re: Investment

By alan ainsworth (legacy user)10/9/2014 17:33Wed Sep 10 17:33:15 2014In response to Outside Investment

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See my lengthy rant on foul language, specifically the "Investment" bit and the attitude of civilised people/communities to the game of Association Football, on here at the start of the season - a rant that generated five pages of replies on the Wealdstone Forum.

There are only two reasons to "Invest" in any football club:
1 - The chance of doing a Ken Bates / Sam Hammam and flogging the club to an egomaniac who wants a new toy - not likely, though it does happen... or doing a Ron Noades and flogging it to a schmoe like Mr. Goldberg. That's basically selling a commodity in a "Bubble" market.
2 - The chance of profiting from redeveloping the club's ground for commercial/residential use... minus football team, natch. Well played to Andrew Landesberg if he's managed to do that in NW2. A cheque is likely to be in the post, should he pull it off.

There can be no "Investment" in an industry where the strangely prevalent market forces dictate that expenditure must exceed income in order for any business in that industry to be "competitive" - i.e. for the team on the field to win more games than it loses.
In football terms, the word "Investment" is Blairite Newspeak - meaning almost exactly the opposite of what the word means in normal use.
The correct terms are "Donation" and "Gratuity".

In "proper" football, I support Hibs, ffs, and their refusal to trade insolvently is one reason they've been relegated, while clubs with a fifth of their traditional revenue streams and less than one-third of their support remain in the top flight.

Boreham Wood, the model Wealdstone fans seem to aspire to, appears to be a unique set-up for a London (ish) based club. A bar/leisure/entertainment business subsides a football team.
Why does it work up there?
I have no idea.
Why did use of the Banqueting Suites at Claremont Road drop to almost nothing?
How many residents of NW2 were closer to the clubhouse than any other licensed premises?
Why did they hardly ever use the clubhouse. (I doubt I ever saw more than a dozen people in there in the last few years on the odd evening I popped in.)
I have theories.. but I'm not writing another 15,000-word post, even though I have time to do so.
I don't see a Boreham Wood model developing at Silver Jubilee Park.
Wealdstone have more of a chance - if they stay at Grosvenor Vale.