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THE SAM MORSHEAD COLUMN: Irrational panic over Patey's comments
           
           


  LOOKING at messageboards this week, you’d have thought Swindon Town had just been on the back end of consecutive 5-0 hidings.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10142664.THE_SAM_MORSHEAD_COLUMN__Irrational_panic_over_Patey_s_comments/?ref=rss
           
           
           

Sam on how to win back some of the fans.   :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

At least Patey may now put his comments into context, then we can forget about it.

One of Morshead's best articles yet, and the kind of insight that's required, rather than just reporting. I've always rated him higher than many of you, and it helps that he's the first Town fan in the role for several years.

Absolutely bang on the money there Sam

That is a very good article - fair play. SM takes a hell of a lot of largely unwarranted stick but that is spot on.

It may even go some way to calming down the thisis legend that is louis cassius (then again.... :hmmm:)

Good article, SAPfan or whatever his name is still does not get it.

Which brings me onto previous posts I have made about our finacial future particularly if we get promoted again.

Expenditure is dependant on income and not investment as i understand it and we will not be in a position to consider redevelopment until we fill our 15k ground week in week out as we should in the championship, but we need to gain a foothold there first. In order to do that we need to have an influx of money and if the board do not put that in legitimately then we the fans will have to bare the brubt of that. What price seaon tickets and generak matchday tickets next season if we do?

Oh great.  Not this again.


Yep.  In just the same way that Reading didn't need a new stadium when they moved from Elm Park, or Swansea not needing to move to the Liberty.  But they did.  And the rest is history.

Our own move/redevelopment is now at least 15 years overdue.  If it is true that 'redevelopment appears to be a slow and deeply painful process', we need to be asking why it appears to be uniquely slow and painful in Swindon.  Why has it been less so at other clubs and in other towns/cities?  The tone of Sam's article, you may have noticed, has really got up my nose.  (Not a meltdown, you understand.  It's just irritated me a little.  There's a difference.)  We don't need the local press acting as apologists for the very obvious lack of progress on this front.

But Elm Park, Vetch Field and the Withdean were not fit for purpose in any way - they were all complete shitholes.

The CG, for all its faults, is an all-seater ground with the 2 main stands of a decent standard.

The one fact most Town fans cannot come to terms with is that our attendances are a stagnant 8000-odd. Middling along in the Championship will obviously see that rise to just over 10,000 (mainly because of larger away support).

Again, if memory serves, even with Hoddle in the season we went up to the PL, our average attendance was still not near capacity even then

I always thought one of the main purposes of redevelopment was to create additional revenue streams. Hotels, offices, shops, that type of thing.

Anyway, nobody has said there will be no redevelopment. He's just said there's no news on that front.

That's true.  And almost certainly a factor in why it is taking us longer than most to get things moving.


The number of folk who seem a little down on our attendances surprises me.  There is nothing stagnant about an average attendance of 8,500 odd in tier 3.  It's really rather good.  We have one of the better followings in the division, and we're getting  approximately double what we were getting 10 years ago.  (Most of us can remember the days when a crowd figure at the County Ground would often begin with a '4'.)

But that's not the point.  As Flashheart says, the point of a redevelopment is to take the club to the next level in commercial terms due to the additional revenue streams that would arise.  Most weeks the County Ground is about two thirds full - much more than it used to be - but that is hardly the point of a redevelopment.  I may be more of an optimist on this point than most, but I believe our crowds are going to take off significantly once

(a) we're in the Championship; and
(b) we have a redeveloped stadium.

And there are plenty of precedents to support this.  The public in Swindon has responded to the investment of recent years and crowds are well up on what they used to be.  With the playing side of things heading in the right direction, it's time to plan for the future.

We need a new ground, its years over due and is holding us back massively!!!!

We need all the additional incomes from redevelopment that makes the club more sustainable.

And as mentioned above plenty of clubs with very small crowds have moved to new stadiums and increased attendances like Reading, Swansea.

This club needs to sort the ground out, for me the ground and facilities is the difference between a league two/one club and a championship team with a chance of premier league. It frustrates me so much that nobody in charge of this club has pushed this forward at all.

I agree. The rest of the article is spot on except for this section.

I'm with you on this Ardiles. We really need new facilities to push on as a club. Club's like Peterborough can't push on any more at Championship level because they don't have the facilities. If it wasn't for their owner bankrolling them all the time they'd be coming straight back down.

We really need it to happen and we're well behind other clubs in that respect. Even the likes of Rotherham have managed a new stadium recently. Part of the problem isn't attendances. It's the lack of co-operation of SBC and the local residents (otherwise known as NIMBYs) that have held us back over the years. Not to mention so not very well thought out plans from previous regimes. I've no doubting this board can get the plans right, they have their heads screwed on. I also understand we need investment to help us achieve it but if the owners honestly think that because crowds aren't currently big enough we do not need a new stadium and facilities then they are getting it wrong.

The fans also need to get behind it. And if they are still skeptical of it because crowds aren't big enough then it's hardly going to help the cause. Stayaways who moan about lack of progress should maybe consider getting down to a few more games as well. It will only help.

