Masi should ignore the football for one game and just report on the facilities/ticketing etc and present a good piece of journalism. Unfortunately, although I like the guy, his hands are tied by the paper’s links to the club hierarchy.
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Yeah it’s tough for the media. Lower league football is rife with instances of journalists being denied access because of ‘difficult questions’ being asked of the hierarchy.
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Yep. I didn’t get a response. I suspect he rather likes his coffee mornings in Essington. Cant really see him wanting to upset people. Who can blame him?
Absolutely right, Bonser and his yes men won’t allow awkward questions! Seem to remember that at previous " meet the manager" evenings questions had to be submitted beforehand!!! So they could pick out the " nicer " ones to answer!!! Shambles from top to bottom, club in decay overseen by ancient relics!!
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The only way that Bonser will give up his cash cow is when it starts to lose serious value. That will only happen through direct action. This unrest among supporters has been rumbling on now for more than a decade and he still sits there coining it in, with no intention of selling at fair value.
He has engineered a fantastic position in that he has a piece of land with a football stadium on it which he rents out to the football club he owns. As long as the club is viable then his rent is guaranteed. Contrast this with many retail landlords currently. Their tenants (often large retailers) are demanding rent reductions or risk going bust, which is resulting in a drop in commercial property prices / investment funds. Bonser avoids this by keeping the club “profitable”.
He has an asset netting himself c£500k per year (rent/“loan” repayments) for almost NO RISK. Low risk investments are currently yielding c 2-3% at best, therefore on that basis the asset is worth £12-15 million to him. Who is going to pay that sort of money? And why would he ever “do the right thing” and give it back to the club when he has family to hand it over to? They may not be interested in the football club but they can employ people to run the day to day who are, as do many family businesses.
Unfortunately, in my view, the only way to get Bonser out is to stop giving him money via the football club and the commercial activities (for example, supporting the market, events at the stadium etc.). Some have already done this and some, accepted, never will. There will, however, be a tipping point, but we are not there yet, not while we remain a third division club.
Bonser is a clever so and so. He convinces the supporters that if they don’t keep coughing up / putting up / shutting up, then they will be the losers when there is a smaller playing budget, however, the real threat of demise is to him and his nice little earner.
The football and commercial activities are interdependent. His empire is not viable without the club, as the fixed costs are spread across the football and commercial activities. If the football revenue decreased then the facilities would deteriorate further which would impact on the commercial activities.It would also impact on the player development system, which in turn generates the transfer windfalls which help keep the club profitable.
The dichotomy for me is on the one hand I want us to be successful on the pitch, but on the other I believe that we need a couple of relegations in order for this mess to be resolved once and for all.
No pain , no gain to coin a phrase.
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You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s a very sad situation.
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and it’s getting more and more absurd.
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Been trying to think of some Acronyms to sum up the campaign, can anyone help, I 've so far come up with STOP IT, and UNCAGES.
Stop
The
Onerous
Pension
Invest in
Team
UNited
Club
And
Ground
Endevours for
Success
Why can’t we talk it over?
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I went to one of those once before, expecting to grill Paul Merson about his plans to sort out our leaky defense. We ended up with Mick Halsall shrugging his shoulders. A monumental waste of time.
Oh it seems to me…
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Bonsor seems to be a massive ****
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Another itch that is hard to scratch is the problem of being in the same league for 13 years.
Of the 24 clubs, 2 go up automatically, 4 play off and 4 go down.
In those 13 years we have finished in the top 6 only once and have had one real escape and a couple of flirts with relegation.
All of this is a by-product of Bonsers’ model. Not enough ambition to really go for it but just enough to keep out of trouble. Result = meh.
Many posts on here talk about getting to 50 points or at the start of the season hoping for mid table - again a by-product of Bonsers’ model.
If I could flip a coin for next season which had 90 points on one side and 20 on the other, I would take it all day over the usual 55-65 points we will most likely get.
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Or regarding signing a Championship relegation sides bench warmer (Oztumer) as ‘ambition’. Like I say, any hope has been trampled out of us by years of stagnation and now, regression.
Sadly, I think you’re going to be right. We have to show the trustees that the route they’re going down is no longer going to be a profitable one . Also sadly, that might take a while.
I would be interested to know the percentage ticket sales / match day income generated from home v away fans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference was smaller than many may think, as away fans tend to pay full whack for tickets and probably spend proportionally more on food and drink in the ground. Dropping a division or two, however, would widen the gap significantly I reckon with fewer visiting fans in attendance.