The Academy

Ermm

 

The 1st Team Do not use the indoor facilities, and haven’t for a while due to the age and condition of the pitch. Degraded and too hard - causes injury.

This is being renewed next month to the latest surface and then will once again be used by the first team.

It is a good facility, which has suffered like most of the ground from minimal investment over the years. During bad weather it will be used by first team, and also at times where maybe a less public view of tactics might be required.

 

There are two distinct parts to what I wrote in my original piece. There is the capital cost of the ground and training facility improvements which were paid for through the sale of players. Part, but only part of those costs is attributable to the academy because if we did not have the academy, we would not have needed to spend all of that money, because those facilities are too large for just first team squad training. Similarly, the North stand is far too large to hold normal away crowd requirements. If we needed to increase ground capacity, surely it would have been more sensible to improve home capacity which is stuck at 16500. Many posters in the past have suggested we reduce prices in order to attract higher numbers. I do not agree that it makes sense to do so, but let us have a look at that. Let us assume we reduce prices by half and that we need to double attendances as a result. If we did that, we would need a home capacity of 21000, and immediately we have a problem, because we have only 16500 home seats. The stand was built on the north side rather than the west side in order to support the academy with changing facilities. It was not built there because of any other reason. I am not saying that we need to allocate the whole of that cost to the academy. I am saying look at that and what do you think.

The second part of the original article draws attention to the fact that the academy costs £1m a year. That figure is well documented, and although it forms a smaller part of the original piece, it is the main reason for writing the piece. That £1m could have been used for other purposes. It could have been used for transfer fees or for paying wages of first team players, but it was not available because it was already committed to the academy.

 

I have read your analysis of the historical cost of the academy which by its very nature will be a bit of a gamble in purely money terms. If a new John Stones appears from the academy in the next couple of years it would alter the perspective I guess.
What I don’t really understand is your eventual purpose for doing this. Are you saying that we should scrap the academy now? Make the North Stand a home supporters stand? In other words, given where we are now, what do you reckon we should do with the facilities as built?

 

The training facilities do not need to be that large if they are just for the first team. They are larger than the minimum requirement because they were built to house the academy as well, therefore if the academy was a separate cost centre, part of the cost of those facilities should be allocated to the academy, or if you like, if you allocate all the cost to the First team profit centre, the first team profit centre should charge a rent to the academy for use of their facilities.

We sold Ashley Ward to pay for the development. We went into Administration less than 4 years later because we had run out of cash.

The academy costs £1m per year to run. It has been going for 18 years. Even if I allow you to allocate the whole of the fees for Stones, Holgate and Bree, which I do not believe were all earned by the academy, that still only comes to £14m. Our club has to sell players in order to cover trading losses. If the academy has now broken even, which I suspect it has not, it is being subsidised by the football club and we are having to sell players in order to subsidise it.

I do not claim that all my figures are accurate, but I do not have to because this is a discussion on a forum, not some formal meeting of a board. It is here as a subject for discussion, an amusement on a bitterly cold day with snow outside. Do not get so up tight about things, and try to keep calm. I am not your enemy. I am a fellow supporter and we are having a fireside chat.

 

I am not saying a lot. I have raised the subject of the academy as an interesting topic for discussion (well it interests me anyway). This is a forum. We on here have no executive power. It is all hot air. We are a group of fans having a chat around the fire.

 

We went into admin in no small part due to the unexpected and unprecedented collapse of itv digital.
You have repeatedly stated that the academy costs £1m per year but now you are trying to split it so that the first teams use gets discounted. Ok then as you like facts so much. If the entire thing costs £1m a year what percentage of that do you think is used by the first team? £200k £300? £500?
How many of the pitches are used by the first team?

You must take out of the equation the entire cost of the north stand minus the cost of a couple of changing rooms which could have been knocked up in a stand alone house for just a few thousand quid.

I do not understand your logic regarding players. We have sold far more than just the players you mentioned. There is also the VAST savings from the fact that over the past 10 years dozens f first team players have come through the academy. Players we would otherwise have bought costing us money.

 

The annual cost of the academy is not my figure. It was originally produced my Mr Cryne in an interview. My point about allocating the whole of a transfer fee to the academy is that a player's academy education ends at 18. His education continues with the first team management. If he is sold at the age of 21 part of his fee should be allocated to the first team profit centre and not the academy profit centre.

