Nick Archer Q&A

[notsorecentconvert]

I know that football club websites are the place for owners, chairmen and so on to present the best possible image but really this Q&A with Nick Archer is of very little value.

www.sacfc.co.uk/index.php/the-club/2012-04-10-18-56-53/latest-club-news/2737-pre-season-q-a-with-nick-archer.html

Nine soft soap questions later and I really wasn't any the wiser about anything. If someone is going to utilise the argument about increasing the playing budget, then they need to put a figure on it (i.e. how many percent has it been increased by?) otherwise it's just words. The fans would engage and understand so much more if Mr Archer said: "We've increased the budget by x per cent and in order to cover that cost we've had to increase admission prices." Just saying there's an increase in playing budget doesn't really tell us anything.

I really don't want to be hyper critical because running a loss-making non-league football club can be a thankless task. Owners and chairmen often find themselves in a position where they can't do right for doing wrong but there needs to be a more challenging line of questioning sometimes, otherwise no one learns anything.

Q: So, Nick, can you just explain how well everything is going?
A: Yes, of course. It's all going very well.

Thank you.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh?

[Saint]

Well, I was the one with the questions, so I suppose I can answer any queries you have, Recentconvert.

Sadly, as you'd imagine, the questions I am allowed to ask are limited, not necessarily by the Chairman. If I could, I would ask the widest ranging and most in-depth questions possible, but I cannot. This is due to a number of reasons, ranging from the lack of time to get it done, all the way to the lack of desire to have any 'controversial' questioning on the main website.

This was purely requested to be an alternative to the usual sort of 'pre-season' message that the Chairman may publish, so it could never be fully revealing. It was never designed to be something to air everything.

My hands, to an extent, are tied. No one wants me going mad with my questioning...

[Saint]

But, I do of course, warmly welcome any suggestions for any future articles!

[notsorecentconvert]

Hi Saint, well, I hope you didn't take it as a direct criticism of you. It's interesting to hear your point of view, and it's not terribly surprising.

I can understand the club not wanting to draw attention to any negatives on its own website but it's actually a better idea than many people think. It's counter-intuitive, I know, for any organisation or institution to invite or address criticism of itself on its own media channels but actually it can work well.

I felt it was a bit of a lost opportunity, that's all. People in any kind of public eye tend to think that the best way to project the image they want to project is by presenting their point of view without touching on anything that might be deemed to be negative. Generally this is the least effective approach. It just leads to more questions and less satisfaction.

If the chairman was there addressing full on the challenges and difficulties of stepping up a division, and actually shedding light on the situation, rather than just saying words, it would satisfy some of the questions that irritants like me tend to ask. Over time, a different approach would perhaps also make people feel more engaged and that, for a club the size of St Albans, is everything.

[Saint]

No, it's fine Recentconvert!

One or two of my questions were designed to give a bit more of an insight into the behind the scenes of the club at the moment, but obviously the answers given didn't give too much away (Whether that is good or bad depends on your opinion)

The questions I put forward were very flexible and could be changed/edited/added to, but in the end it was decided not to.

I'm just happy the club gives me these opportunities to be honest!

[fatboy]

Maybe The club should let dave taverner question the chairman dare say not much would have been printed. Personally I think some fans are going to get a big wake up call half way though the season.

[Boomer]

What a positive fellow you are and just for the record, it is Tavener not Taverner. I thought you, of all people, would have known that.

[bob666]

For me the club are charging an exceptional price so they need to display a exceptional level of transparency to justify this. They need to really make a argument that its justified. If the losses the owners are sustaining are completely out of line with that made by other clubs at this level then I can live with £15, it might be self defeating in that it lowers attendance but at least personally I will bear no ill will , but they never really made this argument. Take last year Poole had a similar quality of squad to us, I think we can agree that fixture congestion cost them playoffs, their ground offers even fewer commercial possibilities than CP and they had smaller average crowds and 10 pound admission. Hungerford had not a bad squad, no fans and no commercial activities.Surely there losses were higher than ours, so was there really anything exceptional about the loss?

