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With a bit of luck and a few wins our league position can change

I admire your optimism, I really do but the problem is I just don't see where one win will come from now let alone a few. Our defence is shockingly bad, we have very little creativity in midfield (even more so now with Laurent out) and we've sold our best player and only consistent goalscorer. The only positive is at least we have Mildy, he'll certainly need to continue his "Player of the Year" form between now and May. One glance at the next 5 or 6 games suggests we'll be in the bottom 4 by the end of February. Thank God we avoided administration that's all I can say or with that 10 point drop we'd be stuffed like Stockport!
 
I agree with the above, but unfortunatley all you have done is remind me of the mess we are in . The post is about being positive, but in X hundred words all you have come up with is we are not relegated yet, and Barrett is a fighter.

I am still glass half full, we will pull through and the stadium will come to frution, but I admit to not being able to go to the last home game and not being too upset about it ---- and that isn't right

True. As already stated as opposed to being overly positive it is more about not being obscenely negative.
 
Maybe Ron could start cutting on "Expenses" and "Other Income/Admin expenses".....?

02/03
Expenses -0.77M
Other Income/Admin expenses 0.34M

03/04
Expenses -0.9M
Other Income/Admin expenses -0.48M

04/05
Expenses -1.15M
Other Income/Admin expenses -0.77M

05/06
Expenses -1.2M
Other Income/Admin expenses 0.3M (including injection of 1.5M)

06/07
Expenses -1.88M
Other Income/Admin expenses -1.43M

07/08
Expenses -2.4M
Other Income/Admin expenses -1.977M

Or as an ex-treasurer, you might be able to shed light on the upward spiralling Expenses at the club? I am regrettably not qualified, so may well be overseeing something obvious to you?

Also, if we assume that each player from the CCC has now departed (apart from a couple) and have been brought in on let's say an average of £1K per player. That is £18K per week (based on 18 squad players), or £936K per year, so although doesn't clear the £2M deficit, it must have been of assistance. Again, my figures are complete guesses and could be way off the mark so looking for guidance on this?

I'm sure you'll make me look silly with these figures now.... :stupidme:

EDIT: Apologies, do not have last years figures to hand.


Nail on head!

This is the only reason that the club has lost money, yet without seeing the accounts (and I think even some that have can't find an answer), your guess is as good as mine as to what these expenses are.

My money would be on legal/planning/stadium costs etc. but nobody knows!
 
It is a shame to now log onto this website and see at least 5 new threads a day that are shaped towards the same issues. Tilson out, Martin out, Finances. The once positive Shrimpers Chit-Chat is a mere needle in a haystack to what it once was.

Talk of relegation coincides with a team going through a poor run of form, not scoring goals and a team that have not had back-to-back wins all season.

So, is there anything positive we can talk about?

Well, we are not relegated. Great start. Looking at the fixtures our home form is going to be absolutely vital to us staying in the league this year. However, my stone cold sober belief is that we need a guarantee of goals. We unfortunately sold that in Barnard and with our next top scorer I think having scored 3 goals we now rely on the unproven Paterson and Spencer. Now interestingly with the thread about Stuart O'Keefe it could be that it is the unproven talent on lower wages (I don't know about Paterson) keep us up. They are the players whose morale will be higher, who will want to prove themselves more than the others in terms of everyday in training trying to gain a first team spot. I don't expect bags of goals and victories but right now a few points would be most welcome and survival in League One would be very well received. Are we in despair? No.

Steve Tilson very much builds his team on an impressive morale and camaraderie. Often participating in team building days the squad are close knit. I often see posts about tactics. These tend to be whenever we lose. With hindsight. That is easy to do. Anyone can say this that or the other would have worked better. Most football fans forget the wonders of a team and its manager if the team go through a bad patch. That is what I am witnessing on this website at the moment. Do you really think for one minute if Tilson walks or is sacked that Martin could replace him with a better managerial record than Tilly in the lower leagues. Why would a club in our financial position attract anyone with the completely limited resources that we have. The philosophy at the moment appears to be 'sell before we buy but when we buy make sure it is someone no where near as proven on lower wages'. Now unfortunately our financial situation has already dictated to our on the field game. No doubt affecting team confidence and the playing staff available to Tilly. With a small squad we will not be able to play 4-5-1, 4-4-2, 3-6-1, 3-5-2, 5-5-0, 7-2-1 and all the other formations that you have asked for. Look at all the teams in professional football. They do not chop and change their formations. At best they switch between just the 2. Normally the manager using the same formation but changing personnel to set a more attacking/defensive feel to the team.

