Football

[75A]

Time well tell.

 

[side effect]

Our revenue is the biggest in the EFL besides the clubs receiving Premier League Parachute payments, even with us being a League One club.

We will absolutely be spending big in the summer again and we'll 100% be in the playoff conversation.

It's just a big pay day for clubs promoted with the only winners being the owners who then go on to put the prices up for the fans who are and always will be the losers.

Be refreshing to see Birmingham be different and from an eastender I wish you all the best and will keep an interest in the club.

 

[Haywain]

Our revenue is the biggest in the EFL besides the clubs receiving Premier League Parachute payments, even with us being a League One club.

We will absolutely be spending big in the summer again and we'll 100% be in the playoff conversation.

If revenue and spending guaranteed promotion the Championship would look a bit different to how it currently does.

 

[Cross City]

If revenue and spending guaranteed promotion the Championship would look a bit different to how it currently does.

Meh not really, it's an excellent indicator and the parachute payment teams nearly always get promoted again before the payments run out.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Our revenue is the biggest in the EFL besides the clubs receiving Premier League Parachute payments, even with us being a League One club.

Really? Have you got a source for that?

 

[Cross City]

Really? Have you got a source for that?

Official accounts aren't released until nearly a year after the financial year ends, but our owner has constantly been saying it all all of our 'open house' (fans getting to quiz the board and the board showcasing their plans) meetings.

I'm pretty sure the first open house, which was live streamed on the club's social media channels, is on YouTube and Wagner spent a while speaking about revenues and how growing them is vital to future success with how FFP is calculated.

We're in no danger of breaking FFP rules this year despite spending approx £30m on the squad as a League One side. £15m on Stansfield would've comfortably broken the record Championship player fee. It's completely obliterated the Lg1 record, and we're now it the weird situation where the highest amount paid for a player is higher in Lg1 than it is in the Championship.

And, anecdotally, just take a look at the stadium. What they've done in a little over a year is astonishing. 27-28k sell-outs every home match, 2 giant fan parks, multiple hospitality options, massive sponsorship deals with Delta, Undefeated and Oak View Group (the company who will be heading up the new Sports Quarter stadium development), and it sounds silly, but a massive rejig of the club shop and the products sold. I've put about £300 behind the till there this season alone.

Genuinely the fan parks and bars around the ground are full 3 hours before the games now, the amount of money being spent there on a match day must be immense. I go to every match home and away and the amount of people around the ground hours before KO is like nothing I've seen at any stadium over the past 10 years. The fans have fully bought into it.

 

[SuspectUsual]

I’d be very surprised if your revenue is bigger than Sunderland’s

 

[Cross City]

I’d be very surprised if your revenue is bigger than Sunderland’s

Ticket sales don't really make up that big of a percentage of revenue in the top divisions. Yes they get big crowds, but the rest of their offerings are poor and don't make money and their sponsorship deals have nothing on ours.

Handkerchief maths, Sunderland will earn roughly £8m a year more than Birmingham on ticket revenue over the course of 23 home league games. A decent chunk of cash but hardly insurmountable given other revenue streams.

 

[Haywain]

£15m on Stansfield would've comfortably broken the record Championship player fee.

Not true - the record, according to multiple sources, is £15.8m for Ruben Neves from Porto to Wolves in 2017 - taking inflation into account that is considerably higher. It's also notable that last summer Burnley paid £16m for Mike Tresor from Genk after a loan spell.

 

[Ghostbus]

Sunderland are so hard up for cash that when Newcastle drew them in the cup they handed them an entire hospitality stand, kicking out long time wealthy season ticket holders. Even put out nice black and white decorations in the bars. A whopping 6,000 Geordies were bussed down for the first Tyne-Wear Derby in years.

Sold their soul for one big pay day. And got absolutely schooled in the game too. Literally men against boys stuff. With Newcastle playing a 17 year old for the entire second half. The third of three Geordies playing in black and white on that enemy turf in that game, Big Dan Burn of Blyth, Sean Longstaff of North Shields and the teenager Lewis Miley of Sir Bobby Robson country.

All this on prime time TV too. So called richest club in the world Newcastle have been staging tremendous flag displays ever since the takeover, all funded by fans (Wor Flags). Sunderland tried to emulate this with a big "MACKEMS" display along the main stand. It was....not good.

It was in essence, an absolute gift to their bitterest of rivals.

Sunderland 0-3 Newcastle: Magpies make easy work of Black Cats in Wear-Tyne derby - BBC Sport

Newcastle make easy work of rivals Sunderland in the Wear-Tyne derby at the Stadium of Light to reach the fourth round of the FA Cup.

www.bbc.co.uk

The sight of Newcastle's players and staff posing for photographs in front of their jubilant fans inside the Stadium of Light after the final whistle was not simply a celebration of local derby supremacy against Sunderland but an illustration of the wider significance of this victory.

Newcastle would have been nursing a few nerves as they made the short journey to Wearside for an FA Cup tie that carried some of the hallmarks of a giant-killing given the Premier League side's recent wretched form.

