Where has £3.95 million gone?

[Wimb]

don't even think about promotion because the club doesn't want it.

That's what they were saying in 2005. It's excruciating reading this stuff.

Don't read it then if it affects you so much.
That is exactly the point-for probably over 100 years people have been saying the club doesn't want promotion.
Just because it happened in 2005, after which the chairman appears to have lost interest/bottle/desire,doesn't mean to say that now the club wants promotion and all the hassle that goes with it.
Don't you live overseas somewhere?
Maybe you don't get to games so take it from me this is what people are saying-whether it is correct or not is another matter.
I hope this has not been too excruciating for you-I dread to think how you react to anything at all serious in life if a few words on a message board cause you so much angst.

Yeah, I'm sure Sir John gave Archie a wink at Wembley

[juanpablo]

If a club gets promotion to the Prem on a shoestring, and doesn't spend a lot
and comes straight back down, and then doesn't spend a lot, they become MUCH richer
because their budgets haven't increased much but they've got a season of Prem money
followed by now a few years of parachute payments.

IMO the richest model is to spend enough to be top eight in the CCC and hope you
get into the P-Os and get lucky over one two-legged tie followed by a Cup Final


Then spend a bit for appearance's sake, but make sure you make profit from the single-season
in the Prem and profit from the years of parachute payments.

Each time you "boing" you get a tad richer.

What tends to happen is clubs go into debt TRYING to go up, the debts accumulate, then they
think "We have to stay up" (to clear debts) so spend spend spend. Then when they are relegated
the parachute payments are eaten up by higher wages, even if there is a relegation pay-cut
in players' contracts.

It's a very delicate juggling act and most clubs get into SERIOUS financial difficulties at some time.

I think that when we were in the prem we had a chance to invest and be a team like stoke for instance......

look at them now compared to us, not even really considered in the relegation scrap year on year. Decent manager and a bit of cash has seen them into midtable

[sandman]

Yeah, I'm sure Sir John gave Archie a wink at Wembley

He may not have given Archie a when he stepped up for the penalty but I bet he was mightily relieved when we lost that final.

[Snowball]

Strap, you're right that interest on all the loans has been accruing in accounts but the word accrual means that SJM has not taken a penny of interest out of the club, it is all still sitting there. The last accounts showed the hotel made a loss of around £300K but that was during the recession and when new hotels were going up in the area. His loans were around £25M, two thirds of which were at zero interest and one third at 1% below HSBC bank rate. That helped to build a £40M new stadium. For comparison, Watford FC are regularly lent money to keep going, their directors make loans at 3.5% above the Barclays Bank rate and their chief shareholder (Lord Ashcroft) at 4.5% above.Their directors also pay themselves several hundred thousand pounds in total whereas SJM takes zero in emoluments.

Those of you who say that SJM is taking money out of the club can of course produce their own evidence.The debt situation is more complicated than just looking back over the last 5 years and I don't have room to explain it all but you have to take into account all the past, the cost of building the stadium and so on.

Bucks please don't be sensible or use actual facts.

It confuses them so.

[Snowball]

I just don't quite understand why SJM or anybody else WOULDN'T want promotion.

Can the Madejski conspiracy artists please tell me how in any way it would benefit the club to be in the CCC and not the PL? If memory serves the only time we've made a profit in the last 30 years was during the PL era for gods sake. Even if he's unhappy with the wage commitments etc of the Premier League, he doesn't have to bow to it if we go up does he? it's not like someone would hold a gun to his head and say you HAVE to pay those wages etc, we could just as easily do what Burnley did and take the money and run.

For the fans that have lost faith then I feel sorry for you but I don't understand why, just look at the team and tell me how its any different or less promising than ANY OTHER Championship side out there.

Goalkeepers - Feds is an Aussie international and we have 2 U21 international goalkeepers in the wings who are earning good reviews

Defence - Harte's played in the CL Semi Finals and a World Cup. Yes his best years may be behind him but he's steady and has already chipped in with a good few goals. Armstrong cost over half a million and was a player of the season, Mills cost £2 million and was one of the most highly rated defenders in the division. Kizi has been signed TWICE by us and captains his country and Pearce is very highly rated and is improving literally with every week. Add to that a very solid RB in Griffin, with potential squad fillers/stand ins like Cummings and Kelly and we look in good shape.

