Is your club equipped for being promoted? And at what price

[SpireLine]

We really haven't. At best propped up by player sales, but everyone saleable's gone now.

 

[THE LAST WALTZ]

No, but it is looking an increasingly irrelevant question.

 

[Lamby]

We will be, watch this space.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Sheffield United have an infrastructure and facilities closer to Premier League level than Championship.
Our ground holds 32,000 with planning permission still in place to extend it to 37,000 once we've stabilised in the PL. We've had our worse run of recent seasons in our entire history and we will still end up averaging 20,000 in the 3rd tier. Not many clubs outside the big 6 could retain 20,000 loyal supporters after their 5th season in the 3rd tier.

We also have a fantastic new Academy training facility.
So off the field we're ready for the Premier League, shame the players can't cope with the expectation.

 

[Shrew_fan]

Plenty of clubs like Chesterfield, Shrewsbury and Morecambe have made money from their new grounds.

We lost ~£500k last season which was a promotion season with bigger crowds. We are therefore reliant on player sales and the occasional cup run which has been ok this season (Goldson, Woods, Ginnelly all been sold - totalling ~£1.5m I would imagine) but can't be expected every season. When we sold the old ground and built the new one we had a surplus of £2m cash in the bank. I believe that has now been whittled down to £1m so will be gone in 2-3 seasons unless we somehow reverse the trend. One bonus we have that is pretty unusual in lower leagues is no debt - we fully own our ground and have cash in the bank. The hospitality side of the club does seem to be struggling though wheras everyone thought it would provide the income to top up the playing budget.

 

[F!RTHY]

Sheffield United have an infrastructure and facilities closer to Premier League level than Championship.
Our ground holds 32,000 with planning permission still in place to extend it to 37,000 once we've stabilised in the PL. We've had our worse run of recent seasons in our entire history and we will still end up averaging 20,000 in the 3rd tier. Not many clubs outside the big 6 could retain 20,000 loyal supporters after their 5th season in the 3rd tier.

We also have a fantastic new Academy training facility.
So off the field we're ready for the Premier League, shame the players can't cope with the expectation.

Sounds like a very similar story to when we found ourselves in L2.

Biggest ground and crowds in the league. A lot of smaller clubs used this to their advantage, as opposed to the 'bigger club' grabbing the league by its balls and actually competing like they should.

Although, at least you're competing - we almost fell out of the arse end of the league in 2010. Parkinson came in in 2011, steadied the ship, then mounted a serious promotion challenge in 2012 - with a lucrative Capital Cup run along the way. We haven't looked back since; improving year on year.

What you'll find is, it'll just click one season. You may need to invest into the team more, and possibly change your manager - but promotion will come eventually.

 

[King Kev]

We lost ~£500k last season which was a promotion season with bigger crowds. We are therefore reliant on player sales and the occasional cup run which has been ok this season (Goldson, Woods, Ginnelly all been sold - totalling ~£1.5m I would imagine) but can't be expected every season. When we sold the old ground and built the new one we had a surplus of £2m cash in the bank. I believe that has now been whittled down to £1m so will be gone in 2-3 seasons unless we somehow reverse the trend. One bonus we have that is pretty unusual in lower leagues is no debt - we fully own our ground and have cash in the bank. The hospitality side of the club does seem to be struggling though wheras everyone thought it would provide the income to top up the playing budget.

God's sake first Chessie and now you ruining my argument. Well you are still stronger than us financially it seems and you did make some money from the ground move.

 

[King Kev]

We barely make anything on the commercial side of things apparently.

 

[Hedonist Puncture]

Not really.

Seeing as we've already spent two years in the Championship before, it means we'd have to change our terracing into seats if we went up. This would lower the capacity of the ground and just make it even shitter. We are attempting to build a new ground but that never seems to properly take off and it'll take a couple of years anyway.

I'm not sure that we will need to change the terracing into seats. I'm confident that we can appeal the ruling, if we can show that we will be moving into the new ground.

 

[Andrewboom]

You get 3 seasons of grace re terracing in the championship. You don't get another 3 years if you get relegated then promoted again.

We went over that time which is why our town end got replaced with the golf stand you all love.

 

[Fedora Dale]

You get 3 seasons of grace re terracing in the championship. You don't get another 3 years if you get relegated then promoted again.

We went over that time which is why our town end got replaced with the golf stand you all love.

I quite liked that stand. Serves a purpose.

(Admittedly, it was only raining gently at the time of my visit, and the local stewardry were relaxed about me sparking up)

For similar.weather-related reasons, Exeter's WW1 trench reconstruction holds decent memories, even though we lost.on my visit.

Macclesfield, otoh, is a rainy shithole...

 

[joethegill]

I quite liked that stand. Serves a purpose.

I think you're the first person to ever find a positive about it!

 

[MJA]

I wouldn't say Vale tick many, if any, boxes required to survive let alone succeed at Championship level. Not got a strong enough fan base, and I don't even think a promotion to the Championship would help and nor have we got the financial clout behind us to buy our way up the table.

