Agreed.

On 75mil its not a lot, esp when you'll be pushing daisies in the next 7 to 10 years

Reckon hes not even near near 10 mill

Kath took us to 3 finals, she put £120k into the club

Therefore its AP's fault for not employing the right people. At ALL levels from office to off field to on field

Agreed

Such a beautiful end to the evening. Let's have an indulgent presidential quote.

Oh yes the relative age effect and a quick look at BTWs profile confirms my suspicion he was a quartile one player.

Not that there's anything wrong with that but it's predominantly Q1 players (born Sep, Oct, Nov) that stand out in youth rugby and make up the majority of junior rep, scholarship and academy teams as they are early develops and usually bigger and stronger than players in Q3 of Q4 (born March to August).

Once players are in their late teens, this difference in size and strength has levelled out.

haha, it won't work trying to patronise me with your old term of endearment.
So you don''t have any hard facts with regard to costs then and you were just guessing as I said? You can't even see that there's an even chance that costs have dropped can you, don't you understand that that's how good businesses operate by reducing costs whilst maintaining quality?
I don't need to check the credit rating thanks, it's pretty meaningless to be honest with regard to this discussion, but please answer my previous Qs.
What is the variation in income with respect to fans through the gate (either by pass or otherwise) since 2010, ccs was saying it was £2.5M, how much are you saying it's down by?
How much has the SKY money increased by since, that you said would be swallowed up by said shortfall?

But do carry on flying Pearson's flag, you're doing an epic job.

Sure. Independent measurement of financial health and creditworthiness and its change in 12 months is irrelevant to a discussion on finances. Surely even you can see in the absence of a P&L it's the best indicator we have?



If by "flying Pearson's flag" you mean pointing out the importance of fans renewing passes in a precarious financial situation, then you're right. Hardly controversial.

Back on Westerman for a moment. What are views on likelihood of him staying/leaving? Rumours of contact with other clubs seem to have ebbed and flowed a bit.

There you go again, claiming someone has said something they clearly haven't. is it a compulsion? Are you like this in real life? Is that the cash position from this week or a couple of years ago? Like you say, you have no information.

My strength seems to be debunking anything you claim so I'll stick with that

The cash position is from last year's filed accounts. Since then our credit rating has worsened, yet you reckon our financial position hasn't. What is your evidence things financially are at least on a par with this time last year please?

I think its clear to see were not in as good a position as we where but with the greater sky money and lets face it we are still a fairly well supported club and the fact that we seem to be operating on a shoe string budget should mean that were not about to go to the wall. Thing is things could of been sooooo much better and the one person to blame for that is A Pearson. Hes slowly strangling this club in the way hes running it and that is whats driving people away and will continue to do so

Agreed.

I have no evidence the same as you, however increased sky money, reduced expenditure on academy, transfer fees, not significantly lower attendances would point to the fact they aren't likely to be much worse.

As for the credit rating, this will obviously be made up of a large number of factors but as a private limited company, pearson can pretty much run the club how he wants to maximise the personal financial benefit to him. I can't see that the club has been a particularly good credit risk at any time in living memory. Is our rating significantly worse than other SL clubs who don't own their won ground? Are there any defaults or CCJ's registered against us?

We have many who now everything about the accounts at Fc like those who knew the under 23s was cancelled and Westerman in talks with Leeds.What a load of garbage some posts on hereare ..grow up FFS

Good post, beat me to it. Answer to your question is no. And the credit rating mrs b is referring to ain't no evidence either. They tend to fluctuate quite often. And I can imagine even more with this type of seasonal income

Based on what? Certainly not our credit rating history, because that shows that in the last few years it's been very good, and that includes the rating vs similar companies, but in the last year has deteriorated. This latest "in living memory" assertion of yours is fabricated bonkers. There aren't any CCJs against us BTW but this is one of many factors are taken into account. Cherry-picking individual elements doesn't alter the overall balanced risk score.

I'm well aware of what makes a good credit rating thanks, I have my own accountant. So the external perception is that our financial position is worse than it was? No shiit sherlock. 2 or 3 years of losses and suddenly we're a worse credit risk. Who'd have thought that. There has been no point in my following of the club (about 40 years now) where the club were a good credit risk IMO and I doubt they'll have secured any meaningful finance without a charge on land when we had some and/or director's guarantees but maybe you can provide evidence otherwise.

Fabricated bonkers? That should be your strapline

You claimed the credit will have been poor throughout living memory. That's been debunked, because you made it up.

I think we're sort of agreeing now. Our financial position isn't great and has worsened. The question is how precarious it is. If you believe the filed accounts, which show high levels of indebtedness and losses in this tenure, and credit reports, which isn't pretty and on a downward trajectory, you'd be worried. And maybe reinforcing the point that fans' contributions to the club are on the vital end of the spectrum rather than "nice to have" is a reasonable thing to do. Just saying.

Surely the credit rating would have been affected by Kath leaving Pearson to sort out the six figure tax bill??

We're not agreeing at all. You perpetuate the myth that we're on the edge of a financial abyss and I say we're not. We appear poles apart to me. If pass ales are down and we disappear in the next 12 months then I'll openly admit you were right. if we're still here in 12 months, operating at full cap and running an U23's team that we don't need to then you can come and admit I'm right again.

As for the credit rating you still haven't answered my question about other clubs with no ground of their own.

I haven't seen the filed accounts, only the balance sheet which doesn't look great but without a knowledge of what is sat behind it is meaningless. For all we know, the bulk of the £2.2m creditor figure may be a loan to pearson

It's affected by a number of things but losing money and having no tangible assets means it is always going to be poor. I doubt it is any worse than most of the rest of SL though and in itself isn't any indication of whether the club is about to go pop, despite what some may have you believe

I'm sure with bumpy's extra £15 contribution this year we'll have nothing to worry about.

What I'm actually saying is this.

The club has lost £1.5m since 2010, lost money last year, is making redundancies and has a credit rating that has worsened appreciably over the last 12 months. I don't see that any of this can be contested. In this context the importance of season pass income to the club IMO is as, if not more, important than it's ever been. In my opinion there's a risk that if the proportion of people not renewing on here is replicated in our fanbase, our ability to operate as a top 8 team will be compromised. Maybe worse.

The bulk of the creditor number is likely to be to AP, of course. There's a note to the accounts that says a going concern basis for their preparation is only feasible because AP says he'll continue to provide backing for the next 12 months; without that backing we wouldn't be a going concern. That's not particularly unusual in RL clubs because of the significant reliance on benefactors by most teams.

As for relevant comparators, who would you suggest? Saints, Leeds, Warrington, Huddersfield and Cas either own their ground or their owners have a controlling stake IIRC. Wigan? Hull KR? Salford? I think Wakey own their ground too.