Thetownend.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27224806

Just to think....it could of been us!

What is noticeable is that for all their spending and promotion they only increased Turnover by £1m.

There was a mention of reducing costs in that article - and as we know only too well, there is really only one way to achieve that.

I can see them doing a 'Bristol City' spend a fortune on the back of a wealthy owner, get there or thereabouts in the Championship for a couple of years - then meltdown.

The only thing in the Traders favour is that their owner is a fan. That Ruskie will be off quicker than Jordan's knickers when the debt keeps rising

Im not so sure, people were saying that about the Ruskie at Chelsea for years but he shows no signs of legging it.

This particular Ruskie could have the same mentality for all we know, in it for the long run.

How many different threads do we need about this?

I really don't care what other clubs do with their finances. I hope Ritchie gets an opportunity to play in the Premier League, even if he isn't good enough.

Obviously another one!

Cue Honkytonk + vitriol.

Meh, I enjoyed our unsustainable ride. I'm sure the 'muff fans are too. It may all end in disaster, it may not. I don't really care.

this, they are having fun, get over it

The chances are that if we still had PDC here,we would still be racking up huge debts as well.

I can't really add anything I haven't said already.

Cunts.

Why the hate, honks?

I just think they're cunts. Partly because of the fans that I've encountered, partly because of the way they purchased Ritchie for a pittance in the full knowledge it would hamstring the rest of our season (yes I know this kind of thing happens all the time but for some reason that particular example pissed me off no fucking end), partly because they're a sign of the increasing disparity between lower league football and upper league football (wealthy owner bankrolling a non-sustainable business because of the lure of the premiership), partly because they, like Brentford seem to not have any form of scouting but just try and dislodge one of our better players instead every Transfer Window. There are numerous other ones but some of them are probably too petty. Some things in you life you just don't like and AFC fucking Bournemouth is one of those for me.

Seriously?? selfish bastards

This s the same bournemouth that about 8 years ago were pleading with other fans of other clubs to give them money so they can survive, and now lording it up over everyone else. They will crash and burn, and I will have no sympathy

I agree that they were really desperate a few years ago, but their misfortune was our gain when they wasn't allowed to sign a certain Charlie Austin because of a transfer embargo so we did. But on another note about collections to help clu s out, i remember many years ago when we first went into administration that we went to Charlton & they had a collection so our youth teams could goto th milk cup in Ireland.

Fuck off Jutty, you muff loving cunt.

your only jealous flash cos i took Mrs Flash down a secluded country lane the other day.  :)
And she didn't moan about it.

That's not a great self endorsement.. Surely she should have been moaning if it was any good ;)

I think the thing with Bournemouth is that when they were struggling, their bucket shakers were out in force and a lot of people helped out. I know gave them a few quid, and I imagine other Town fans did when we went down there.

Then they get the money pumped in. That's fair enough, happens to loads of clubs. The thing that really got to me was the mocking and belittling they did to us when our financial situation worsened and admin / possibly worse looked likely. They ripped us to shreds, and to add insult to injury they took our best player from us for nothing. The smug articles from that cunt who writes for their local rag also pissed me off (the whole Ritchie, 'I knew I made the right move' article. We all know he didn't want to go at the time)

It all just left a little sour taste in the mouth. Probably throw a little bit of jealousy in there as well, as I always get a bit green eyed when small clubs do better than us. I feel myself caring less now than I did this time last season, but I will smile when it goes belly up. And it will go belly up.

You have such a dirty mind, i make a very innocent statement & you take it the wrong way.

It's strange how Bormuff got so close to the edge before, and just about pulled back....you'd have thought their fans would have been a bit more circumspect about the club racking up yet more unsustainable debt.  I guess they just assume the oligarch will just write it off....

He's charging interest on his loans, which is ominous.

Because for him it's a business. He'll get the money he's owed somehow, even if the club goes bust, and gut the place while he's at it.

I can't wait.

