off anyway but I concede I have no idea of the legal ramifications.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I have no idea what clauses are written into contracts, I just assumed that cancelling the lot would mean paying them off anyway but I concede I have no idea of the legal ramifications.

Very few people will voluntarily walk away from being paid wages, including footballers. It's a desperate situation and clubs will struggle to wriggle out of paying wages. Unless of course SSP comes into play.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cash flow is king for most part time teams. Very few have significant debts but almost nobody has any cash reserves of any note. Season ticket culture contributes massively to a lack of cash flow and clubs are often reliant on periodic payments from the league and anything they can bring in on match day to keep going over the course of a season. Selling tickets for next year would only really rob Peter to pay Paul - we'd still face a cash flow issue, just earlier in the season.

Options for guaranteed government loans just announced. I'm not sure what category of loan that most part time clubs would qualify for. There's the issue of whether or not we'd qualify for one, whether or not we could repay it and - most critically of all - whether Brabco would object to the club applying for that kind of finance or whether they'd see this as an opportunity to kill us and sell the ground for development?

Fans aren't really in a great position to be financial saviours. Most will be worrying about our own incomes and discretionary spending will be minimal for many people. The "good" thing in all of this (and I use that word very loosely) is that we're not alone. This is an existential crisis for British football. Lower league clubs down south will be facing similar problems and most clubs in Scotland outside of the big 2 will be in the same situation that we're in. If there is going to be some kind of solution then it will need to be a solution for the whole of football because the reality is that whether it's us, Peterhead, Annan, Falkirk or the likes of Morton, Livi or even Aberdeen, this is a problem for all of Scottish football. Clubs can't stand alone in this. We need to see the game up here unite to survive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don’t know how much it would help but I opted to pay for my season ticket monthly. I am happy to let the payments continue to roll on after I have paid the full balance even if we aren’t playing games. 
 

Would others agree? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 17/03/2020 at 14:00, Homer Sandoval said:

Very few people will voluntarily walk away from being paid wages, including footballers. It's a desperate situation and clubs will struggle to wriggle out of paying wages. Unless of course SSP comes into play.

Try and look on the bright side, at least Rory Loy will be fit for the run in....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, the snudge said:

I see Stenny are bidding for a chance to  play for Stenny. A bit like the play for the sons thing, could this be done for us again? Might raise a wee bit

Feel free to run it if you want, I've no got the patience to do it again :lol:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right guys, as you can imagine sport being totally wiped out isn't a situation I was hoping I'd ever encounter as a sports reporter at a local paper...

I'm actually quite enjoying coming up with bigger ideas for features and the like though, and with it being 20 years since we moved in to the Rock I thought that could be something half decent to write about.

I'll put an appeal out on the Lennox Facebook and Twitter pages next week - but I'm thinking I might do something looking back on its opening, and then a piece around iconic moments and games (so feel free to fire me suggestions and we'll come up with a top five or something). We've got a few old pictures - including Paddy Flannery in a full-kit on the site of the stadium before it was built - on the system but I'd love it if you guys could fire some my way too. I can't promise they'd all be used or anything like that - but I love old photos from memorable times, so fire them my way.

If you've got any memories, key games, basically anything from the past 20 years at the stadium then drop me a wee email and I'll try to include it. My work address is Fraser.Clarke@reachplc.com.

I've got a bit of time to work on this because I'm kind of covered feature wise for a few weeks with ones I kept for emergencies - but given time I think we could do something really nice.

Edited by Jan Vojáček
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...