When they bought the club they knew the limits of commercial operation and if you buy a club for a £1 you have expect it to be one that will lose money in the medium term. No one going to sell a club with a healthy commercial operation (like the wood or Hemel) that does not require a sizeable annual subsidy for a quid. So if you want a club you either accept paying a sizeable lumpsum up front to buy it or an annual subsidy. Non league clubs are not normal business you have to do for PR/fun not profit and just as there a fair price for watching football there a fair price for owing a club at this level. Although there is actually possibility to make serious money through SAFC given the potential windfall through related property development if permission is ever granted for a new ground. Given all this anything less than £100 grand a year just seems reasonable price of ownership to me and if the price increase is about trying to reduce losses far below this level than I cannot really feel any loyalty towards the club. if they want to treat it more like a normal business so will I- if the product is not good I am off. If that unreasonable than I would like someone from the club to tell me why? I am necessary going to stop going. If we playing well and winning I will go . If the price had stayed at 12 or gone to 13 I have when to have home game regardless of results.

[yellowalf]

Aug 7, 2014 3:26:45 GMT bob666 said:

For me the club are charging an exceptional price so they need to display a exceptional level of transparency to justify this. They need to really make a argument that its justified. If the losses the owners are sustaining are completely out of line with that made by other clubs at this level then I can live with £15[......] Take last year Poole had a similar quality of squad to us, I think we can agree that fixture congestion cost them playoffs, their ground offers even fewer commercial possibilities than CP and they had smaller average crowds and 10 pound admission. Hungerford had not a bad squad, no fans and no commercial activities.Surely there losses were higher than ours, so was there really anything exceptional about the loss?

When they bought the club they knew the limits of commercial operation and if you buy a club for a £1 you have expect it to be one that will lose money in the medium term. No one going to sell a club with a healthy commercial operation (like the wood or Hemel) that does not require a sizeable annual subsidy for a quid.
....

Given all this anything less than £100 grand a year just seems reasonable price of ownership to me and if the price increase is about trying to reduce losses far below this level than I cannot really feel any loyalty towards the club. if they want to treat it more like a normal business so will I- if the product is not good I am off. If that unreasonable than I would like someone from the club to tell me why? I am necessary going to stop going. If we playing well and winning I will go . If the price had stayed at 12 or gone to 13 I have when to have home game regardless of results.

Just cherry-picking a couple of points to argue...

It's not about building a team like Poole that will get to the play offs, is it? It's abut building a team that will win the play-offs, and then hold its own in Conference South. Do we think Poole, with the same playing budget as last season, would be a sensible bet for mid-table had they won the play-offs last season? I don't think so but that's just my opinion.

Secondly, the club didn't make a loss of less than £100k in the last accounts, it was more than £100k. Also, if I read your post correctly, they didn't buy the club expecting not to make a loss, they bought the club to prevent it going out of business because they felt a city the size of St Albans deserved its own football club of a decent status. 

I don't understand the argument made by a few on this forum of entitlement to justification of the admission charges made. They're not public servants with an obligation to account to the general public, they own the club and if they want to do the same as the Oyston Family at Blackpool, they can siphon off all the cash into other companies, as scandalous and disgraceful as that would be (and is at Blackpool). They've paid a price for the playing squad and they are placing an admission price that they think is reasonable. We can either take it leave it and while I notice that the Hayes fans are planning a boycott of "food/drink/programmes", I also note that Hayes & Yeading are at unfavourable odds with most bookies to avoid relegation this season. Would Hayes fans prefer their club to charge £15 and have a stronger team? Well, not if they stay up and we go down! But in modern football economics (as opposed to those of the Owner-Dictator of 50 years ago) a good squad comes first and increased attendances come off the back of that squad's success and someone has to pay for that squad to be built.

On the one hand I see complaints about the cost of admission and on the other hand I see posts criticising the strength of the squad. It strikes me that there are two reasons for this (well three if you count unreasonable expectations as a third!   ): firstly the club has recruited poorly. I don't think that's the case, which leads to the second reason and the unavoidable conclusion that the price mechanism is forcing the cost of the better players up much higher to the point where "average-attendance multiplied by £15" isn't enough to buy a very good "ready-made" squad; and that to get a promotion-winning squad we would all be looking at £20 entrance! The truth is hopefully that we have a good mix of youth and experience in a squad that should last us a few years yet, with success coming from the positive development of these players under the watchful eyes of Gray and Golds.