We should start a sweepstake guessing the date when it all goes tits up

Judging by their fans comments on other forums, that's exactly what they're saying. He's revered as some kind of messiah.

Messiahvich, surely? Dodgy funny name jokes aside, wouldn't the majority of our fans be the same in the same circumstances?

One season in the premier league and he'll get all his money back and more.

Maybe not any more. Maybe they've got their Andrew Black who is into football.

Perhaps she took it the wrong way which is why there was no moaning?

Yeah maybe. That'll be why he's charging them 6% on all the money he puts in. For the love of it.

I imagine he'll be expected to fund the transfers and wages needed for them to stay in the league. Or he'll take the TV money and run, which could still leave them in a dire situation. Although at least they would be a premier league club in a decent location that someone else could take on.

Can't be as bad as Brum, though.

Apparently the annual salary for Zigic alone was more than their whole season's gate receipts

 :jawdrop:

Though Brum have been idiotic, you can at least see the potential there and why it would be tempting to splash the cash in the hope of getting them established in the prem. Bournemouth though? Average crowds of 9k this season, and that's including the increased away gates you get at that level.

I don't begrudge their fans, except the ones who revelled in our problems, but the media arse kissing gets on my tits. Manish on the Football League Show never fails to mention 'what a great job, Eddie Howe has done', never brings up the wads of unsubstainable cash he's burning

See this was the problem wasn't it. Streams of isn't swindon evil for what it's done nonsense when we had about 25 pros in comparison to muffs 35 but were still certainly trying to buy out way out of the league.  And all the time the media was banging on about how great other teams were doing. Well guess what, behind any team doing well is a widespread fiddling of figures and massive overspending. I don't feel sorry for any teams any more. They go in to a cycle if splash the cash and burn. It's all a fiction. Let's face it the only plucky under dog doing well has been Yeovil. Every league is the same, you spend you get success as long as you continue to spend because some other fucker is going to increase the spending.

It's a stupid game. You might as well just get the owners round the table at the start of the season ask how much money they have and give the league to the richest.

Next time some one comes rattling buckets for poor old Portsmouth / birmingham / Bournemouth / qpr / Bolton  or whoever else is on the pint of bankruptcy because they chased the dream by living unsustainably, well they can fuck off.

Burnley look like they're doing alright. Got a couple of fans as chairmen, tried to lower costs (guess they got a few quid for Austin which helped) and now got promoted to the Prem without spending gazillions.

Don't know the ins and outs of their finances, but even if they are in the minority seeing clubs like them and Swansea getting success without running at a massive annual loss has to give hope to those that want to see our club run in a similar way.

Then we can stop the dick waving over whether our prospective new owners are worth 700k or 7m or whatever as it shouldn't matter if they can run the club properly.

Absolutely.  My list of 'don't like' clubs doesn't match up with most people's: Franchise (obviously, although I hesitate to call them a 'club' anyway), and then Wigan, Fulham, Portsmouth, Man City.  The latter examples are all clubs who would be nowhere near where they are (or, in Portsmouth's case, were) were it not for completely unsustainable spending that distorted competition to the point it became meaningless.

In Wigan and Fulham's cases, their owners simply took clubs going nowhere and out-spent the opposition in to submission before, inevitably, they acquired a place in the top flight.  Promoted to the Premier League?  Of course you were.  How could you not?  I see nothing of any merit in either 'achievement'.

Man City?  A great old club with a proud history that owes last (and probably this) season's title to petro-dollars.  To the fan who grew up on the terraces of Maine Road, sorry, but your support is irrelevant.  Supporting Man City these days must be like cheering a stock exchange flotation.  Pointless.

But it's Portsmouth that ires me the most.  That FA Cup in 2008 was purchased, not won.  Portsmouth's natural place in the general pecking order is a little, but not that far, above us.  And for a number of years in the early 2000s most of their fans allowed themselves to think that their rise up the rankings was merited and that things had changed.  It hadn't.  They were then, and still are, a mid-ranking side with a small but enthusiastic fanbase.  By spending money that they did not have, they robbed the rightful winners of the 2008 FA Cup (who ever they might be) of a trophy.  I'd like to see them return it, but they won't.  The 5-0 thumping we gave them last season was one that I really enjoyed.

