whoareya wrote:The Exeter City model c&p from the BBC website :

"To sell one youth player for £1m is something most League Two clubs would hope for maybe once a decade.

But Exeter City have produced three of them in the past three and a half years, and players from their academy have earned the club in excess of £5m in transfer fees.

In fact, the Grecians have sold players for fees totalling more than £3.5m during the past two transfer windows alone - while the rest of League Two's 23 clubs earned somewhere between £4m and £4.5m between them.

So how do they do it?

No other choice

The club is fan-owned, so there is no rich benefactor to throw large sums at transfer fees.

And while that has its problems - no free-flowing source of money and an ownership structure which allowed a group of supporters to effectively hand Tisdale his notice - it is good news for young players.


How do they do it?

Exeter have not been shy in investing in their academy - some of the money generated from the sale of Grimes to Swansea in January 2015, Ampadu to Chelsea earlier this season and Watkins to Brentford last July have gone into building a new synthetic pitch, improving grass surfaces and investing in other infrastructure.

"The club really support the academy with facilities. It doesn't just happen on its own, it needs investment for the academy to keep running, and it shows that there's some thought into the future."

Alan G Bryant wrote:

whoareya wrote:The Exeter City model c&p from the BBC website :

"To sell one youth player for £1m is something most League Two clubs would hope for maybe once a decade.

But Exeter City have produced three of them in the past three and a half years, and players from their academy have earned the club in excess of £5m in transfer fees.

In fact, the Grecians have sold players for fees totalling more than £3.5m during the past two transfer windows alone - while the rest of League Two's 23 clubs earned somewhere between £4m and £4.5m between them.

So how do they do it?

No other choice

The club is fan-owned, so there is no rich benefactor to throw large sums at transfer fees.

And while that has its problems - no free-flowing source of money and an ownership structure which allowed a group of supporters to effectively hand Tisdale his notice - it is good news for young players.


How do they do it?

Exeter have not been shy in investing in their academy - some of the money generated from the sale of Grimes to Swansea in January 2015, Ampadu to Chelsea earlier this season and Watkins to Brentford last July have gone into building a new synthetic pitch, improving grass surfaces and investing in other infrastructure.

"The club really support the academy with facilities. It doesn't just happen on its own, it needs investment for the academy to keep running, and it shows that there's some thought into the future."

Yes but it was not all plain sailing for Exeter, just 4 seasons ago their supporters were enraged when they were under a transfer embargo for having to take out a £100k loan from the PFA. They had over 4,000 trust members at the time so it would be interesting to know how much if anything they contributed in terms of monthly donations.

newgroundrodney wrote: At the original launch & takeover, IIRC, the example was given of Hearts FC, who I think had 8,000 fans donating a total of £2M a year......that's , erm, £20 a month!

JonD wrote:

newgroundrodney wrote: At the original launch & takeover, IIRC, the example was given of Hearts FC, who I think had 8,000 fans donating a total of £2M a year......that's , erm, £20 a month!

AFC Wimbledon do extremely well out of fan donations. That's not to say they are wealthy, just that they would struggle even more without them.

From day one after County's takeover I expected there to be a constant push from the Board to encourage regular donations. This does not seem to be happening, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. Are there stats on exactly how much is being donated?

PerthDave wrote:

JonD wrote:

newgroundrodney wrote: At the original launch & takeover, IIRC, the example was given of Hearts FC, who I think had 8,000 fans donating a total of £2M a year......that's , erm, £20 a month!

AFC Wimbledon do extremely well out of fan donations. That's not to say they are wealthy, just that they would struggle even more without them.

From day one after County's takeover I expected there to be a constant push from the Board to encourage regular donations. This does not seem to be happening, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. Are there stats on exactly how much is being donated?