We have to believe in the leader we have at our club, Adam Barrett. He now has a great deal of experience at this level and knows the team inside out. Reading his columns in the Echo he still has a belief and I think with a few results he can help string something together for the blues. What everyone has to realise is that by the 'forced' sale of Lee Barnard we are a lot lighter now in the goalscoring department and the team is significantly weaker. We do not have the footings at our club to go on and be a force at championship level. We have a small ground, bad finances but at times throughout the last 3/4 seasons a spirited team that pull together to play some very good football for League 1 standard and a manager that really encourages and supports the players. We haven't put together a run this season and for the first time we are looking down as opposed to up. The successes under Tilly can easily lull us into a false sense of security but personally and speaking to others right now survival in the league and as a club is paramount.

Get behind the team and try to find some positives. We all have a big passion in Southend but is there really a need for the posts of manager, assistant, chairman out. Will we be bought out by a billionaire? No. Our team are no doubt unsettled enough changes in the above I do not envisage as being positive. Every football fan enjoys success and if your team plays the best they have all season but loses 1-0 you still go home disappointed. This is about the long term future of Southend not just the immediate future on the basis that there is no answer to a quick fix solution.

Let's rally and support the team. Do not be disillusioned with the situation. With a bit of luck and a few wins our league position can change and going forward if we are still in league one we can look at playing our youngsters and slowly steadying the ship at the club. After all I think it is far more important that we are supporting a team in 5 years rather than bring in some overpaid players that will get us in line for a chance of promotion but then inadvertedly we end of getting wound up! For all that the management committee have done in the last 4/5 years and the success and happiness they have given us I think we deserve to stand by them 100%. I could draw comparisons to some other managers that have stuck by their manager and turned things around but even without them I fully believe we have a manager who is doing a sterling job with what is available to him.

Up the Blues.


Yes I agree - good post - lets all pull together
 
Maybe Ron could start cutting on "Expenses" and "Other Income/Admin expenses".....?

02/03
Expenses -0.77M
Other Income/Admin expenses 0.34M

03/04
Expenses -0.9M
Other Income/Admin expenses -0.48M

04/05
Expenses -1.15M
Other Income/Admin expenses -0.77M

05/06
Expenses -1.2M
Other Income/Admin expenses 0.3M (including injection of 1.5M)

06/07
Expenses -1.88M
Other Income/Admin expenses -1.43M

07/08
Expenses -2.4M
Other Income/Admin expenses -1.977M

Or as an ex-treasurer, you might be able to shed light on the upward spiralling Expenses at the club? I am regrettably not qualified, so may well be overseeing something obvious to you?

Also, if we assume that each player from the CCC has now departed (apart from a couple) and have been brought in on let's say an average of £1K per player. That is £18K per week (based on 18 squad players), or £936K per year, so although doesn't clear the £2M deficit, it must have been of assistance. Again, my figures are complete guesses and could be way off the mark so looking for guidance on this?

I'm sure you'll make me look silly with these figures now.... :stupidme:

EDIT: Apologies, do not have last years figures to hand.


Oops, meant to say "average of £1K LESS per player" not £1K per player!! Sorry!
 
It's all very well telling us, but tell the players! Would you be bothered to give 100% if you wasn't going to get your wages at the end of the week?


Yes as a self employed person it happens to me all the time - but I am a professional and try to give 100% all the time.

I will support any player wearing an SUFC shirt
 
Yes as a self employed person it happens to me all the time - but I am a professional and try to give 100% all the time.

I will support any player wearing an SUFC shirt

I don't think you can compare being a professional footballer to being a plumber\carpenter\builder etc.

There's always going to be a club out there who will pay your worth, and on time.

Ambitious footballers are hardly going to accept playing for a team and not getting paid on time when other, more organized clubs get the basics of "paying wages" right.

You show me a footballer without ambition, and I'll show you a crap player.
 