 

[gazbrewer]

Financially we're in a good position, no debt. We usually have small profit every year, including last year when we won League Two. I would expect us to have a slightly larger profit this year give the sale of El Khayati to QPR. The new TV deal next season should we get promoted will do a lot to make it easier for us to compete (though I would expect us to drop straight back down should we go up). It may be a good leveller for many clubs, higher TV money=lower percentage of income through turnstiles; so attendances are less relevant.

Ground wise, we are the least prepared of any club to make the jump. Our ground was built for conference football, with possibly league two football in mind. I also doubt that even if we do go up that anything will change regarding the ground other than maybe some additional temporary seating in the corners. Personally I think this would be a little short sighted, given that seats are currently sold out in league one (there are only 2000 of them), doubling the size of the away end and making either the new top half all seater, or making it all seater entirely would be a better way to go. It would free up the current away seats in the main stand for home fans, and increase the amount of fans we could accommodate.

Training facilities, well if the England teams training facitilities are not good enough, I don't know what is. No issues there, we train at the best facilities in the country.

 

[Dayman]

Fairly sure we lost money last year. I think Ben Robinson said in an interview that he let Jimmy stretch the budget to get us over the line last season. Nasser's sale and any compo we may have got from QPR for Jimmy will have covered that and is also the reason why we've finished the season with a small squad. I do know we were right up our FFP limit before Jimmy went.

 

[S2_Blade]

As already stated by a couple of Blades fans, we are more than equipped but it is just the getting back into Championship where problem lies.

Hopefully next season it all finally clicks into place.

 

[Hedonist Puncture]

You get 3 seasons of grace re terracing in the championship. You don't get another 3 years if you get relegated then promoted again.

We went over that time which is why our town end got replaced with the golf stand you all love.

Yeah, aware of the rule, but hopefully can relax it for one season before we move into the new stadium.

 

[The Hand of Dom]

Are you playing 3-5-2? You'd get torn to shreds at this level, much like we did.

3-5-2 at that level can work if you have the right players.

We did it when we got relegated on 54 points, and even then we nearly survived. In fact if it wasn't for the start of the season where we lost 9 of the first 11 with a diamond, we'd have easily stayed up. When we switched to 3-5-2, we were incredible.

 

[Humpalumpa]

I've got one last wish before I depart this place and its to see town have just one season playing in the division above. (Championship). They can lose every game if it happens!!!!!!!
Now in my 50's and having followed town since being a nipper; taken to my first game at Saltergate in 69/70 by my old man (45yrs and counting following 'em); this wish/dream has never been realised.
Elleray ensured town wouldn't make the FA Cup final at Old Trafford v Boro, when perhaps we should have won the semi at OT and played the other CFC at Wembley?
Moving on to now, the new stadium has helped and IMO a decent stadium with plenty around it (some decent pubs etc).
The club has moved on to a venue used almost every day throughout the year, increasing its income streams to levels never reached in the Saltergate era
However thats were it ends, after so much promise last season under Paul Cook, the Pigeon fancier pulled the plug and has sold all the saleable assets( we were warned by those at S6)
Any last penny generated now is going straight into the pigeon fanciers deep pockets hence the poor season this term.
If Saunders had remained we would have been down at Easter.
He's (Allen) not a fan of CFC just a business man who wanted a Conference/Banqueting venue in South Sheffield.
Any how I'm not bothered how we would survive in the division above, just give us one season there!!!!

 

[UTS]

Bury will never be equipped for Championship football and the sooner some of our fanbase realise that the better (basically remove their heads from Stewart Day's arse).

If we got to the Championship we would likely average about 6,500-7,000 fans mainly due to large away followings, this would still only be half of the next lowest attendance in that league.

Our chairman came in 3 years ago preaching Championship football within 5 years.. He clearly did no background research on Bury FC as we had just been relegated/almost went bust and recorded some of the lowest attendances in our history (backing up King Kev's comment, no matter what league we are in, if we are shit crowds will always go down, Bury public don't know what the word loyalty means). 1,350 vs Stevenage being a particular lowpoint.

Our ground although decent in size is very dated. All the facilities are old and it really holds the club back in modernising and just looking more professional/attractive. Only one exit route in the whole ground means police would lose their shit if we got in the Championship.

Key example being the absolute farce that was the Hull City cup game, where it transpired that they were given more tickets than us! We were only allocated 40% of our own fucking ground.

I'd rather we just concentrated on being a sustainable club without the tag of spending beyond our means. Try and establish ourselves at this level and slowly grow the fanbase (which was going well until about 6 months ago when Flitcrofts awful tactics drove all the new fans away, another example of Bury populations pathetic attitude).

We have a decent population in the borough, but ultimately United and City will eventually kill Bury/Dale/Oldham as when you have some of the best/biggest clubs literally 5 miles away what's the point of supporting your home town team??

 

[UTS]

ALSO not sure I'd even want to see Bury in the higher tiers of the pyramid even if we could somehow afford it.. Especially the PL, fans in that league are an absolute mess, don't want anything to do with it. Super high ticket prices and getting thrashed all the time doesn't sound like fun

 

[King Kev]

Bury will never be equipped for Championship football and the sooner some of our fanbase realise that the better (basically remove their heads from Stewart Day's arse).

