Possible GFC Future | Page 2 | Vital Football

Possible GFC Future

Don't tell Wayne but it was a wiki copy and paste. :grinning:

I find the Ipswich one strange, merging a football and rugby club, might explain their tactics though.
Having done a stadium tour of Turf Moor, I remembered that Burnley started life as a rugby club and morphed into an association football club. Maybe it was because they could get paid playing football?
 
For clubs like ours, it is probable that a key aspect for survival will be how well we can develop young players. Money invested in an enhanced Academy structure could perhaps pay dividends for GFC - especially when one considers that Kent is not overpopulated with League clubs.

If clubs cannot develop their own academies then perhaps we might go the way of N/America where "Farm Teams", owned by the big organisations (the EPL equivalents), operate as a production line and serve to maintain a pyramid type approach to sports infra-structure. The issue with Farm Teams is that they are not truly independent and their own success is often curtailed by "promotion" of their emerging stars to the big parent club. This direction might also see a significant reduction in the number of lower league team - you can only have so many farm teams !

Working out how to produce sufficient young talent to not only profit from "sell-on" but sustain and boost ones own lower league squad, might be fundamental to independent survival.
 
Another EFL voice concerned about where the game is headed:

"English football's pyramid will be destroyed unless the game starts to plan for the financial impact of Covid-19 beyond the 2019-20 season" says Huddersfield owner Phil Hodgkinson. Hodgkinson thinks as many as "50 or 60" clubs could go bust.


Consolidation and longer term thinking - ahead of squabbling what happens in the next few weeks ?
 
Mark Palios has voiced similar concerns:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52292166

I didn't know that he was a former insolvency practitioner. He has made sensible suggestions about reviewing the sanctions for going into administration because they were designed to combat financial misconduct not the outcomes of a pandemic. It is parcatical stuff like that the authorities need to be addressing with urgency before the first club actually fails. A pity we have the leaden footed Gordon Taylor at the head of the PFA. There are brighter and more aware members of current playing squads, let them speak up.
 
Last week, the Metro reported that County Cricket could open with 2-3,000 spectators spread out.
And they've thought about perspex screens at refreshment bars ( which are also appearing in some European Restaurants).

So why this media obsession with the PL - and not the ability to trial re-opening at smaller grounds ?

We've heard the objections around half-time rushes to toilets.....but just suppose that could be stewarded OK....

Does anyone have an idea whether GFC could manage with (say) 3,000 ?
And, assuming an element of 'trial' .... for how long ?
 
Does anyone have an idea whether GFC could manage with (say) 3,000 ?
And, assuming an element of 'trial' .... for how long ?


At what point do we break even i.e. income from reduced attendance matches the cost.

If we cant safely manage it at those numbers it's a non starter, but let's assume we could.

To make it safe we would need spread people out. That's doable at 50% capacity.

However no corporate hospitality as that's harder to social distance (income stream lost).

The factory cant open (income stream lost).

Let's close the food and drink options or strictly reduce (another income lost)

Lets hope people sit where the stewards tell them to (but I want to sit with my mates the cry goes up).

To be honest I cant see that it's worth the hassle and I suspect it would cost us to put on the games with spectators. Any staff needed would have to come off though so that's more cost.

Nice idea but I doubt if the numbers make it feasible.
 
Not strictly football related but I read an article on the weekend about other areas of entertainment, mainly theatres and cinema. The bottom line as mentioned above is that operating at even 50% capacity is a no go, it just won't work financially.
 
At what point do we break even i.e. income from reduced attendance matches the cost.

If we cant safely manage it at those numbers it's a non starter, but let's assume we could.

To make it safe we would need spread people out. That's doable at 50% capacity.

However no corporate hospitality as that's harder to social distance (income stream lost).

The factory cant open (income stream lost).

Let's close the food and drink options or strictly reduce (another income lost)

Lets hope people sit where the stewards tell them to (but I want to sit with my mates the cry goes up).

To be honest I cant see that it's worth the hassle and I suspect it would cost us to put on the games with spectators. Any staff needed would have to come off though so that's more cost.

Nice idea but I doubt if the numbers make it feasible.
Having used the hospitality the boxes and fairly large and you could certainly get about 4 per box not massive I know but there might be takers in the circumstances. I can see season ticket holders only games being feasible by the autumn. Crowds of around two thousand regulars should be very little trouble if it was well set out before hand.IE people sent revised ticket unused seats marked or taped up.Costs would not be covered but if clubs put the regular fans first I think it would be appreciated.Numbers would have to be low of course.
 
