League 2 General Chat Thread

[Meadow]

At a recent forum our owners said our budget was in the top three for this division, and I have no reason to disbelieve them.
Money well spent eh?

I made the observation elsewhere that Armani Little chose to move to Gillingham last summer but you're currently in 19th. I guess he moved for more money rather than the chance of promotion.

I doubt that he'd get into our playing squad now because our midfield is generally strong.

 

[Son of Cod]

Which clubs regularly break even?

Would love to join them and we are certainly heading that way thanks to a lot of capital expenditure.

We regularly broke even under John Fenty but we also regularly finished in the bottom third of the division, went down to non-league twice, never signed anyone for a fee and never spent a penny on the infrastructure of the club or on stadium maintenance.

Absolutely no chance Notts are anywhere remotely near breaking even with their current model and playing budget. Will be even less likely if promotion is achieved too. I guess all owners are going to say the aim is breaking even and sustainability but in reality that objective doesn't align whatsoever with being a progressive and appealing prospect to transfer targets, investors and new supporters in the lower leagues as what it essentially means is penny pinching.

 

[Grimsby Road]

The actual debt is more like half of that - that’s the accumulated losses over the years but a load of it was written off through the various takeovers and dates back to the 2010 debacle.

Still not a pretty number, but the losses are coming down year on year so they’re making solid progress in that respect. Their plan is to make it a break even business within the next two or three years, which would be impressive stuff considering some of those numbers.

similiar to what we are trying to do , i shudder to think what our losses will be as we had to pay off Hurst and assembled a relatively expensive squad after our cup run + ground improvements ; it will probably top Notts loss i suspect . Luckily we have people willing to invest but I know our owners pinned a lot of hope on the football regulator being implemented sooner rather than later but that doesn't seem to have happened so it will continue to be an expensive hobby for anyone even in division 4

 

[Grimsby Road]

We regularly broke even under John Fenty but we also regularly finished in the bottom third of the division, went down to non-league twice, never signed anyone for a fee and never spent a penny on the infrastructure of the club or on stadium maintenance.

Absolutely no chance Notts are anywhere remotely near breaking even with their current model and playing budget. Will be even less likely if promotion is achieved too. I guess all owners are going to say the aim is breaking even and sustainability but in reality that objective doesn't align whatsoever with being a progressive and appealing prospect to transfer targets, investors and new supporters in the lower leagues as what it essentially means is penny pinching.

Fenty was scaling ladders and trying to get players to work part-time at Tesco during Covid thank god he's gone we would have ended up in regional football with a few more years of him ; the damage is still felt now isn't it really with all the money required on the ground he neglected for 15 years

 

[Son of Cod]

similiar to what we are trying to do , i shudder to think what our losses will be as we had to pay off Hurst and assembled a relatively expensive squad after our cup run + ground improvements ; it will probably top Notts loss i suspect . Luckily we have people willing to invest but I know our owners pinned a lot of hope on the football regulator being implemented sooner rather than later but that doesn't seem to have happened so it will continue to be an expensive hobby for anyone even in division 4

Yep. Didn't we relay the pitch in that post-FA Cup run summer too? Or was that the summer before? One of the problems we have vs Notts (and more than a handful of other clubs at this level and L1) is that our owners, despite being very wealthy in everyman kind of terms, don't have a vast bottomless pit of money to plough into the club and there will come a time when they have to say enough is enough. I just hope that time isn't imminent as the good they've done for us has been transformative and we need to ride this upwards trajectory for as long as possible.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

We regularly broke even under John Fenty but we also regularly finished in the bottom third of the division, went down to non-league twice, never signed anyone for a fee and never spent a penny on the infrastructure of the club or on stadium maintenance.

Absolutely no chance Notts are anywhere remotely near breaking even with their current model and playing budget. Will be even less likely if promotion is achieved too. I guess all owners are going to say the aim is breaking even and sustainability but in reality that objective doesn't align whatsoever with being a progressive and appealing prospect to transfer targets, investors and new supporters in the lower leagues as what it essentially means is penny pinching.

They were my sentiments too, it's a very ambitious aim but looks like we are heading in the right direction which is always important.

Obviously I'd much rather be running at sizeable (albeit reducing) loss each year with millions being pumped into the club and in particular the infrastructure and long term benefit of the club than breaking even under Scrooge McDuck with absolutely no investment in infrastructure.

You can only kick the can so long down the road before you have to do something as you realise you are light years behind other clubs at the same level in the pyramid and below!

 

[Luke Imp]

Still not a pretty number, but the losses are coming down year on year so they’re making solid progress in that respect. Their plan is to make it a break even business within the next two or three years, which would be impressive stuff considering some of those numbers.

I imagine they'd probably have to re-set expectations if you got promoted. Even allowing for increase in away followings, additional solidarity payments etc, the finances around L1 football are mental and feel like a mini-Championship. L1 wages rose by 58% on last season.

I mentioned this on the L1 forum a few weeks back but we had around a mid-table L1 budget last season and to maintain that this season, we'd have had to increase the budget by 67%. We're £2m off a mid-table budget and £3.5m off a Top 7 budget (our budget is 19th).

It's perhaps skewed slightly by Birmingham and their £15m striker, but Wrexham apparently spent £2m on one striker and £15k/week on another in January. Huddersfield dropped £4m on two strikers in January. Bolton seem to spend £750k or so on players, Wycombe and Bristol Rovers spent £1m+ on transfers this season, Stockport don't seem shy to spend either. It's crazy, and that's before you even start looking at the likes of Charlton, Rotherham, Posh and Blackpool as well.

 

[Kauto Star]

⁸

We are debt free thanks to the Kuwaitis and presumably the biggest spenders in the division.

