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Junior football, what is the future?


Burnie_man

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48 minutes ago, RabidAl said:

If this is accurate, then your club would support full-time football quite comfortably in a tier 2 containing mostly full-time clubs.  It would also manage full-time football in the current tier 3, if it opted for the full-time younger player model that Airdrie, with a core home support of maybe 750 or so, were operating last season.

Sorry, still not buying it.  Full-time is a commitment that should only be entered into when you have sufficient guaranteed income streams.  I respect your opinion but feel it verges towards fantasy on this issue.

Also no interest in furthering the modern-day slave trade that is young, full-time professionals

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40 minutes ago, RabidAl said:

Yes, it is a (n intermittent) hobby for me - as it is for most of us who post around here; everyone has their prejudices and is entitled to try to discuss and explain them (I hope).

I note your comments about Livingston, who are managing full-time football quite well at the moment with a core home support of 700-800 and decent away supports from the full-time clubs who they play almost fortnightly.  As a 'new' club in a large town, I take them as comparable to East Kilbride and Cumbernauld.

I'm also interested to see how Edinburgh City and Cove (assuming they'll be promoted) will do in terms of attracting more supporters over the long term in the SPFL.  Since they are clubs of a metropolitan area (and Aberdeen is a 'one club city'), they might well attract enough support over the long term to go full-time.

But the current SPFL league structure isn't conducive to progressing clubs towards full-time football, and perhaps even inhibits current full-timers from staying that way. 

Do you not realise that even paying low fulltime wages by the clubs you cite incurrs massive losses. They have had multiple, huge insovency issues between them chasing daft ideas like yours.

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3 hours ago, RabidAl said:

Yes, it is a (n intermittent) hobby for me - as it is for most of us who post around here; everyone has their prejudices and is entitled to try to discuss and explain them (I hope).

I note your comments about Livingston, who are managing full-time football quite well at the moment with a core home support of 700-800 and decent away supports from the full-time clubs who they play almost fortnightly.  As a 'new' club in a large town, I take them as comparable to East Kilbride and Cumbernauld.

I'm also interested to see how Edinburgh City and Cove (assuming they'll be promoted) will do in terms of attracting more supporters over the long term in the SPFL.  Since they are clubs of a metropolitan area (and Aberdeen is a 'one club city'), they might well attract enough support over the long term to go full-time.

But the current SPFL league structure isn't conducive to progressing clubs towards full-time football, and perhaps even inhibits current full-timers from staying that way. 

Raith Rovers have a core support of about 2000 and were on the verge of going part-time after relegation, but decided to stay FT to pursue promotion back to the Championship as they figured they'd be £200k worse off in League 1.

Kirkcaldy population: 50,000. The only time they've filled the stadium in recent years was against Rangers on their way through. 

I'm not sure if there should be any drive towards more full-time football clubs - Iceland have no pro clubs yet they made it to the euros and did pretty well, they also will be in the world cup finals in 2018. They invest in community football, coaches and have excellent facilities including several indoor full size astros. Their elite players move to bigger pro clubs in other countries.

Perhaps Junior clubs should look to the likes of Spartans who have the equivalent of about 10-12 FT employees (maybe more?) but in club and community development roles rather than in the playing squad.

Edited by Che Dail
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28 minutes ago, Che Dail said:

Perhaps Junior clubs should look to the likes of Spartans who have the equivalent of about 10-12 FT employees (maybe more?) but in club and community development roles rather than in the playing squad.

Out of interest what pays for that? that's a £200k wage bill or thereabouts.

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45 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Out of interest what pays for that? that's a £200k wage bill or thereabouts.

It's the Spartans Community Football Academy - in addition to subs from playing members and facility hire they're a charity with a variety of funding partners such as Cash for Kids, SIS, Big Issue, Big Lottery, Sport Scotland, Robertson Trust, BBC Children in Need, Rank Foundation etc etc. 

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2 hours ago, Che Dail said:

It's the Spartans Community Football Academy - in addition to subs from playing members and facility hire they're a charity with a variety of funding partners such as Cash for Kids, SIS, Big Issue, Big Lottery, Sport Scotland, Robertson Trust, BBC Children in Need, Rank Foundation etc etc. 

