opinions4u

Lower league football has always been a bit grim financially. I remember 25 years ago the domesday merchants saying "the lower two divisions will be part time in 5 years time". Most teams in the Conference are now full time professional, so I think finances in the lower divisions have probably improved compared to the 1980s. That said, is it fair for a club to spend beyond its means, win promotion (or avoid relegation) at the expense of clubs better run financially, then simply find a legal way to walk away from their debts? Imagine a situation where Latics have a poor side and finish 4th from bottom, a point behind a Leeds side (for example) that, despite an awful season, strengthened their squad in January when Latics couldn't afford to. A month later Leeds, having spent beyond their means in the January transfer window, go in to administration, but are allowed to remain in League One with a 10 point penalty at the start of the following season. Meanwhile, season ticket sales at Boundary Park half as fans react badly to relegation. Latics' owners decide to call it a day and the club is wound up with no rescue package. Professional football is never played again in Oldham. The main driving force behind this outcome was effectively the mismanagement of finances at Leeds Utd that kept them in a higher division and relegated Oldham. Is this fair? While I have every sympathy with the fans of Luton Town, there is no way the footballing authorities can stand by and watch football clubs who, by failing to exercise appropriate financial sense, damage other clubs in the Football League. While I would love Latics to sign a handful of quality Champonship players, paying them a small fortune, to buy us football at a higher level, I can only admire what appears to be common sense financial management from TTA that helps Oldham Athletic (2004) Ltd continue trading.

Or is there more to the Hughes transfer stories that hit the press last week than meets the eye? Are we going to "balance the books" by selling a striker?

Basic rules of business and cash flow: pay in installments (or after you have received the goods) if you can! If you have an extension built, you won't pay the final installment until you are pleased the work is complete. I notice Audi haven't renewed their sponsorship with Man Utd and several top players have had their car taken away! The difference is that at least those players probably have their own private fleet, whereas most Latics players are unlikely to have any other wheels and this may well put the club in a position where they need to contractually fund a new car for many in the squad. Not cheep. Those who say "find a replacement sponsor" are absolutely right, but why would any company, as recession looms, want to put money in to a football club where they are only reach 5,500 people in a town 30 times bigger than that? They won't sell the flats to fund the new stand. Simply because the won't (and shouldn't) build them until the housing market shows signs of recovery. And that will be 2010.

Times are hard and Latics need a 3 pronged approach to maintain / improve attendances. 1) Play entertaining football and be challenging for promotion 2) When the season has started introduce a 10 match mini season-ticket that allows access to any 10 games of the buyers choice - no reservation of seat, but it gives the club a guarantee of income for a chunk of the season (e.g. £170 cost for adults and £25 for kids) and be more affordable for those who can't afford season tickets or can only get to a certain number of games. 3) More marketing in schools, town centres, newspapers etc.

He seemed like the right signing at the right time last season. Somebody who would be the difference between "scraping in to the play-offs" and "getting automatic promotion". After 2 games it was clear he didn't add much. Hughes looked like he was struggling in his first couple of games too. But as he got fitter the class shone through. As he got fitter ......

I think it's more a case of what he didn't do. I don't recall many unforced errors, poor passing or missed tackles. Doubtless others may, but for me, without being stunning, he was somebody who delivered what was required and became more of an attacking threat before the loan spell ended.

No idea if we were interested in getting him again, but Norwich have got him for next season. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...ich/7491258.stm Which is a shame.

All depends how much you can sell BP for and how much purchase/development of new site would be. With the property market as it is, no idea! Do the hospital want to buy BP and extend?

115.9p for a litre of unleaded. Sainsbury and Tesco supermarkets regularly give you 5p a litre off if you spend £50 instore. Cheapest local prices can be found at www.petrolprices.com.

The £100k fee seems extremely low, but I am sure there is some sort of Fifa or EU rule that players over the age of 24 can buy out their contract in order to move. The rule has been quoted in the context of Frank Lampard moving abroad etc, and as we've seen with the likes of Chris Porter, Scotland is abroad. Don't know the facts behind the rule but .... Wage wise, I think £100k a year sounds about right for a top League One striker for a club with 5,000-6,000 gates. One year left on his contract - buy it out for £100k. So the fee quoted comes from the "no smoke without fire" camp. If Hughes wants to stay or go I really don't know. Whether he is trying to negotiate a contract extension / pay rise with Latics, I don't know. What I do know is that a fit Lee Hughes is a class above this league, and his injuries may well have been the difference between 8th place and 6th place last season. So from my point of view, I'd like him to stay and I think most on this board would too. Lee, Boundary Park's the place for you next season. You'll stay fit, score bagloads of goals and be the local hero you need to be.

