TOPIC: Bristol billionaire and Jenkins

That's where lower league clubs are heading but I have serious doubts about Trusts raising substantial amounts of money.

It obvious that a club has to be run within its means to be supporter owned as cash calls on shareholders always cause division and reasons not to pay-can't pay,won't pay,I can't hear you,cheque in post,he's got more money than me etc
I would only go that route if the club was already healthy,no debt and had plenty of reserves-and run by sensible people who don't chase the Golden Fleece by speculation

Laffy wrote:
Well the scheme that were talking about i believe addresses all of those issues but i must stress is NOT run as a trust but as a club which i understand cuts through a load of the red tape and regulations that get in the way of Trusts ie if people agree to pay £300 a year to be in a club and everybody in that club has a single and equal vote it is up to them what they do with the money generated.

And if a football club then wishes to offer the members of the investor club certain discounts and benefits and a degree of control in how the club is run in exchange for an investment of funds in it, its up to them and given the model i.ve seen and the Financial position at CUFC the investor club in conjunction with the patrons who come on board could have 100% control with the club debt free with old AJ in a life presidents role [ thinking why the hell didnt i do this years ago ] in a maximum of 4 years.

I agree-I think the community club route is a way forward so long as it's well drilled and controlled.I suppose my route was a hybrid version with a rotating shareholder base and trustees

Laffy wrote:
You surprise me Laffy at the time of your offer it seemed to me that you were very anti supporter ownership but maybe you like us have realised that Trusts arent the best way to channel supporter investment.

I'm not anti Trust or Club-the stalemate had to be broken with the Trust etc.Down the line,I was happy to hand the lot over to a community led project but you will recall that when I became embroiled,the club was sinking fast,and looking like exiting the FL.Not the best time for radical change.

I wasn't investing with the real expectation of getting anything back other than recognition for moving the club forward

Who is the happy clapper from silloth...head firmly stuck in the solway sand....or up Jenkins hoop more like

Dave TrueBlue , Silloth Wednesday, 06 April, 2016 at 8:58PM
More unanswered questions: 323 days - so what? Who's counting except the News and Star? Why can't people be more patient? Who would be a Football Club Chairman? Isn't it shocking that a senior citizen who has invested so much in the club should be disrespected by comments from people repeatedly wound up by journalists who don't like people keeping secrets?

Sent from my GT-I8200N using Tapatalk

markredfox73 wrote: I would say AJ has disrespected fans far more than they have disrespected him.... after all he did call us all c**ts on live radio! Any respect I had for the man vanished that day.

Thanks for clearing that up Andrew and sorry if you thought i was dissing what youd said it wasnt meant to come across that way.

So simple question if a supporter/community led project got off the ground would you be in favour and be willing to offer support and or advice either openly or in the background ?

Yes but not leading anything

You have to remember I am of dubious business practices and broke according to those who have taken the club forwards over the last 5/6 years

What I don't understand is those in the trust proposal not doing something like that - but I guess we know why


A community/supporter led proposal is the way to go really.

Your all missing the important question. Whos gonna give John Nixon his £20k back.

Community club smacks of non-league ownership to me; tin shaking, cake baking, rotary clubs run by people with too much time on their hands because they're not successful in the real world. Death by committee. Fine for Exeter City but why not dare to dream higher.

It would be like having the Trust in charge for the last decade, hand on heart where'd we be now?!

We need one or maybe a couple of local businessmen willing to lend us the benefit of their business wisdom and, if things go wrong, stump up a million to bale us out of the smelly stuff. People like Laffy but actually willing to back their big chat with proper cash.

Someone like AJ or Fred! And who put Fred off for life? All roads lead back to the cake bakers!

Talking of cakes. Are we going to have a little birthday party? One year on since the 'billionaire' approach. Could have a big cake,the limo, etc all outside Brunton Park on match day. It could even become an annual event

The Archer wrote:
Just stick to being a dick on Twitter.

BlueAl wrote: The season ends before the billionaire's birthday doesn't it?

The Sheikh might make an appearance at the final home match though.

