Very interesting mate. And sort of ties in with what I thought.
So in reality nothing has changed in terms of operating losses, it was awful then under VJ as we know and still is now. But now we have next to no assets, down from around £8m and in debt an extra £13m+??
I fail to see how those with a similar viewpoint to me (Worried, rather than hugely anti-RM), could be almost hounded upon. Are these not the facts (that so many demand) and somewhat alarming?
Smiffy, I think every single supporter is worried.
Look; for years (those who have been on this board that long will know this to be true) I have not necessarily been a fan of Ron and knew darn well that if his plan succeeded then he would do very nicely thank you, but we would still have a club as well. He was in the right place at the right time to pick up RH at a very, very modest price that was way below it's actual value, given the development potential. But here we are, 20+ years on and it's still not developed. After the stadium plans first collapsed, he went from the super popular "Uncle Ron" to our most hated chairman in history (even more so than Vic and Anton Johnson), pretty much overnight.
I did not join those dissenting voices, but instead held my belief and stood up for him, sometimes seeming like the only one at that time who wasn't "anti-Ron". At times it was like I was Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men".
My views have never changed and slowly various voices have come around to my way of thinking. If Ron is here, then we are also here. If FF gets built and Ron does well, so do we. He is not going to put us in a new stadium and then walk away. His business plan will, I'm sure, involve ongoing rentals somewhere from the development (possibly from the hotel or casino he has planned for the commercial unit attached to main stand) and so for that to succeed and be the legacy he leaves to his family requires the development to do well. He is not going to let the whole thing become a white elephant. He needs the footfall and what better than a professional football club with upwards of 30 home matches a year with 10,000+ plus attending?
This is the dream, obviously. We are still on course, albeit having gone through some very rocky times and with no doubt more to come. On the field we will be hard pushed over the next two or 3 years to perform as we should, but that is the nature of football; outside the very big clubs, promotion up and down the divisions is cyclical and perfectly normal, especially in the lower leagues, so I would imagine most fans of lower league clubs are worried.
I am not at all concerned for our existence whilst he is still here as he has shown time and time again that he has the resources (or can get access to them) to back the club up. He won't let us go into administration. We - in my opinion - have a cash flow issue and the financial budget hasn't been met. When you run big companies, budgets are crucial and you can't just keep raiding the piggy bank to prop the club with cash up ad infinitum, as then the losses get even bigger.
Ron also won't care too much about our reputation. There will always be players willing to play for us; we're a professional club and every footballer wants to be a professional footballer. We aren't run very professionally maybe and he could certainly do with a CEO but he has probably expanded the playing budget to try and get better players in and this will be at the expense of non playing staff.
But the thing that DOES worry me is the one thing that is an absolute roaring certainty to happen. It's the ONLY thing guaranteed in all of this and is not disputable in any way, shape or form.
One day, Ron will die.
Hopefully he will have a long and healthy life and by the time he does pass away, we will be in a much healthier state as his dream and ambition will have borne fruit.
But if he doesn't, and something happens sooner rather than later, when the job isn't done... then we are up the creek without a paddle. Because whilst Ron might write off monies owed, you can bet his Executors won't. They can't; they have fiduciary duties and will be obliged to call in the debt.
Let's say the beneficiaries were understanding and advised them not to collect - which is in their gift to do - we could not possibly survive without his monthly dealings financial support.
In short, the club would pretty much die with him.
There's nothing we can do about any of this by the way, except possibly try and drive him out of the club. But I think that will just accelerate our demise. There's no queue of people waiting to step in and if anyone does, it will be for what they get out of it.
So a long time ago I discovered that not worrying about things I had no control over was much less stressful. And there's bugger all I can do about the state of the SUFC finances, other than by "doing my bit".
I'm therefore just along for the ride, supporting the club where I can, always going to matches where possible, not boycotting the CheckaJohnstonspaintLDVleasing cup or whatever it's called and paying my money across the turnstile, buying a shirt every year and generally trying to be a decent supporter.
It's far less stressful and I thoroughly recommend it.
