Membership?

If you were a shareholder you'd want it in a company doing poorly. Right.
It's your analogy mate.

 

I've just had a quick look at Stoke City's accounts, they owe less to their owners then we do. To become an established mid-table Premier League team you have to compete with those clubs. Ambitious shareholders would be looking at how to achieve that by maximising all income sources, ticket sales, commercial income, merchandise, as well as picking up the TV money.

The Allams have spent over a quarter of a billion pounds and we are not much further forward then we were under Bartlett. In some ways we've gone backwards.

 

Coates's wrote off a massive debt for stoke. Stoke are also part of a company Worth five billion.
Not comparable at all.

 

That is for the PL. For the Championship it is 10% or 2,000. Though in reality most clubs make more available if the clubs want them, up to 7,000 in one case. Only Forest stick to the 2,000, soon to be joined by ourselves, though for some reason, probably police "recommendations" regarding segregation and entrances and exits, Ipswich is 1,900 and Cardiff 1,800.

 

Beat me to it. Of course one difference with Stoke and Boro is that their chairmen are life long fans of the club and look at things differently to a lot of other chairmen. Though I was surprised, talking to a group of Boro fans who were working on a construction project and who used my local for a while the last time Boro were in the PL and spending overloads of money, at their lack of enthusiasm for Gibson and cynicism regardingnhim and the way, in their opinion, he operated. Then as now, I would have been happy with a swap.

 

Having a big old stadium and being good in the 70s doesn't consitute resources for building a club now.

Millions and millions of pounds in parachute money and PL money; that's resources. That's why we've been out of those club's league for years.

 

Bot Leeds and Wednesday are more attractive propositions for buyers with their support and potential than we are. It hurts me to say that but it is true.
Just been reading a site about away followings for 2015/16. Leeds top, average 2,800, Wednesday 2,500 second. Voted the 2 noisiest away followings by fans of other clubs as well. unfortunately we won't be challenging them in either department.
The Blunts averaged over 1,400 that season in League 1. Wonder how our average in the PL last year compared?

Looking at the 2015/2016 article it said the largest away following for any game in all 4 divisions was Preston. Can't think of where that would be. Any ideas?

 

Yet where did the Everton player we were after choose to go?

 

What you say may be true but it isn't relevant to the point of how well run we are compared to other clubs. Point is we've had a brilliant opportunity and ****ed it up. Both financially and on the pitch.

 

Leeds may now be a more attractive proposition than us (and it does hurt to say that), but it certainly hasn't been for the last few years and it's because of what a mess we've become in the last couple of years.

 

How financially?? There no other way than have a sugar daddy or get into huge debt.

wrong. As soon as they get/got their act together they are bigger than us. Same with wensdee.

 

Wednesday and Leeds have both been run extremely badly. Worse than us in many ways.

 

They are bigger than us as it is. Though in recent years because of circumstances they were a less attractive proposition for players.
Unfortunately we have not grasped the opportunity and consolidated our position.

It looks like in the near future my usual riposte to fans of the TWS " Do you know, my grandson has never known a time when Leeds were higher than us. Mind you, he is only eleven" will be in danger.

 

Remember what your missus always told you Barca...

" Bigger doesn't mean better".

 

I disagree about grasped the opportunity bit. We are what we are a minnow in the pl. yes some teams like Bournemouth have done better but, three teams go down every year. We're always likely to be one of them, or one of five or six.

 

I thought Coates converted loans of about £40 million into shares. Are you talking about loans he's written off on top of that?

If he hasn't written anything else off it would take his investment in Stoke City to around £100m. Out of that they bought the freehold to the stadium and built a new training ground. I'd say that makes us broadly compatible.

 

She told me " I tried the rest and settled for the best".

 

Compatible in what way, exactly?

 

We had an opportunity to stay in the PL the last twice and build on it. West Brom and Southampton have established themselves, clubs in one place with a lower population and one of a similar size. It has been incompetence and an unwillingness to listen to people with more football experience that has caused this.
I loved telling Leeds fans that we couldn't talk about how we would do against each other as we weren't in the same division. Now they will be crawling out of the woodwork again and investing the streets and pubs in their shirts again after them being noticeably quiet for a while.