High Street wrote:


His sentiments certainly resonate with me and I agree 100% with what he is saying.

I agree with the majority of it but i wouldnt pour scorn on Lappings bid as we dont know where we'd be now. I doubt we'd be in a worse position though.

The Archer wrote:
You show me a couple of local businessmen who are willing to put 1.5 million into the club each year.

Yes thats not a one off investment thats one and a half million pounds going into the club each and every year. from an investment club run supporter/community based scheme that has absolutely nothing to do with trusts and the red tape and cliques that they breed but allows each and every supporter to have an equal say in how the money is spent/the club is run.

Owning a football club on your own seriously damages your wealth and is a major distraction from your life-that's why a collective approach with shared responsibility is the way forward.My money was a part of it but not all for those reasons-I have a career and family to feed.

Ask Alan Sugar what his biggest mistake was-buying Spurs as he got tied up in knots when he should have been running his other businesses.

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:

Barry if you think that you would find 5,000 people to pay £300 per year that your mad. It wouldnt happen.

Agree 100% the owners job whether it be a rich individual or a collection of supporters should be to to ensure the necessary funds are in place and then leave the day to day running of the club to the chief executive and his heads of department and team affairs to the football manager..

Football is a very cyclical business and the owners main job is to ensure that a proportion of the money accrued in the good times is put aside for the leaner periods to ensure the dont remain lean for very long.

Take Burnley for example in the last 7 years they have suffered 2 relegations yet there supporters will say that the era has been a massive success to the point where you sort of think What the hell can they spend the 100m on that they.ll get next year if they get promoted but one things for sure they wont blow it on player transfers or wages.

Actually Moose its 3000 people [ the other 600k a year come from the patrons ]

And why wouldnt those 3000 people who attend BP 25 times a year almost certainly spending the £1500 a year that would get them their £300 club membership fees back in the form of discounts each year.

And thats without taking worldwide exiles into account who research says join things like this to stay connected to their home town/club or companies who can be persuaded to buy into this for their employees.

A possible benefit for your £300 yearly fee could easily be in the region of £20k imagine if a house bulder came on board and offered just a 1% discount to members for instance.

FSF reasearch suggests that 75% of the bottom 2 tiers clubs will be owed this way within 20 years and once the first club does it the floodgates would open and CUFC were identifies as being in the top 5% of clubs that this would work best for.

I agree with much of where your ownership analysis is heading-simply because rich guys who want to own football clubs at this level are a bit thin on the ground.

I think you would need to offer different types of memberships with varying benefits on offer. As someone who lives out of the region with a family there is no way I would give £300 a year but may be prepared to pay £20-30 with vastly less benefits.

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:
Barry, its all conjecture, you need to start living in the real world. Without being disrespectful to our fans, most people would not be able to afford that kind of outlay and would not be spending the 1.5k per year you estimate to receive their money back.

I'd say you could also count on one hand the amount of fans out of your 3k who would move in to a brand new 200k. And that is your problem, your analysis is based on a tiny % that may have a few £££'s to spend, when you should be looking at the average fan who has less disposable income.

You need to realise that Carlisle is a small city with a high % of the population on or below the National average wage. Until you do then your idea will be a non-starter.

Lufbrablue wrote:
And there lies the other problem Lufbra. If you choose to pay £30, whilst Fan X pays £300, why should you have the same amount of voting power if its a 1 fan, 1 vote co-operative?

Lufbrablue wrote:
How many times a year do you vist BP [Talking about you as an individual ] ?

moose wrote:
Agree with your point, I just cant see a large amount of regular support or exiled support coughing up £300 a year but I guess a lot would pay £30 to have a vote and be a part. Whether those paying £300 had greater voting rights i.e their vote counting 5 times instead of one but that may defeat the co-operative idea

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:
Between 2-5 times since my son was born, hopefully get to more once he is old enough to watch that rubbish. Seem to get to more away games

As much as id like to see these levels of investment i just couldnt see people paying it. If weve only got 1500 season ticket holders where are a additional 1500 gonna come from to pay £300 for basically no return unless they buy stuff they may not already buy just to get a discount on those products.

moose wrote:
I think youre missing the real point Moose there are 3000 hardcore supporters who already attend every match at BP and over a 25 game season the £1500 equates to just £60 per visit even less when you take one off purchases like shirts and merchandise into account.

