Sunday Times Article

[Masson4]

A somewhat gloomy piece. Nothing really new there.


Bailing out Notts County makes no financial sense, but one can only hope

[countygump]

Does bailing out ANY footy club make financial sense? Barring a few in the Prem who actually manage to make a profit.

[Lullapie]

A somewhat gloomy piece. Nothing really new there.


Bailing out Notts County makes no financial sense, but one can only hope

I'm a big fan of Rod Liddle too. I hope he's wrong.

[countygump]

England’s oldest football league club, Notts County, are now just 11 days from ceasing to exist. A mountain of unpaid debts mean they face liquidation, 157 years after they were formed.

It is entirely possible that the 3-1 defeat by Swindon on the final day of last season, a campaign that saw them relegated to the National League for the first time, will be the last time their players kicked a ball in anger. Technically, it’s a tax bill of a mere £250,000 which is seeing them dragged before the High Court once again. But the problems are a lot more serious than that.

Escape route: Notts County owner Alan Hardy has been trying to sell the club
Escape route: Notts County owner Alan Hardy has been trying to sell the club

The players and staff of the club have not been paid since May — and so are entitled to walk out as free agents before the next season begins. It is quite possible that the club will not be able to field a team to fulfil their league fixtures, and so expulsion awaits. County’s — er — colourful owner, Alan Hardy, is up to his neck in debt. His company, Paragon Interiors, was plunged into administration earlier this year, owing at least £13.5m. Mr Hardy has been trying to sell the club — for in excess of £5m, which would be steepish for a lower-level Championship outfit, let alone a club in the National League. The new owners would, of course, cop all of Notts County’s debts on top of the extortionate asking price. At the end of June, Hardy assured fans and players alike that they had no need to worry, a prospective buyer was in place and all would be sorted out by July 10. Unsurprisingly, you might think, nothing at all was sorted out by July 11 and still nobody has been paid.

You may or may not remember Hardy’s previous claim to fame, which was to send out a tweet to fans of the club showing him with his old fella flapping about in the breeze (“an honest mistake”, he explained, somewhat red of face).

Hardy put the club up for sale in January and seemed to have found a suitable buyer quite quickly in a consortium led by a chap called Alex May. This foundered a little when it was discovered that Mr May previously went under the name Alick Kapikanya and had been sentenced to six years in prison for his role in a £3.5m mortgage scam. Kapikanya’s modus operandi was to steal the identities of elderly homeowners and consequently nick their houses before re-mortgaging them and then pocketing the dosh.

Even by the Football Association’s somewhat lax standards, it is hard to imagine Alex/Alick passing their fit and proper test. According to Hardy, there are new prospective buyers, but he won’t tell anyone who they are (it is whispered that they might be “Danish”). Frankly, anyone who would pay the sort of sum Hardy has been asking would fail to pass my “fit and proper” test, unless it was a “fit and proper” test to gain entry to the nearest booby hatch.

Lilian Greenwood, the MP for Nottingham South, has at least been doing what she can to find out what is going on at Meadow Lane. At prime minister’s questions she called for an investigation into Notts County’s affairs by the Football Association, the Football League and the National League. As a consequence she is meeting the FA in Westminster on Tuesday. But both supporters of the club and the Nottingham Post have been serially frustrated by the failure of any of the footballing authorities to take much of an interest in Notts County’s plight. The Post forwarded to the FA a secret dossier supplied by a club insider concerning Notts County’s financial issues. But having been told that the FA would look into it, nothing more has been forthcoming. It is heartening, mind, that Nottingham has both an MP who takes an interest and a local paper prepared to do a bit of digging and campaigning.

If Notts County go into liquidation, as seems highly likely at the moment, then the best fans can hope for is its resurrection as a “phoenix” club, perhaps owned largely by its supporter base. That would mean a change of name and relegation several divisions down to the Evo-Stik Premier League.

What is the cause of Notts County’s parlous state? The short answer is that they spent beyond their means. In the 2017-18 season, in particular, they were heavily fancied as favourites for promotion from Sky Bet League Two, the consequence of a large squad and generous individual salaries. As a gamble, this almost worked: they finished fifth in the division only to lose in the playoff semi-finals to Coventry City.