Probably limited scope for too many clubs to achieve this, although the basic community model is very much achievable.

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20 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

Probably limited scope for too many clubs to achieve this, although the basic community model is very much achievable.

It mostly depends on the people involved, the level of ambition and where the club priorities lie, its purpose and aims.  

Broxburn is another good local example with 3 or 4 FT roles.

Refer to the OSCR website for more info on any charity's activities.

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39 minutes ago, Che Dail said:

It mostly depends on the people involved, the level of ambition and where the club priorities lie, its purpose and aims.  

Broxburn is another good local example with 3 or 4 FT roles.

Refer to the OSCR website for more info on any charity's activities.

The Spartans Community Academy is really exceptional and well run. It would take one hell of a job to match that. As you mention they seem to be the masters of fundraising for that as well sure they raised £250k at their Sportsman's Dinner in aid of the Academy earlier in the season.

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45 minutes ago, Che Dail said:

It mostly depends on the people involved, the level of ambition and where the club priorities lie, its purpose and aims.  

Broxburn is another good local example with 3 or 4 FT roles.

Refer to the OSCR website for more info on any charity's activities.

I'm not saying it isn't achievable, just that there are lots of limiting factors and matching Spartans is probably out of reach for 99% of clubs.

Broxburn are an example of what can be done in a reasonably large town with a good sized club. Think they were the first Junior club in West Lothian to go down the community sports club route.  Blackburn are an example of what can be done in a smaller town/village (no FT employees).

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1 hour ago, Burnie_man said:

I'm not saying it isn't achievable, just that there are lots of limiting factors and matching Spartans is probably out of reach for 99% of clubs.

Probably, they're just the best example - although the point I'm trying to make is that for football at this level it would be more realistic and sustainable to employ staff to help develop the club instead of aiming to employ FT footballers which was suggested earlier.

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Probably, they're just the best example - although the point I'm trying to make is that for football at this level it would be more realistic and sustainable to employ staff to help develop the club instead of aiming to employ FT footballers which was suggested earlier.


Yip agree with that.
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I would imagine that both Bo'ness and Pollock would manage full-time football if they made it through to tier 2; for that matter, it'd be interesting to see if East Kilbride and Cumbernauld could do the same - I see them as similar to Livingston as a 'new' club from a well-populated area that could attract a decent support if in a higher league.  From current SPFL clubs, Peterhead and maybe Arbroath, Stirling and Elgin have the home support to think about going full time if surrounded by full timers in the second tier.
The point about playing regionally is really that local away supports can be 50% or more of the 'away' team's core home support, who are keen to attend a game involving their team that is just along the road.  Yet perhaps only 10%* of a core home support is willing to travel for longer distances/times of, say, over an hour each way.  (By 'core home support' I mean total attendance minus the away support, since average attendances can be very misleading as to the actual support that a club has.)  In local matches, you can almost end up with two sets of home supports.
The idea is to bolster the attendances at part time clubs through local matches/local away supports until the point where promotion leads to the bigger travelling supports of full time clubs filling the away end, at which point you can charge higher ticket prices; it is about continuity of income, and is a more sustainable model for semi professional clubs than playing nationally, relying on a payment from the SPFL and high ticket prices (which suppress supporter numbers) to fund a similar quality of player to the best of the non-leagues.
The bottom line is that many people who are inclined to go to the football every week cannot do so because of the cost of travel - in terms of both time and money - is too prohibitive for them.  So there is a dead-weight loss of money to the game (for full time clubs, too) due to an unnecessary number of fixtures being played on a national basis.
No, I don't think that just because they are currently doing it, the SPFL clubs must have thought of everything or are necessarily doing the most astute thing financially.
*Exceptions being the Old Firm because glory-hunting supporters, like weeds, can turn up anywhere; and Aberdeen because their much-heralded 'away' support are mostly exiles settled within the central belt for work, etc (for this reason, it is actually their home support that disproportionately small).  


Dunno why you’d say definitely Peterhead and then maybe us, we seem to have the best PT support outside Dumbarton (who are getting huge away supports in) averaging about 700-800 the last 5 year, that doesn’t take into account the 120 we sell out corporate most weeks.

