Sadly. the short answer is no.
It is quite frightening how quickly the money adds up once you get past a certain stage...Basically once the professional clubs become involved.
The £18,000 won for beating Bristol Rovers, added to the approximate £25,000 up to that point is a fantastic amount of prize money (not to mention two FA Trophy wins already). Plus the £12,500 for the BBC Coverage against Bristol Rovers and the guaranteed same amount for coverage of the Second Round game to come. I don't know exactly what half of the gate money after expenses adds up to from the Bristol Rovers game, but you have got to be looking at another £15,000 and if we get an away game at Bradford City in the next round that must be up to more like something in the region of £20-25,000 gate share.
In all, we have got to be talking about over £100,000 as a result of the FA Cup this season - And we are still in it! Quite mind-boggling. A huge part of me wishes that had happened whilst I was Chairman because I really believe we could have gone on to bigger and better things, creating something very special. It could have been amazing, but equally, there is a part of me that would have been fairly terrified of the responsibility of so much money coming into the club!
All that said, it is very easy to get carried away with the sums above and start thinking it is all champagne and caviar from now on - New players, ground refurbishments...It is not that black and white.
Over the summer I came very close to getting involved at Board level again as we started to look at formulating a budget and introducing some fresh blood and new thinking going forward, so I have a fair idea of how the finances of the club still operate and I am also fully aware that our reliance on the generous donations has pretty much quadrupled since the days we tried to run it as a supporters organisation with myself as a Chairman. The reasons for that are no doubt numerous and varied.
Unfortunately events of the summer did not transpire as I had hoped and the club were influenced by other people instead - In my opinion a case of "you can have a voice if you have a cheque book". Not the way I would have chosen, but that is football I'm afraid. Anyway, the reality will be I'm pretty sure that a large chunk of the FA Cup prize money will go towards relieving the financial pressures that have ruined the enjoyment behind the scenes in previous years, and fill the gap that was staring out at you however you chose to look at the budget for the year and would no doubt have been dealt with in the same way as previous years...The reliance on a generous benefactor.
In that sense, the FA Cup prize money is life changing. It gives the club the chance to look at other things around the club without the constant worry of how the next bill will be paid and how many more weeks can we keep this team together...Genuinely a horrible feeling, and one that I have felt many many times over the years. When the team is performing well near the top of the league, and supporters around you are beaming with excitement - The though of having to pull the rug out from beneath it all is not a pleasant one I can assure you!
Anyway, as I say, I wasn't involved in the budget setting this year, but I was present in meetings where some fairly high demands were put on the team, including the absolute insistence from someone, who like myself is not a Director and really had no official role to play in the discussions, that the management should be given a minimum target to achieve in terms of FA Prize money. This caused huge amounts of debate and many arguments - On the back of three fairly barren years in terms of prize money it seemed a target the management were unlikely to achieve.
Now I don't know if that target became official or whether it was another case of too many people sticking their nose in because, well, basically because we have an environment where they can, but either way, Andy, Jon and the players have totally smashed that target and hopefully now we are well into the realms of credit.
For the first time in many years now the club has a chance to do something that could change things for the longer term - Some of that prize money needs to be re-invested back into the club to provide an income for seasons to come, to take us away from the reliance of private investment to keep us going. To enable us to once again run in such a fashion where everything does not revolve around digging down the back of the sofa looking for the wages, we don't have to go cap in hand with an embarrassed look to pay the everyday bills and to take us into an era where once again, as a club, we can start listening to the right people and taking good advice...rather than just opening our doors to people prepared to hand over a few quid to assist with the short term fix.
The Chess Suite, the clubhouse, remains the obvious candidate for investment. It has been talked about for years - many, many years - and we have had so many false starts, unfulfilled promises that go back decades in some cases. Now is a real opportunity to make a difference. Surely now, with the help of a bit of prize money, coupled with the desire and efforts of those people that really want to make it happen, we can start to look at at least some of the refurbishments that will make the venue marketable one again and, with that, become an income stream that can go back to contributing a significant amount to the running of the club, as it has done in the past.
Fortunately the Chairman has already agreed that the funds raised from the Fireworks Night can go towards refurbishments and there have been a number of people already discussing picking up on where things fell down in the summer. We are not talking investing hundreds of thousands and applying for grants. There is a place for that in the future, but we need shorter term fixes. We need some repairs and improvements to The Chess Suite and we need them to start as soon as the season finishes and be ready to welcome supporters back in the pre-season. Even before the cup run a group of supporters were talking to the club and the Trust about making that happen. Could this really be the time it happens?