[yellowalf]

Aug 6, 2014 16:35:16 GMT notsorecentconvert said:

Hi Saint, well, I hope you didn't take it as a direct criticism of you. It's interesting to hear your point of view, and it's not terribly surprising.

I can understand the club not wanting to draw attention to any negatives on its own website but it's actually a better idea than many people think. It's counter-intuitive, I know, for any organisation or institution to invite or address criticism of itself on its own media channels but actually it can work well.

I agree with you entirely, RecentConvert, and I made the same point on another football club's forum earlier this year. The counter-argument given was that while some fans like to know the truth and have their expectations managed more realistically, there still exists in football culture an unwillingness to face reality. Every team must go into the new season expecting to be promoted, every team must show itself to its fans to be fully-prepared for the best. Some fans want to hear unsustainable optimism and won't trust a club that plays down its chances or identifies its own weaknesses.

Like you, I don't understand that viewpoint. Surely honesty is the best policy.

As it happens, I think that St Albans City is very clear on what it needs to survive, and the council must realise the consequences of it losing a relatively successful non-league football club if they won't offer the assistance the club needs to become self-sufficient.

But an interview like the one published on the website doesn't really do much more than insult the fans' intelligence. When's the next fans forum? That's when we should be asking some hard-hitting questions, like the ones that I suspect Saint originally had written down.

[fatboy]

Did not know you need a A level in english and spellings to write a comment on here bommer. but as knowing who you are I expect a reply like yours.

[Saint]

Anyway....

I, like most fans, have my own concerns about the club and it's future, and although I would've loved to have gotten answers to the questions which I'm sure many are asking, it wasn't practical on this occasion.

The next fans forum will, if memory serves me correct about previous ones, be around October/November(?) So hopefully everyone will get their chance to ask the Chairman/owners questions about the future.

I agree that wishy washy interviews are unwelcome, but my scope for questions was limited.

Apart from a future fans forum, my only other suggestion would be go up and speak to the chairman on match day... I'm sure he would welcome it!

[notsorecentconvert]

YellowAlf, you make some very good points, albeit in a slightly high-handed tone. Perhaps preparing for a future role as football club chairman??

You're absolutely right, it's their business to do with as they see fit. But they can't have it both ways, on the one hand telling fans that it's all about them, that they're the 12th man and the heartbeat of the club and yet with fundamental matters like the cost of getting in behave as if that's not for the likes of us to worry about.

The commercial guy is putting out info about how well they're doing getting sponsorship, which is great, but there are no figures. The chairman says the playing budget has been increased, also great. Alf, you say that the owners absorbed more than 100k, which most fans would appreciate. But has that been confirmed somewhere or is it just your own knowledge of the situation?

End of the day, the club relies on volunteers, sponsors and supporters. A non-league club behaving like the Oystons signs its own death warrant. Not that I'm suggesting St Albans is anything like that, just using Alf's example.

[Saint]

I think the owners confirmed the more than 100k at a fans forum last season, although I cant be completely sure. Someone else may be able to give a definitive answer.

[yellowalf]

Aug 7, 2014 10:34:28 GMT Saint said:

I think the owners confirmed the more than 100k at a fans forum last season, although I cant be completely sure. Someone else may be able to give a definitive answer.

Yes, its in the official accounts, referenced here: saintschat.proboards.com/post/25449

[yellowalf]

Aug 7, 2014 10:29:16 GMT notsorecentconvert said:

YellowAlf, you make some very good points, albeit in a slightly high-handed tone. Perhaps preparing for a future role as football club chairman??

You're absolutely right, it's their business to do with as they see fit. But they can't have it both ways, on the one hand telling fans that it's all about them, that they're the 12th man and the heartbeat of the club and yet with fundamental matters like the cost of getting in behave as if that's not for the likes of us to worry about.

The commercial guy is putting out info about how well they're doing getting sponsorship, which is great, but there are no figures. The chairman says the playing budget has been increased, also great. Alf, you say that the owners absorbed more than 100k, which most fans would appreciate. But has that been confirmed somewhere or is it just your own knowledge of the situation?