But almost was not good enough and it may prove to be the death of them. Added to which, of course, is that old truism — that the only people who would wish to own a lower-league club are the very people who should never be allowed to run any sort of business. I repeat, buying Notts County for five million, or even five grand, does not make much financial sense. It is a minor miracle that so many of these smaller clubs are still in existence.

Maybe Juventus can bail them out. They have an historic link, based on relative antiquities and similar strips. It would be cheering if someone did.

[jackal2]

What is the cause of Notts County’s parlous state? The short answer is that they spent beyond their means.

This is the one line from the article that matters, regardless of who writes it. The key to understanding Notts County's past, and the key to any future the club has, is to learn the lesson and never break this rule again. We should have learned last time.

Any future owner who spends beyond the club's means, and any managers, players or fans who encourage an owner to do so, are not serving the best interests of Notts County Football Club. And that's the bottom line

(… because Stone Cold said so )

[Old_pie]

This is the one line from the article that matters, regardless of who writes it. The key to understanding Notts County's past, and the key to any future the club has, is to learn the lesson and never break this rule again. We should have learned last time.

Any future owner who spends beyond the club's means, and any managers, players or fans who encourage an owner to do so, are not serving the best interests of Notts County Football Club. And that's the bottom line

Well Yes and No. Not much wrong with an owner who's prepared to put £3million in a year to pursue his hobby. It really isn't that much money to a rich person.

I'm pretty sure that AH had budgeted on taking a chunk of Paragon Interiors profits each year and putting them into Notts hence his earlier comments "I can take Notts to the Championship but not beyond". What he hadn't budgeted for is Paragon Interiors NOT making a profit and he took his eye off of that business whilst playing Football Manager and having tweeting arguments with all and sundry sometimes in the bath. And when he wasn't doing that he was attending court of his driving. World's Busiest Man running around like a headless chicken.

[MAD_MAGPIE]

This is the one line from the article that matters, regardless of who writes it. The key to understanding Notts County's past, and the key to any future the club has, is to learn the lesson and never break this rule again. We should have learned last time.

Any future owner who spends beyond the club's means, and any managers, players or fans who encourage an owner to do so, are not serving the best interests of Notts County Football Club. And that's the bottom line

(… because Stone Cold said so )

Correct. Whoever can save this club from the grim reaper had better be someone who is frugal, financially astute and strong with it to avoid the resistance because this dice with death would all soon be forgotten. Or they gift the club the money they spend running up a tab instead of loaning it to the club then trying to pass the tab onto a future owner.

The thing is if we had spent beyond our means and ended up in League One or the Championship and were in this problem (like Bolton and Bury) then we would have some form of safety net in terms of how far we could fall before going out of the league.

What angers and annoys me the most apart from the overspending is the chronic wastage of money. It's that more than anything that has all but killed this club. It's been the worst under Hardy's rein as well in my opinion. There is even a thread at the moment talking about Kevin Nolan probably still being paid by the club. Then there was the compensation to Crawley for Harry Kewell and his assistant Warren Feeney which according to reports was £400,000. Not forgetting the "significant six figure sum" for Enzio. Crawley did exceptionally well financially out of this club last season.

Who knows how lucrative the contracts were for Hemmings, Dennis, Boldwejin and Vaughan?

There was £55,130 spent on players agents (parasites) last season for Ross Fitzsimons, Kristian Dennis, Andrew Kellett, Kane Hemmings, Dan Jones, Branislav Pindroch, Will Patching, Enzio Boldewijn, David Vaughan, Rob Milsom, Elliott Ward, Jim O’Brien, Cedric Evina, Tom Crawford and Mitchell Rose.

Two thirds of those agent's (parasites) fees were a waste of money as a load of those players contributed nothing. Not forgetting the wages paid out to them during the season as well.

This highlights where the biggest wastage of money is and it's managers and players. For too long under different owners we have wasted and squandered money on "experienced" or "one for the future" types of players who are either passed it or will never make it. We've sacked managers on a whim and got other managers in which costs money. We've had squads that have had players in from two or three managers ago. No manager ever has their own full squad.

The clubs had a culture certainly in this decade of quantity over quality in terms of players coming in. We've had too many seasons of bloated and inflated squads of 30-40 players.

It was the worst in the Derry season where I think we had about 40 players some who would only make the odd appearance and disappear. I keep saying and will continue to do so that it's not sustainable yet it has gone on and on and on. As I've pointed out many times in the past over 200 players since Munto and 8 managers is now why the club is where it's at with possibly 10 days left unless this takeover happens quickly.

