Sons' sorrow

[the snudge]

2 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

The gates to Auschwitz were cheerier.

A bit much to be honest.

[FifeSons]

3 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

The gates to Auschwitz were cheerier.

[Jack Burton]

Quite a few Scottish lower league clubs have been left in debt by events beyond fan’s control and East Fife is one of them. 
I accept some debt will have accrued between March 2020 and the start of this season but with residue of 19/20 season tickets and furlough it would be tens of thousands rather than hundreds.
Assume the league stops now. Not sure how many home games Clyde have had but assume 5 x £12K = £60K + 5 x £3K hospitality = £75K lost revenue.
Anderson £50K, government £150K, streaming £20k, season tickets £50k  = £270K revenue
Players and staff go on furlough. That’s all very broad brush based on Clyde and the equivalent Dumbarton figure may be £200K  but are either any worse off than they were in March and can’t survive until we hopefully get a league and crowds in August ?
 
 

You haven't include the 5 home games that were due to be played before the end of season 19/20. These home games would have been budget for as nobody would have expected the season to be curtailed. Furlough covered the player's wages but won't cover other expenditure such as rent, insurance, loan repayments etc.

You also haven't included the amount normally raised from fund raising golf days, player of the year etc which is normally another 20k.

Clubs are also losing 4 or 5 home games due to it being only a 27 game season.

You have also included both season tickets and streaming but the majority of people watching the stream have already paid via their season ticket and can't be included twice.

You have also only included the season ticket money on one side. We would have received this if it had been a normal season too. Its not an extra gain for this season.

You also haven't included the expenditure of setting up Pixellot, making the ground covid compliant or costs spent on testing. You had to pay for testing before playing teams in the league cup. Clubs have also bought testing kits from the James Anderson money.

[Silverton End]

16 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

The gates to Auschwitz were cheerier.

[Skyline Drifter]

3 hours ago, Jack Burton said:

You haven't include the 5 home games that were due to be played before the end of season 19/20. These home games would have been budget for as nobody would have expected the season to be curtailed. Furlough covered the player's wages but won't cover other expenditure such as rent, insurance, loan repayments etc.

You also haven't included the amount normally raised from fund raising golf days, player of the year etc which is normally another 20k.

Clubs are also losing 4 or 5 home games due to it being only a 27 game season.

You have also included both season tickets and streaming but the majority of people watching the stream have already paid via their season ticket and can't be included twice.

You have also only included the season ticket money on one side. We would have received this if it had been a normal season too. Its not an extra gain for this season.

You also haven't included the expenditure of setting up Pixellot, making the ground covid compliant or costs spent on testing. You had to pay for testing before playing teams in the league cup. Clubs have also bought testing kits from the James Anderson money.

It's pretty unlikely that the income from a Clyde home game does much more than cover payroll so the five home games are largely irrelevant if wages were covered by furlough. Those other things could still be met from league prize money, etc.

Social occasions / fundraisers is a fair point.

Clubs also didn't hire new players or take the old ones off furlough for an extra 2 or 3 months for the season too which offsets the loss of home games in 20/21.

Take your word for it on the streaming but our experience is certainly that more people pay for matchday streaming than watch through a season ticket. A lot will depend on who the visiting team is though. There's no chance when you are at home to Thistle or Falkirk that the majority of people watching have a season ticket.

He didn't say the season ticket money was an "extra" income, he said it's income you've got for the season. Which it is.

You played one game in the League Cup against a Premiership team (Kilmarnock). You've had to pay for testing once. It will have cost you about £2k - £3k depending how many people were actually tested. If you've done any more testing than that to date then it was voluntary spending. Your testing hasn't made any significant hole in the Anderson money. Pixellot is fair though. That likely cost you in excess of £10k.

[FifeSons]

Found this on my phone. Those were the days.

[Another The Other Chairman]

We could argue back and forward about what’s in and what’s out. With furlough and an infusion of £200K are Clyde or Dumbarton worse off now than they were in March ‘20 ?

[O'Kelly Isley III]

Just checking for a pulse.

[BallochSonsFan]

13 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

Just checking for a pulse.

There's a huge risk that fans drift away from football. I'm finding it really difficult to maintain enthusiasm this year. I've loved watching the NFL and I'm really enjoying getting back into NHL hockey when I can watch online at a time that suits. The stop/start nature of the league this year and our abject performances has done nothing to keep my love of football going.

 

What happens if too many people find other ways to spend a Saturday afternoon or other ways to spend their money?

[George Parr]

3 hours ago, BallochSonsFan said:

There's a huge risk that fans drift away from football. I'm finding it really difficult to maintain enthusiasm this year. I've loved watching the NFL and I'm really enjoying getting back into NHL hockey when I can watch online at a time that suits. The stop/start nature of the league this year and our abject performances has done nothing to keep my love of football going.