End of the day, the club relies on volunteers, sponsors and supporters. A non-league club behaving like the Oystons signs its own death warrant. Not that I'm suggesting St Albans is anything like that, just using Alf's example.

High-handed?!  Splutter!!!    Just wait until I get really narked! 

Perhaps I didn't put enough smileys in. Sorry about that, it wasn't meant to come across as such. I just meant that I would have thought that most fans would want the club to have built a squad for the mid- to long-term success and not one that was comparable to Poole last season; that the current owners didn't buy the club for any financial gain but predominately because the alternative was it going out of business; and thirdly (hold on, what was my third point?)... oh yes: that I don't understand the contradiction between those fans posting on here about the high cost of admission and the others suggesting that the squad isn't good enough. Given bob666's suggestion that >£100k is a reasonable hit for an owner to take combined with the evidence that the actual hit is greater (see posts passim), then we as fans either accept a weaker squad or a higher admission charge.

I'd prefer the latter rather than the former. I"m not suggesting I'm representative of Saints fans (quite the opposite in fact), that's just my view.

Long before May 2015 we will have a clear idea whether the average attendance is comparable to last season's 514 or not. That, in my view, is the acid test of how the increase to £15 per match has been.

[bob666]

Ok Alf. But I think there a contradiction in your own arguments.

"They're not public servants with an obligation to account to the general public, they own the club and if they want to do the same as the Oyston Family at Blackpool, they can siphon off all the cash into other companies, as scandalous and disgraceful as that would be (and is at Blackpool). They've paid a price for the playing squad and they are placing an admission price that they think is reasonable

Read more: saintschat.proboards.com/thread/2244/nick-archer#ixzz39iKtRpLx"

You seem to think it is legitimate for the owners to treat the club not unlike any other private business they may own. But if we see St Albans in this manner how do we justify St Albans been allowed to rent a ground for a nominal figure- if they a normal private firm charge them market rent. At least aspect of the proposal for a new ground rests on idea that St Albans is a community entity that ought to be supported (it not going to generate much employment so what the other logic of cutting into the greenbelt) and club consistently ask for volunteers to work for free. If St Albans's is understood as a normal private firm (not unlike Tesco) are any of these defensible? I asking for consistency. St Albans enjoy three main sources of subsidy (one: the ground from the council at peppercorn rent, two: unpaid fan labour three: owner subsidy. Only the third has any form of financial support or control of the club. For all the abuse the council take I actually think the free ground might be highest of the three ). For me there a fair level for all three (and yes I do think anything £100 grand is about right- and with the cup runs last seasons loss must have been no more than that). This for me is a fair price for controlling the club and if we cannot find owners who accept this I rather we did not have owners. Yes I know we drop down the leagues but as look as we access to ground I think we survive in some form and it would genuinely be our club. Oddly St Albans lack of assets protects us from bankruptcy

[yellowalf]

Aug 7, 2014 13:42:36 GMT bob666 said:

Ok. But I think there a contradiction in your own arguments.

"They're not public servants with an obligation to account to the general public, they own the club and if they want to do the same as the Oyston Family at Blackpool, they can siphon off all the cash into other companies, as scandalous and disgraceful as that would be (and is at Blackpool). They've paid a price for the playing squad and they are placing an admission price that they think is reasonable

Read more: saintschat.proboards.com/thread/2244/nick-archer#ixzz39iKtRpLx"

You seem to think it is legitimate for the owners to treat the club not unlike any other private business they may own. But if we see St Albans in this manner how do we justify St Albans been allowed to rent a ground for a nominal figure- if they a normal private firm charge them market rent. At least aspect of the proposal for a new ground rests on idea that St Albans is a community entity that ought to be supported and club consistently ask for volunteers to work for free. If St Albans's is understood as a private firm (not unlike Tesco) are any of these defensible? I asking for consistency. Either we a normal private firm or a community entity- we cannot be both. St Albans enjoy three main sources of subsidy (one: the ground from the council, two: unpaid fan labour three: owner subsidy. Only the third has any form of financial support or control of the club. For all the abuse the council take I actually thing the free ground might be highest of the three ). For me there a fair level for all three (and yes I do think anything £100 grand about right- and with the cup runs last seasons loss must have been no more than that). This for me is a fair price for controlling the club and if we cannot owners who accept this I rather we did not have owners. Yes I know we drop down the leagues but as look as we access to ground I think we survive in some form and it would genuinely be our club. Oddly St Albans lack of assets protects us from bankruptcy

Well that's a fair point.