Looks to me like one part of the Hillstone Group shipped out the cash to other parts of the firm, paid a bill they saw as important and let this "separate" part of the company sink, stuffing the staff and other creditors. A bit like Farepak shifting cash to a "sister" company and then blaming the bank for ruining customers' Christmas! Latics are contractually obliged so have little choice but to wear the name of these sharks on the shirts. If the administrator can find Latics a replacement sponsor there may be the chance of the £40k being returned. But it certainly isn't in Latics' interest to do the donkey work in finding new backing. That would then leave fans with out of date dodgy fluo-yellow shirts before the side has even worn them! I do wonder whether the broader issues of the 'credit crunch' are going to leave Latics with a 3 sided ground long in to the next decade.

Crsig Rocastle was always one of those players useful to have on the bench. No point having him on the pitch as you knew he would make absolutely no difference whatsoever!

True. But once in the 'club' they were very keen on the no relegation proposal. Can understand why!

Not in favour. 1. League Cup crowds in the early rounds struggle enough as it is. Do you really thing Oldham v Falkirk would get a bigger crowd than Oldham v Rochdale? They should regionalise the first three rounds to ensure more local derby games that will drive crowds upwards, not broaden the geographical spread in a way that would turn the first round in to a lesser competition. There is no way I'm heading to Aberdeen on a Tuesday night thanks, but if we were more likely to draw Bury or Rochdale or Tranmere etc there would be more interest early on. 2. The way the League Cup has evolved gives clubs like Latics a genuine chance of doing well. The likes of Stockport and Wycombe have made the semi-finals in the last 12 years and events like Coventry's 2-0 win at Man Utd make it a competition worth winnnig. 3. Rangers and Celtic are Scottish and should stay in the Scottish League. Otherwise we will lose the identity of the 4 home nations internationally and I much prefer England to "Team UK" thanks. When the old Anglo-Scottish Cup existed, it didn't exactly pack out the grounds. For me regionalisation early on (not just North / South) and some aggressive price cutting to attract fans is the way forwards. Latics fans are understandably critical of the finances of the Premier League and some of the history that allowed the Premier League to evolve. But some forget that we were a part of a revolution that was keen on stopping all relegation out of the Premier League as we sought to protect our own self-interest in a way that was completely against the principles of competitive sport. The Oldham Athletic of the early nineties was just as willing to pi$$ on the roots of English football as the top 20 clubs today. It's right to raise the subject and have the debate. But Scotland isn't the way forward for England.

Last season I think Stockport won 3-1 at Rochdale and Rochdale won 7-2 at Edgeley Park, shortly after Stockport's 9 games without conceding a goal run had come to an end. This season (from memory) Rochdale won 2-1 at Spotland and more recently County won 2-0 at Edgeley Park. Stockport have managed to beat all the other sides in the top 7 this season (including away wins at the top 3). Because of this I think they are more likely to win the big one.

Stockport survived a bit of a battering from Wycombe who played some neat football at Edgeley Park tonight. They'll beat Rochdale at Wembley.

I read the Huddersfield story on the BBC pages, so it's prolly true. Don't know about Micah, but if it make the back pages of the News of the World it must be true!

As own goals go, this was magnificent!

Wonder what decision I'd have made if somebody offered me an extra £10k a week?