Its the tough and seemingly bad times that make the good successful years so good and enjoyable. I still wouldn't swap being a shrimper for all Man U's silver ware and high expectation each year....how bloody boring. Don't forget we've been here before when Tilly took over and we had the conference starring us in the face then! We're not a bad side and finacially theres a lot worse off out there than us.
 
The Story Of The Blues, Parts 1 & 2

You show me a footballer without ambition, and I'll show you a crap player.

Not in the case of Colin Todd. Kevin Keegan once said (sic), "He'd rather be throwing darts down the local than playing for England."

These are very difficult times, but like Pete Wylie once said, "you've got to hope for the best, it's the best you can hope for." It is also very much like the skipper's been saying recently, how we've got to hunker down and grind out the points. It won't be pretty, but I believe there's enough spirit in this squad to see it through. It's a dogfight now and we've got some dogged players - Macca, Adam and Granty, to name the main men who'd I'd like lining up beside me 'in times of trouble.' We need some more from the flair players - Laurent, Francis and Moose - to spark some confidence into our new young strike force. If we're not going to get a new CB in, then the day M'Voto returns cannot come quick enough. On a positive note or two, people who went to the Millwall game have been saying that O'Keefe played well. Also, those who've seen Spencer in the short time he's played seem to have been quite impressed. So let's hope that a spin-off from all this is that we see a promising youngster emerge well from the current malaise and that come May, this thread will just be a reminder of how bad these particular January blues have been. Right, time to take the rose-tints off ...:)
 
Its all well and good saying support the team, offer to help etc etc etc. But I'll ask this question ...

If the Club was all of a sudden successful and making millions, do you really think that it would give any of it away / back to the fans? Not a snow balls chance in hell of that happening!

If you are a business owner you take the risk and you take the profit / loss.

Some people need on here need to wake up smell the coffee and get into the real world!
 
Its all well and good saying support the team, offer to help etc etc etc. But I'll ask this question ...

If the Club was all of a sudden successful and making millions, do you really think that it would give any of it away / back to the fans? Not a snow balls chance in hell of that happening!

If you are a business owner you take the risk and you take the profit / loss.

Funny, I thought the idea was to support the club because we love it, not to seek any monetary gain. You seem to be implying that we shouldn't support the club, as if the club was rich it wouldn't financially support us.

Maybe I'm misreading?
 
Funny, I thought the idea was to support the club because we love it, not to seek any monetary gain. You seem to be implying that we shouldn't support the club, as if the club was rich it wouldn't financially support us.

Maybe I'm misreading?

That sounds about right.
 
Nail on head!

This is the only reason that the club has lost money, yet without seeing the accounts (and I think even some that have can't find an answer), your guess is as good as mine as to what these expenses are.

My money would be on legal/planning/stadium costs etc. but nobody knows!

Well your money would be wasted. The 2007 admin expenses were broken down here:

http://www.shrimperzone.com/vb/showthread.php?t=56581

Nothing in there to suggest that SUFC Ltd are paying a penny towards the Stadium project. The 2008 accounts haven't been broken down as yet but as admin costs are pretty constant compared to '07 I wouldn't expect that to have changed.

The stadium is an indirect cause of our current financial plight. The direct cause is that the associated companies and Directors are not currently in a position to subsidise the ridiculous trading losses that we've made over the past few years and consequently we have massive cashflow difficulties.

Lee Barnard wasn't sold so that we can buy the Pizza shop in Victoria Avenue. He was sold so that we can pay the next bill.
 
I can't believe you wrote this ...

Its all well and good saying support the team, offer to help etc etc etc. But I'll ask this question ...

If the Club was all of a sudden successful and making millions, do you really think that it would give any of it away / back to the fans? Not a snow balls chance in hell of that happening!

If you are a business owner you take the risk and you take the profit / loss.

Some people need on here need to wake up smell the coffee and get into the real world!

By Jove ... do you think I might be able to sue them for taking away my hope and disposable income after all these years?! :stunned: No, I thought not. Funny that football to the real fans ... the True Blues and mfurok's who go to every game, the BarnaBlues and Libertines who come back from faraway places to see the team whenever they can ... is not some perverse monetary equation. I refuse to wake up, smell your coffee and exist in your real world. Rant over. ;)
 
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