I suppose what I am saying is that a football club (be it St Albans City FC or any other) is a private limited company. The running of the club is confidential to its shareholders. If the club were a publicly-owned company, even one on a similar model to that of Bundesliga clubs, then we would have every right to demand information be made public. The contradiction in that is, as you say, they get preferential treatment from the council on the basis that it is a community asset. By comparison, Manchester City Council own the City of Manchester Stadium and charge Man City £3m per year rent - a smidgen over 1% of the club's annual turnover. The increase to £3m per year in 2010 included Man City gaining naming rights to the stadium which it promptly sold to Etihad for a reported £7m per year. That doesn't make our situation any different except that its another example of where football clubs get preferential treatment over the use of land and facilities because of the fact that they are football clubs. Unlike (to use your example) Tesco, St Albans City FC is unique to St Albans and acts as a form of tourism advertising every time the name is used nationally. Nobody can move it somewhere else (in theory) and so it will either remain unique to the City or go out of business.

I would like the owners to publicly release the full costs of the club and the justification of the admission increase, however I am old enough and cynical enough to realise that while any football club owner puts in any money of their own then that is highly unlikely to happen. Notwithstanding the public release of confidential players' payments (compare that with NFL and MLB in the US where all players contracts are in the public domain!), we do, by default, entrust the running of our football club to the owners and to a certain extent accept that there is confidential information that we are not privy to. I would prefer a situation to exist in the UK like it does in the US for MLB where all playing costs are public and the owners are bound by rules and regulations on how they operate their franchise.

To put it another way, while I would like transparency over the price increase at Saints, I understand exactly why it won't happen and, by the same token, if I were one of the owners I would take the same stance. As frustrating as it is for us ordinary fans to have to fork out an extra £3 per game this season without being told exactly why that is, unfortunately the way our modern capitalist society works is that if we want more information then we need to buy shares in the company and ask questions at the shareholders meeting.

Do I like that? No. 
Do I think there is any alternative? Apart from all the volunteers refusing to work until the admission cost increase is fully explained, no.

In summary, looking at both sides of the argument I agree that its not ideal that we don't know the financial detail but looking at the other I can understand why the owners don't feel they have to tell us.

I'm intrigued by your view that you would prefer no owners at all. The consequence of that strategy is that we would become a club like Harpenden Town FC, currently advertising for any volunteers to keep the club running. I can't see many Saints fans accepting that as an option.

[notsorecentconvert]

All very true, Alf but if we're going to subscribe to a purely capitalist model the bottom line is that the club needs eyeballs to make any of this work.

It needs supporters in the ground, highly engaged, in order to offer any medium-term value whatsoever to its advertisers and sponsors. More than ever it needs those supporters to be supportive, rather than passive. It needs them to be numerous.

While a club like St Albans might manage to sell more advertising and corporate packages now, while they can capitalise on the feelgood factor of promotion and the eager anticipation of a season at the higher level, what it really needs in the medium to long term is a larger number of supporters (eyeballs). Otherwise the sponsors/advertisers will wonder what they are getting in exchange for their money and will drift away again.

The whole model depends on the number of supporters going up and staying up, on getting plentiful and varied media coverage in all the local press (not just some of it). Match reports and other team-related news is not enough. So, to hammer the supporters with a 25% rise in matchday admission prices at a time when they need those very people in order to hold the rest of the plan together may well turn out to be foolish.

If it gets to November and they are struggling to get 400 people in the ground, where does that leave all the other commercial activity?

So, quoting stone cold capitalism is all very well but the glue that holds capitalism together is consumption. And if the fans stop consuming - whether that's in a reduction of revenue for the burger van or fewer people buying the programme or just little business being generated for the club's sponsors - then the model ceases to work properly.

[yellowalf]

Aug 7, 2014 16:46:25 GMT notsorecentconvert said:

So, quoting stone cold capitalism is all very well but the glue that holds capitalism together is consumption. And if the fans stop consuming - whether that's in a reduction of revenue for the burger van or fewer people buying the programme or just little business being generated for the club's sponsors - then the model ceases to work properly.