Midfield - In Kebe and McAnuff we have two of the best wingers in the Championship. People are panicing every week about Kebe leaving and Jobi was apparently subjected to a £2.5 million bid by QPR. HRK and Antonio aren't the finished product yet but both have shown glimpses of talent at a young age and are also the right level to be patient behind an established pair of wingers.
In the centre Jem looks as good as Harper/Sidwell did during the early stages of their career, we've invested to bring a proven CCC midfielder in Leigertwood on loan and both Brian Howard and Jay Tabb were signed from fellow Championship sides for 6 figure sums. We also have an extremley promising player in Obita who Sir Trevor Brooking has already tipped for the top.

Strikers - Hunt cost 700k and is another international who's been scoring goals for us whenever he's fit. Long is finally living up to his promise and has arguably been our best player this season, while Church has also scored crucial goals, has international honours and is home grown. In reserve we still have Bignall and Taylor who have also shown flashes of talent and COULD kick on and come through in the next 18 months or so.

What honestly do we lack and how on God's green earth can people blast a lack of investment. We've got a squad that is EASILY capable of challenging any team in this league and the best thing is that the general make up of the team is full of players who have yet to peak and have grown up with the club, making them easier to keep hold of or at the very least commanding big fees.

On top of all this we're 8 days into a window that every manager states is tough to buy in and clubs can end up getting fleeced. We're 6 points away from Automatic Promotion with the squad we have at our disposal and unless there is real value readily available in the transfer market then I think the club are 100% right in hanging onto whatever money we do have. It makes me laugh because this board was so quick to slam Rodgers for making the Smith negotiations public and yet now they expect us to reveal our hand over a target such as Charlie Austin?!

This football club has signed players in every transfer window that I can remember and I think we'll see at least another loanee in by the end of this one.

OVerall this club is in fantastic shape with a good young manager, a talented young squad and a hierarchy who now have a decade of experience in steering the club into a position to challenge for the top flight. Until our business plan sees us finish well off the pace I think the benefit of the doubt firmly resides with those making the decisions then with a small section of supporters.

VERY Well said.

[Snowball]

It's NOT FAIR!

I pay a whole £460 a season, and all I'm allowed to do is watch 23 games of football live, have a bet and a pastie.

if the Mad Hester bloke won't chip in with £4-5 Million a year out of his own pocket (what a tight-arse)
then why should I pay such an exhorbitant amount, when all I am doing is following my team?

[Agent Balti]

But Wimb, when you lay out our squad, like you have done, any club in any division could almost do the same thing in relation to everything else and big themselves up accordingly. In my view, and I've probably said this many a time over my (limited) HNA time, the worse thing a football fan can do is COMPARE. The best thing about football is that after all that comparing, it's still 11 v 11. We compare our current team vs the 106 team, we compare ourselves against what our rivals are doing and it's all bloody moot.

What I believe, 'our' disillusionment (and I guess I speak for the likes of Royal Lady, Harpers So Solid and Victor) is that the club doesn't have a 'soul'. It doesn't CARE about the fans, as long as they turn up. It doesn't care how we feel if we do or don't sign a striker. It doesn't care if we feel there's no investment or not. It doesn't care if we stopped going en masse when we sold our best player (and best player for an awful long time) in Sigurdssn. (Not that we stopped going en masse, as previous mentioned we're so very Home Counties and passion-less in our support.)

It's just football by numbers. If, as we perceive him to be, Madejski does not want the club and would sell in a heartbeat, then this permeates down the chain. If Madejski doesn't want the club, he's clearly not prepared to CARE enough for us to be promoted. He'll do what he thinks is viable but won't CARE enough go with his heart. That went a long time ago. If the Chairman doesn't CARE then why should anyone else? It's basic psychology. Why wouldn't Madejski want promotion? Well, that's not quite correct. He wants it, but he doesn't want the anathema of inflated salaries, bonuses, clauses. He wants football as it was 20 years ago, when it was 'cheap'. He wants the best of both worlds. He wants to be adored, but he doesn't want to pay for it. Seriously, when we do see Madejski? When we're doing well. When we want answers, we get Hammond. What answers do we get? Answers from the School of Mediocre and Non-Committed. What do we hear when our manager is asked about signings "Well, if we want someone, we'll see what's in the pot and there's not a lot in the pot, in fact, I've not seen the pot in a while. Has anyone seen the pot?" It's all bullshit.

Maybe that's the 'modern game'...but if it is, it sucks. It's too expensive for one, and that's the problem in all aspects. As a fan it's 'if I can AFFORD it' and less about having a laugh, a sense of belonging, a sense of Reading FC being me and me being Reading FC. I loved having the banter with my RFC friends and I miss it, I really do...but I just can't feel attached to the club as I once did.