What I do know though is that we couldn’t sustain FT football and neither could Bo’ness or Pollok or infact any club senior or junior who’s not full time at the moment.

When you think about the costs that are actually involved you really need to have a solid core support of about 1500 along with a lot of investment into the club from other sources. It’s just not worth it, I’ve absolutely no idea how Livingston are doing what they’re at the moment but I don’t think it’s sustainable. I think it must be their location and stadium size, they’re always going to get good away supports to their ground because of it from the likes of Falkirk/Hibs/Hearts/Rangers/Dundee United etc as has been shown over the last few years. Giving these teams such big allocations is surely one of the reasons behind their success with the FT model.

They could just as easily be in Airdrie’s position.

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12 hours ago, RabidAl said:

If this is accurate, then your club would support full-time football quite comfortably in a tier 2 containing mostly full-time clubs.  It would also manage full-time football in the current tier 3, if it opted for the full-time younger player model that Airdrie, with a core home support of maybe 750 or so, were operating last season.

Go on to the Airdrie P&B forum and ask their fans how well the recent full time model worked for them.

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3 hours ago, FairWeatherFan said:

I don't think there's a single club that should turn full time unless they've been promoted to the Premiership, or have an ownership that would be able to bankroll any losses (and are more in the vein of Roy MacGregor than Brooks Mileson).

If there is benefactor financing to such a degree that might constitute financial doping and breach fair play rules.

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On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 10:49, Jambo'ness said:

Sorry, still not buying it.  Full-time is a commitment that should only be entered into when you have sufficient guaranteed income streams.  I respect your opinion but feel it verges towards fantasy on this issue.

Also no interest in furthering the modern-day slave trade that is young, full-time professionals

Fair enough, but I think Airdie's full-time-with-youngsters set-up of last season has set the benchmark of what can be done with a limited (but healthy) home support of 700 or so.

My view is that semi pro League clubs need to look seriously at this model because the alternative is looking like being the lower leagues full of colts teams. 

If the big clubs don't trust their youths to be developed by semi pro clubs because their development with these clubs is currently stunted by not being able to train full-time, then they're going to continue to push for the introduction of full-time colts teams into the lower leagues.  If we want to avoid Project Grave and other such nonsense, then we really need to be looking at how we can 'blood' youths in a competitive first team environment whilst allowing them to train full-time throughout the week.

On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 10:58, Sergeant Wilson said:

Do you not realise that even paying low fulltime wages by the clubs you cite incurrs massive losses. They have had multiple, huge insovency issues between them chasing daft ideas like yours.

Nope, but what I keep suggesting is that playing regionally is a more cost-effective model that curbs this sort of thing by lowering costs and bringing in more supporters.  A previous post (not by you) dismissed travel for a semi pro Glasgow club to Stranraer or Peterhead as being effectively the same thing, even though trips to Peterhead and Elgin are twice as far as away trips to Stranraer and Annan - large savings are to be made by regionalising along east-west lines. 

Meanwhile, the travelling support attending semi pro clubs in a West Conference of 10 at tier 3 (for example) could be significantly boosted by the more local matches of: Alloa, Stirling, Stenhousemuir, Albion Rvs, Airdrie, Clyde, Dumbarton (if relegated, for Ayr promoted), Queen's Park, Stranraer and Annan.  Clubs at this level could be making more money than they are and spending plenty less.  I'm quite sure the advent of a senior Pollock would add more to their coffers also.

23 hours ago, Che Dail said:

Raith Rovers have a core support of about 2000 and were on the verge of going part-time after relegation, but decided to stay FT to pursue promotion back to the Championship as they figured they'd be £200k worse off in League 1.

Kirkcaldy population: 50,000. The only time they've filled the stadium in recent years was against Rangers on their way through. 

I'm not sure if there should be any drive towards more full-time football clubs - Iceland have no pro clubs yet they made it to the euros and did pretty well, they also will be in the world cup finals in 2018. They invest in community football, coaches and have excellent facilities including several indoor full size astros. Their elite players move to bigger pro clubs in other countries.

Perhaps Junior clubs should look to the likes of Spartans who have the equivalent of about 10-12 FT employees (maybe more?) but in club and community development roles rather than in the playing squad.