And yes with the facilities and offers we have at the minute makes that spend harder to achieve but just as a couple of examples imagine if we had great in house cooked food and drink at reasonable prices c/w fast service or had an onsite pub and proper restaurant facilities how much easier the £60 spend would be to achieve.

I dont think increasing the matchday spend per person by x5 or even x10 is not out of the question dont forget a lot of that is money already spent but in places other than the club.and just needs redirectiing towards BP.

i think youve taken the house purchase example out of context i can show you examples of companies who supply things like car/home insurance and broadband never mind your gas and electricity who would give a substantial discount to a buying group of that size who if used would make the recovery of a sum well in excess of your £300 easily achievable.

Have a look at how community clubs on the continent are run and funded and you.ll find a lot of what i.ve said will become familiar and guess what youll find that those clubs are a lot more frugal in the way they spend their money in relation to their playing staffs. I.m not sure if you saw that table on here a couple of weeks ago showing what players in each country cost to employ England was by a long way the highest spender per player but you mat be surprised to find that Scotland were the fifth highest payers and i believe that says a lot about what other countries in Europe pay.their players.

But i guess at the end of the day it all comes down to wether you think supporters getting off their arses and taking financial responsibility for their clubs or carrying on in the forlorn hope of attracting one of an ever decreasing band of sugar daddies who would fund the club to the tune of a million pounds plus each year is the better and more likely to succeed option.

Dancingbear wrote:
But DB they are already buying the stuff and spending the money if they are attending the gameS wether as a pay on the day or as a season ticket holder and as i.ve pointed out all the discount doesnt have to come from money actually spent at BP [ Think the Virgin Trains deal 4 x trips at £100 with a 25% discount ] and youve recovered a third of your £300.

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:

No points being missed here Barry, I'm replying directly to what you have typed, and I am applying simple economics. You have already jumped from saying people could potentially earn (or save) 20k by buying a house to now saying they could save money on insurance and utility bills, two different things entirely.

CUFC sell on average 1,500-1,800 season tickets a year and have another 1,200 or so who will make up your 3,000.
You are assuming that these 3,000 will fork out £300, but have failed to realise that a decent % of these will be either children, students or pensioners who will simply have no ability to pay.


Humour me now. If the scheme is launched and all your ideas come to fruition, but in the second year your membership falls from 3,000 to 300. Who makes up the shortfall in the finances?

Plus in that 3000 therell be family groups etc. Honestly if as said above there was a lower figure then there may be interest in this sort of thing. £50 a year then maybe id be interested but at £300 i dont think so. Families trying to make ends meet and the husband goes in and says im gonna start giving Carlisle United £300 a year isnt gonna go down well.

moose wrote:
I.ll take your points as they come........... Discount and therefore savings can be achieved on anything from buying a twix in the ground up to buying a house and everything in between for example i.m a member of a pretty aggressive buying group and the minute i told my existing gas/electric supplier i was leaving and why they agreed to reduce my bilsl by 20% saving me £500 per year [ The group could actually have saved me another 5% but it was with a company i didnt wish to deal with ] had that been done thru the CUFC buying club i would of recovered my £300 membership fee in one fell swoop without even stepping foot in BP.

The figure of 3000 is a reasonable estimate [ on the low side i.d say ] of the number of in work adults attending out of our 10 year average of just under 5000.

Why would the numbers drop to 300 [ or indeed drop at al ] when people realise that the discounts would in all likelihood return way more than the £300 investment in membership of the club.And when you become a club with a million pounds plus a year at its disposal progression thru the leagues becomes a lot more likely than for a club scatching around living hand from mouth meaning that as it did the numbers would be more likely to rise rather than fall as attendances increase and more people come on board and with two promotions virtually turning your club from a £5m turnover one to somthing nearer to a £100m one.