That, married with the 'modern' players malaise of actually making US, the fan, feel a part of something, has gone. When there was a sense of 'community' with the club, we had players like Phil Parkinson turn up to fan arranged events like the Curry Night. Phil CARED. He didn't need to turn up, he didn't have to - it wasn't one of these very PC 'go see the little kids at the 'Whitley School for the Illiterate photo opportunity' where they are contractually obliged to...he came purely on his own volition. Could I imagine any of the current team taking the time to do that now? I couldn't. I honestly couldn't. Again, that's not just RFC, it's everywhere.

All in all, what am I bleating about? There's a lack of passion, a lack of care, not a dereliction of duty, just no gusto or will to be better, to succeed, to move on. It's 'do what we can with what we can.' There's no imagination or dream...it's stale. Madejski saved us, sure, but things have to move on, be different, be bold. We are told the team spirit is 'sky high'...well thank the lord something is, as there little 'spirit' coming from the management (and I mean 'management' as in board.) The shite we are told pre-season after pre-season is purely transparent, we are never told the truth but people buy into this 'well run club' bollox time and time again. So well run, we needed to sell a player for our highest fee ever (and probably one of the highest fees for a club of our stature EVER) to actually survive, apparently.

Last I checked, I went to football because it was entertainment, a sense of belonging, a desire to be better, be the best, to make our community love their team, to be a fabric of something much, much bigger than a stadium and a team and its manager. No, it's about a spreadsheet and a set of figures and if that doesn't tally up then we're screwed...and that, is where I believe the OP is coming from. It's always about what we can't achieve, not what we can. And when you dig deeper, for us 'oldies', the love has been drained for RFC as it's not about what it used to be about.

[Royal Lady]

Snowball - Who the hell says JM should chip in out of his own pocket?
The club, if it's so well run, and considering the cut backs in the past 2 years, should be able to afford a couple of million on one or two new players.

[Royal Lady]

I've missed you Agent Balti!!!!

[Agent Balti]

I've missed you Agent Balti!!!!

You and Gloria. There's two.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

95 and 2006 were very different times at RFC, in 95 all that was said was that we were not ready, and how games could be moved to London, much as the players would have loved to have won I wonder how much was said prior about the reality of the situation, and could it have put doubts in some minds, had we won I have no doubt we would have come straight back down, who would have cared.

In 05/06 we were flying so well from the start that promotion was a reality very early, and the club started to talk about it and plan for it, the HST went on sale early after a suggestion to B Butler that it might be a good move, rather than wait till Xmas as normal. The ground was ready for The Prem and the club was set up for it, Promotion was achieved, and everyone was happy.

Even then people spoke of relegation immediately, and of being a yoyo club, in season 1 though SC messed it all up, and took the team to safety with a dozen games to go, in fact the team were doing so well that a place in Europe was a possibility, what happened then was the negativity started to set in, we were not ready for Europe, we would need more players to cope with the extra games etc etc, and the season really went down from there.

Did folk at RFC talk the club down too far, we all knew that Europe would be a dream, but the club did not want it, and money ruled as we went off the the Far East for a nothing competition. For most fans just one night in Europe would have been fantastic, defeat or not.

[Barry the bird boggler]

SO WHERE HAS THE £3.95M GONE?

Have you checked down the back of the settee? I'm always finding loose change down the back of ours, nothing quite as much as 3.95M of course but then every little helps.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

I've missed you Agent Balti!!!!

You and Gloria. There's two.

Fantastic post A Balti, add JsC and PP into the mix as well, also people like Woking Royal, and for similar reasons Woodcote, not too long in the past Woodcote would have worked all the crap jobs to be free to watch RFC, now as he said in his recent post he hardly attends, hasn't Skyline and his good lady stopped going as well?

Last game I attended was Torquay away, and we left at 90 mins as it was so fecking poor.

I feel no affection for any of the players at RFC, and feel sad that something that was a big part of me has been taken away.

[Stranded]

But Wimb, when you lay out our squad, like you have done, any club in any division could almost do the same thing in relation to everything else and big themselves up accordingly. In my view, and I've probably said this many a time over my (limited) HNA time, the worse thing a football fan can do is COMPARE. The best thing about football is that after all that comparing, it's still 11 v 11. We compare our current team vs the 106 team, we compare ourselves against what our rivals are doing and it's all bloody moot.

