For once I agree with you. Either this poster is taking a super negative stand because he refuses to see the obvious and predictable reasons - or he has an axe to grind. If the next accounts are 2.4 million then I'd be more inclined to worry.

I would expect this loss to stabilise this season, but Mr Glover will need to keep a grip of it - emotions run strong in this most unpredictable game and you can quickly lose the plot. I for one think the new regime still has a bit to learn - running a RL club is simply nothing like running any other business.

My metal capacity(?) is clearly far greater than your spelling capacity.
Now either post something to back up your assessment of the situation in the spirit of the debate or take a break.

For once??? Come come dear boy we agree far more often than either of us would care to admit.
The first years account was always going to be iffy, I agree if we continue to follow in a similar vein we have grounds for concern.
I thing the ST offers will slowly decrease, but it has given us chance to swell the ranks and will become a huge benefit in the future and hopefully a continued improvement on the field will move the reward more towards having a season ticket at WT and less from the perceived financial (cheapness) value of it.
The move to a new stadium and a continued steady overall improvement will make us a far more efficient animal and I see no reason why by the time we do move into NM we couldn't have at least 7-8000 ST holders.

My assessment is clear and unequivocal first year’s accounts are mind numbingly bad

And I would think just as much a shock to the management as to right thinking fans

The excuses for this are down to the running of the club.

That in its self doesn’t matter as long as there are people there to support in financial terms this and what I think will be these deficits.

My worry is and the vibes out of the club is that it’s unsustainable and more injections of capital our needed
That isn’t to say we can’t attract more investors and the support of Mr Glover has been fantastic. So far.

Looking back over the account for previous years the average loss was just around 100k per year? which of course is a million miles away from this first years results.
i don’t intent to enter into a mud slinging match and the reality is only next years accounts will prove or disprove which of us is right.

I would worry if they were a complete shock to the club, because anyone with half a brain could have foreseen such losses because of the facts I pointed out.
I fail to see what the club could have done in that first year other than what they did, maybe your 20 years in business could point this out to someone clearly as thick as I?

Fair enough. I for one don't know of any start up company that immediately trades i the black.

Further to this Mr Glover is the sole owner of the club, there are no shareholders so the only person he is putting at risk is himself. We are only customers and as such I can only see that we are getting a great deal. With a half decent tam and half price season tickets available we certainly can't complain. Perhaps if the season ticket holder such as this chap all paid full price for their match day experience then I'd suggest the loss would be far less. Clearly Glover is speculating to accumulate. Yes he has to tread very carefully but that's the risk HE takes. Seeing as we don't own the ground and there are no shareholders money being risked then I see no real issue, that is business. Even if the Glover regime goes t*ts up it's not like we have lost the family silver.

The only risk is that we are somehow not in a position to move into NM when it comes on line - the fear being that there is another club who would happily take our spot - that I must admit is a bit of a fear.

How the heck are the mind numbingly bad - this is a start up company, exactly what don't you get?

A 1.2 million loss is never great but it should have been expected.

A ten year plan was the aim. Newmarket crucial, as the future has to be bright if you can go into a new stadium with a strong hardcore support, combined with fewer overheads (lower rent and less maintenance). If the attendance is high, Newmarket soon becomes a desirable place to spend a Sunday afternoon, and so the money keeps rolling in, which buys better players, and so the people keep coming, etc.

So to take the hits now and get people behind the club is a strong way to start the ten year plan. Different example, but Amazon didn't expect to be in profit for more than ten years when they started out. Their view was that they had to take the early hits to become the main player. I suppose that's how a ten year plan works.

If the aim was to be profitable now, then the club would excite less interest on the pitch and Belle Vue would not have had the upgrades. So we would go into Newmarket with a 5K support base and it would just be a smaller version of the Galpharm, modern but lacking in excitement, and would stop the club growing. Go there with 10K in every week and it can maintain itself as a bigger player than it currently is.

Warrington is probably the best example, where it's buzz was transformed by the ground but the on-field stuff was done by the coach. If Tony Smith hadn't gone there, they might still be scrapping for 6th or 7th and maybe not be attracting the players they do. We will never be a Wigan or a Leeds, but we could be a Warrington.

It was not a new start up it was a continuation of an existing business with new owners.

Everything remain the same? Other thanthe initial reduction of playing and admin staff?

I don’t think the capital costs are taken into the first year’s accounts. As the work wasn’t done until the year after.

So I am perplexed how you think a loss of this magnitude is expected?



Good point of increasing attendances and running loss leaders season tickets to attract a wider audience

Which will bear fruit for the future as long as the present is sustainable?

We all hope this is so and we are in for a great season of rugby league

No it certainly isn't, there is no connection with the old club in financial terms. A team had to be built from scratch yet as already pointed out by many others without that years season ticket sales, advanced bookings and merchandise sales. Added to that some debtors were paid and a good deal of upfront investment on the ground. Although much of the latter is window dressing IMHO it still comes at a price.

An accountant which you clearly aren't would describe this as a one off extraordinary loss due to restructuring which if Glover is a good business man will reap fruit in the future.

It's Glovers club/company, I can't imagine he is deliberately losing what is effectively his own money.

I can see the dangers I really can and I have preached caution from the start - but no one can work miracles including AG.

However Im not going to be churlish and jump on some bandwagon and have a go at the club/owner just because the fantasy woven around the guy by others turns out not to be true and he's only human.

As I say if we lose the same next year I'd start to be more worried. At the moment NM and the state of RL in general worries me more.

Maybe we shouldn't believe all the hype so much.

The one thing I take from this is that bigalf or whatever the pricks name is one bitter, sad, obsessed freak.

This,

I remember having a few conversations at the time with various people about how much that first year will have cost AG. Basically s has been mentioned he had the Sky money and walk up money and that's it that first year, while at the same time he had outgoings of the debts he choice to pay from the previous regime as well as season tickets he honored, the Cats bar and other things that got done up around the ground, as well as all the ins and outs of restructuring the business.

Like you say the main thing is what the accounts show in the next couple of years, not now and also having a good fans base behind us to move on to bigger and better things, which tbf is what he seems to be achieving and I reckon that's the most important thing at present.

It must be small town mentality I'm afraid, obsessed with your more glamorous neighbouring City that and trying to devalue WTRLFC to distract the mess cas are in.