I'd be very interested in an estimate as to what is being donated monthly. I don't donate at the moment but would be open to start this up if there was a bit more engagement. There was an 'Amber Army' trust around 15 years ago (initiated by Alex Keegan - credit to him - wonder where he is now?) to which a few of us donated monthly for several years but a similar story - things got stale and it all fizzled out ..

rgds Dave

One of the behind-the-scenes benefits of being a member includes a visit to the training ground and yesterday fans had a Q & A with the manager, watched a video analysis session, and observed the first-team being put through their paces in training.

Neal Ardley said: "Every year the Blue & Yellow Club come down and every time I ask them to select a different subject that they want to know more about in-depth. We have done presentations on sports science, stats, and training regimes.

"Last year we went into detail on set-pieces and this time they wanted to look at attacking play, obviously due to our lack of goals. They wanted to look at what we do so we put together a video and showed it to them, before putting on a session that sort of replicated what they saw in the video. They got to see answers to their questions. Scoring goals is the hardest part of the game and it's not for the want of trying.

"It is a great initiative (the Blue & Yellow Club). It's a chance for us to explain more about what we do, but it's also an opportunity for them to find out more about what goes on at the training ground. The members have helped bring in one or two players in the past and contributed to equipment required by Bayzo and Jason Moriarty. They have done a lot of things to help out and it's a pleasure to spend time with the members."

Formed five years ago with the idea of raising funds directly for AFC Wimbledon's playing budget, the club meets several times throughout the season. On two of those occasions, the club has dinner with Neal Ardley and key members of his management team with members free to ask questions about preparing the squad for matches. In the past couple of years, the Blue and Yellow Club has had dinners with Terry Brown, Dave Bassett and Alan Reeves, plus an event at the House of Lords with special guest Terry Burton.

Member Patrick Tuggey said: "It was very enjoyable and interesting to come down to the training ground. To find out how Neal and his staff set things up with tactics and training drills was a real eye-opener. I've been a member for five years now after initially seeing an advert in the programme about joining. I enjoy the social side of it, meeting up with friends and having a beer after the game, but I also want to help out the club too."

Margaret Hung, who is in her second season as a member, said: "My husband James pays for me as a Christmas present! It's great to see what goes on behind-the-scenes. I know there is concern about the lack of goals, but I have been a Wimbledon supporter for a long time and things do turn around. It's good that the money we donate goes towards boosting the club coffers."

There are two ways to join the club either, as a 'Blue' member or a 'Yellow' member. The former works best for those who attend matches regularly and the latter for those who are only able to make the occasional game.

Over the past four seasons, the club has raised over £150,000, which goes directly into Neal's playing budget. A special collection also raised money for heart monitors so that AFC Wimbledon Sports Scientist Jason Moriarty could gain more accuracy for assessing the players' fitness.

County#9 wrote:People will not keep giving or donating money when the money is being mismanaged . Simple

Kit deal . 30k free when we order 120k worth of kit . So we have to spend 90k on absolute crap that hardly anybody has heard of .

Best kit deal ever !!

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

County#9 wrote:People will not keep giving or donating money when the money is being mismanaged . Simple

Kit deal . 30k free when we order 120k worth of kit . So we have to spend 90k on absolute crap that hardly anybody has heard of .

Best kit deal ever !!

I have to slightly disagree. My concern is we are not told how the money is spent. Without that I can't tell whether it is mismanaged or not. So I am not in a position to judge the actions of the board, therefore I won't contribute.

I along with many others have twice put cash in to save the club I love. Unless and until I know that the people charged with that money are being transparent I won't contribute again. In my opinion it is not the Trust model which has failed but the way it has been administered. It is not that I think Gavin Foxall is dishonest or a bad person. In fact I'm sure he feels he is doing a good job. Sadly he and his supporters lose sight of the fact that never actually turning up to supporters meetings but always being available to have his photo taken with the FA Cup looks awful.

JonD wrote:A quick google makes it pretty clear AFCW are a bit more savvy than us.