Raith Rovers' core home support is closer to 1200, but you may have been looking at their average attendances from seasons where they have benefitted from being in a league with mostly full-time clubs and their larger travelling supports.  Ayr United's would be about 1100 - both currently managing full-time football in a part-time league, I think.

16 hours ago, 1320Lichtie said:

Dunno why you’d say definitely Peterhead and then maybe us, we seem to have the best PT support outside Dumbarton (who are getting huge away supports in) averaging about 700-800 the last 5 year, that doesn’t take into account the 120 we sell out corporate most weeks.

What I do know though is that we couldn’t sustain FT football and neither could Bo’ness or Pollok or infact any club senior or junior who’s not full time at the moment.

When you think about the costs that are actually involved you really need to have a solid core support of about 1500 along with a lot of investment into the club from other sources. It’s just not worth it, I’ve absolutely no idea how Livingston are doing what they’re at the moment but I don’t think it’s sustainable. I think it must be their location and stadium size, they’re always going to get good away supports to their ground because of it from the likes of Falkirk/Hibs/Hearts/Rangers/Dundee United etc as has been shown over the last few years. Giving these teams such big allocations is surely one of the reasons behind their success with the FT model.

They could just as easily be in Airdrie’s position.

Peterhead regularly have 700+ of a home support, so based on the Airdrie model I included them as potentially full time.  I agree about your lot as well who, as you say, also have very good attendances and who I think would benefit from being in an East region at tier 3, with Angus derbies regularly boosting attendances to over 1000, if I remember that correctly.  I think you'd manage full time football well enough in a tier 2 surrounded by full-time clubs with larger travelling supports.

14 hours ago, redstarbenhar said:

Go on to the Airdrie P&B forum and ask their fans how well the recent full time model worked for them.

Haha, take it they're not too chuffed with it then?

As I said above, I think full-time-with-youngsters needs to be looked at by more clubs - for early player development towards the national team, and to stave off the big clubs and their colts ambitions.

Bringing junior clubs through into the senior League will, I think, boost revenues for part-time clubs provided that it is done sensibly, through regionalisation.  There's money being thrown away here, that the game could really do with. 

But, just my opinions.

Edited by RabidAl
Words added for clarity.
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3 minutes ago, RabidAl said:

Fair enough, but I think Airdie's full-time-with-youngsters set-up of last season has set the benchmark of what can be done with a limited (but healthy) home support of 700 or so.

My view is that semi pro League clubs need to look seriously at this model because the alternative is looking like being the lower leagues full of colts teams. 

If the big clubs don't trust their youths to be developed by semi pro clubs because their development with these clubs is currently stunted by not being able to train full-time, then they're going to continue to push for the introduction of full-time colts teams into the lower leagues.  If we want to avoid Project Grave and other such nonsense, then we really need to be looking at how we can 'blood' youths in a competitive first team environment whilst allowing them to train full-time throughout the week.

Nope, but what I keep suggesting is that playing regionally is a more cost-effective model that curbs this sort of thing by lowering costs and bringing in more supporters.  A previous post )not by you) dismissed travel for a semi pro Glasgow club to Stranraer or Peterhead as being effectively the same thing, even though trips to Peterhead and Elgin are twice as far as away trips to Stranraer and Annan - large savings to be made by regionalising along east-west lines. 

Meanwhile, travelling support attending semi pro clubs in a West Conference of 10 at tier 3 (for example) could be significantly boosted by the more local matches of: Alloa, Stirling, Stenhousemuir, Albion Rvs, Airdrie, Clyde, Dumbarton (if relegated, for Ayr promoted), Queen's Park, Stranraer and Annan.  Clubs at this level could be making more money than they are and spending plenty less.  I'm quite sure the advent of a senior Pollock would add more to their coffers also.

Raith Rovers' core home support is closer to 1200, but you may have been looking at their average attendances from seasons where they have benefitted from being in a league with mostly full-time clubs and their larger travelling supports.  Ayr United's would be about 1100 - both managing full-time football in a part-time league, I think.

Peterhead regularly have 700+ of a home support, so based on the Airdrie model I included them as potentially full time.  I agree about your lot as well who, as you say, also have very good attendances and who I think would benefit from being in an East region at tier 3, with Angus derbies regularly boosting attendances to over 1000 if I remember that correctly.  I think you'd manage full time football well enough in a tier 2 surrounded by full-time clubs with larger travelling supports.

