Cater-Wal

11/24/2024 05:39 AM

No, I still refuse to regurgitate a “Warsaw” quip. This isn’t Soccer AM.

It’s just our luck that we’re wading through a lot of games right now, with form that is being blown away quicker than Storm Bert**.

** – those who know their football culture may have a wry smile at the name of that, if you consider Manchester City are called the “Berts”.

Wonder if it reaches 115mph?

This is probably why I’m nowhere near surprised we lost against the Saddlers yesterday. It had that vibe about it even before the start of the tie.

Your editor wasn’t there (though I got to go to St. Evenage v Leyton Orient where I really didn’t get the better option this time), and I assume most people reading this were, so I’ll leave you to fill in the gaps.

Some have said we were flat, others admitted they were annoyed that we lost it. So I’m none the wiser as to the game.

All I know is that Fortress Plough Lane isn’t so much a fortress right now.

Granted, it’s nowhere near being Theme Park PL (the place where all visitors go home happy) but just at the time we don’t need it…

While last Tuesday against t’Stanley went from utter shite to utter joy (and was I alone in thinking we could have won it?), we got a bit lucky then too.

If their keeper had decided to catch the ball rather than punch it clear, the post mortem would still be going on.

I’ll be happy when this grind of games comes to an end, and I think JJ will be too.

I hope he avoids his tendency to not change things for Tuesday at Tranmere. We need freshening up and we’ve got enough credit in the bank to do that.

Will he? I don’t know, and while it won’t make or break his managerial career at AFCW it may yet count against him come May.

Our stated (?) aim was the playoffs this season, we’re still well in the hunt for them and there’s still a long way of the season to go.

That said, the most important fixture we’ll play in the next two months is next Saturday, at the ludicrous time of 19h15.

And I bet half the people not there won’t watch it on telly because they haven’t figured out how to get ITV-X.

Winning against Daggers would do us a big favour, especially with the recently released accounts suggesting we need some money.

Personally, I reckon we’re about to get into some very real and very painfully honest conversations about our finances.

The news that the 50.01% vote not passing suggested that discussion hasn’t happened yet.

Communications between the decision makers and the plebs club owners have been poor for well over a decade, and the vote last week had a lot of “trust me, bro” about it.

Clearly, many don’t.

Even so, over 70% of voters** were in favour of it, and many of those against were simply against the way it was handled to begin with.

** – though even this only had just over 50% of eligible voters casting their ballot, and this for something that directly affects the football club.Draw your own conclusions.

And with what is becoming apparent with the latest accounts and a need to know what the financial state of play actually is, I’m now more convinced than ever that it will pass the next time it comes up.

When that will happen I don’t know, but I imagine that will be quicker than you think.

Granted, the club has made some poor decisions which would have helped financially (one in particular is in the back of my mind as I type this), but anything else that gets suggested is a 2014 solution to a 2024 problem.

Raising ticket prices will lose money as much as gaining it, a fact anyone who is a non-millionaire will know.

While we could always do better with concessions and sweating the Plough Lane asset, at its most effective it’ll only offset some of the costs these days.

Ditto any move to sell what equity we do have to fans. That will be a once-off donation which will get swallowed up quite quickly.

And I could be wrong, but under 50.01 I’m pretty sure anyone buying their 15% could revalue their shares upwards to get more money in.

Good luck trying to do that with what we do have right now.

One senses things are now starting to get real financially, and we’ve never had any proper conversation about it since, well, 2002.

The euphoria of returning home is gone, we’re stuck in mid-table in L2 with the sense we let our L1 place slip away too easily.

It won’t be too many more months before the first of the PL Bonds need to be repaid, and not everyone will roll them over.

And yes, costs are high and won’t get much lower.

As said on SW19 so many times, what happens on the field of play is by far the most important thing regarding AFCW.

We’re a club that could (and should) be challenging for the playoffs each season, but we won’t do that with an increasingly ineffective budget.

You can have all the discussions you want about corporate governance, accountancy, finance and whatnot.

But the real change at this club will come about because of one too many results like yesterday…