Costs would not be covered but if clubs put the regular fans first I think it would be appreciated.Numbers would have to be low of course.


"Costs would not be covered" is not a great business model chris.

I like your sentiment but we would soon go bust if we lost money putting on games at a loss.
 
"Costs would not be covered" is not a great business model chris.

I like your sentiment but we would soon go bust if we lost money putting on games at a loss.
The choice will be empty or half full or less or not playing until it is completely safe. Which ever route will lose money.The only other thing they could try is screen the game in Gillingham park perhaps might be difficult to get people to spread out though.
 
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade and would love to get back to Priestfield myself. It's way more difficult once you start to break down a possible way of admitting fans. Sepaarate, safe access would necessitate opening all four sides with the attendant extra cost. Stewarding levels would have to be higher than normal and that's before we ask the police about their invoolvement and the queues snaking round the ground.

The single, biggest obstacle would be the experience on offer. Turn up in an agreed time window, no congregating in any numbers around the ground, a slowly moving queue, single file to your seat under supervision, no one really near you, managed toilet breaks (I don't see how that even works), a carabao cup type atmosphere and the whole, dreary entry protocol repeated on exit. Whatever crowd limit was imposed we would soon start to fail to meet it.

Much better to hibernate live football until we can revive the real deal, hopefully sooner than now seems possible. I'd rather watch "real" istream football than ersatz Priestfield and in the meantime we could be looking at new models such as pay freezes, reorganisation and the rest. Failed experiments leading to the slow death of our football club and others is my real fear.
 
The choice will be empty or half full or less or not playing until it is completely safe. Which ever route will lose money.The only other thing they could try is screen the game in Gillingham park perhaps might be difficult to get people to spread out though.

If the staff are all furloughed then we save on their wages. The moment we try to operate we start to need staff and they have to come off furlough.

I guess it's about keeping the loss as low as possible.
 
I think Tarian is actually trying to put flesh on the bones of the saying 'he couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery'. For starters, social distancing will mean not just seats apart but rows apart and there couldn't be catering unless the staff behind the bar were all from a single household. In essence, he is trying to prove that you can herd cats.
 
I think Tarian is actually trying to put flesh on the bones of the saying 'he couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery'. For starters, social distancing will mean not just seats apart but rows apart and there couldn't be catering unless the staff behind the bar were all from a single household. In essence, he is trying to prove that you can herd cats.
Again ... leading with abuse.

You have absolutely no idea of my skill set.

As it happens, when working in the City, I was involved with an event at the Whitbread Brewery's function rooms.
So there ! :p
 
"Costs would not be covered" is not a great business model chris.

I like your sentiment but we would soon go bust if we lost money putting on games at a loss.

Plenty of restaurant owners I know aren't going to open if their capacity is going to be limited to less than what they need to break even. It would lose them even more money than staying closed.
 
Plenty of restaurant owners I know aren't going to open if their capacity is going to be limited to less than what they need to break even. It would lose them even more money than staying closed.
Indeed.
Different Restaurant owners have different capacities at which they would re-open.
Some have said they will re-start with limited Menus to reduce waste.

Instead of all the "it's too difficult", please can we emulate the positivity of such small business owners and have some creative thinking.

But my Question about re-starting with (say) 3,000 was ... for how many matches ?
Surely Local Councils / Police are likely to be given discretion over gradual attendance increases, depending on spectator management and response ?

One poster (above) thinks that stewarding the crowd will be like "herding cats".
Maybe 30 or so lads in the R.E. ... but the oldsters in the GRS ??

And surely, fewer Stewards would be needed - just differently deployed ?

At Priestfield, an obvious difficulty is the narrow steps at the corner of the RE and GRS, but even that might be managed.
 
You are now inventing abuse where there is none Tarian. If you think OAPs are not the problem you have not walked behind them getting to your seat, waited for them to stand up, seen them unsure where their seat is and seeking assistance. You can call for positivity for all you are worth, we all want to return. It's a practical matter requiring detailed planning and the involvement of official bodies at every level.

There is no point in having some mathematically sound plan of seating a given number if the experience is so dull as to destroy the experience. I very much doubt that Scally would entertain your ideas for a nano second because they would lose money.
 
Who are the regular fans?
It depends how many we were allowed. If for example they said two thousand that would cover season ticket holders and maybe a few more .If it wasn't enough to cover all those with tickets those who had their season ticket longest should get the first option.After that it could be based on how many games someone had bought tickets for.Given some would drop out for there own safety even two thousand might cover a lot of regular fans who felt safe being there .