Bournemouth may shortly join the list.

Caddis back at the county g...

Saxondale raises a good point and it was true in the League 2 Championship year too, we were 'buying promotion' (which is to a degree a fair criticism) but Crawley, with far far lower gates and a similar wage structure were the plucky newcomers

Crawley aren't a football club though, they're a muddy field with some stands around it.

Corrected.

Cheers Venks.

Spot on. Sadly this sums up modern football. I used to like clubs like Brentford and Bouremouth now I find myself smiling every time I see they have lost.

So what are we saying about how football club's should operate?

I can't think of any smallish club that has sustained a period of success without a large injection of cash somewhere along the way.

Without Black's cash would we still be floundering, Scum-like in Division 4?

Yes, Yeovil made it to the Championship but they are coming straight down and we are yet to see what the effect of that season will have on them next season.

It would be a bit boring if every team stayed in roughly the same area of the fooball pyramid for decade after decade.

I like seeing different teams move up the pyramid. Ideally do it the "right" way and don't buy it but if money is what it takes then fair play to clubs who take this route IMO.

Swansea. Reading (OK, they had money spent but on the infrastucture, not just buying up all the best players). Charlton for a very long time until they decided that finishing mid-table in the Prem was boring and sacked Curbishley.

Thats true but if it was a level playing field without super rich investors at every other club it would be wore common to see teams like us reach the higher levels just like we did 20 years ago.

I guess thats the problem though, because a few clubs got some backing the only way for other clubs to keep up is yo seek investment themselves. Those who cant get left behind.

Selling Grabban to Cardiff.

Fire sale started already ;)

On what planet is Lewis Grabban worth £3 million.

This leaves Cardiff with only £59 million remaining from their television money.

Gravy train.

they want to sign Dan Gosling (ex-Newcastle) as well - his wages won't be cheap

The muff are due a windfall of about £6.25mill from the sale of Lallana to Liverpool when it goes through as part of the sell on clause.

Lallana's been with Southampton since he was a kid. Surely this can't be right?

Due 25% of any sell on fee apparently.

Jeebus. That sort of clause when buying a 12 year old in 2000?

Southampton Academy get all the plaudits but they swept up all the South West youngsters with their satellite academies across the region.

We really fucked up on Theo, didn't we!

Yes, yes we did.

I stand by my point about Southampton's Academy though. Almost every other kid in West Wiltshire seemed to be on Southampton's books at one point*

* Statistic made up.

99% of all statistics are made up so you are ok with that :D

Yeah, and that was compounded by Rupert Lowe getting all tearful about big clubs snatching his developed players when they were selling Walcott to Arsenal for all the tea in China and giving us none of it. Twat.

At least Southampton actually bring these kids through though, I find it hard to begrudge them when they've brought through so many England/British players- Bridge, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Bale, Shaw, Lallana, Ward-Browse, Chambers, they've done a fine job. More fucked off with Chelsea and Man City hoovering up all the kids and then doing nothing with them at all other than sending them to the gym.

I think they are a fantastic football club, the level of support they get from a catchment area probably around the same size as swindon's makes me quite jealous if I'm honest.

Catchment area may be around the same size.  But there are a lot more people living in it, surely?

Fuck me, they only get around 10,000 and that includes away fans.

Yes, for sure, they are having a good time at the moment but don't big them up FFS.

That Ruskie will drop them like a hot turd when it suits him

They might have been referring to saints, Audrey.

Ah!

Population wise Southampton isn't much bigger than Swindon (i think), but its hard core support is probably because the population has been roughly the size it is for a while, as opposed to Swindon, which was the fastest growing town in Europe and all that....

Spending longer in the top divisions helps too.