Judging by watching your lot on Saturday at Valley Parade, they've not spent wisely then!

 

[jacobncfc]

I imagine they'd probably have to re-set expectations if you got promoted. Even allowing for increase in away followings, additional solidarity payments etc, the finances around L1 football are mental and feel like a mini-Championship. L1 wages rose by 58% on last season.

I mentioned this on the L1 forum a few weeks back but we had around a mid-table L1 budget last season and to maintain that this season, we'd have had to increase the budget by 67%. We're £2m off a mid-table budget and £3.5m off a Top 7 budget (our budget is 19th).

It's perhaps skewed slightly by Birmingham and their £15m striker, but Wrexham apparently spent £2m on one striker and £15k/week on another in January. Huddersfield dropped £4m on two strikers in January. Bolton seem to spend £750k or so on players, Wycombe and Bristol Rovers spent £1m+ on transfers this season, Stockport don't seem shy to spend either. It's crazy, and that's before you even start looking at the likes of Charlton, Rotherham, Posh and Blackpool as well.

Yup, I agree. They’ve pretty much said that they want to give us a competitive budget for whatever division we’re in, but never one of the top ones because they’re playing a bit of a game of real life football manager and want to make that gap up with the recruitment. So we generally had around the third or fourth biggest in the NL, and I think we hover around the bottom end of the play-offs budget wise in League Two. Doing that straight away in League One would be a massive investment.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

I willl be interested to see the Carlisle spending.

On one hand I’ve heard rumours of horrendous levels of wages for Jones and Wyke.

On other side we have signed 50 odd players and trying to think how many of them genuinely other clubs at this level looked at and went ‘wow what a signing’ and wonder if maybe we are all talk but not splashing as much as we say.

I can think of Armstrong many would have signed at that time, Wyke many would sign here, Jones on paper many would sign…..after that it’s cast offs and other countries players.

 

[NCFC Kim]

Football finances are bonkers. Accounts like the ones Notts have posted should be alarming, but I expect losses like that are fairly modest in this day and age and no one is actually much worried about them.

Like most Notts fans I like our current owners and they're not doing anything that's unusual in modern football, but I do think it's a concern that even League Two clubs are now beyond the reach of modestly-successful local businessmen of the like of Derek Pavis (who owned a local plumbing business but had the finances to get the club promoted to the top division and own the club for about 15 years).

Our previous owner tried to take it on and it basically ruined him. Hardy's maybe not the best example because he turned out to be unsuitable as a football chairman, but he's really the sort of businessman who should be able to invest in lower league football and it should be a concern that it's mostly now restricted to the very wealthy.

 

[Stocky]

Americans are circling clubs at lower levels big time.

I expect loads more US/North American owners in the next 5 years. To them it's a fairly cheap buy for a big potential for growth because our (potentially) upwardly mobile pyramid system

They do their research though and I do wonder if Carlisle and Gillingham are setting alarm bells going. Those two are mentioned above are making it look far from easy. Wrexham are a different case with their commercial and marketing capabilities with the fame to go with the fortune of their owners.

We've had Carlisle marketing to own the north, Gillingham marketing to awaken sleeping giants etc. It's the American dream. But the reality is it's not an easy dream to achieve.

We've heard at our end that American buyers have had conversation with our owner about "taking us to the next level" and all this. It doesn't convince me. The only thing I would say is Americans do tend to invest heavily in infastructure.

 

[Grimsby Road]

I imagine they'd probably have to re-set expectations if you got promoted. Even allowing for increase in away followings, additional solidarity payments etc, the finances around L1 football are mental and feel like a mini-Championship. L1 wages rose by 58% on last season.

I mentioned this on the L1 forum a few weeks back but we had around a mid-table L1 budget last season and to maintain that this season, we'd have had to increase the budget by 67%. We're £2m off a mid-table budget and £3.5m off a Top 7 budget (our budget is 19th).

It's perhaps skewed slightly by Birmingham and their £15m striker, but Wrexham apparently spent £2m on one striker and £15k/week on another in January. Huddersfield dropped £4m on two strikers in January. Bolton seem to spend £750k or so on players, Wycombe and Bristol Rovers spent £1m+ on transfers this season, Stockport don't seem shy to spend either. It's crazy, and that's before you even start looking at the likes of Charlton, Rotherham, Posh and Blackpool as well.

That's what worries me if we manage to go up at any point Lincoln albeit through gritted teeth seem one of the more well run clubs in the bottom 2 leagues yet still have to lose what 2-3 million to have any chance of being competitive which seems ridiculous really - I'm sure i heard that Liam Scully say the budget is 19th or something which seems crazy ; you have to wonder what any sort of mid range size clubs objectives are as it seems like you effectively just have to shell a load of money out to tread water .

I would be interested where a Town or Lincoln would sit in regards playing budget without any outside investment , i suspect it would be close to bottom in their respective leagues

I just want a team to watch that are not in any sort of jeopordy or over reliant on owner cash injections (even if that's at a lower level ) but maybe that's just a pipe dream really.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

I still do think Carlisle is a similar club to Plymouth if it could be run right, they have been getting 6-8,000 fans each week at home the last 2 years and have only seen 4 home wins in that 2 year period

Think support at many clubs would have dropped badly by now they have had a lot of good will so far.

But unlike Plymouth and even Swansea Carlisle have not got the nice new facilities

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

I wouldn't imagine foreign ownership groups looking to invest in English clubs will be interested in many, if any, clubs that have to spend millions and millions on the stadium be it a new one or upgrading the existing one. No matter how good the support levels are or can be.

Americans view English sports teams as very cheap by comparison but will not want that huge additional infrastructure cost to get them up to speed with a progressive clubs or clubs in a higher aspirational division. Basically a non-starter.