Alternatively its actually just as likely [ if not more so ] that if you found a sugar daddy willing to put £1m a year in at some point hed decide not to for whatever reason giving exactly the same problems as the ones you hint at with a drop in membership numbers.so i dont think your point on that is actually that valid .

How does tax affect the numbers? Back in the late 80s when I was in tax we had 2 Premier League teams in our group. We used to set up charities for donations ie helping young disadvantaged boys get work experience. The money then has to be given to the club for specific purposed such as the youth team or reconstruction of the disabled section. If you do that the donations qualified for tax relief so for a 40% tax payer the cost immediately falls from £300 to £180. If you locate the Charity's registered office in somewhere like Motherwell you get EU Iron and Steel Grants as well, or you did..

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:
The point is valid Barry, you never answered the question. What would happen if there was a shortfall in the annual budget in year 2? Who would fund the gap?

any housebuilder who would offered a discount would probably offer the same to anyone who came in and negotiated, the same goes for cars so whilst there may be a discount there someone who wasn't in the scheme could probably get the same deal. As for discount on a twix or anything from the club you are essentially moving money from one pot to another.

Ultimately Lufbra, you would be lucky to get a thousand people to buy in initially, and over time if people don't reap the rewards suggested abovethen they will leave the scheme.

Carlisle is not big enough to sustain a model on the scale that Barry is suggesting.


As for getting cheap Gas, Electric, Car Insurance etc, most people will do that themselves if they have anything about them, there are enough comparison websites around for people who are savvy enough, and they wouldnt pay £300 for the priviledge.

Markovitch wrote:
Clubs still do it hence what was our community programme is now a registered charity a situation repeated right across the league.

And it may well be possible to do something like that but its a minefield as Trusts cant be charities [and need to be incorporated societies or co ops ] as you are not allowed to link fundraising/membership drives with shareholdings but this type of scheme has found a way around that in that its primary purpose is as a discount buying club that just decides to give some of its excess funds to the football club who in turn gift it with some shares.

moose wrote:
But they dont Moose thats just the point 45% of utilities customers are on standard rates and nearly 60% havnt switched in the last 5 years and by the way the discounts buying clubs achieve are way above any savings that can be made using a conventional comparison site and in some cases can be on top of a CS discount.

Lufbrablue wrote:
No not quite because you negotiate the best price before you put your club membership card on the table.

And Yes there is an element of substituting one pot of cash for another no one is denying that but its all about increasing guaranteed income streams and the scheme making the new pot bigger than the old one and as far as the Twix is concerned the majority of the discount is achieved by economies of scale / increased sales etc in other words the catering contractor will pay a lot more for a franchise thats turning over £1m than for one thats turning over £100k.

In the end the people who are penalised are the latecomers who end up paying the full price which then encourages them to come on board and join the scheme to access the bemefits increasing the numbers putting another chunk into the pot

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:

Discount buying Clubs only give extra % discounts, typically between 2 and 5%, based on volumes, and adding an extra few hundred people is not going to give the members the significant numbers you allude to.

You still never replied to my question on the budget.

moose wrote:
Exactly the same as if AJ says hes no longer putting anymore in or dies or hits financial problems as many club owners have done but its a lot less likely 2700 people would pull out of a scheme thats proven to give them a return way above their £300 membership fees than one businessman dying / changing his mind / hitting financial difficulties.

moose wrote:
I refer you to the 25% discount the club i.m in got for me. Sky tv offer a similar discount to members of the club i.m in .which has cica 5k members and a leaving rate of about 5% per year mostly due to death or business failure.

If a business asks for a larger number to put a deal in place several clubs combine their membership lists to achieve the number required

It really wouldnt be worth it for the discount clubs if they were only achieving the percentages you suggest

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:
Understand the AJ scenario we are stuck with now, but you are supposed to be offering a viable alternative. I thought that was the whole point.

NORTHERNSOUL wrote:
Whats the name of the Club, sounds like we should all be joining?

I think a dallas buyers club type model selling cut price Viagra in the paddock has more potential

moose wrote:

Can I be post 100 please?