Here's a nice explanation of AFC Wimbledon's trust structure. There's even a video

http://thedonstrust.org/about-us/

And - wow - look at this.

https://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/news/201 ... ate-funds/

AFCW's Blue and Yellow Club. It's brilliant.

One of the behind-the-scenes benefits of being a member includes a visit to the training ground and yesterday fans had a Q & A with the manager, watched a video analysis session, and observed the first-team being put through their paces in training.

Neal Ardley said: "Every year the Blue & Yellow Club come down and every time I ask them to select a different subject that they want to know more about in-depth. We have done presentations on sports science, stats, and training regimes.

"Last year we went into detail on set-pieces and this time they wanted to look at attacking play, obviously due to our lack of goals. They wanted to look at what we do so we put together a video and showed it to them, before putting on a session that sort of replicated what they saw in the video. They got to see answers to their questions. Scoring goals is the hardest part of the game and it's not for the want of trying.

"It is a great initiative (the Blue & Yellow Club). It's a chance for us to explain more about what we do, but it's also an opportunity for them to find out more about what goes on at the training ground. The members have helped bring in one or two players in the past and contributed to equipment required by Bayzo and Jason Moriarty. They have done a lot of things to help out and it's a pleasure to spend time with the members."

Formed five years ago with the idea of raising funds directly for AFC Wimbledon's playing budget, the club meets several times throughout the season. On two of those occasions, the club has dinner with Neal Ardley and key members of his management team with members free to ask questions about preparing the squad for matches. In the past couple of years, the Blue and Yellow Club has had dinners with Terry Brown, Dave Bassett and Alan Reeves, plus an event at the House of Lords with special guest Terry Burton.

Member Patrick Tuggey said: "It was very enjoyable and interesting to come down to the training ground. To find out how Neal and his staff set things up with tactics and training drills was a real eye-opener. I've been a member for five years now after initially seeing an advert in the programme about joining. I enjoy the social side of it, meeting up with friends and having a beer after the game, but I also want to help out the club too."

Margaret Hung, who is in her second season as a member, said: "My husband James pays for me as a Christmas present! It's great to see what goes on behind-the-scenes. I know there is concern about the lack of goals, but I have been a Wimbledon supporter for a long time and things do turn around. It's good that the money we donate goes towards boosting the club coffers."

There are two ways to join the club either, as a 'Blue' member or a 'Yellow' member. The former works best for those who attend matches regularly and the latter for those who are only able to make the occasional game.

Over the past four seasons, the club has raised over £150,000, which goes directly into Neal's playing budget. A special collection also raised money for heart monitors so that AFC Wimbledon Sports Scientist Jason Moriarty could gain more accuracy for assessing the players' fitness.

Sorry for thread hijack.

PMG wrote:I believe Fan ownership can work
But you have to have the right people running the club,
Which we don’t have
They have made that many mistakes and wasted all of the windfalls they were lucky enough to be given via previous boards and cup runs
I guess they are finding how difficult it is to run a football club
The problem is they don’t learn from their mistakes
Or listen to their own board members
They have spent a small fortune on settling claims and compensation for ex employees
We would be far better off without those mistakes and yes they are allowed a few but not the same ones
It can work but supporters have to realise that they own it and have to fund the shortfalls that’s if they want the club to survive
Sounds like a few don’t
The current board in my opinion are completely inept

PMG wrote:I believe Fan ownership can work
But you have to have the right people running the club,
Which we don’t have
They have made that many mistakes and wasted all of the windfalls they were lucky enough to be given via previous boards and cup runs
I guess they are finding how difficult it is to run a football club
The problem is they don’t learn from their mistakes
Or listen to their own board members
They have spent a small fortune on settling claims and compensation for ex employees
We would be far better off without those mistakes and yes they are allowed a few but not the same ones
It can work but supporters have to realise that they own it and have to fund the shortfalls that’s if they want the club to survive
Sounds like a few don’t
The current board in my opinion are completely inept