If we got to the Championship we would likely average about 6,500-7,000 fans mainly due to large away followings, this would still only be half of the next lowest attendance in that league.

I think that if prices remained reasonable and deals were done to promote games AND we remained competetive then we would manage 5000 home fans most weeks, maybe more depending on the opposition.

Our chairman came in 3 years ago preaching Championship football within 5 years.. He clearly did no background research on Bury FC as we had just been relegated/almost went bust and recorded some of the lowest attendances in our history (backing up King Kev's comment, no matter what league we are in, if we are shit crowds will always go down, Bury public don't know what the word loyalty means). 1,350 vs Stevenage being a particular lowpoint.

I recently married into a family of Bury based Arsenal supporters for feck sake, Bury born and bread and they support a club 300 odd miles away with no inkling or intention what so ever to support their actual local team.
However it isn't only Bury's finest armchairers though who are the problem it is the part timers and floating fans. Crowd vs Wycombe in 2011, nearly 7000, crowd vs Carlisle for first home game in 2011/2012, 3600 (about 1000 away fans). I was mortified when I walked in Gigg Lane that day. How thick can people be that they will attend a game that celebrates a promotion but then won't even turn up to any games at the next level. I mean we had some okayish crowds in 2011/2012 but overall they were embarrasing. There must have been at least 2000 fans who attended that Wycombe game who didn't attend again until the Southend game. Fucking pathetic!
It annoyed me when we played Dale earlier this season and a few of the lads couldn't get into Stanley's as it was full. When I got in there though, there were so many faces I had never seen before and not seen since. One lanky, half cast, chav git was acting the big man and seemed like he wanted to try and provoke a fight with anyone, I have not seen him since and doubt he has attended since. Interesting that all my friends who were turned away were at the said Stevenage game in 2013.

Our ground although decent in size is very dated. All the facilities are old and it really holds the club back in modernising and just looking more professional/attractive. Only one exit route in the whole ground means police would lose their shit if we got in the Championship.

This, the GMP are as incompetent as they come and anything that might cause them to do some actual police work forces them to shit themselves.

Key example being the absolute farce that was the Hull City cup game, where it transpired that they were given more tickets than us! We were only allocated 40% of our own fucking ground.

And as it panned out 3500 Hull fans from a crowd of nearly 8000. They could have easily been given the cemmy end, and, the end block of the main stand as a ticket allocation but the incompetence of the police and, the ignorance of the board caused a truly humiliating decision which showed a total disregard for our club and our fans. It felt like an away game at times and basically chucked out home advantage. Had it been pay on the day for home fans and had we been given our normal stands then we would have easily pulled in more than 5000 home fans that day. God imagine if it had been United at home, what would the board and incompetent GMP done then? Probably given us the social club and the United fans the ground.

I'd rather we just concentrated on being a sustainable club without the tag of spending beyond our means. Try and establish ourselves at this level and slowly grow the fanbase (which was going well until about 6 months ago when Flitcrofts awful tactics drove all the new fans away, another example of Bury populations pathetic attitude).

This, an established league one club with home crowds of 3500/4000 should be the aim. The occasional dabble at promotion to the championship wouldn't hurt but is not the be all and end all and in the same vein relegation to league 2 should not mean administration and financial problems. Aim one should be getting the fan base up and build from there. As you say our prick of a manager put a spanner in the works with his pathetic attitude. We are talking about an idiot of a manager who started a central midfielder at right back and one at right wing in a cup fucking fourth round game against a young an inexperienced second string. This done whilst having a full back and two wingers on the bench
His bafflement at the crowds going down as we dropped from playoff hopefuls to relegation fodder just shows how deluded the idiot is.

We have a decent population in the borough, but ultimately United and City will eventually kill Bury/Dale/Oldham as when you have some of the best/biggest clubs literally 5 miles away what's the point of supporting your home town team??

Re the last part, it is a great point well made and something that annoys me about the in laws armchairing support of Arsenal. If City or United are on the tele (home or away) you only have to go into the Knowsley to see the sad story. Hearing armchair city fans deludedly telling you they are still real fans though amuses me. They are just as bad as the armchair reds but are that thick they seem to think that supporting the second biggest and second most glamourous/popular club in the Greater Manc area some how excludes them from the glory fan tag, it doesn't.
The Bury public have on odd occasion shown that they can get behind the team but only when extinction has loomed or success is achieved. The board have at least improved the crowds, that is one thing to be positive about. Our home support average this season has seen a decent improvement on what it was in 11/12 under Barker despite very similar seasons. If we can have a couple of good seasons on the pitch (wont happen with Flitcroft in charge mind) with some exciting youth blooded then there is a chance we could maybe build on the fanbase. This should be the main aim in my opinion.

Bolded my replies to each excellent mini rant and ended up on one myself. Sorry about that but we hold very similar views it seems.