Hey - I'm no fan of capitalism and I don't agree with the model. I'm just saying that capitalism is what the general public have voted in as our method of government and that is how companies work.

I'm with you in theory but I can't see it happening in practice. I said back here that the answer was to bring more "eyeballs" (I like that term) into the ground and encourage them to spend more when they are inside as opposed to raising the admission charge.

I presume that the owners feel that they will get 500+ average this season. Time will tell if they are right or not. 

[bob666]

The argument that council support is justified as St Albans FC constitute a form of advertising for the area seems very weak. In terms of tourism St Albans gets far more tourists than most cities with league teams because of its roman history, the norman abbey, the clock tower etc. I think football only really brings helps with tourist advertising etc if its a global elite side (clearly people visit Barcelona and Manchester because of the teams). Have visitor numbers to Stevenage gone up with their success? Do they get anywhere near as many tourists as St Albans. Really there club negligible wider economic benefits for the area. As a source of employment its not much more important than Barrissimos- which like hundreds of independent business is no less unique to St Albans than the football club. Equally, it does not affect the desirability of the area to potential residents- look at house prices here and Stevenage. Having a league club has not made it remotely as desirable as St Albans

So if we adopt the model of just seeing firms as capitalist entities that is fine. But then full price for rent of the ground, stop all this 'your club' nonsense. We are consumers they providers us with a service. If St Albans do not play well don't expect fans (at least me) to turn up- I not going to keep going to a restaurant that provides bad food so why a club that fails to win. If the club want the local council to provide them with preferential treatment, if the club wants us to relate to club as fans not just consumers ( we go out of sense loyalty not simply as consumers) then they need to relate to us in manner different from a standard capitalist firm. For me the club want there cake and eat it. Also within capitalism there different models of corporate governance- Swedish co-determination, German rules on M&A are quite different from ours. So its not quite as simply as to say capitalism equals complete freedom for owners to do as they please.For me that just a particular model of neo-liberal capitalism that I do not support

There are other clubs that do not have owners (in the traditional sense) who manage. Lewis, Enfield, Hendon, Wrexham, Chester, Telford who function at a higher level than Harpenden. There may even be certain advantages. As a supporters cub we be in far stronger position to argue for greater freedom to develop CP than as a private firm. Also if we could get recognised as a charity we save on VAT. As I understand it when Lewes adopted a new ownership model they got a core group of fans to pony up about a grand each to start things off. I know not everyone could do this but I am comfortably off and I be happy to chip in my grand. Lewes have 800 owners who pay £30 a year. There are 16000 people in Lewes. I not saying it would be easy but if we could get St Albans to buy into a project and get the same proportion of residents owning that be about 2500, or £75000. The transition would be hard but in medium term we could play at a reasonable level again.

[fatboy]

I notice your spelling of club is wrong I only point this out as boomer will want to point this out instead of points you have made. As a supporters cub

[yellowalf]

Aug 7, 2014 19:46:03 GMT bob666 said:

The argument that council support is justified as St Albans FC constitute a form of advertising for the area seems very weak.


If St Albans do not play well don't expect fans (at least me) to turn up- I not going to keep going to a restaurant that provides bad food so why a club that fails to win.

Damn right - and if you ever find anyone who says that council support is justified on the basis that the football club acts as tourist-advertising then I'll be shoulder-to-shoulder in supporting your argument otherwise. Because that is not what I wrote and if you think I did then you need to read it again: I was identifying the difference between an international chain of supermarkets and a football club that can't leave the area.

I'm not sure I agree with your restaurant analogy, I don't know of any restaurant where a rival chef is in the same kitchen trying to stop the main chef from cooking well, which is exactly what happens on the football pitch with one football team trying to stop the other side winning: even European Champions Real Madrid lost five league games last season... 

[notsorecentconvert]

I think I've probably banged this drum enough now so I'll put a sock in it (probably) but i think my disappointment at the price rise stemmed from the fact that, whether rightly or wrongly, I hoped for a bit more from non-league football. If I wanted an opaque take-it-or-leave-it attitude I'd never have turned away from league football looking for something different.

