Podcast with Mr Paul Conway

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Personally I wouldn't give them credit for balancing the books but I believe that this club will steadily progress forward with the plan they have in place. Although James Cryne was the founder of this plan in 2015 it doesn't mean that the plan can't be enhanced by a group of foreign business people.


When they arrived they said they were going to enhance and tweak certain aspects of how the club was run and they've stuck to their word imo. There's no magic formula or complexity to it, it's hopefully a steady build and progression in terms of building a competitive championship squad within budget. Last season was a flash in the pan finishing 5th imo. Unique circumstances and an astute head coach almost brought something special to the club in terms of achievement.

I'll be happy with mid table and go again next year with no threat of administration which in this day and age there's a lot to be said for.

If we are to accept the model which as we know equates to discovering undervalued young talent and selling on for good profit then things have stalled under the consortium .

The major success was in the early days under Patrick Cryne with the sales of Mawson , Hourihane and Roberts , around £12.5m for an initial outlay of £275k combined .

Yiadom , Scowen and Watkins also proved to be excellent championship players recruited for next to nowt although unfortunately all three ran their contracts down .

Under Cryne Pinnock , Lindsay , Potts and Jacob Brown were also recruited although the sales were felt by the consortium , those four came in at £9m .

The Cryne tenure under this model created £19.5m of sales .

Kieffer Moore by only a month at that is the only good sale recruited by the consortium and sold on for good money .

The model in at least financial terms under the consortium has actually shown signs of wear and tear .

We haven't had the break out sales as yet that's allowed the club to spend at higher levels .

The record transfer fee paid still sits in 1997 .

I take the point that they may well be sales to come within the present squad so I'm happy to concede that point .

However at this moment in time and after four years under this consortium the club hasn't advanced one jot and continues to shop in the bargain bucket .

The two Belgium's and Devante Cole are where we are despite a 5th placed finish last season .

If the sales only cover the shortfall in revenue to remain self sustainable and there's little outside of that which would include increased sponsorship and advertising revenue with little sign of growth then I'd expect the treading of water to carry on .

The club needs outside investment to progress .

This isn't the UK housing market where you can sit on a property and watch market forces push the value up without doing anything other than a bit of maintenance .

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If we are to accept the model which as we know equates to discovering undervalued young talent and selling on for good profit then things have stalled under the consortium .

The major success was in the early days under Patrick Cryne with the sales of Mawson , Hourihane and Roberts , around £12.5m for an initial outlay of £275k combined .

Yiadom , Scowen and Watkins also proved to be excellent championship players recruited for next to nowt although unfortunately all three ran their contracts down .

Under Cryne Pinnock , Lindsay , Potts and Jacob Brown were also recruited although the sales were felt by the consortium , those four came in at £9m .

The Cryne tenure under this model created £19.5m of sales .

Kieffer Moore by only a month at that is the only good sale recruited by the consortium and sold on for good money .

The model in at least financial terms under the consortium has actually shown signs of wear and tear .

We haven't had the break out sales as yet that's allowed the club to spend at higher levels .

The record transfer fee paid still sits in 1997 .

I take the point that they may well be sales to come within the present squad so I'm happy to concede that point .

However at this moment in time and after four years under this consortium the club hasn't advanced one jot and continues to shop in the bargain bucket .

The two Belgium's and Devante Cole are where we are despite a 5th placed finish last season .

If the sales only cover the shortfall in revenue to remain self sustainable and there's little outside of that which would include increased sponsorship and advertising revenue with little sign of growth then I'd expect the treading of water to carry on .

The club needs outside investment to progress .

This isn't the UK housing market where you can sit on a property and watch market forces push the value up without doing anything other than a bit of maintenance .

The Cryne tenure may well have created an estimated 19m in sales but it ultimately put us in league 1. The likes of Wakins, Scowen and Yiadom were on league 1 contracts, so too we're Winnall and Hourihane, that's why they all didn't renew and decided to run their contracts darn. That squad of 2016/17 was capable of challenging the play offs. We sat 7th in late January. Instead, the team was decimated and unrecognisable within 6 months.

If 19m was generated in sales under Cryne, then how come we didn't reinvest that cash? I'd have thought the class of 2016 would've been the 'breakout sales' you were talking about that enabled the club to advance to the next level. That summer we ended up paying 900k for Mamadou Thiam, 900k for McGeehan, 800k for Potts, 500k for Pinnock, 500k Pearson, 400k Lindsay, 300k Malian, 200k Mccarthy as replacements for the class of 2016.

The lack of sales generated over the last 2 seasons is surely down to the pandemic. Most championship clubs have barely the money to buy bog roll let alone our players. With our fellow championship clubs generally being our niche for outgoing transfers, the fact that there's little money around in this division speaks volumes. Since 2015 when our model started I believe there are only 2 Premiership clubs have signed players from us- Everton in for Stones and Swansea in for Mawson.


For me Animal the major improvement from the consortium to Cryne is the length of contract we sign new players on. 4 year deals are now the order of the day rather than the 'suck it and see' contracts the previous owners handed out in some cases.
Barring Moore, It hasn't yet yielded us a major windfall but as I say, money isn't flying around this division as it was 3 years ago.

It could also be argued and pointed out that offers have been made for our players and refused by the owners. Mowatt being the notable one last January. Instead of offloading and cashing in on our captain and midfield linchpin Mowatt, we kept him to maintain our play off challenge.

In January 2017, we had a very similar scenario where the team were sitting 7th and looking up rather than down. Our captain and midfield linchpin Conor Hourihanes contract was due to expire in 6 months, so rather than keep him and maintain our play off challenge, we cashed in on him. The rest is history.