Haha, take it they're not too chuffed with it then?

As I said above, I think full-time-with-youngsters needs to be looked at by more clubs for early player development towards the national team and to stave off the big clubs and their colts ambitions.

Bringing junior clubs through into the senior League will, I think, boost revenues for part-time clubs provided that it is done sensibly, through regionalisation.  There's money being thrown away here, that the game could really do with. 

But, just my opinions.

Are you now suggesting FT football in a regional league, as the reduced travel costs would pay for it?

It doesn't work. The clubs are losing money. Where is the evidence of success?

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Haha, take it they're not too chuffed with it then?

As I said above, I think full-time-with-youngsters needs to be looked at by more clubs for early player development towards the national team and to stave off the big clubs and their colts ambitions.

Bringing junior clubs through into the senior League will, I think, boost revenues for part-time clubs provided that it is done sensibly, through regionalisation.  There's money being thrown away here, that the game could really do with. 

But, just my opinions.

 

For the first half of the season Peterhead’s average was only 577 and their highest was 691. First half of the season ours was 780.

 

Last season their average was 488, last season ours was 721.

 

Before then Arbroaths have been 651 (9th in League 2) 727, 1054 (Rangers) and 803.

 

And we just couldn’t sustain FT, no chance, when you actually think about the wages that are required for all of the required staff, coaches, players and training facilities for 4/5 days a week, expenses involved with that, it’s just not sustainable off of a support with about 500 season ticket holders. There are so many costs that go into running football clubs and don’t think a lot of people realise that. I’d love to sit down and look at a detailed report of all the costs in and out for a football club like ours over the season.

 

Airdrie are also helped because of their location, Peterhead and ourselves don’t have that. I don’t know if they train at the excelsior but that’ll be plastic too. Anyway they will be back PT next season, because they’ve realised FT is a bridge too far for them. They are not able to put a decent FT team out on the park when they should be putting good PT team out.

 

Don’t understand what the problem is anyway I don’t think we need any more FT clubs

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5 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Are you now suggesting FT football in a regional league, as the reduced travel costs would pay for it?

It doesn't work. The clubs are losing money. Where is the evidence of success?

Yes, i'll just produce that evidence when there isn't a regional set-up in the SPFL at the moment.  Don't be silly!

Yup one thing that I am suggesting is that full-time football in a regional league is possible, that greater local travelling supports would help to pay for it and so would reduced travel costs.  You don't know that it doesn't work, because we haven't yet seen it.  (And probably never will.)

2 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

For the first half of the season Peterhead’s average was only 577 and their highest was 691. First half of the season ours was 780.

Last season their average was 488, last season ours was 721.

Before then Arbroaths have been 651 (9th in League 2) 727, 1054 (Rangers) and 803.

And we just couldn’t sustain FT, no chance, when you actually think about the wages that are required for all of the required staff, coaches, players and training facilities for 4/5 days a week, expenses involved with that, it’s just not sustainable off of a support with about 500 season ticket holders. There are so many costs that go into running football clubs and don’t think a lot of people realise that. I’d love to sit down and look at a detailed report of all the costs in and out for a football club like ours over the season.

 

 

So would I - I think it'd be very instructive.  Again, I think with Airdrie managing full time with their crowds in a part-time league, and Livingston doing so with a similar home support to yours, but with the larger away attendances, Arbroath may well manage full time football in tier 2.

Interesting about Peterhead's attendances, because whenever I check in the papers on a Sunday they seem to be 700+. 

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So would I - I think it'd be very instructive.  Again, I think with Airdrie managing full time with their crowds in a part-time league, and Livingston doing so with a similar home support to yours, but with the larger away attendances, Arbroath may well manage full time football in tier 2.
Interesting about Peterhead's attendances, because whenever I check in the papers on a Sunday they seem to be 700+. 


I think it was this Saturday, actually I’m sure you just looked at this Saturday before your first post and thought that at the time [emoji6] We had a poor crowd Saturday and the Peterhead v Montrose game was one of the better crowds this weekend in the bottom 2 leagues.
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