It just struck me that whacking £3 on the admission price was the laziest, least creative solution to an obvious problem. For a fan that attends, say 15 home matches, that's £45. In the grand scheme of things not much for the club and not enough to really break the bank for many fans.

But had they been smarter about it, rather than resort to the least imaginative idea, they could have generated something much more positive than the inevitable whinging about the price not just from some Saints fans but from every single set of visitors who will (or won't) visit Clarence Park this season.

If they'd established some sort of membership scheme, offering different packages depending on how much people wanted to donate. I don't really know what they could offer but they could be creative. Seeing as they ended up giving away a load of replica shirts to season ticket buyers anyway (a move that appears to be robbing Peter to pay Paul anyway), they have some wriggle room.

Here's some ideas of things that could be offered. Some of these may not be practical of possible, but they're just ideas of what to offer in exchange for membership, which could be staggered at £20, £50 and £100 and perhaps even more expensive.

Basic ideas
1. Travel on the team coach to one or more away games
2. Free entry to an FA Cup or FA Trophy game
3. One-off column in the match programme
4. Signed replica shirt
5. Part of the perimeter fence could be set aside to paint the names of club members on.

For the more expensive packages
1. A chance to sit in on the pre-match team talk
2. Visit to a training session and half-hour spell in charge of the coaching
3. Visit to a training session and get to play in a 20-minute Saints v Saints game
4. A player of your choice visits your child's school

For the most expensive package
1. Play as a trialist in a home pre-season friendly
2. Get to pick the team with Gray and Golds and give the team talk before a pre-season friendly

Or they could have done something as simple as a Blue Peter style appeal for money to help run the club, perhaps even with a Totaliser painted on the fence behind the goal so fans can see its progress.

Or they could have a loyalty scheme in the Saints bar... Buy five pints up front and get your sixth one free. Gets £15-odd quid in the till up front. Wealdstone do a virtual pint scheme for distant fans to donate £3 without getting ANYTHING in return and I gather it's quite successful.

I just happen to think there's a tremendous opportunity for someone to do some creative things that would attract money and support. As a non-league team, they have to do anything they can and use whatever assets they have as creatively as they can.

I'm sure the passionate people on this forum could come up with some more ideas. The basic idea is that if you want people to spend money you either have to offer them something desirable in return OR make them feel that they are donating to something that they admire and believe in.

[COYS]

Marketing has been an issue for this football club for as long as I can remember.

I'm not sure if they're still employed by the club (which says a lot) but I believe Serco Communications were hired to be responsible for marketing at the start of the Levy/McGowan era and were not what you would call 'footballing people' - pardon the cliche. A team of top business/marketing people is all well and good but if they don't know their non-league football then it makes it almost impossible to apply any of their ideas.

I'm sure there are those on this forum that are more informed than I am about the work Tom Norman and the rest of the commercial team does but it seems a little strange to me that recentconvert is able to knock up three or four productive ideas off the top of his head whilst the best our marketing team can do is a mascot and the name of six businesses in an uninformative article.

It was good to see the names of a few businesses that are on board in the latest 'commercial update', but it was nothing more than a list. I'm not asking for a complete breakdown of the club's finances, but I'm interested to know what we are getting out of these partnerships and to what extent we rely upon the involvement of local businesses.

But that is almost irrelevant because recentconvert's ideas don't involve ANY third parties. Looking for investment from elsewhere is fine and helpful, but do we have a team of people sitting down and discussing the kinds of ideas recentconvert has outlined? Most of them are virtually cost-free to the club, and therefore basically risk-free too. I would say one or two are perhaps a little gimmicky but if they stop these price hikes then I'm not sure too many would be complaining.

Ultimately, it's just a massive shame that the actions of the club have meant there is unrest and frustration among supporters at what should be a time of real optimism. Perhaps it's very easy for me to sit here and criticise but the club is paying people to come up with ideas to make the club money and I struggle to believe that the price hike was a 'last resort'.

And without any real justification from Nick Archer or anyone else, why should I?

[Saint]

I think that the mascot was a purely Levy/McGowan creation, and it was nothing to do with the commercial side of the club - Whether that's good or bad depends on your opinion, I guess.

[Macca]

The membership could include a discount off everything in the club shop ergo leading to more money being spent