It's a poor league too. Blackburn are top, despite their form being as inconsistent as it gets. They've gone WWWLLLWLWLWLWLW. They've 7 defeats already; Bournemouth went up with just 8 defeats all of last season.
My good friend is a big hudds fan. He reckons they’re doomed - I said at the start of the season when they lost toffolo, LOB and corberan that it smells of a repeat of our previous season and he is now beginning to agree. their new manager seems a total t**t. He’s lost half the fan base already apparently, throwing players under the bus, speaking as I fb he’s a somebody when he has no real credibility to his name, they seem to think he’s trying to pull wool over their eyes. I don’t mind hudds, I’d like to see them stay up.
As I’ve said before I find their fans more arrogant then Leeds fans here in Wakey, hope they get relegated.
My youngest, an Udders ST holder, said at the start of the season he saw them as "this year's Barnsley" as they would follow Play-Offs with Relegation and I hate to say it but I hope he's right! (Not for him, of course but for all the Leeds United Wannabe's that support 'em!)
Didn't know who the Hudds manager was to be fair, had to Google him. Bit of a strange choice if you ask me, not got much of a pedigree has he? It's not looking good for them.
The owner stepping down...... https://www.htafc.com/news/2022/october/a-statement-from-dean-hoyle/ What interested me though was these two articles in the local Huddersfield Examiner...... https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/spor...-town-takeover-attractions-drawbacks-25361806 https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/football/news/huddersfield-town-next-owner-future-25359349 In debt (freebies/loans), don't own their stadium outright (Barnsley Council), owned for a long time by a local fan (Cryne family) and worried selling the club it might end up in the hands of chancers (Conman/Lee). All the above sounds like us.
They are in a bit of a pickle to say the least. Their precarious league position won't help matters. I couldn't see Hoyle putting them into admin, but will depend if they can service their £12million loans. They may need to do that from player sales I guess.
Total w@nk socks. I had the displeasure of chatting with a few in the Elephant and Castle. Apparently it's a Huddersfield Town pub if ever one existed in Wakefield.
I don't give a flying daffy duck about their problems, and in fact I rather like taking some giddy goat pleasure from it actually. They've shat in their own beds (so to speak), and now they've got to lie in it, and suffer because they can't afford to clean it up lol. Very much like we also did last season of course!. And hey Micky Helik, I hope the many plenty Zlotties are good kid, because your in another awful relegation scrap, whether you like it or even care.
Helik was a mercenary who downed tools v Forest in the home game. He had odd decent game but went through the motions. It's a shame Wolfe was the only player to publicly admit going through the motions and giving up. I suspect he wasn't the only one.
Yeah Helik was a very important player for us of course, but at times his attitude was also very 'questionable' to say the least.
Thanks for posting @dreamboy3000. I agree there are parallels and Town appear to be at the point we were when Patrick's health deteriorated and he sold the club to the Lee/Conway consortium albeit that their debt is much, much greater - £48.9m versus £7.4m (referring back to @Archerfield 's post here: https://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/fc-finances-last-16-years.309697/ Whilst approximately 75% of Town's debt is to Hoyle, they are surely going to be dependent on him writing off a reasonable proportion of that in order to secure a sale? Like us but even more so, they have been living beyond their means and are dependent on player sales to reduce the shortfall. But unlike us, in recent years they seem to get better value for their bigger sales: Philip Billing £15m, £10m combined fee for O'brien and Toffolo, Karlan Grant £15m, Pipa (substantial undisclosed) all according to reports. The value of our sales in the last window was clearly impacted by relegation but even in previous windows our model hasn't produced anything approaching the value of theirs. Perhaps their players were simply better than ours? Like us though, relegation would severely impact the value of their remaining assets and given they're carrying much greater debt this would surely be a big problem. I think the Examiner paints a rosier picture than reality right now and they could be in trouble. I also found this section of the second Examiner article very interesting: "Huddersfield Town are something of an oddity in modern football: a club that has spent the past 14 years owned by wealthy fans of the club, first with Hoyle then Phil Hodgkinson then Hoyle again. Whatever you think of their respective times in charge and the decisions they have made, that has at least ensured their custodians have had the best interests of the club at heart. You don’t need to be a fan to do that, of course; there are other incentives for owners with no prior connection to a club, and we suspect that most become something of a supporter within days of stepping in the door anyway. But there are also plenty of chancers and profiteers out there whose interest extends as far as owning a status symbol or making a quick buck." I think the final sentence is a reasonable summary of our former majority shareholders. I believe that Conway has previously said that English football clubs were undervalued but evidence suggests that even allowing for that, turning a profit on the initial investment is very difficult to do. It's also made me think again about the motives of the new majority shareholders and I really don't know what they are. Clearly, making a quick buck isn't feasible so are they now in it for the long term, building gradually with the aim of eventually getting to the riches of the Premier League? I don't think they've said it's still about return on investment but I believe in the long term it still is and that the return will also include the recent cash injections.
Just reading up on Huddersfield and finances etc and a couple of snippets: 2 years in PL they received viva £100m per season but expenditure was £250m. Currently without player trading Hoyle says they would have a £10m deficit each season.
That'll be news to all the Leeds fans who gather there before games then. Well, when it was open anyway. I guess it wasn't big enough for all the millions of Huddersfields fans in Wakefield, they need their own pub afterall apparently!