Instead, Newcastle cruised through virtually untroubled, with the huge gulf between the sides soon in evidence as Sunderland struggled to gain any sort of meaningful possession.

What was surprising was the lack of intensity in Sunderland's play despite the magnificent atmosphere and backing from the Black Cats' fans, and their inability to make any physical and footballing impression on a Newcastle side who looked bigger and stronger as well as the superior team.

Sunderland's cause was not helped by their tendency to play out from the back even in the most dangerous situations, leading directly to Ekwah's error that gifted Newcastle a second goal moments after the break, effectively wrecking their hopes of a comeback.

New manager Michael Beale will now turn his attentions back to the play-off places in the Championship - but this was undoubtedly a big anti-climax for Sunderland.

Needless to say, they didn't get promoted.

The Championshop seems to do very wierd things to supposedly big club's perceptions of who they are and what they are capable of.

Had they not seen their rival's fans as easy money, they might, just might, have scraped a result, and maybe made more from a successful cup run than this one defeat that will live long in their souls. Might have even made a break for the Prem off the back of it. Instead they plummeted from play off contention to a mid table finish.

Sunderland rip off Newcastle United fans by massively raising drinks prices just for them

Massively raising drinks prices just for NUFC supporters - Sunderland rip off Newcastle United fans

www.themag.co.uk

So, Sunderland fans usually pay £65 to go in the Black Cats Bar.

Newcastle United fans are paying £600, as the Sunderland owner sees the pound signs flashing before his eyes.

So, what are Newcastle fans getting for the extra £535?

Well, it boils down to a mystery ‘free’ gift, having a Newcastle United ‘legend’ appear amongst them, six drinks, nibbles (canapes) as you go in, plus a three course buffet meal.

Get this though, even though paying £535 extra for a few drinks and something to eat basically, most of the 720 Newcastle United fans don’t even get a seat whilst eating their meal!

Pretty outrageous really, charging people £60 for a match ticket, a few drinks and a meal you have to eat standing up…

The greed of the Sunderland owner shining through

The free gift was clearly the sight of the Sunderland players rolling over for their betters and brighters!

As much as Newcastle fans would relish the 6 points a season, I think they enjoyed this far more. Cheap at half the price for those who were there. Especially since Newcastle hadn't won the last 9 Derby games before this, a run stretching back to 2011 and which included not one but two 3-0 away wins.

But they were all Premier League games. The Championship is very much not Premier League, especially not when your owner knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

The famous Bobby Robson quote being apt:

What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.

The seeds of that win were apparently sown with Burn and Longstaff impressing upon the Brazilian captain (already a folk hero in the stands) and the entire dressing room, the importance of what they were about to do.

So hopefully Birmingham are doing it Saudi style, not Sports Direct style. The Saudis have built an impressive team within PSR constraints, making full use of academy talent and fan engagement, built a STACK fan park (even though the entire city centre is basically the fan park), rebuilt the club shop, signed massive new sponsorship deals (and ripped Mike Ashley's gawdy signage down from the stadium), and should this year be announcing what's going to happen with the stadium itself.

To compete with the best in the Prem you need 80,000 minimum, but more importantly than capacity, the right design to maximise earning potential. Tottenham got it half right, that stadium is epic. You also need an excellent manager and a CLUB ethos. Eddie Howe is excellent. The fans are United.

The Mackems are.....three points off the pace. Been seven years since they've seen Premier League football at the Stadium of Light, the biggest stadium in the Championship by some distance.

With Manchester United announcing their club's future rests on tbe ability of the government to build railways, the future looks bright for those in black and white.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Sunderland are so hard up for cash that when Newcastle drew them in the cup they handed them an entire hospitality stand, kicking out long time wealthy season ticket holders. Even put out nice black and white decorations in the bars. A whopping 6,000 Geordies were bussed down for the first Tyne-Wear Derby in years.

Sold their soul for one big pay day. And got absolutely schooled in the game too

The redecorating was undoubtedly a massive mistake, but the bit about selling their soul is just nonsense. The FA require the visiting club to have 15% of the seats if the request them, and Newcastle did. So they got 6,000 and that meant shifting season ticket holders because they’re in all four stands.

And the game? Yeah, surprisingly premier league Newcastle were better

And I’m not even a Sunderland fan by the way

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

From the way that recent postings are going, no one seems think that Burnley will end the season with a chance of promotion, looking at the names of teams in these postings.

 

[SuspectUsual]

From the way that recent postings are going, no one seems think that Burnley will end the season with a chance of promotion, looking at the names of teams in these postings.

They will, because the top four are miles clear and they’d need a pretty dramatic collapse to not even make the playoffs. They’ve won a lot of games 1-0, which is fine until you go through a dry spell and stop scoring. But that won’t continue indefinitely.

t

 

[Haywain]

From the way that recent postings are going, no one seems think that Burnley will end the season with a chance of promotion, looking at the names of teams in these postings.