Plans were made, and many discussions held, in the summer that never came to fruition. With the back-up of another successful Fireworks Night, a good FA Cup run and a real feel good factor around the club...Now must be the time to break the tradition of clubhouse refurbishment failings. Money remains the number one issue for non-league clubs. We haven't won enough to be life changing, yet, but hopefully we have won enough for the club to get into a position to listen, and talk, to the right people...and use it wisely.
In all, we have got to be talking about over £100,000 as a result of the FA Cup this season - And we are still in it! Quite mind-boggling. A huge part of me wishes that had happened whilst I was Chairman because I really believe we could have gone on to bigger and better things, creating something very special. It could have been amazing, but equally, there is a part of me that would have been fairly terrified of the responsibility of so much money coming into the club!
All that said, it is very easy to get carried away with the sums above and start thinking it is all champagne and caviar from now on - New players, ground refurbishments...It is not that black and white.
Over the summer I came very close to getting involved at Board level again as we started to look at formulating a budget and introducing some fresh blood and new thinking going forward, so I have a fair idea of how the finances of the club still operate and I am also fully aware that our reliance on the generous donations has pretty much quadrupled since the days we tried to run it as a supporters organisation with myself as a Chairman. The reasons for that are no doubt numerous and varied.
Unfortunately events of the summer did not transpire as I had hoped and the club were influenced by other people instead - In my opinion a case of "you can have a voice if you have a cheque book". Not the way I would have chosen, but that is football I'm afraid. Anyway, the reality will be I'm pretty sure that a large chunk of the FA Cup prize money will go towards relieving the financial pressures that have ruined the enjoyment behind the scenes in previous years, and fill the gap that was staring out at you however you chose to look at the budget for the year and would no doubt have been dealt with in the same way as previous years...The reliance on a generous benefactor.
In that sense, the FA Cup prize money is life changing. It gives the club the chance to look at other things around the club without the constant worry of how the next bill will be paid and how many more weeks can we keep this team together...Genuinely a horrible feeling, and one that I have felt many many times over the years. When the team is performing well near the top of the league, and supporters around you are beaming with excitement - The though of having to pull the rug out from beneath it all is not a pleasant one I can assure you!
Anyway, as I say, I wasn't involved in the budget setting this year, but I was present in meetings where some fairly high demands were put on the team, including the absolute insistence from someone, who like myself is not a Director and really had no official role to play in the discussions, that the management should be given a minimum target to achieve in terms of FA Prize money. This caused huge amounts of debate and many arguments - On the back of three fairly barren years in terms of prize money it seemed a target the management were unlikely to achieve.
Now I don't know if that target became official or whether it was another case of too many people sticking their nose in because, well, basically because we have an environment where they can, but either way, Andy, Jon and the players have totally smashed that target and hopefully now we are well into the realms of credit.
For the first time in many years now the club has a chance to do something that could change things for the longer term - Some of that prize money needs to be re-invested back into the club to provide an income for seasons to come, to take us away from the reliance of private investment to keep us going. To enable us to once again run in such a fashion where everything does not revolve around digging down the back of the sofa looking for the wages, we don't have to go cap in hand with an embarrassed look to pay the everyday bills and to take us into an era where once again, as a club, we can start listening to the right people and taking good advice...rather than just opening our doors to people prepared to hand over a few quid to assist with the short term fix.
The Chess Suite, the clubhouse, remains the obvious candidate for investment. It has been talked about for years - many, many years - and we have had so many false starts, unfulfilled promises that go back decades in some cases. Now is a real opportunity to make a difference. Surely now, with the help of a bit of prize money, coupled with the desire and efforts of those people that really want to make it happen, we can start to look at at least some of the refurbishments that will make the venue marketable one again and, with that, become an income stream that can go back to contributing a significant amount to the running of the club, as it has done in the past.
Fortunately the Chairman has already agreed that the funds raised from the Fireworks Night can go towards refurbishments and there have been a number of people already discussing picking up on where things fell down in the summer. We are not talking investing hundreds of thousands and applying for grants. There is a place for that in the future, but we need shorter term fixes. We need some repairs and improvements to The Chess Suite and we need them to start as soon as the season finishes and be ready to welcome supporters back in the pre-season. Even before the cup run a group of supporters were talking to the club and the Trust about making that happen. Could this really be the time it happens?
Plans were made, and many discussions held, in the summer that never came to fruition. With the back-up of another successful Fireworks Night, a good FA Cup run and a real feel good factor around the club...Now must be the time to break the tradition of clubhouse refurbishment failings. Money remains the number one issue for non-league clubs. We haven't won enough to be life changing, yet, but hopefully we have won enough for the club to get into a position to listen, and talk, to the right people...and use it wisely.
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