Playing Budget

[ComeOnIrene]

I'm sorry but that comment is laughable.

We wouldn't come out and say 'we have the highest budget in the league', so I know what you're getting at, but if we did I think we would just say nothing at all. When we first got relegated last May, the chairman made a big deal about how we would have the best budget in the Conference to placate devastated fans.

He quickly changed his tune though when the financial implications of relegation hit home and we subsequently had to make huge cuts to our budgets and made a number of club staff redundant. Darrell Clarke's playing budget got smaller and smaller as the summer went on due to the sheer incompetence of our Finance Director, who had failed to budget for Conference life even when relegation was a distinct possibility in March/April. I still can't believe he's in a job now to be honest, but that's a different matter.

The official line from June onwards was that we would have a 'competitive' budget and nothing more. 'Competitive' was the word used because if the club actually came out and admitted that the likes of Forest Green could spend more than us, it would have caused uproar.

I spoke to Darrell during the summer for half an hour or so after a Supporters Club EGM and he was brutally honest about the situation he found himself in. He said something alone the lines of 'I am not going to lie to you, we won't have anywhere the biggest budget in the league. But I promise you now, I'll put together a squad you can be proud of and I'll get us in the top 5.'

You can write it off as cheap manager talk (and given that you don't know the guy I can understand why you would), and if he'd just said 'we won't have the biggest budget' and left it at that, I'd admit it was just a chance for him to get his excuses in early. But given he was a young gaffer that wasn't universally liked by Gasheads at the time, there is no way on God's earth he would have put more pressure on himself by making big promises about the play-offs.

 

[GodsGift]

That's all well and good, and I don't disagree with any of it. But your budget, quite clearly, is within the top two or three in the league, making your original comment moot.

Who do you actually think is paying more? Forest Green? That's the only club I can think of and even then I expect it to be close.

 

[Harrier94]

Personally I've been impressed with Storer so far, Not an exciting player but a player every team needs. Breaks play up, decent passing, very verbal. Can see why he's been a captain before. Some of our fans haven't come round to him yet, but some of our fans wouldn't see any positives if we won the league

He had the same response here, does a job that goes unnoticed by most by just sitting in front of the defence breaking up the play so some people didn't rate him here

 

[Jemfy]

I think the nail has been hit on the head higher up in the thread. People talk about it in different ways, but it should include PAYE and NIC IMO, since this is what the club is paying out to have the players.

In terms of what the club actually gives to the players and what the club actually pays to have the players, I'd guess that would be BR straddling £1m, maybe over. Not necessarily the largest in the conference, but up there with the likes of Grimsby and FGR. Hard to judge where Barnet are for me at least, could be up there too.

The chairman couldn't exactly go out and say "we have the largest budget in the league" since he would have no way of knowing, whatever he would want to say. Saying "top 4 or 5" is a pretty good marker, shows enough ambition to the fans to try to keep them happy without putting too much pressure on the team/manager.

 

[Vanni]

Nothing wrong with admitting your club has the biggest budget. What's wrong however is claiming something which you know is not true. Like Luton fans last year claiming their budget was 'comfortably under a million'

 

[ComeOnIrene]

That's all well and good, and I don't disagree with any of it. But your budget, quite clearly, is within the top two or three in the league, making your original comment moot.

Who do you actually think is paying more? Forest Green? That's the only club I can think of and even then I expect it to be close.

By nowhere near, I mean we aren't near the amount of the highest spenders, not that we aren't in the top 3 or 4.

Perhaps I didn't word that very well, but I stand by my comment.

FGR and Eastleigh are the two I think are/could be paying more than us, and I'd say Grimsby and ourselves are probably on a par. I don't know specifically - I have no facts on other club's finances - but I'm going by what Rovers has said. I have no reason to disbelieve Darrell.

 

[Gashead]

I would say the same. I said it the other day, whilst the only 'big name' player we have brought in is Easter, Eastleigh/FGR have signed 3/4/5 of these sorts of players just this season. Okay, you can argue we have a few from last season, but only three 'big names' are still on their current contracts, whilst one has been offered new, reduced terms whilst the other two from last season have come through our youth system.

'Nowhere near' is an overstatement, but I don't think we're top re: playing budgets.

 

[Southern Shayman]

I'd argue that Bristol Rovers are probably vying for 2nd in the budget league with Eastleigh and Grimsby.

No shame in it on Bristol's part, big crowds and sponsorship = big budgets.

Just the way it is.

 

[Jemfy]

Nothing wrong with admitting your club has the biggest budget. What's wrong however is claiming something which you know is not true. Like Luton fans last year claiming their budget was 'comfortably under a million'

It does however put extra pressure on the team to perform, with fans raising expectations as such. Not pressure Rovers need(ed).

 

[miagsygas]

Honestly, I don't really care about money in terms of it's correlation to success. I don't believe in "buying the league" or anything like that. For years and years we've had the highest wage budgets in League 1 and 2 respectively. We've been relegated from both. That's in part due to being a piss poor ran club, part having piss poor managers, part having players who didn't give a flying, injury prone and on 3 year deals contracts. That's not even mentioning the players that are crap.

People will always say that we're expected to go up because we're the "biggest club", or we've spent the most. Really, none of that means a thing. None of that will dissuade me from how good a job Clarke is doing, as we've been a club that has been failing for years. On top of that, he's had to deal with a massive slice in wages, a massive amount of pressure and bad feeling around the club, still the same crap boards.

I'm only worried if the club is spending out of their means. It seems like a real effort has been made to change that this year, at least on Clarke's side.

 

[GodsGift]

No one's saying you aren't doing well? So there's no need to get so defensive. Considering how poorly the rest of us ex-league teams have done since being relegated down here you're doing great, and much better than any of us expected.

I was just pointing out that your budget certainly is in the top two or three. It doesn't mean everything, but it certainly counts for something.

 

[Master D]

They have the biggest crowds by a mile so no problem with them having one of, if not the biggest budget. It's when tinpotters like Eastleigh come on the scene with crazy budgets it starts to grate with me.

 

[miagsygas]

No one's saying you aren't doing well? So there's no need to get so defensive. Considering how poorly the rest of us ex-league teams have done since being relegated down here you're doing great, and much better than any of us expected.

I was just pointing out that your budget certainly is in the top two or three. It doesn't mean everything, but it certainly counts for something.

I have heard a lot of people say "it's no big deal that they're top, they're expected to win the league." Granted a lot of that is based from certain rivals of ours who don't know what a tough league this is to get out of.

 

[Jemfy]

I have heard a lot of people say "it's no big deal that they're top, they're expected to win the league." Granted a lot of that is based from certain rivals of ours who don't know what a tough league this is to get out of.

It's no big deal to be in the playoffs with your apparent budget.

To be top though requires a measure of both money and managerial skill (both of which are influences on playing skill). You need a bit of both to win any league. The less of one, the more you need of the other. It's easier to pump in more money to address the balance.

 

[Railway Blue]

Our playing budget is £300K which puts us in the bottom bracket.