I started writing a really long dull appraisal of the situation but got a bit bored. My two penneth:

On the club's finances:
Buy a pass or we're fecked. Or do an @airliebird. If we've dropped £600k already and passes are down, regardless of the extra half a million on Sky, we've got shrinking income streams. Not good.
Costs could get out of control. There seems to be permissible variability of contract terms with the SMC. AP's already bankrolling improvements in the academy, fees for Sneyd, EBTs for Manu and a warm weather camp. Can't say he's not doing his bit. Needs backing. Mistakes have obviously been made on recruitment in the past, and a bit more humility and holding up of hands wouldn't go amiss frankly, but we are where we are and need to get on with it.

On the SMC show today, I think it could be bollox. The Council have refuted that anything has gone on outwith terms of the head lease, and the whole thing was in place before the Allams did their acquisition, so should have been covered by their due diligence. As for the accounts, wowzers. The direct costs attributable to Hull FC have reportedly gone up from £200k in 2010 to £1.2m last year, on lower crowds. The direct costs of City, with total attendances around 200% more than ours are £1.8m, just 50% more. Amazing stuff.

Some good points you've made, some signings can be made to look good because of the club they have come from, some are risks that have or haven't paid off, but it's about learning from mistakes which we as a club never seem to do, maybe with the halfback situation the signings have been panic buys, but it's about who is available at the right time with a small budget to work with.

Some fair points

I posted mid season when the 3 league split thing was launched how in 2015 we'll be looking at 7k gates and Batley visiting. As usual was shot down in flames.

Moving to the season end now, with the 2 relegated trams gone we are second bottom. In the pic form the pre season opening talk by AP and LR at Chants Av with a slide show to the players, the slide on the pics said "season aim, the super 8"

Do you think all this attendance talk is some kind of realisation that if we dont make the 8, we WILL see gates of 7K with the likes of Batley Sheffield Whitehaven in town, threats from the SMC, threats from Pearson about falling gates, we are closer to those gates falling, maybe giving the SMC and AP an excuse to follow their threats through.

Of course its all bawlicks as we will be in the top 4 and unbeaten at home all year.

It is scaremongering to state that if the stay away fans don't come back the club will fold.

The club won't fold, it's been in far worse positions before and it's still going.
Pearson's finding out the hard way that there's no money to be made in RL. it's alright moaning about 'off cap' salary expenses, but apart from the Manu situation (which AP knew about) they've all been of Pearsons doing, he signed the deals off. Our attendance hasn't fallen out of line with the rest of SL, so they're not Hull FC stay aways, they're RL stay aways.

Pearson spent the first 2 years of his tenure promising this, that and the other. Now he's publicly saying the club faces financial difficulties. Doesn't sound dissimilar to Hudgell really.

if we are playing 'haven, Batley & Fev et al at least we'll be winning and the fans will come back in droves... see this is Pearson's master plan with Igor at the helm to help achieve this goal.
IF we fail to get in the top 8 will Igor hand in his resignation

My view is if you go when your side is winning and stop if they are losing your not a true fan more of a glory hunting bandwaggoner.If Pearson on his take over of the Club started with the words " well took the Club on dont expect us to win anything probably might scrape the eight but cannot promise anything" wonder what fans would have made of that. This guy clearly wants the best for the Club and fans knock him.Yes we have brought in some players who clearly not good enough that was Bombers doing . Johnson and Pitts tried hard but not good enough ,O'Carroll was just awful.Crookes looked decent at Bulls but lacked any confidence.The biggest for for me was Arundal like many i really thought he would be a great signing,many in the game saw him has a future star.He came here unfit looked drained at the fans forum and never recovered from is long injury.We all knew Pearson was not a expert in RL so he thought other around him did..clearly not. Like many have said if you want a Club to support then do just that or we wont have one.Allam is on a mission to destroy Fc he as made that clear .Lets show him what our club means to us and show him what real fans are about

The Manu situation does make you wonder if that '3 year massive deal' we offered him included a deal to sort out this off-shore payment mess, which is why he opted to take a good 2 year deal with Saints, and then pocket his £200k on the way home...that and he's ended up with an SL winners medal of course. Mr Manu's had a good year!

You remember where we were prior to the merger, right?

Not sure if it has been asked or worked out but what effect did the 7 out of 8 home games have on attendances last year? Pay on the day fans having to find the cash each week rather than each fortnight?

And you do realise we're still going, right?

