The Academy

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by Red Rain, Jan 20, 2018.

  1. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    Well Jam Drop, you are not one to pick a fight so I guess I have to take you seriously. Would you mind giving me examples of what you mean. I cannot affect a fault if I am blissfully unaware of it.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
  2. JamDrop

    JamDrop Well-Known Member

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    Forgive me Red Rain but I do not have the energy right now to go back through the 9 pages to pick out examples. In this case, I was speaking in more general terms of what I have noticed about your debates previously and I know we have had at least one conversation about it before.
     
  3. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    I'm sorry, but I cannot recall that conversation, but at my age, I find it hard to remember where I live.

    I am retired now, but I guess that my writing style was developed over years of writing reports as part of my job. It is hard to break that sort of habit once it becomes established. I have asked in the past that people ignore the style and concentrate on the substance of what I am saying, and I ask that of you again now.
     
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  4. orsenkaht

    orsenkaht Well-Known Member

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    Meanwhile, back with the original post.........

    We are all guilty of simply accepting the wisdom of investing in the academy, but has anyone ever looked at the full picture, and been prepared to examine their own logic. This piece is not an argument to close the academy, but it is an argument that perhaps we should think again using a cost - benefit analysis.

    When he instigated the "new way of doing things" it's surely inconceivable that Patrick Cryne didn't carefully consider whether the academy represented value for money. As an accountant and a very successful businessman, you would expect nothing less. The cost would hardly be an issue for the new owners, who are very, very successful businessmen/women. So given that PC stuck with it, and the new owners have signalled their intention to further enhance it, the future of the academy doesn't really seem to be a live debate. The opinions of the rest of us are not particularly important, I would suggest.
     
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  5. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    There is little doubt that the fans have little input or knowledge concerning any decision, but that does not, and should not stop us all talking about things as though we do have some input. I do not have any deep understanding of football or its tactics, but I used to write Minority Report after every home game. The comments that I made were not a professional dissection of the game, they were things that I had noticed and things that I passed on as an amateur. Above all, I try to be interesting and I try to find interesting topics for discussion, because that is what I enjoy.... talking about my club.
     
  6. nezbfc

    nezbfc Well-Known Member

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    Well. At least it makes sense with lengthy posts.

    Completely understand that now (had a report style writing myself over the years).

    Just one thing i picked up on. And with the accountancy point.

    Do the club use cost centres across the business. Genuine question btw. And to what extent.

    Just wondered if the recording of costs and income are actually split to that detail over x number of years.

    For that level of analysis it would need to be detailed and have the expert opinion including ability to allocate those parts (and overheads) to be able to come to any decent conclusion.

    Again something which could well be a cost to get to that outcome. Something which under close scrutiny of all the ins and outs we have endured (especially dons reign where he openly stated he counted to every penny nearly every week) it might not actually have been anything put in place.

    Suppose i could word this better but trying to write on this damn phone isnt the easiest at the best of times
     
  7. orsenkaht

    orsenkaht Well-Known Member

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    "My club" versus "the club of which I am a customer!" ?
     
  8. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    Is it not the same thing?

    I have been a supporter of Barnsley Football club since the age of 14. I am now 66. It is easy to slip into these short cuts when it has been part of you for so long.
     
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  9. orsenkaht

    orsenkaht Well-Known Member

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    I just think it's interesting how people perceive their relationship with the club. For me, it's always been conditional upon there continuing to be a reasonable prospect of good entertainment. I tend to think the change of ownership may signal a period where the club feels a little more remote from us.
     
  10. Shy Talk

    Shy Talk Well-Known Member

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    Interesting. My own love for the club is a lifelong, unconditional affair. If it wasnt I wouldnt be supporting Barnsley
     
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  11. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    I guess that it varies from organisation to organisation.

