I know we have moaned in the past around the board selling all the best players off but don't think we've ever seen anything as bad as what is happening at Crawley at the moment. Majority of the play off winning side have been sold off now with reports that 2 more are close to leaving too. Only 1 new signing brought in so far. They look absolutely nailed on for that bottom spot in L1 at the moment.
This is in no way a big time Charlie comment but I do genuinely wonder how clubs at league 1-2 survive on gates of 2 or 3 thousand. The wage bill to sustain a pro club must be above their income but then you look at the national league and most if not all are run on a pro basis baffles me.
Look like another basket case of owners. Last season they had a striker on a bonus scheme to win the ball back in the opposition half and offered a centre half a bonus for heading the ball.
Agree. It should be survival of the fittest. A lot of these lower league clubs are novelty clubs. It's a great story for news crews and fantastic romance. However, it mostly ends up like a Shakespearean tragedy.
I read Cheltenham's forum on the day Darrell Clarke signed, and their fans were comparing themselves in terms of budget and attendances to National League and NLS clubs.
Smaller clubs really not helped by EFL insisting on grass pitches. I'm involved in girls football at Horsforth St Margarets and heaps of our teams used to play in monthly galas at Harrogate Town when they were non league. They used to get loads of cash in both at weekends and during the week from renting their pitch out to local community teams to train etc. Get promoted to the League and lose all that income, get the cost of digging the pitch up and installing a grass one and add in the uncertainty of postponements etc over the winter. And then back to square one if they go back out of the league. Presume Bromley will be having the same issues this summer. Clearly 4g etc have massively improved since the days of Luton /QPR having success on the back of crap plastic pitches. Surely a rethink in order - most teams will train on these surfaces now so it's no real advantage in having one for home teams, just the costs falling to smaller clubs. And the removal of a very useful community asset as well.
I know of several non-league players, playing semi-locally, who're on £1500 a week. It's absolute insanity.
It can only be a rich man's play thing nothing else makes sense, 1500 quid in the 5th tier unsustainable surely
Sold our old keeper to Stockport. https://www.crawleytownfc.com/news/2024/june/27/corey-addai-joins-stockport-county/
It'll not be every single player, probably two or three in a team that earn that kind of money. The big fish in the little pond if you like. I have heard tales, second hand of course, that our ex prodigy Joe Ackroyd was being touted around the non-league sides not long back (not sure if he's now signed somewhere) and his "expectations" were similar to those mentioned in my last post. There's no FFP at that level. So yeah, a rich man's play thing indeed. It's what league 1 was probably 10/15 years ago. Plenty of chairmen want the "better" lower league players and will pay that kind of money for one or two really good lads at that level.
Can't blame the lads if they get that sort of money but even if it's only 2 or 3 it's some cash to be found on gates of a few hundreds.
Their average gate last season was 3500, so unless they get a wealthy owner they’ll never be able to fend off bids for their players. Factor in the cost of living down there and it’s a tough existence.