It's a complete and utter disgrace and I only hope somehow the club can get through this and rebuild properly like the Burton Albion's and Accringtons of this world because it can be done if the people at the top set their stall out properly with strong foundations and a club philosophy and then get the right managers who then recruit the right players to suit that philosophy. Plus stick with it through the tough times as well.

[queenslandpie]

Correct. Whoever can save this club from the grim reaper had better be someone who is frugal, financially astute and strong with it to avoid the resistance because this dice with death would all soon be forgotten. Or they gift the club the money they spend running up a tab instead of loaning it to the club then trying to pass the tab onto a future owner.

The thing is if we had spent beyond our means and ended up in League One or the Championship and were in this problem (like Bolton and Bury) then we would have some form of safety net in terms of how far we could fall before going out of the league.

What angers and annoys me the most apart from the overspending is the chronic wastage of money. It's that more than anything that has all but killed this club. It's been the worst under Hardy's rein as well in my opinion. There is even a thread at the moment talking about Kevin Nolan probably still being paid by the club. Then there was the compensation to Crawley for Harry Kewell and his assistant Warren Feeney which according to reports was £400,000. Not forgetting the "significant six figure sum" for Enzio. Crawley did exceptionally well financially out of this club last season.

Who knows how lucrative the contracts were for Hemmings, Dennis, Boldwejin and Vaughan?

There was £55,130 spent on players agents (parasites) last season for Ross Fitzsimons, Kristian Dennis, Andrew Kellett, Kane Hemmings, Dan Jones, Branislav Pindroch, Will Patching, Enzio Boldewijn, David Vaughan, Rob Milsom, Elliott Ward, Jim O’Brien, Cedric Evina, Tom Crawford and Mitchell Rose.

Two thirds of those agent's (parasites) fees were a waste of money as a load of those players contributed nothing. Not forgetting the wages paid out to them during the season as well.

This highlights where the biggest wastage of money is and it's managers and players. For too long under different owners we have wasted and squandered money on "experienced" or "one for the future" types of players who are either passed it or will never make it. We've sacked managers on a whim and got other managers in which costs money. We've had squads that have had players in from two or three managers ago. No manager ever has their own full squad.

The clubs had a culture certainly in this decade of quantity over quality in terms of players coming in. We've had too many seasons of bloated and inflated squads of 30-40 players.

It was the worst in the Derry season where I think we had about 40 players some who would only make the odd appearance and disappear. I keep saying and will continue to do so that it's not sustainable yet it has gone on and on and on. As I've pointed out many times in the past over 200 players since Munto and 8 managers is now why the club is where it's at with possibly 10 days left unless this takeover happens quickly.

It's a complete and utter disgrace and I only hope somehow the club can get through this and rebuild properly like the Burton Albion's and Accringtons of this world because it can be done if the people at the top set their stall out properly with strong foundations and a club philosophy and then get the right managers who then recruit the right players to suit that philosophy. Plus stick with it through the tough times as well.

There is not one thing to disagree with there. Other than than the fact it is not a complete and utter disgrace it is a lot worse than that and the last 3 custodians of Notts have all significantly contributed to the issue(s).,

[slack_pie]

There is not one thing to disagree with there. Other than than the fact it is not a complete and utter disgrace it is a lot worse than that and the last 3 custodians of Notts have all significantly contributed to the issue(s).,

Agreed. Excellent post from MAD_MAGPIE.

One thing I find hard to understand is how Hardy managed to come in and repeat ALL of Trew's mistakes.

Bizarre managerial appointments and sackings. Allowing each new manager to bring in their own players, resulting in a bloated squad. Signing 'ones for the future' and aging mercenaries on a big wages, instead of just trying to get decent L2 players in their prime. Getting sucked into ridiculous arguments on social media. Kicking the financial can further down the street by overspending and burdening the club with business debts.

Rather than learning from what Trew got wrong, it's like Hardy tried to outdo him. That's pretty much the only thing he succeeded at doing.

[pravda_plc]

Absolutely nothing new here.

Tired journalism from someone who doesn't really understand the significance of QUOTE: "These smaller clubs".

Football is part of the community. The two things are inextricably bonded together. If Notts die then the community it belongs to will have lost a big part of itself...