Nah, it's just some people getting all Billy Big B****cks about having some money behind their teams. It smacks very much of Harry Enfield's "considerably richer than you" persona.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Nah, it's just some people getting all Billy Big B****cks about having some money behind their teams. It smacks very much of Harry Enfield's "considerably richer than you" persona.

On the field of play, Burnley have only conceded nine goals in the 29 league matches they have played this season so far.

 

[Cross City]

Not true - the record, according to multiple sources, is £15.8m for Ruben Neves from Porto to Wolves in 2017 - taking inflation into account that is considerably higher. It's also notable that last summer Burnley paid £16m for Mike Tresor from Genk after a loan spell.

Well reports are the Stansfield fee could reach as high as £20m if various clauses are met.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Well reports are the Stansfield fee could reach as high as £20m if various clauses are met.

Claims of how much a player is worth in the transfer market can only be justified by the performances of the player in question when playing for the club he has been transferred to.

Look at how much Manchester United paid for Anthony and what that club actually received in playing terms for the money they paid.

 

[Cross City]

Claims of how much a player is worth in the transfer market can only be justified by the performances of the player in question when playing for the club he has been transferred to.

Look at how much Manchester United paid for Anthony and what that club actually received in playing terms for the money they paid.

Nobody has spoken about worth/value, only fees paid?

 

[Haywain]

Well reports are the Stansfield fee could reach as high as £20m if various clauses are met.

Whoop-de-do. I don't know why you are so excited about this, all it proves is that you have loads of money (see post #34,874 above). For every other club it just serves to push up the costs of getting players in to even more horrific levels - note Wycombe currently turning down £6m for their star striker.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Stansfield was part panic buy (nobody is getting promoted relying on the goals of Lukas Jutkiewicz) and part "hey Birmingham fans, look at us new owners, we're dead rich" (qv Manchester City signing Robinho back in the day). They offered Fulham £9m which was turned down, as first offers generally are. The second offer was £15m and the Fulham people managed to keep straight faces long enough to insist on the add-ons and get the deal done.

Is he actually that good? I don't think so

 

[Cross City]

Whoop-de-do. I don't know why you are so excited about this, all it proves is that you have loads of money (see post #34,874 above). For every other club it just serves to push up the costs of getting players in to even more horrific levels - note Wycombe currently turning down £6m for their star striker.

Who says I was excited? I was stating fact.

And anyway, my club had been left to rot by literal criminals for a decade, saved from liquidation only by the sale of a genuine world class academy product, and nobody gave a single shiny ****e. But the second we change our ownership, they put the club on the right path and we spend a bit of money, everybody has to stick their oar in and have their two penn’th.

As our owners say. FEA.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Northern Premier League...Premier Division

FC United of Manchester 1 ... Hyde United 1

A crowd of 2,010 at Broadhurst Park for this local derby match saw Hyde take a 70th minute lead only to concede a last-minute equaliser (for the second match running..)

Hyde have now drawn 12 of the 27 league matches played this season and have slipped down to 11th place in the league as a result. If they had not had such a good start to this season, they would be down amongst the bottom teams.

 

[SuspectUsual]

FC Halifax Town 2-0 Ebbsfleet

Scored early, comfortable at 1-0 against the bottom of the table team, then with 20 minutes to go Jamie Cooke hit a volley from 30 yards that whistled into the top
corner. Job done.

I see Burnley drew 0-0 again. Such an entertaining team to watch

 

[side effect]

Apparently Birmingham had 34k at their match todsy according to BBC football.

 

[PauloDavesi]

The game report on the BBC website, and probably the attendence figure, was supplied by PA Sport, and might well be an accidental typo.

Much more important is that Birmingham are unbeaten in 17 games, and with the win today are fives points ahead of the second place team having played two less games.
Chris Davies, and his coaches, should be complimented on the good job they are doing producing a team to get the results.

Elsewhere, Oxford had a home draw, and Plymouth did something unusual for them, they won a game, but are still bottom of the table with the worst goal difference.

 

[High Dyke]

Anstey Nomads 4 Grantham Town 0

Another game, another defeat. Glad I've not been doing the post-match interview with the gaffer this week. This season is like a stuck record. Looks like the FA will finally get us to play in the FA Vase next season. Hello UCL football.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

North West Counties Football League...Premier Division

Ramsbottom United 2 ... Longridge Town 2

Stockport Town 1 ... Bury 2

These results sees Bury take over from Ramsbottom at the top of the league.

 

[1D54]

Apparently Birmingham had 34k at their match todsy according to BBC football.

24,393 (518 Rotherham fans)

 

[side effect]

The BBC amended it.

My favourite league is league 1 taking an interest in Wrexham. I went there with West Ham in a cup game 1n 1980 when we were cup holders and they beat us 1-0 . The start of 200 away games that I now massively regret ever doing.

 

[1D54]

The BBC amended it.

My favourite league is league 1 taking an interest in Wrexham. I went there with West Ham in a cup game 1n 1980 when we were cup holders and they beat us 1-0 . The start of 200 away games that I now massively regret ever doing.

Why the massive regret?