Finally the whole negative air around the club from some sections of support (a minority it has to be said) needs to be banished for good. Why do we always have mong meltdowns at such small things like we had this week? Maybe if the doom and gloom lifted the board and club would feel it has a bit more support?

Exactly this. The idea isn't to increase crowds (although you'd hope that would come with nicer facilities and better football) it's to try and sustain self stability financially as a club. This is why the likes of Reading have prospered. It's not just been about bigger crowds leading to a bigger budget but extra revenue streams making the club a much better financial prospect.

In regards to the stadium redevelopment, except for the Stratton Bank and a couple of other issues, I like most of the things about it as it stands: where it's positioned, the view you get of the game, the atmosphere when we actually wake up (Tranmere game/ Aston Villa had moments of genuine electricity) and I do worry about losing all of those things if we move to a Colchester or Franchise style empty bowl stuck out in an industrial estate. If, however, the clubs financial stability and survival are going to be dependent on new revenue streams, then we should be trying to sort this out NOW while we're still on an upward curve.

In regards to Patey, at least he's spoken openly and we know where we stand. I think the biggest problem the fans have with him is he is primarily focussed on representing the interests of the owners over the club, whereas his predecessor was his polar opposite in that regard. Following on from JW, it feels like we don't have anyone invested in representing US anymore at boardroom level whose passionate about the progress of the club.

Nice to see some positivity on the advertiser anyway, even if I don't agree with everything the article says. There is an incredible paranoia that surrounds our club when it comes to issues of ownership, but I think (prepare for a bad metaphor) we've been hit so many times by the school bully we're justified in cowering at the slightest sign of a raised fist.

Thankfully, the out of town option has been off the agenda for a number of years now.  One point on which there seems to be near unanimity is that the County Ground is in a great location, at the heart of the community it represents...hence all the talk of redevelopment, as opposed to relocation.  The problem is not to do with the location, but the time the project is taking to get off the ground.


Absolutely.  Conversely, I remember arguing a few years ago on here that the 2010/11 relegation season was precisely the wrong time to be pushing forward with plans because heads were down and ambitions at that time were blunted.  This season is exactly the time we should be pushing forward on this.  I am concerned that, in years to come, we may look back on this period as the period during which we missed the boat - and wonder why we did not capitalise on the impetus of the Di Canio era.  I fear a missed opportunity.

Or just maybe there is something happening that the fans cannot be told about just yet.

Looking at all the posts WRT re development.

A) We ALL want either a new stadium or a re developed one, thats as read.
B) Would like it to be now please....long over due.
C) We don't own the ground.
D) Where is the new one going to be built if we decide to tell the council fo politely fuck off.

However, it is all aspirational and in the cold light of day you have to take a step back and rip your STFC heart out and replace it with that of someone at one end of the scale Kassamesque and at the other end Andrew Black. Be carefull what you wish.

It all comes back to ££££££'s. You don't want a Kassam to build you what want and hold a gun to your head and St. Andrew ain't gonna throw anymore of his bunce at something that is likely to cost how much? With how much return. Go on have a stab, your guess will as wild as mine and therein my fellow STFC warriors (or is that worriers?) is the problem. Lets for arguments sake cost a new ground @ £100m, interest on that money either borrowed or loaned by benefactors is likely to be I dunno somewhere between £5-£15m a year before you start to pay back the capitol, then try to run the club on 10k attendances? Ok you might have a hotel, casino but hey thats a big amount of money to make just to service the interest.

Or a redevelopment @ £20m? interest at £1-£3m. My figures may be woefully awry but that is my point about any of us guessing how much it may or may not cost. Where is the money going to come from in these cash strapped times. Black may be worth squillions but most of it is probably tied up in investments which he would have to either sell at the bottom of the market I would suggest or mortgage to a bank at an interest rate at the higher end of my estimates. And if not Black then other "investors" would be in the same boat unless they had plenty of liquid cash, in which case they would probably say thanks but no thanks, I know I would as a non STFC fan.

In a nut shell it's a chicken and egg situation who's foundation is or would be built on a gamble ie. promotion, growth of turnover etc, etc. 

I would like to think that the building blocks are being slowly put in place to secure our long term financial future and with that the return of monies "loaned" to the club by the likes of Fitton el al if they have not been persuaded to write off what they loaned in the first place. If they have agreed to write off their "loans" then things will move quicker, alas not as quickly as we would all like. Championship football first, stability in that division second re developement third.

Lastly, cast your minds back to our fleetng love fest with the Premier league. That royally fucked us up for years after and the DRS was not built till after we were relegated. So you see we ought to put the development to the back of our minds and concentrate our efforts and put our hearts and wallets behind the team, everything else will follow, all in due course. They will decide when and how, not us.
   

In terms of attendances, we were just under 11,000 for the 92/93 season which was bolstered by the run in and some canny offers around people needing ticket stubs from several games to get play off tickets for Wembley - it looked likely so the club went early and maybe a little on the presumptious side and it paid off.

