Once you have read this thread ask yourselves this question. Could Newport County end up in trouble just like Cambridge United or maybe even end up back in non league football?


Paul Barry: Cambridge United owner criticises "horrendous" club losses

Abbey Stadium

Cambridge United owner Paul Barry says the club has been "living in a bubble" after losses of almost £700,000 were posted for the 2016-17 financial year.

Barry, based in the United States but brought up in Cambridge, took over the League Two club in February.

He was U's chairman for four years, standing down in 2013, and has been the club's largest shareholder since 2008.

"The budget for 2018-19 has been worked on again and again, with numerous cuts of over £500,000," Barry said.

In a statement to the U's supporters' trust, Cambridge Fans United, he added: The last four years it seems the football club has been living in a bubble.

"That is a bubble of believing it is bigger than it is and having aspirations to match."

Cambridge made a profit of £1.3m in 2014-15, because of two lucrative FA Cup ties with Manchester United, but have otherwise made losses of almost £1.7m since 2012.

Barry said: "From promotion to the league and Manchester United, thosefortunes have been spent unwisely and the overspending has continued until recently.

"Take out the two Wembley appearances and the Manchester United games and the deficits, each year, have been horrendous.

"There will be a loss in 2018-19 as you simply cannot go from a structural operating £1m loss (excluding transfers and one-offs) to zero in one year."

Hope not !
But have to say .... it could happen !!!!

Stating the blindingly obvious, but any L2 club could.

Financial Armageddon is never far away for clubs like ours.

County's structural operating loss appears to be around £350,000 per season.Our football costs about £5 a spectator per match more than we pay for it. Raising ticket prices by £5 and season tickets by £100 (which would make them more expensive than Cardiff City's) would eliminate this deficit provided the increased price does not affect attendances, which presumably it would. As we know, this loss has been covered by transfer fee income and the cup run for the past 3 seasons.

An advantage of having a wealthy owner is that he may always be good for the odd £30k or so when needed quickly. Though it is not impossible for a fan owned club to raise extra money from donations on appeal, it would take much longer.

The average number of County fans at home league games is 3162.
Not all of those are what I would call "financially willing and able"....... but if 50% of them were to donate £20 per month, every month, some £379k would be raised in a calendar year.
We'd then be unreliant on anyone but ourselves, as long as the month to month running of the club was fine, which I think it probably is in reality.
So there we go people, £20 a month each.....dig deep!

newgroundrodney wrote:The average number of County fans at home league games is 3162.
Not all of those are what I would call "financially willing and able"....... but if 50% of them were to donate £20 per month, every month, some £379k would be raised in a calendar year.
We'd then be unreliant on anyone but ourselves, as long as the month to month running of the club was fine, which I think it probably is in reality.
So there we go people, £20 a month each.....dig deep!

I highly doubt we have 200 fans paying that never mind the 1500 we need. As I said there is no appetite in the city for fans to own and fund the football club. Majority of fans want to pay for tickets and buy the odd bit of merchandise. £20 a month is a ticket.

Bush wrote:

newgroundrodney wrote:The average number of County fans at home league games is 3162.
Not all of those are what I would call "financially willing and able"....... but if 50% of them were to donate £20 per month, every month, some £379k would be raised in a calendar year.
We'd then be unreliant on anyone but ourselves, as long as the month to month running of the club was fine, which I think it probably is in reality.
So there we go people, £20 a month each.....dig deep!

I highly doubt we have 200 fans paying that never mind the 1500 we need. As I said there is no appetite in the city for fans to own and fund the football club. Majority of fans want to pay for tickets and buy the odd bit of merchandise. £20 a month is a ticket.

And therein lies one of the problems. I think many fans felt that putting down a tenner a year was enough. We need to plug the gap with donations....donations that are SOLELY for the purpose of cover the losses, and maybe even giving a slight profit, but solely for ensuring the continued existence of the Club.
Any monies for player related cost should be raised completely separately to the B&R Scheme.
The ability to purchase a ST + B&R Scheme donation in one single payment is must in my view, because it may attract more money to cover losses (after the ST element has been deducted)....
I said at the time "we'll end up with the club we deserve"....perhaps "deserve" is not the right word, but certainly we'll end up with the Club we're prepared to fund by ongoing donation, above and beyond any ticket sales' revenue.

Is it worth asking James Watts how they are doing things at Hereford. I understand that success on the pitch brings in the bucks but there must be a little more to it too.

He was driven out of the club by petty jealousy,I'm sure he would help though as he loves the club and knows who the bully/bullys are.

Willthiswork wrote:Is it worth asking James Watts how they are doing things at Hereford. I understand that success on the pitch brings in the bucks but there must be a little more to it too.

Isn’t that something someone on our board should have done anyway?

newgroundrodney wrote:

Bush wrote:

newgroundrodney wrote:The average number of County fans at home league games is 3162.
Not all of those are what I would call "financially willing and able"....... but if 50% of them were to donate £20 per month, every month, some £379k would be raised in a calendar year.
We'd then be unreliant on anyone but ourselves, as long as the month to month running of the club was fine, which I think it probably is in reality.
So there we go people, £20 a month each.....dig deep!

I highly doubt we have 200 fans paying that never mind the 1500 we need. As I said there is no appetite in the city for fans to own and fund the football club. Majority of fans want to pay for tickets and buy the odd bit of merchandise. £20 a month is a ticket.

And therein lies one of the problems. I think many fans felt that putting down a tenner a year was enough. We need to plug the gap with donations....donations that are SOLELY for the purpose of cover the losses, and maybe even giving a slight profit, but solely for ensuring the continued existence of the Club.
Any monies for player related cost should be raised completely separately to the B&R Scheme.
The ability to purchase a ST + B&R Scheme donation in one single payment is must in my view, because it may attract more money to cover losses (after the ST element has been deducted)....
I said at the time "we'll end up with the club we deserve"....perhaps "deserve" is not the right word, but certainly we'll end up with the Club we're prepared to fund by ongoing donation, above and beyond any ticket sales' revenue.

One of the key objectives of the BoD (post-Scadding) was to establish income streams. And donations were key to this.

Maybe it was the sale of Collins, or the Washington sell-on revenue, but with the best will in the world the BoD took their eyes off the ball (assuming they had it on the ball in the first place). At no point have the BoD given clear direction on the importance of donations. This is tantamount to a dereliction of duty. If we draw one of the Big Four in the third round of the FA Cup for the next ten years then no one is going to mind too much, but it still doesn't excuse their failure to educate supporters on what is required in order to keep Newport County AFC going.

Good post jon

theale wrote:He was driven out of the club by petty jealousy,I'm sure he would help though as he loves the club and knows who the bully/bullys are.

He left when he was overlooked for the job Alex got

Left with a knife in his back to put it factually.

Someone actually stabbed him? Sounds like a challenging working environment.