Football fans these days are fickle, every club will have its diehard fans who turn up no matter how poor their team are playing , I think we have around 3000 of these. The days of full grounds in the lower leagues have long gone. The fickle fans only follow the first team and it is down to how they do if the fans part with their money. There are so many other options for the fickle fans to spend their money on in todays world.
On the academy I feel if you work out the cost of a youth player starting at the academy for a period of 10 years and then getting into the first team for a year or so and then been sold to a L1 team ( that must be our bottom line target for sales ) The money received would only cover the cost of his coaching over this period along with the cost of all the other academy players in the same age range . So as far as I can see we are just breaking even . So the wheel turns but there is no obvious profit not like we had 10-15 years ago . So in my view we need a radical restructure of the club and produce a plan for the next 10 years or so . Since our hay days football has moved on so much and we have been left standing still.
If the dreaded relegation happens have the board discussed what happens to the academy staff because there will have to be redundancies etc and the law states notice has to be given to employees ( I think 90 day comes to mind ) We would not be able to continue as we are now and I doubt the football league would allow it in none league football and we would not have the grants we receive to run it as we do now . The board have a lot to think of or are they burying their heads in the sand and thinking it will all go away