Bearing in mind places like Eastleigh (100k) and Winchester (40k) are a knats hair away I think their catchment area is a lot bigger.

Im in North Hants and shed loads of people are Saints fans, they have control over most non-Pompey areas of Hants.

Southampton 254,000
Swindon  186,000

Eastleigh 100K? Bugger me.

North Hampshire is aldershot territory  ;)

Southampton have a healthy fanbase in South and West Wiltshire too.

I'm probably not that far from you in NE Hampshire.  I'd say the best supported club in these parts is Chelsea, but Shots, Southampton, Reading & Arsenal all get a look in.  It's a real mixed bag.

For such a densely populated and affluent part of the world, there are surprisingly few League clubs.  Guildford, Woking, Bracknell, Petersfield, Winchester & Basingstoke, for example...none of which have ever had League representation (so clubs like Southampton are going to be able to attract a fanbase over quite a large radius).  Contrast that with somewhere like Lancashire, where just about every 50,000+ town has a club in one of the top 4 divisions.

And to illustrate the point...

Map of Premier League & Football League Clubs (http://www.myfootygrounds.co.uk/AreaMap.asp?view=ENGLAND)

Edit: Map appears to be out of date however.  For some reason, it's showing two League clubs in Bristol?!

 :D

Not in the least bit surprising, football is a traditionally working class sport, so is most heavily embedded in working class areas. It's only in the past 20 years or so the poshies have discovered football, since that nice Mr Murdoch invented it in 1992.

Like that map, scrolled out and Oxford became Headington. Mind you if Oxford continue their end of season decline they could become Headington again

Borough of Swindon 209,000  latest census.

Goes some way to explaining why most of the teams in our division next year are northern...

Little talk of them being under transfer embargo on the trusted site of twitter. Would be ironic but oh so funny.

Lewis Grabban signs for Norwich City, are they cashing in?

I thought he was going to Cardiff last month, never mind

They will also get around £5m from the Llalana sale.

Who they get and for how much will give an insight into whether or not the owner is cashing in or going for it.

http://www.bournemouth.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=357690

Might have something to do with it.

The fairytale continues.
New ownership and Holywood A lister involvement as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63957509

The bucket collection seems like a long time ago now.

Fair play to them. I do struggle to understand how a club that play in such a small stadium and therefore have a limited income have managed to maintain both Premier league and Championship football over the last 10 years or so.

Well I don't really. Money, money money money of course.

Fair play me hairy arse.

Nothing fair about it at all.

What he said.
There attiitude to breaking FFP was like ‘fuck it we dont care, we’ll just pay the fine and carry on’

Which also means the rules are rubbish, well the punishment for breaking them is

Small club.

Indeed, the governance is very poor. Bigger clubs than Bournemouth have also broken rules (Man City and PSG spring to mind) which unfortunately haven't really hindered them in any way. It's absolutely shit that such flimsy rules and punishments are in place and until these are resolved nowt will change.  Monetary punishment these days are not enough, especially for clubs earning tens/hundreds of millions from being in the top division.

transfer bans have more of an affect mind

The story is strangely quiet on the figure the bloke has paid for them. Hadn't Demin loaned them a shed load of cash at high interest rates as well?

Edit - Sky seem to suggest it was £100m+

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11743/12767270/bournemouth-takeover-american-businessman-bill-foleys-consortium-completes-purchase-worth-over-100m

What appears a little odd is to invest over £250m into a business then sell it for c.£100m?

Depends, he could be on a retainer as a consultant. He could also be a shareholder of the new owners company. The circa £150m could have been written off partially or wholly over the years as a tax loss and or any interest or dividends deemed by the seller as payment enough and the selling price acceptable based on the club and irs realistic value and subsequent selling price. Nothing is straight forward when there are telephone numbers involved.

Actually Swindon Borough population is now 225k as of last year's census the 209k figure is 10 years old

So new owners also looking to buy a League 1 club and one in the top division in Belgium.