 

What happens if too many people find other ways to spend a Saturday afternoon or other ways to spend their money?

I suppose a lot of what would be alternative activities are also kiboshed at the moment. Most folk will probably just settle back into their old habits when this thing is suppressed.

[Howlin' Wilf]

On 17/01/2021 at 09:04, The Moonster said:

If its the same thing that's on the OS, and you believe that statement is John warning the fans of existential danger, can I ask why there's a need for diplomacy? 

If we're about to go out of business get the cards on the table and tell fans the situation. Saying times are hard is stating the obvious, if fans are supposed to read that as an SOS and spring into fundraising action then I'm afraid the wake up call is a poor one.

It's a wake up call.

The bucket of cold water may come later.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

For DFC, the pandemic is exacerbating an already very worrying situation, but we must never lose sight of the club's unstable ownership in all of this.

There has already been one crowdfunder which was well subscribed. In the midst of a pandemic another public appeal would be unlikely to generate the same level of enthusiasm or donations.

At some point a business plan, road map, prospectus, action plan - call it what you will - needs to be determined and the majority shareholder needs to be part of that process. Trying to manage the club's situation from within with repeat supporter subscription cannot be the basis for the future.

[The Moonster]

1 hour ago, Howlin' Wilf said:

It's a wake up call.

The bucket of cold water may come later.

If we're skint, how are we affording to test the whole squad every week from now until May?

[banditjag]

Just an outsider view point, DFC have a solid loyal support and unlikely to allow their club to suffer even if not loving the majority shareholder. That plus the 150k should see the club safe and able to fund testing to get the league complete in some form.

I listened to loads of pundits during the summer puting down us smaller clubs and predicting clubs going to the wall due to covid restrictions.  I didn't and don't agree. Us smaller clubs have shown over the years we will go that extra mile to save our clubs, keep them going. It's more the middle clubs I would think are suffering. The over spending likes of Dundee, Dundee United, dunfermline, ayr will suffer more than us, I think.

You'll be ok and your fans will return.

[Howlin' Wilf]

14 hours ago, The Moonster said:

If we're skint, how are we affording to test the whole squad every week from now until May?

Are we?

[The Moonster]

15 minutes ago, Howlin' Wilf said:

Are we?

We've written to the SPFL along with every other club in the league saying we'll test our players and staff if they let us start playing again.

[Howlin' Wilf]

48 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

We've written to the SPFL along with every other club in the league saying we'll test our players and staff if they let us start playing again.

OK, that's contingent at the moment. I am simply saying what the overall financial situation is to clubs at our level and at our club in particular. The £150,000 from the SG is very generous and may see us through the current crisis. 

Businesses in financial difficulty still pay bills (Kilmarnock are testing but have applied for an emergency loan of £1m). It seems from the most recent figures available, that DFC are doing this by going further into debt. At May 2019 the club owed £28,000 more than they did a year earlier. They are paying taxes with debt (overdraft) which is not good. 

I sincerely hope that the situation is not as bad as it appears.

 

 

[The Moonster]

2 minutes ago, Howlin' Wilf said:

OK, that's contingent at the moment. I am simply saying what the overall financial situation is to clubs at our level and at our club in particular. The £150,000 from the SG is very generous and may see us through the current crisis. 

Businesses in financial difficulty still pay bills (Kilmarnock are testing but have applied for an emergency loan of £1m). It seems from the most recent figures available, that DFC are doing this by going further into debt. At May 2019 the club owed £28,000 more than they did a year earlier. They are paying taxes with debt (overdraft) which is not good. 

I sincerely hope that the situation is not as bad as it appears.

 

 

I can accept the situation is far from ideal, precarious even, but both John Steele and Colin Hosie's latest statements still seem optimistic to me that we'll come out the other side of this safely. I truly believe when the chips are down Sons fans will step up to save the club though. Perhaps when fans are allowed back and gatherings can happen, we could all benefit from sitting down in the bar with the board for a frank discussion on how we get the club back and make it thrive.

[the snudge]

It'd be great if we could get some matches from the past on the official site, obviously someone would need to put this together out of the goodness of their soul.  The games from 10/15 years ago that @GoTeamGaz used to film.

[Silverton End]

1 hour ago, the snudge said:

It'd be great if we could get some matches from the past on the official site, obviously someone would need to put this together out of the goodness of their soul.  The games from 10/15 years ago that @GoTeamGaz used to film.

There are a few Sons games on YouTube, can't think offhand of the exact name of the channel.

Worth a search