Athlone bucked?

[WoodquayBoy]

Sounds positive - hope that proves to be the case

[De Town]

Judging by pics from the meeting on FB/Twitter, it seems there was a bigger crowd at the meeting than at a lot of games in Lissywoollen...fair play.

[outspoken]

Crisis averted was the general feeling after the meeting. Not as bad as was made out. Club wont fold. Realistically was never a possibility. In advanced talks with a sponsor with announcement hopefully by end of the week.
Club appealed for more people to help out as their is a very very small number at the moment.
A new 10 euro a week donation was set up with free entry to home games included and an entry in the weekly lotto also.
Very positive response from the majority of what was an extremely large crowd. People seem to want to do something. They dont want to see the club stuck in the 1st division.
Hopefully things will progress from this and we will be back where we belong.

Jaysus that's a great idea actually

[oriel]

A tenner a week, free entry into home games is a great idea for a club under pressure. This could work out better than say if there were two home per month (2 x €15), but you would still need to get the fans to make the effort to actually go.

If it's well taken up, you have €40 a month coming in, and it's a tenner up really, and possibly not having to worry as much about the gate, plus good idea giving something back like the lotto. If results improve, crowds attending should increase.

Sounds like a good idea, hopefully it will work out.

[ATFC-1887]

A tenner a week, free entry into home games is a great idea for a club under pressure. This could work out better than say if there were two home per month (2 x €15), but you would still need to get the fans to make the effort to actually go.

If it's well taken up, you have €40 a month coming in, and it's a tenner up really, and possibly not having to worry as much about the gate, plus good idea giving something back like the lotto. If results improve, crowds attending should increase.

Sounds like a good idea, hopefully it will work out.

20 up. It's only a tenner in first division games 😃

[Longfordian]

Yeah credit where it's due that sounds like a really good idea.

[Bosco]

Is that a tenner a week during the season or for the whole year?Good idea whichever it is. Should be cause for a bit of craic over on the attendance thread as well.

[Mr A]

So this was a false alarm? Athlone didn't run with a budget they couldn't sustain? There is a sponsor about to come aboard after all? Suddenly it all sounds like it was a fundraising launch rather than a crisis meeting as it was billed.

[ATFC-1887]

Yeh there was never really a crisis. It was basically a plea to the public to get involved and help in a physical or financial way.

[Mr A]

Were fans offered any degree of ownership for this tenner a week? Demanding people get involved with ideas, time and money may go better if people got a degree of ownership at the end of it.

Midlands coverage: https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport...public-meeting

[tiktok]

Were fans offered any degree of ownership for this tenner a week? Demanding people get involved with ideas, time and money may go better if people got a degree of ownership at the end of it.

Midlands coverage: https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport...public-meeting

Athlone is a members club anyway, so assume ownership/membership is a given.

[ATFC-1887]

Were fans offered any degree of ownership for this tenner a week? Demanding people get involved with ideas, time and money may go better if people got a degree of ownership at the end of it.

Midlands coverage: https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport...public-meeting

Nope its seperate to membership. A new membership scheme was set up a couple of months ago. Its 250 euro a year. Alot of people dont see any real benefit to it for that amount so it has not really worked.
http://athlonetownfc.ie/membership/

[Mr A]

Well, that's that cleared up.

Wait.

Are those my feet?

[ATFC-1887]

I know its strange that people reacted better to this than the membership, which is cheaper. Can't understand why but i think its the way the membership was promoted was poor so people didn't want it. Ah i dunno. Nothing surprises me with this club or fans

[ATFC-1887]

http://www.westmeathindependent.ie/n...-meeting-told/

[Dodge]

I know its strange that people reacted better to this than the membership, which is cheaper. Can't understand why

Fear is a great motivator

[total hoofball]

So this doomsday crisis was all about Athlone attempts scare the life out of their supporters to get them to pay up to fund their attempt to buy their way back to the premier division. Short term solution to a sustainability problem. I wonder how the boards of their other 7 first division clubs living within their means feel about this?

The sooner the FAI sort out this licensing farce to prevent mid-season wage cuts and begging to supporters for digouts the better. Introduce some sort of pre-licensing in November/December on realistic basic bugetry projections/sign whatever players you can afford and then come January/February when you have earned your sponsorship, sold your season tickets then you can go ahead a sign whatever additional players to strengthen your squad and get your full license.

[gufcfan]

The sooner the FAI sort out this licensing farce

They have shown time and again that they are unwilling to apply the rules consistently and prefer to ignore them when it suits them, rather than fix anything.

[Charlie Darwin]

the boards of their other 7 first division clubs living within their means

Hahahaha

[Mr A]

The message seems to be promotion or drop out of the league, existing in the first division not viewed as an option. Never mind trying to put your house in order and trying to build up gradually, the approach seems to be get promoted then things will be grand. Not a surprising attitude given how difficult surviving in the first is, but didn't Athlone splurge massively just after the stadium move in an attempt to get up- how did that work out again?

But from another D1 club looking on none of this carry on would endear you to ATFC, not that they'd give a feck of course.

Athlone is a members club anyway, so assume ownership/membership is a given.

It wasn't clear to me that members own the club BTW- plenty of clubs have membership schemes that don't confer ownership. I'll take your word for it though.