As I read it the figure quoted of £1.2m was not a direct cost but a loss in the case of FC. Not the same things at all. I am not commenting on the accuracy of the figure. In any case direct costs do not usually rise proportionally. Many of the costs of running the KC will be fixed only increasing with inflation. They will be the same whether 2,000 or 20,000 attend a match. The only increases will be extra stewards, gate staff, police etc to cope with the extra crowd. These however seem to have been payed for by the SMC in the case of FC but not for City. It is therefore quite possible that "The direct costs of City, with total attendances around 200% more than ours are £1.8m, just 50% more". Not amazing at all. Again I am not commenting on the accuracy of the figures just the way you have presented them to fit your argument.

If you think there will be another miracle-merger to keep us going in the future then it will be with Rovers.

So lets say that then: Support FC or support Hull United.

I imagine we'll be called the Hull Unicorns and that our merged kit will be black and pink hoops. I think about this every time I run for a train on a Friday night to get to a game.

Just think it's all got a little bit over exaggerated, even the clubs mouth piece is in the paper today saying as much.
People are dealing in absolutes, fans not returning to the club won't see it out of business, it'll just mean the club restructures and lives within its means. Hardly the end of the world.

Maybe you don't remember just how close we came to being either closed down or permanently relegated to the lower divisions, and the unique set of circumstances that led to our survival. I do. And relying on anything similar to occur is the worst kind of head-in-the-sand complacency IMO.

On the other point you raised I agree that dwindling attendances is not a problem just for FC. The game as a whole is suffering. But I'm concerned primarily on what we can do in our particular circumstances to avoid the inevitable negative consequences.

Fans not returning to the club won't lead to closure, and nobody has said it would. Getting lower attendances every year WILL eventually lead to either closure or life in the lower divisions unless Pearson comes into some major money or can find a new, richer, buyer to sell the club to.

There will be no merger to save your bacon.

The only use we have for you is the rivalry and banter. Without that you are nothing. Hope you like the banter.

Surely if the likes of rovers,widnes,Wakefield and cas can survive with small crowds then we can and we don't have to fork out for everything in our stadium like they do, I would guess that what we pay in rates to the smc is a lot less then our out goings would be if we had our own stadium.

I think some of it is scaremongering by Pearson just to bump up pass sales, I just don't see how a drop in crowds could lead to the death of the club the reduced revenue will just mean we carn't operate at full salary cap anymore and us as fans will have to lower our expectations. As for the smc losing money from fc surely that's not our problem as we have a contract in place with them, yes they may shut the north and south stand because of it but it may not be a bad thing as having all the fans packed into just two stands may create a better atmosphere, at the moment all the fans are spread out and all the singing/chanting soon dies out because of it, and no I'm not one of the stay away fans I've already bought my pass for next year and had one for many years now, I'm one of those who will buy one every year regardless of how the club is doing because I just carn't bear not been at the rugby and having to listen on the radio at home.

Coming from a bottom-dweller I find this quite amusing.

Fair point from a team that has had so much success over the last 30 years and are in such a good financial position.

See, this is it. Why will lower attendances lead to life in lower divisions? Plenty of teams perform better than us with lower attendances. As for closure, it's silly talk, of course if nobody turns up then it'll lead to that, but do you seriously think that will happen? We'll just restructure and live within our means. There's thousands of fans that would watch the team play on Picky park, so i'm sure that if it came to it closure of a stand wouldn't be the end of the world, it's practically empty every week anyway.

Would it be the worst decision to close the North stand (apart from Rovers) for 2016.

Which teams bring more than 1500, which you could put them in the last two sections of the West/North stand corner.

Lower attendances will just help put the realisation into 90% of the clubs fans that your not a big club! seeing as it's the only basis they go on to claim it.

As I understand it the threat is that both North and South stands could be closed in 2016.

It must be the only amusing thing for an FC fan this week. Glad I was able to cheer you up.

For me there is no financial worry if the crowd does go below 7500, as we have GUARANTEED income levels of 7500, so even if the gates went to 3000 we would still have the levels of income as if at 7500.

Its in the SMC user agreement.

The only problem is if stands get shut, we will have a restricted capacity and ability to earn extra £££ and it WILL cost £££ to open them up.

Oh and for those saying “whats the problem if a stand shuts” this is NOT the first erosion of our tenancy. First it was the Whitely pics, then the pitch (usage for practice, condition after past times being done on it, no games in June (every year) and the reduction in size (no problem for some eh)) Charging more for using the ticket office. No fans forum at his clubs home

It all adds up to a right royal $h@ft!ng