I am no fan of Mr Bennett, he is one who typically applied the laws of the game to the letter, rather than being the kind of referee who feels and breathes the game with an intention to let things flow. I think he was 4th official in the Spurs v Chelsea game (?) where Ashley Cole behaved dreadfully. Referee's boss Keith Hackett criticised him for not intervening in the incident. He was castigated some (Andy Gray, Senor Benitez for example) for sending off Masscerano in the Man Utd v Liverpool game. In my view the correct decision. I noticed in the Stoke v Leicester game (last week of the season) he let a couple of really poor challenges go without producing cards when he certainly would have done normally, and thought to myself that he is trying to change his style in response to the criticism. So people have in recent weeks put pressure on him in different ways to make him change his style. It probably doesn't suit him to do so and, let's be honest, before this if you knew Mr Bennett was going to be referee you knew exactly what you could / couldn't get away with before the game kicked off. As for Wigan v United: 1) Scholes booking was correct - he got ball, man, 2 footed, not dangerous, but a foul. 2) Rooney penalty decision correct - absolutely no doubt about it. 3) Scholes sending off 50/50 - it was a gentle shove in Wigan's half. Some would book, some would simply award a free kick. 2 months ago Bennett would have sent him off. Someone like Andre Marriner would not have brandished a card. 4) Ferdinand handball 50/50 - some you get some you don't. I thought this one probably was, whereas the Carrick one at Chelsea looked like he treid to avoid the ball hitting his arm, but short of amputation just couldn't avoid it. 5) Scholes penalty awful decision and the only one of these where I can say Bennett got it totally wrong (other decisions were either correct or open to reasonable debate). Even with Scholes sent off, United wouldn't have lost and Chelsea blew it against Bolton anyway. If you want to see a truly atrocious display of refereeing, Mr Deadman (Wycombe v Stockport) had clearly left his red card at home. How Wycombe didn't end up with 8 men was extraordinary.

Do discounted prices attract new fans? Yes. I took my lad to the two matches where it was £2/£1 in 2006/7 and bought two season tickets on the back of it for 2007/8. Based on my experience, this sort of idea is an ABSOLUTE MUST every season for one or two games, but push some sort of season ticket with it as you go through the turnstile E.g. £2 for adults, free for kids for the match 11 games from the end of the season - there's 10 games of the season left after this so have a season ticket at £160 for Dad and FREE for kid if you buy it before the following Friday. Additionally, the club missed a trick after the Everton win. A couple of weeks earlier they were promoting 'half season tickets' on the website. This promotion really should have been extended while they had 8,000 fans queuing for tickets for the Huddersfield game. Even to the point of "We'll knock £20 off the price of the season ticket to effectively make the Cup match free". Flog the part-season ticket hard when the club is playing well and things are looking good.

His scoring record at Norwich is 1 in 5, although he hasn't always been played as an out and out striker. There was a comment on the board that he would add to the gate. I have to be honest, I wouldn't get out of bed to see Darren Huckerby play. If he scored a couple of hat-tricks for my local team I may wander along to see what it's all about, but how many times has he done that? Waste of time and money.

Some excellent and innovative ideas and I'm not going to be the one to pull them apart. Those in charge should look at the ideas, cost them, and deliver on any that will grow crowds. The underlying concept for me is that the club needs to attracts more fans, keep them, and stay solvent. The best way to achieve this is simple. PLAY GOOD FOOTBALL. Some of the stuff seen at BP last season was turgid and the idea of the causal fan returning game after game for that rubbish is a tad optimistic. I acutally think this will get better next season. My football watching life stopped 11 years ago when my son was born. Time, money etc wasn't there. The £2/£1 offer in December 2006 got me back in the habit and now my son sits alongside me and loves the season tickets we hold. I'll probably renew before the end of May, but I am trying to assess my other life committments (work, elderly grandmother, son who really shouldn't go to night matches etc). A ticket that pays for 10 games in the season for, say, £160, doesn't guarantee me a specific seat but does allow me in to the ground for the games I can attend would give me a flexibility that a season ticket doesn't. If I want to attend more than 10 games, I pay £20 on the door (or buy another 10 game ticket if there's enough of a seaon left). I do think there should be more of the £2/£1 type offer (e.g. £5 for any adult bringing a kid) but understand that this shouldn't disadvantage season ticket holders. But a 'pick your games 10 match season ticket' would be more lifestyle friendly for me - and I'd pay more per game than a full season ticket to get one.

Spot on. I won't admit to being an analyst for a living! I also missed out the Orient defeat now, so the Hughes / Davies partnership recalculated for the Duckworth Lewis method only gives us 73 points for a season. I've made a timed amendment to the original post admitting my incompetence and will make arrangements for the appropriate number of hail marys on Sunday. The question still stands though !