The Prem season saw 14,500 ish I think, with a few of the opening games just getting over 10,000, Oldham springs to mind.  Part of that was due to the size of the away followings, but also because we had some lower key home fixtures.  They were sell outs once we played the top teams or at least 15k upwards.

I think we would see an increase in the Championship this time around because football has changed.  The last time around at that level we were only just seeing general attendances going back up across the country.  However, without something significant changing, like a new ground/developed ground, I think we'll still struggle to press too far beyond the 10k mark on average, maybe 11k.

Redevelopment is essential if we want something different to last time, and to have to worry less every time an owner finfs the pockets have holes in them.  It also brings with it, in most cases, and initial boost in attendances due to the novelty factor.  Even the Intel when built used to be sold out in favour of the rest of the ground.  The trick is then to capture that mood and grow the club as well to sustain the new interest.

Ardiles, I think the reason it is now more difficult is the money issue.  Those who are managing it have either used public money and rent, or had endless pockets of private finance.  Getting thr bank onboard right now is impossible, more so since they have realised that for all the cash in football, they still don't see any of it, no matter the level - see RBS with Liverpool wasn't it?

Well you give cub reporters like Morshead a platform and it's what happens....

Don't forget on the run from the 4th to the Prem we were fiddling gates all over the place - sometimes  by as much as 4-5k for the really big games like pikeys at home in play offs, Bournemouth and Leeds in the cup.

The discussions regarding attendance piqued my interest and as a result I've sat down and worked out our average attendances for the past 20 years:

[url width=900 height=371]http://i.imgur.com/CZodn.png[/url]

Yes, money is tight these days, but surely now is the time to take advantage of hugely lower construction costs.

I think most fans would like to see a redeveloped CG than a new stadium elsewhere.

As a matter of interest where were Reading in the league when their new stadium was built? Were they already on the up on the pitch?

No doubt we'll be able to ask some of the plastics ourselves next season

Thanks Sonic.  That's the kind of thing I was looking for earlier.  Upward clear to see over the last decade or so.  And that's before both the redevelopment boost other clubs have experienced and the additional crowds that come following promotion to the top two divisions.

If you want a more striking example, showing what can happen following promotions and a redevelopment/relocation, look no further than Swansea City.  (Graph is back to front, for some reason.  Most recent seasons on the left.)  While we have more or less doubled our attendances over the last decade, they have trebled theirs.

[url width=500 height=292]http://scfcheritage.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/graph.jpg?w=500&h=291[/url]

With new facilities and the ever growing popularity of the Championship, I think we'd get a decent rise in attendances. Let's face it, there is fuck all to do in Swindon and if The County Ground got a make over to go along with the sexy football being seen these days, more people WILL come.

In my honest, yet factless opinion.

I've read about extra revenue streams from ground re-development for ages and it always seems to assume STFC creams the money.

If this were the case I would be starting to fear the Pox revenue from the Taff egg chasers.

STFC Ltd

    doesn't own its own ground,
    doesn't itself take risks or invest in a redevelopment (STFC Holdings or consortium, the borough council)

How could it profit from hotels, colleges, casinos, dogtracks, conferencing or whatever - all businesses or organisations that need to invest themselves

Ir probably could run a bit of conferencing but really no big "streams" if no land ownership or investment risk.

This is not to say there are no advantages from redevelopment but without a benefactor or benefactors (Borough Council and Black's and Arbib's successors that Patey is sure to bring in?) STFC Ltd gets no additional revenue streams of significance from the redevelopment itself.

the extra revenue can come from a whole host of different areas, the club have always talked about renting out part of the area to somebody like a doctors surgery or something, then if you have executive boxes, you get increased prices for corporate tickets and you can use the facilities for conferences / weddings etc as well.  I dis post a link to an interesting article about costs and revenues involved in building new stands, but if the club do their research it should not cost it if they can rent some of the dead space underneath the stand to a company or organisation.  I can't remember where it is now though

I remember that, it was from the proposed developer who also developed Preston wasn't it?

It was and apparently it uses one of the other northern new grounds as a blueprint for stand design, either Bolton or 'Udderfields new grounds IIRC.

One thing that made my ears prick up yesterday is that Brighton are averaging crowds of around 25k in the championship - what are they doing to achieve this? A quick look at Wiki suggests their population is roughly 155k, Swindons is over 200k so it is possible?

The catchment area of Brighton is huge. 200k in Swindon seems rather ambitious to me. You have got Worthing, Shoreham, Hove, Littlehampton, Seaford, Newhaven.

Worthing alone has 104,000. We are much smaller. Infact, Bournemouth/Poole is much bigger than Swindon. We need some perspective.

Whilst it is quite right that we need to develop new income streams from the stadium it's not quite as simple as just building a new stadium & all will be ok.

For each Reading & Swansea you have the potential for a Darlington & Coventry.

Take Brizzle Rovers, what good is a swanky new 20,000 seated stadium to them if they end up in the conference.

Personally now would be a good time for us as we seem to be on the up on the pitch.