Not bad for Cobh at home in fairness
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Not bad for Cobh at home in fairness
At least they won, might help with the auld crowds in a fortnight.
That's tha problem. No home game for 3 weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acornvilla
Athlones fixtures are a bit mental alright. They've 3 of the next four games away from home, and of the following 7, 5 of them are at home.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
I'm talking about the people who run the club.
Roddy was just an employee whom I didn't mention at all.
Its the people who employed him & a squad of players they couldn't afford who are the problem.
Yer all going on about Roddy. Its nothing to do with Roddy, or the season Roddy was there. This is from last season and this season. Last season the club budgeted based on what crowds the expected to get for the season. When things went tits up after 10 games the crowds were alot lower than expected.
The big meeting is tonight. It'll be interesting to hear what comes out of it.
Wage cuts?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr A
I'd be surprised if someone is going to burn a massive hole in their pockets for a club that has chanced their arm on the unaffordable squad they have put together. You could have some sympathy for a club that has come down to a 8 team first division after a good number of seasons in the Premier not being familiar with the budgetry realities of operating a team in the division but it's only 18 months since Athlone were in the first division they should have known what they were facing this season.
They're going to follow Keely's advice of yesterday and merge with LTFC. The new club will play out of Longford and be called Longford Town FC (incorporating Athlone Town FC).
Keely talks some awful ****e.
Merge the 2 clubs and keep the 'Longford' from Longford Town, and the 'Town' from Athlone Town. Keeps everyone happy.
(Don't tell me someone in the FAI hasn't had that thought blow like tumbleweed across their mind.)
Merge them both with the Alberts obviously.
I believe that when they had people in doing presentations about the new super duper FAI run league back in '06 or whenever there was a bit of kite flying regarding clubs possibly merging so there could be one full time professional outfit and it was intimated that one club in the Midlands would be ideal. Obviously neither club were too keen on that idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by WoodquayBoy
Proposing merges between clubs from different towns who hate each other is Star Wars-level out of the box thinking, up there with the eejits who'd have us set up teams for the four proud provinces of Ireland.
Given everything else, and the fact that we 'do all our business in Dublin', we should merge with Shamrock Rovers.
There was a lot of "blue sky thinking" from expensive consultants around then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Why would you merge with a club from Wicklow?Quote:
Originally Posted by Acornvilla
Most of us would rather rot in junior football than accept something like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by WoodquayBoy
Just for clarity, I wasn't being serious!!
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.
Sounds positive - hope that proves to be the case
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.
Jaysus that's a great idea actuallyQuote:
Originally Posted by 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 😃Quote:
Originally Posted by oriel
Yeah credit where it's due that sounds like a really good idea.
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.
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr A
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr A
http://athlonetownfc.ie/membership/
Well, that's that cleared up.
Wait.
Are those my feet?
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
Fear is a great motivatorQuote:
Originally Posted by ATFC-1887
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by total hoofball
HahahahaQuote:
Originally Posted by total hoofball
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.
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.Quote:
Athlone is a members club anyway, so assume ownership/membership is a given.