What I believe, 'our' disillusionment (and I guess I speak for the likes of Royal Lady, Harpers So Solid and Victor) is that the club doesn't have a 'soul'. It doesn't CARE about the fans, as long as they turn up. It doesn't care how we feel if we do or don't sign a striker. It doesn't care if we feel there's no investment or not. It doesn't care if we stopped going en masse when we sold our best player (and best player for an awful long time) in Sigurdssn. (Not that we stopped going en masse, as previous mentioned we're so very Home Counties and passion-less in our support.)

It's just football by numbers. If, as we perceive him to be, Madejski does not want the club and would sell in a heartbeat, then this permeates down the chain. If Madejski doesn't want the club, he's clearly not prepared to CARE enough for us to be promoted. He'll do what he thinks is viable but won't CARE enough go with his heart. That went a long time ago. If the Chairman doesn't CARE then why should anyone else? It's basic psychology. Why wouldn't Madejski want promotion? Well, that's not quite correct. He wants it, but he doesn't want the anathema of inflated salaries, bonuses, clauses. He wants football as it was 20 years ago, when it was 'cheap'. He wants the best of both worlds. He wants to be adored, but he doesn't want to pay for it. Seriously, when we do see Madejski? When we're doing well. When we want answers, we get Hammond. What answers do we get? Answers from the School of Mediocre and Non-Committed. What do we hear when our manager is asked about signings "Well, if we want someone, we'll see what's in the pot and there's not a lot in the pot, in fact, I've not seen the pot in a while. Has anyone seen the pot?" It's all bullshit.

Maybe that's the 'modern game'...but if it is, it sucks. It's too expensive for one, and that's the problem in all aspects. As a fan it's 'if I can AFFORD it' and less about having a laugh, a sense of belonging, a sense of Reading FC being me and me being Reading FC. I loved having the banter with my RFC friends and I miss it, I really do...but I just can't feel attached to the club as I once did.

That, married with the 'modern' players malaise of actually making US, the fan, feel a part of something, has gone. When there was a sense of 'community' with the club, we had players like Phil Parkinson turn up to fan arranged events like the Curry Night. Phil CARED. He didn't need to turn up, he didn't have to - it wasn't one of these very PC 'go see the little kids at the 'Whitley School for the Illiterate photo opportunity' where they are contractually obliged to...he came purely on his own volition. Could I imagine any of the current team taking the time to do that now? I couldn't. I honestly couldn't. Again, that's not just RFC, it's everywhere.

All in all, what am I bleating about? There's a lack of passion, a lack of care, not a dereliction of duty, just no gusto or will to be better, to succeed, to move on. It's 'do what we can with what we can.' There's no imagination or dream...it's stale. Madejski saved us, sure, but things have to move on, be different, be bold. We are told the team spirit is 'sky high'...well thank the lord something is, as there little 'spirit' coming from the management (and I mean 'management' as in board.) The shite we are told pre-season after pre-season is purely transparent, we are never told the truth but people buy into this 'well run club' bollox time and time again. So well run, we needed to sell a player for our highest fee ever (and probably one of the highest fees for a club of our stature EVER) to actually survive, apparently.

Last I checked, I went to football because it was entertainment, a sense of belonging, a desire to be better, be the best, to make our community love their team, to be a fabric of something much, much bigger than a stadium and a team and its manager. No, it's about a spreadsheet and a set of figures and if that doesn't tally up then we're screwed...and that, is where I believe the OP is coming from. It's always about what we can't achieve, not what we can. And when you dig deeper, for us 'oldies', the love has been drained for RFC as it's not about what it used to be about.

Everything you've said there is fair dues but it is more the way football has gone not RFC. I'm just not sure what Reading can acheive anymore, we spend a bit more money and go up, then what? Is attempting just to stay up in the top flight that exciting with the odd top 10 finish thrown in. Football in the sense that most people want it is dead, (except at non league level), it's at the stage where you either accept that and enjoy what you can or ignore it - a lot are beginning to fall into the latter category and I don't blame them.

But if you don't like what football has become they I don't understand why you would rail against RFC when we appear to be trying to do things differently to the "new" way.

[Agent Balti]

Everything you've said there is fair dues but it is more the way football has gone not RFC. I'm just not sure what Reading can acheive anymore, we spend a bit more money and go up, then what? Is attempting just to stay up in the top flight that exciting with the odd top 10 finish thrown in. Football in the sense that most people want it is dead, (except at non league level), it's at the stage where you either accept that and enjoy what you can or ignore it - a lot are beginning to fall into the latter category and I don't blame them.

