re: Investment

By alan ainsworth (legacy user)11/9/2014 15:43Thu Sep 11 15:43:45 2014In response to Re: re: Investment

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"Alan, when I first started going to pubs the difference between the
price of a pint and the equivalent from a supermarket wasn't that
much. More lately it's a ratio of about 3 to 1. That's one reason
why you won't have seen many people in the clubhouse. The other, of
course, was that it was a s**hole."

Yeah, I suppose there is that.
It's not a concept I've ever gotten used to. I have a couple of acquaintances whom I occasionally pop around to see and who tend to respond to "We can nip down the Ferret & Firkin for a pint" with, "B******* to that! Let's just get some cans in." I do not "Get cans in." Ever. Never have done, never will do.
I don't think the clubhouse was that bad, even towards the end.
Then again, my upbringing alternated between Kilburn High Road & the Carnival section of Arra Road. I suppose the sole difference between The Cock Tavern & The Frankfort was that only half the fighting drunks in the latter were Irish - the other half being West Indian. Neither were aimed at today's Gastro Pub Class.

This again runs onto the question of what off-field activities might raise revenue to bolster a soccer club's finances.
I don't know Boreham Wood all that well.
When I've made deliveries there or been to matches at the football ground, it never seems nearly as close to the top of the White Trash Scum index as the occasional posse of irregulars who appear at high profile games would indicate.
The grapevine suggests BWFC has a budget more or less double Wealdstone's.
Where does that money come from?

I spent most of August doing stuff at Grosvenor Vale. I was up there five or six days on the spin a couple of times.
The bar is used much more than it was a couple of years ago - mainly as a result of a concerted effort by fans to drink there, even if they still live in HA3. Some locals without much interest in football pop in regularly.
There's a gig in the main hall almost every Friday night, often on Saturday night as well, and 250 punters pitching-up isn't unusual.
There's a reasonable frequency of anniversary/birthday p***ups, as well as less inebriated social functions in the main hall and the Aquarium Bar.
Admittedly the Jazzercise, Zumba, Tapdancing, etc. attendees aren't likely to spend £20 on Real Ale and ham & cheese rolls, but the firm/instructor still hires the hall and the punters have a Diet Pepsi.
The field out the back is hired out for community fetes and stuff in summer.
WFC was unlucky with the lack of Wembley-bound clubs coming in down the A4/M40 last season, but was very lucky with Wales/Lancashire clubs in 2012/13. A typical Man Citeh party for a 3pm or 4pm kick-off can consume nigh-on 30 barrels of lager, a few of cider and some shots - plus 500 burgers/hotdogs. You do the maths.
Yet it's not enough.
It's nowhere near enough.
Even though Wealdstone get gates triple those that pitch-up at Boreham Wood and are second in the embryonic attendance league, the grapevine says Wealdstone have the lowest budget in Connie South.

To answer the original questions at the top of this thread: "Yes, the move to a permanent base, giving the Club control over more of its affairs, and the forthcoming construction work in the Staples Corner area is likely to increase the possibility of someone putting some money - a "donation" or "gratuity"; not an "investment" - Hendon FC's way."
It's not going to increase it very much, though.
The "communities" likely to make "investments" in football clubs aren't likely to "invest" in Association Football. I would be fairly surprised to learn that any of the construction companies involved in current large-scale building projects in NW London have failed to chip-in for construction of a football stadium that's about to spring up. But neither Hendon FC nor any other FC will be playing at the new Emerald Park GAA stadium that's about to go up in Ruislip. I doubt if Clancy Docwra or Murphy's will be chipping-in at Silver Jubilee Park... unless a 150yd pitch is planned, along with a groundshare involving St.Gabriel's or Kilburn Gaels.

As for other prospective investors, well, yes, there's plenty of money in Hendon & Harrow... though I hardly think they compare with Kensington, Hampstead, Chelsea, St.John's Wood, Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Virginia Water, etc. as locations containing "large collections of accumulated wealth."
With those f***in' eejits north of Hadrian's Wall about to vote for "Independence" - & join the whole of Africa & every Mohammedan nation on the planet as a country I boycott as totally as possible - it may help to recall the words of Robert Burns:
"O wad some Power the giftie gie us
Tae see oursels as ithers see us."
In my view, it's the greatest gift an individual can possess in human interaction: the power to see himself as others see him. It confers a position of almost impregnable advantage on those rare birds who manage to acquire it.
Of course, in this Pathetic Excuse for a Nation, it's an especially difficult gift to acquire, as voicing an "offensive" opinion of anyone or anything is regarded as criminal conduct. Given the social status of those who've implemented this legislation, I always think it's supremely poetic that the Burns quote comes from a poem entitled, "To a Louse."

Fact: Virtually nobody moving in influential social or business circles in this country regards the game of Association Football and everyone in it as anything other than a cesspit infested with vermin.
Footballers are seen as semi-literate, emotionally-retarded, morality-free scum.
That's also how I see them.
Football clubs are seen as being the exclusive preserve of thieves, charlatans, morons, criminals, megalomaniacs, bigots, racists, callous exploiters of children, money-launderers, tax-evaders & basketcases.
That's also how I see them.
The business of football is seen as being controlled entirely by cretins, egomaniacs, incompetents, unrealistic muthafukkas, fantasists, larcenists, embezzlers, parasites and idiots with the financial acumen of Stan Bowles at White City dogs or Gazza on a bender. The spastics - apologies to Mr.Gervais for infringing his copyright - can't even agree a financial model that turns a profit.
That's also how I see it.

Respectable people want nothing to do with the game.
Why can't clubs at this level understand that?
It's not as if mafiosi, tyrants, state-owned firms from despotic regimes, "Fleece the Schmoe" internet sites and drug-pushers are queuing up to back clubs at this level, is it?... Unlike in the Premier League.

On Saturday, Hendon face the supreme example of what "Investment" in Non-League football can bring.
How much did Max Griggs put into Rushden & Diamonds?
Unlike other chairmen, who took their clubs down with them when they went bust, Mr.Griggs had the enormous decency to warn the club & its fans that the recession was biting him to the point where he could no longer fund them and give reasonable notice of his decision to pull out. He handed them a £750,000 gratuity, gave them the club (debt-free), the Nene Park ground and a lot of surrounding land for £1.
Where were they five years after he pulled the plug?
In the second tier of the United Counties League, as a newly formed AFC, having gone tits-up.

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