UPTHEPORT wrote: June 9th, 2022, 7:16 am

DeePeeNCAFC wrote: June 8th, 2022, 11:11 pm Chris Todd new assistant manager at Yeovil.

A bit further down the road, Jay Foulston has signed for Taunton.

Are Taunton still paying good money heard a few local lads from the Welsh system travel over

I was down at Exeter City today to referee an academy game v Southampton and I asked a few of the coaches: they confirmed that Taunton and Tiverton are both strong, well-funded local non-league teams who are paying players good appearance money.

We got talking about how Exeter City are funding their training centre - apparently it was paid for wholly by the fee they received when they sold Matt Grimes (to Swansea?) and improvements since have been by the sale and later bonuses from Ethan Ampadu going to Chelsea. Ollie Watkins’ move to Brentford paid for improvements to St James Park and funding the first team.

It’s a great business model they have and it shows - 4 separate coaches for each academy age group, they hire out the 4G floodlit pitch at their training centre and it’s fully booked 7 nights a week. They’ve kept players’ wages realistic but entice new players into the area with a good relocation fee funded by the directors.

I like Exeter as a club. It's the type of thing County should be doing.

And the start of it all is a proper training facility.

DeePeeNCAFC wrote: June 8th, 2022, 11:11 pm Chris Todd new assistant manager at Yeovil.

A bit further down the road, Jay Foulston has signed for Taunton.

Only a contract renewal. He's been there since he left us.

Exeter have received nearly £4.5m from Ollie Watkins alone. Great bit of business, and using £2.2m of that to upgrade their training ground facilities.
They also made £1.75m selling Grimes and around the same figure for Ampadu. They certainly know what they're doing down there now, considering they were non league and in administration in 2003.

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:20 am Exeter have received nearly £4.5m from Ollie Watkins alone. Great bit of business, and using £2.2m of that to upgrade their training ground facilities.
They also made £1.75m selling Grimes and around the same figure for Ampadu. They certainly know what they're doing down there.

Yes indeed well done Exeter. And if we are ever to receive £7 million+ from transfers I would expect us to invest in training facilities also. The reality is of course we haven't.

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:27 am

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:20 am Exeter have received nearly £4.5m from Ollie Watkins alone. Great bit of business, and using £2.2m of that to upgrade their training ground facilities.
They also made £1.75m selling Grimes and around the same figure for Ampadu. They certainly know what they're doing down there.

Yes indeed well done Exeter. And if we are ever to receive £7 million+ from transfers I would expect us to invest in training facilities also. The reality is of course we haven't.

Genuinely, did we invest any of the c.£2m in cup money or the fees/sell ons from Poole/Washington transfers in training facilities?

Burton Albion benefit from having the national training centre on their doorstep. Likewise having the ability to use Dragon Park is not a hindrance.

Spytty also has lots of other facilities to use purely for fitness, static cycles at the velodrome, running track, swimming etc etc.

Bangitintrnet wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:44 am Burton Albion benefit from having the national training centre on their doorstep. Likewise having the ability to use Dragon Park is not a hindrance.

Spytty also has lots of other facilities to use purely for fitness, static cycles at the velodrome, running track, swimming etc etc.

Our previous manager thought it was a hinderance. Wanted money spent on our own facilities as he was fed up having to move around training at Hartridge and wherever else they could find when we couldn't use the other facilities,

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:38 am

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:27 am

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:20 am Exeter have received nearly £4.5m from Ollie Watkins alone. Great bit of business, and using £2.2m of that to upgrade their training ground facilities.
They also made £1.75m selling Grimes and around the same figure for Ampadu. They certainly know what they're doing down there.

Yes indeed well done Exeter. And if we are ever to receive £7 million+ from transfers I would expect us to invest in training facilities also. The reality is of course we haven't.

Genuinely, did we invest any of the c.£2m in cup money or the fees/sell ons from Poole/Washington transfers in training facilities?

Don't believe we did. Personally would have liked to have seen us do so, but the point I wish to emphasise is that whatever the true amounts are, I don't believe we have benefitted financially by anywhere near as much as Exeter, therefore any expectation for us to achieve as much as they have with less is fantasy.

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:54 am

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:38 am

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:27 am

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:20 am Exeter have received nearly £4.5m from Ollie Watkins alone. Great bit of business, and using £2.2m of that to upgrade their training ground facilities.
They also made £1.75m selling Grimes and around the same figure for Ampadu. They certainly know what they're doing down there.

Yes indeed well done Exeter. And if we are ever to receive £7 million+ from transfers I would expect us to invest in training facilities also. The reality is of course we haven't.

Genuinely, did we invest any of the c.£2m in cup money or the fees/sell ons from Poole/Washington transfers in training facilities?