    The organisation the I used to work for comprised 3 companies. The main company was broken down into three separate trading entities. The financial statements broke down profitability for each trading entity, but those profits were added together before deduction of general administration costs. The overhead of each trading entity was broken down into several departments. Management Accounts were prepared by the accounts department for each company and each trading entity to a tight deadline on a monthly basis. Results for the month and the year to date were compared to the same period last year and also to budgets. Budgets were prepared before the start of each year and began when department heads prepared revenue budgets and capital expenditure budgets. These budgets formed the basis for all other budgets and enabled the accounts department to prepare monthly budgeted profit statements, balance sheets and cash flows. These formed the basis of annual financial planning. At quarter ends, a detailed analysis was done, which compared the actual result with budget and previous year figures and which attempted to explain differences. The managers responsible for individual profit centres or cost centres were often asked for their observations.

    I guess some companies are more entrepreneurial, and some companies more systems driven. There is no stock answer.
     
  12. Redstone

    Redstone Well-Known Member

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  13. JamDrop

    JamDrop Well-Known Member

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    It’s Robin Hobb. I read a lot of fantasy which I suspect would not be to a lot of people’s tastes but she does have some damn fine lines in her books which have given me pause for thought and stuck with me for years.

    I sometimes want to use this one in threads: ‘Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another's words.’

    And this on match days: ‘Anticipating pain is like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?’
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2018
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  14. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    Of course, I would prefer to be entertained and I would prefer for us to be successful, but in practice that is not going to happen. I have put up with some real dross in my time. John McSeveney persuaded me to stop going to away matches. Those who complain about our more recent occupiers of the managers chair are clearly not old enough to have experienced that one. It has not been great under many others, but as I grew and matured, I began to see that there were other factors at play, and with the greater disparity in cash resources these days, and the higher wage demands of the players, I find I am more persuaded by by excuses from the top than ever I was when I was a callow youth. Age matures you, but it is murder on the knees.
     
  15. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    I will pass your recommendation on to my daughter. She likes fantasy. As for me...
     
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  16. nezbfc

    nezbfc Well-Known Member

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    Suppose that's what im getting at.

    Our club to get to that detail would need a couple of very busy accountants if not more. Or skills at each managed department.

    Take the acadamy and scouting as 2 seperate departments. Much of the staff in thise areas are going to be employed with the skills to that job (assumption on my part). I dont think with respect to those people they will be employed with any financial or accounting methods.

    Which goes back to my first para. Not sure how many accountants we have but i wouldnt have thought they could get to that level of breakdown. I maybe wrong mind.

    So as you rightly point out each company will have a different level of setup and detail.

    I wouldnt have thought we would have had the salary layout to analyse to that detail.

    It would be really good reading if we do (or did at amy point) so think we are left to generalise and also make assumptions.

    Which becomes harder as our accounts arent that detailed anyway.

    And especially when we get to the universally (almost) unpopular "undisclosed" we are pretty much guessing.

    Good point for debate though
     
  17. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

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    That is a fair point. We did go bust though, presumably because we did not do that sort of stuff.
     
  18. fit

    fitzytyke2 Well-Known Member

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    **** him! Can I come???
     
  19. nezbfc

    nezbfc Well-Known Member

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    I would have guessed that we had even less detail around that time.

    I do wonder though had itv digital "paid up" it would likely be a very different outcome.

    So the only way to deal with that is have enough in the bank for each debtor to go bust.

    Which on sales recently would suggest we could at least cover a monumental loss of someone else going bust.

    Suppose it depends on how much risk and safety net one wishes to build.

    Up until recently we lived each day as it comes. Balancing the books. We had patrick (rip) who would shoulder that risk.

    He built reserves no doubt about that so we would be safe for the foreseeable. Again we have to assume that. As i dont know how much and where those reserves are.

    At least we have been very profitable recently. But we wont hit those highs every year. And currently unless sell ons are activated i cant see much value in our current stock compared to what we had.

    We do however gave a promising set of youngsters coning through bu the sounds of it.

    Future seems bright but the here and now is worrying
     
  20. orsenkaht

    orsenkaht Well-Known Member

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    Interesting, RR. Most (but not all) of my working life was spent in the public sector, which is usually renowned for it's bureaucratic practices. But I don't think even our reporting structures were as labyrinthine as the ones you describe above. It reminds me of the old helicopter analogy, which I encountered on numerous management courses. The idea being that you shouldn't fly so high that you can't see the detail on the ground, nor so low that you miss the bigger picture. Or something like that!

    If your knees are that bad you must have been raised Catholic, like one or two of us on here!
     

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