But if you don't like what football has become they I don't understand why you would rail against RFC when we appear to be trying to do things differently to the "new" way.

I'm not railing against RFC. RFC is all I, and all of us, know. I'm not going to get itchy about Norwich City if I don't know Norwich City.

If the 'new' way is to tell the fans sod all apart from spin and totally disenfranchise 'us' from what we love. What we are made to believe is that NOTHING has changed. We know it has, but we're told it hasn't. That's not 'new' that treating us like children who can't understand the truth, so we're not told.

[Franchise FC]

Perhaps he shouldn't have got so involved in the Station Hill project. And is he expecting the hotel to "fend for itself" too?

I don't particularly like the fact that we're not getting any investment, but as for Station Hill - it's his money/assets, he can do what he likes with it. The fact that he isn't putting it into something we are passionate about is disappointing, but understandable.

In fact, I've done the same over the last 20 years.
Back then I was a season ticket holder.
Now I've got a wife, family and dog to take my income, I'm no longer a season ticket holder.
Same as SJM, just slightly different scale of numbers.

[Arnie_Pie]

Some of you lot are utter spacktards.

If you honestly believe that JM is squeezing funds out of the club that do not belong to him to fund other projects, you seriously need to wake up.

He is not throttling the club. Where is the 3.95m gone? Probably gone back to it's righful owner.

The club is a loss making business which is, and always will be, propped up by player sales. Ultimately, that is what the Academy is for. It is not there to save money, it is there to make money.

Yeah let JM go and spunk a few million on some new players, only for us to lose the playoff finals on some dodgy decision. Or something.

Then what is everybody going to moan about when we go tits up?

[Arch]

I've missed you Agent Balti!!!!

You and Gloria. There's two.

Fantastic post A Balti, add JsC and PP into the mix as well, also people like Woking Royal, and for similar reasons Woodcote, not too long in the past Woodcote would have worked all the crap jobs to be free to watch RFC, now as he said in his recent post he hardly attends, hasn't Skyline and his good lady stopped going as well?

Last game I attended was Torquay away, and we left at 90 mins as it was so fecking poor.

I feel no affection for any of the players at RFC, and feel sad that something that was a big part of me has been taken away.

Has it really been taken away buy the club, though? Or is it just a mixture of you and the culture changing? Can you really point to a time when the club was really geared to care for the football souls of the supporters, or hasn't it always been a case of put out the most competitive team possible given the financial constraints?

[Arch]

don't even think about promotion because the club doesn't want it.

That's what they were saying in 2005. It's excruciating reading this stuff.

Don't read it then if it affects you so much.
That is exactly the point-for probably over 100 years people have been saying the club doesn't want promotion.
Just because it happened in 2005, after which the chairman appears to have lost interest/bottle/desire,doesn't mean to say that now the club wants promotion and all the hassle that goes with it.
Don't you live overseas somewhere?
Maybe you don't get to games so take it from me this is what people are saying-whether it is correct or not is another matter.
I hope this has not been too excruciating for you-I dread to think how you react to anything at all serious in life if a few words on a message board cause you so much angst.

Victor, my children periodically whine like spoiled brats, and it drives me up the wall. That doesn't mean I never pay attention to them. It's in the nature of internet message boards that sometimes you have to listen to people whining like spoiled brats, and it's fantastically irritating, especially in January and August which are high season. I guess it's the price I pay for what's essentially my only serious option for following my team.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

I feel no affection for any of the players at RFC, and feel sad that something that was a big part of me has been taken away.

Has it really been taken away buy the club, though? Or is it just a mixture of you and the culture changing? Can you really point to a time when the club was really geared to care for the football souls of the supporters, or hasn't it always been a case of put out the most competitive team possible given the financial constraints?

The club could make a bigger effort to keep fans happy, instead the away coaches now have locked gates to keep fans away, £2m was spent on a shiny new media centre, while the roof that was taken off the original plans was not extended, so fans that pay good money get soaked, the Supporters get a shitty portacabin rather than something decent within the stadium. The club have continually pizzed of ST holders with good deals for non ST fans, the stewarding is at times believed to be very harsh by many. The match day experience is poor, concourses that are packed, music that often is too loud, back the fecking boyz and make some noise, and just in case we will play music after goals in case the fans do not know how to celebrate.

There is a lot the club could do to make the fans feel part of the club and the gfootball experience, they chose not to.