Don't believe we did. Personally would have liked to have seen us do so, but the point I wish to emphasise is that whatever the true amounts are, I don't believe we have benefitted financially by anywhere near as much as Exeter, therefore any expectation for us to achieve as much as they have with less is fantasy.

Not asking us to achieve as much as they have but we have received c.£3.5-4m in cup money, transfers and sell-on fees and have nothing extra to show for it let alone achieving what Exeter have.

It's not like the cup money etc arrived in one lump. To some extent the gradual accumulation must have been made possible by investing one year's profit in the following year's team. And bear in mind one really bad tackle on Ollie Watkins before he joined Villa from Brentford and Exeter don't get that training ground. It's always in the lap of the gods.

if we'd said at some point "All unbudgeted income will go towards a training ground, but beware this means our realistic playing target for the next X years will be staying out of the bottom two" what would people have thought? Maybe it would have got a thumbs-up? I don't know.

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 9:36 am

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:54 am

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:38 am

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:27 am

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:20 am Exeter have received nearly £4.5m from Ollie Watkins alone. Great bit of business, and using £2.2m of that to upgrade their training ground facilities.
They also made £1.75m selling Grimes and around the same figure for Ampadu. They certainly know what they're doing down there.

Yes indeed well done Exeter. And if we are ever to receive £7 million+ from transfers I would expect us to invest in training facilities also. The reality is of course we haven't.

Genuinely, did we invest any of the c.£2m in cup money or the fees/sell ons from Poole/Washington transfers in training facilities?

Don't believe we did. Personally would have liked to have seen us do so, but the point I wish to emphasise is that whatever the true amounts are, I don't believe we have benefitted financially by anywhere near as much as Exeter, therefore any expectation for us to achieve as much as they have with less is fantasy.

Not asking us to achieve as much as they have but we have received c.£3.5-4m in cup money, transfers and sell-on fees and have nothing extra to show for it let alone achieving what Exeter have.

Think we are broadly of the same mind and agree that we have nothing to show for our cup monies, yet other posters appear to be suggesting we should be achieving as much as Exeter.

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:51 am

Bangitintrnet wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:44 am Burton Albion benefit from having the national training centre on their doorstep. Likewise having the ability to use Dragon Park is not a hindrance.

Spytty also has lots of other facilities to use purely for fitness, static cycles at the velodrome, running track, swimming etc etc.

Our previous manager thought it was a hinderance. Wanted money spent on our own facilities as he was fed up having to move around training at Hartridge and wherever else they could find when we couldn't use the other facilities,

Our previous Manager though also wasted lots of money securing the services of players managed by Elite. Perhaps if he had spread the net wider than Elite we may have had some monies to put towards a training complex.

wattsville_boy wrote: June 12th, 2022, 1:59 pm

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:51 am

Bangitintrnet wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:44 am Burton Albion benefit from having the national training centre on their doorstep. Likewise having the ability to use Dragon Park is not a hindrance.

Spytty also has lots of other facilities to use purely for fitness, static cycles at the velodrome, running track, swimming etc etc.

Our previous manager thought it was a hinderance. Wanted money spent on our own facilities as he was fed up having to move around training at Hartridge and wherever else they could find when we couldn't use the other facilities,

Our previous Manager though also wasted lots of money securing the services of players managed by Elite. Perhaps if he had spread the net wider than Elite we may have had some monies to put towards a training complex.

Manager can only spend what the Board allow him to.

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 2:00 pm

wattsville_boy wrote: June 12th, 2022, 1:59 pm

Exile 1976 wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:51 am

Bangitintrnet wrote: June 12th, 2022, 8:44 am Burton Albion benefit from having the national training centre on their doorstep. Likewise having the ability to use Dragon Park is not a hindrance.

Spytty also has lots of other facilities to use purely for fitness, static cycles at the velodrome, running track, swimming etc etc.

Our previous manager thought it was a hinderance. Wanted money spent on our own facilities as he was fed up having to move around training at Hartridge and wherever else they could find when we couldn't use the other facilities,

Our previous Manager though also wasted lots of money securing the services of players managed by Elite. Perhaps if he had spread the net wider than Elite we may have had some monies to put towards a training complex.

Manager can only spend what the Board allow him to.

Agree. And didn't County have some sort of tie-in with Elite for awhile. But there is a difference between allowing the Manager money to buy players and allowing him to waste money on players not up to standard. And too many players were brought in, that were managed by Elite, that were not good enough. Hence the appointment of the Sporting Director and Flynn throwing his toys out the pram.

I think it's a fair criticism of Flynn's transfer policy in relation to the budgets he was given each year. In many ways he was a good Manager, on transfers he wasn't so good.