Some of you may remember me spitting my dummy out after the last round of licensing and I took my petty vengeance out on your club because of your then recent financial meltdown.

However I have been incredibly surprised by how Wakefield have gone about their business and especially the tremendous increase in attendances. This statement is an honest assessment of life in SL and the hardships and challenges faced by clubs without sugar daddies. I applaud the honesty and I was definitely wrong in my 2010 rantings.

Good luck Wakefield. You are in SL for a reason and I hope the locals come out and give you the support you deserve.

Cheers Rich

There always seems to be hundreds of the buggers as well. If we're paying that much, I'd expect them to be much better!

I am curious though as to how the "Wildcat Dolls" is run. If you follow their twitter feeds they do quite a lot of gigs & promotion work outside the club. Is it run as a seperate self-funding business or does the club see any profit from this worK? Are they actually employed by the club?

The dolls don't belong to the club, its a seperate business owned by SE, but we do pay for them to dance on matchday, i hear its £400 but can't confirm this.

So if SE is working with/for them during Trinity hours she's on a nice little earner.

Cheers, seems like a missed trick there for the club.

Honesty is the only way to go and that is the right direction as for selling Tim Smith if we have got the right money and have someone lined up then that could be for the best.Lets face it Smith can open things up with some of the best but at other times plays like an average joe plus his one on one defence is very poor.We must have another player lined up or we could be one of the clubs going down but why if money is tight do we give Ali another year.Yes hes been a great player but with age etc we will get less game time from him and we are over blessed with second rowers.

As a box holder I have just paid for next year to try and help the club. We need as supporters to do as much as we can. When Bradford were in dire straights the fans got together and came up with loads of fundraising ideas which in turn helped the club. My first thoughts are a sponsored walk from Castleford to Wakefield Sunday 8th anyone interested?

Also I liked the £50 x 1000 idea I would be the first to put £50 in is there anyone else out there willing to do the same.

I know times are tough for us all and if at the very least members buy their season tickets early the additional funding with help the club we love.

They may be rubbish at time and there may be decisions we don't like but as I say "they may be rubbish but they are my rubbish"-

Not really. The Wakey fans seem to have a bit more about them unlike Cas fans who seem to have a misguided opinion that they are a powerhouse of superleague who it is every players dream to play for.

Good luck to Wakey. Hope you get it all sorted earlier than we did and can bring in a few players for the new season.

Its ok saying get behind the club but times are hard and some cant simply conjure money out of a black bag or magic hat.We need to remember some of those fans have familys and one of the most expensive months is just coming to an end (holidays with the Children and just going back to school new uniform etc) so some wont be able to renew season tickets at the moment.Perhaps some of those employed by the club should be working harder to bring money in and keep them in work through sponsership etc.

I wonder how much Newmarket delays have been a factor.

My theory behind the season ticket discounts was that it was a way of building a real groundswell going into Newmarket, at which time the prices can go up, the overheads go down, and you have a sustainable business model. Income equals expenditure. Are we a year behind on Newmarket, thus making the idea unsustainable as it stands?

Cheap season tickets are always a loss-leader in the short term, as selling 4,000 at half-price is worse than selling 2,000 at full price, as you lose the extra "on the day" money the other 2,000 would have brought. Has the problem arisen because the short-term loss-leader become a mid-term and maybe longer-term one?

Now if they can just find these mystical investors waiting in the wings that keep on getting talked about and maybe things will work out. The last two years, however, we have probably been operating on an income that was based upon a gate of 5,000 or less because of the discounts, not the 8,000 average we've actually been getting.

This.






Make some redundancies from the non playing staff starting with Elston, Fozzard and others. Recruit volunteers to help with the running of the ground to cut back on costs.

What has Fozzard brought into the club in terms of finances? Elston has almost sunk the ship twice at the helm and he needs to walk the plank surely? Didn't he buy Mellars? That alone is enough.
We should get rid of the word Wildcat in the teams name and return to the nickname of the dreadnoughts we sink financially that often.

Why will volunteers be better qualified than an ex player?

Like WISCA for instance.

Volunteers cost nowt.

They won't in most cases but they are cheaper.

It is possible if you ask for help that better qualified people will step in.

Jeez, my daughter was lucky to get a biscuit and a can of pop after dancing, and that was in winter

The playing staff as far as I know are not afford
As far as I know it's only the back office staff that were given a pay cut.
I would discount the rest.

Sigh....

Almost ... Word for word like I heard when Skerrett was sold... And Nigel Wright... And Danny Brough...

Personally
I don't rate Smith in the category of these other players, but the principle is the same.

Poor stuff from Carter, and even poorer stuff from Glover, who clearly ran away from the hard decisions.

Yes [u=#FF0000indeed.[/u

I think it's great from carter tbh on the flip side. He clearly has set out his stall and has made the hard decision you say others shirked.

Good on him. Make a hard decision now and try and stabilise the club properly.

What's the alternative? Wait it out and come a few months in pre season be forced to sell 2/3 players at a low rate in desperation to clear the same bills to stave off for 2014.

Great decision. Obviously in playing terms as fans not the best but as far as management decisions go. It's a positive move for the club.

Why so?

Like you said you've heard it before but doesn't that show what a extremely hard job it is to run a club with no multi-millionaire owners and no 12K+ crowds. Fans want a decent team on the field, so we can at least contest for the top 8 but a lot also want to pay naff all for their season tickets.

I've got nothing but admiration for these guys who basically give their hard earned cash to the club for basically nothing, I won't do it with mine.

As for selling Smith, I like him and what he does but it's hard to knock an offer back like that considering the situation.

Has any figure been put on the deal??

£150k I'm told we turned down for DK but nobody is disclosing the figure for Smith?

Easy for you to say in cash rich Aussie- there just aint the money over here for all the clubs.

First off i agree Trojan, he had no choice but to sell him and imo he did the right thing.

Lets not be blaming him for sorting out the mess he got left with, AG and JE are the reason this mess needs sorting and it needed sorting on friday not next week or the week after.

We now have a small chance with MC running the show to survive, cos beleive me we had no chance at all before.