Your argument about lots of other academy players playing for the first team is a fair one. In fact, it is the other side of the argument that I made above for allocation of a later transfer fee. However, my argument is not that we should get rid of the U23 organisation. We would still need that. It is simply that we could fill that organisation with players obtained from other sources, Premier League rejects and late developers. After all, the academy U18 system has only 6 players per year passing through it and we only usually keep on 3 of those past academy level. We are clearly using the sources that I have described to recruit players anyway. All we would need to do is to recruit an additional 3 players per year.

 

Summat else completely neglected. Thanks Pat.

 

The north stand is used by away fans. Doesn't mean it is the de facto away end. If we ever need to increase home capacity we will just put away supporters in the West Stand. In fact I have sat in the north stand on a few occasions - most notably a 3-1 victory over Port Vale at Christmas 1999. Simple.

Regards the size of the stand - this is also completely justified to my mind. At the time we were trying to get back into the Premiership and if we had the ground would have been full every week. Putting that to one side it's still justified. I'd agree that the old Spion Kop held 2,000 when seated. Look back over every game where there have been more than 2,000 sat in that end and add up the gate receipts for the difference. It will cover the cost of the stand. Actually, just to clarify what figure are you bandying about for the cost of the stand itself not including the academy?

 

Sorry, I just realised what you meant. The cost of the academy (the £1m per year) is nothing to do with the cost of the pitches. The academy covers ages 8 to 18. They all have teams for their age groups and they all have coaches, and all the other stuff it takes to run a team. They all play matches both home and away against other academy teams in their age groups. They all need coach travel to away games etc. Of course, these costs increase as players get older and begin full time training and education, and need full time coaching and education. New 17 year old lads have to be recruited then because only the very best can be taken on full time. Interestingly, the Premier League academies have a right to approach our good youngster to offer them a place in their academies, and our compensation is laid down in the agreement with Premier League academies, and is dependent only on the age of the young player. Most chose not to move, but it does show that these good kids have a very limited value until such time as they sign a professional contract (18 years of age). I have no idea what proportion of players begin with us at the age of 8 and emerged at the age of 18 as young professionals. I have no doubt either that the majority of this cost is spent on the senior age group, but these costs are incurred throughout their time at the academy

 

It's not even above 2000. We aren't allowed fans on front 2 rows, back 2 or 2 either side of a gangway. On the old stand that would be more like 1500 capacity these days if that. Plus the fact we would have to drastically reduce the ticket price to sit on an uncovered mound

 

Good points.

 

As we know, our friends at SY police have a large say in what is and is not done. With the away fans in the North Stand segregation, and particularly pre and post match segregation is easy. Their coaches are parked at that end of the ground so it is quite simple to keep supporters separate. If streams of supporters were crossing, there is bound to be trouble.

The development was done after we left the Premier League. I'm sorry but if is your contention that we were planning as if we would soon be back there, which, by the way, I do not think we were, then I disagree. The North Stand could have been built at a later date, should we have ever regained our Premier League status.

 

First paragraph- absolute piffle.

Please remind everyone which season the north stand was first open for and then remind everyone what happened in that season.

 

Which bit is piffle.

 

Were you aware of the unused segregated turnstiles in the north stand?

 

No I wasn't. When were they last used?

 

I watched much of the Bassett play-off season from the North Stand. I liked the view, it's steeper than The Ponty and I prefer to be behind the goals.

The North Stand isn't an away stand. It wasn't built just for away supporters. It was built to house both home and away supporters and when we were attracting bigger crowds, that's how it was used. At the moment we don't need those extra seats for home supporters. We can save money on stewarding and segregation by housing all home fans in the other three stands. Should we become successful again and attract more home fans than can be accommodated in the other three stands then the North stand will once again be open to Barnsley supporters.

In the meantime, when we do host teams with a large away following, we are able to accommodate those fans in our large North stand.

Had we redeveloped the West Stand rather than the North Stand we would be limited to accommodating just a couple of thousand away fans on the old spion kop. A number of clubs this season alone have travelled to Oakwell with more fans than that. We would have lost out on valuable income from opposition ticket sales.

How many games since the opening of the North stand have required more seats for Barnsley fans than are available in the three stands currently open to us? A handful at the most? And even then, as stated above, we can segregate the North stand. Developing the West Stand would have brought in no extra income.

What we did makes the most financial sense.

 

You can't always quantify things such as these true value to the club and community; the indoor bit has housed alsorts over the years. For instance kids football and football camps, them kids may go on to be lifelong reds fans. We used to use it for fit reds, some of those lifestyle changes made that have been sustained will have added years on to folks lives, extra income if they are a season ticket holder. All sorts of benefits really, the not so obvious that has been undervalued for years, parts that Barnsley needs to do well with to keep its soul, but never been forward thinking enough.