https://www.skysports.com/football/...d-new-consortium-in-acquiring-league-two-club Another club on the rise?
Just read that. One thing I picked up on. Was Beckam saying he grew up in Salford. ?. London till he was 16.
I read that aswell and thought the same. Strange club to put money into. Salford hardly a affluent area and surrounded by big clubs.
Tbf to Beckham he was there from being 14, so it’s a big part of his childhood. He’s a working class lad, I love the clip from the Beckhams series where Victoria is making out they’re from the same working class background and he puts his head around the door and forces her to admit her dad took her to school in a Roles Royce.
A little confusing tbh. Wiki (I know it can be error ridden at times) Born in 75. At Tottenham till 1991 (out on loan at a non league club 89-91) Man utd youth after that. Did buy his first house in Salford though in 97 apparently.
You said exactly the same about Reading’s sale and again you are comparing apples and oranges. Salford have attracted new money in using the profile of Beckham, Neville and so on. We havent got a class of 92 in our ownership, we aren’t based in a metropolis of millions, and we don’t have existing owners and advisors with friends in very high places within the game. If you are going to post the same thing every time a club gets a new owner or a bit of investment you are going to get very boring. Could we find a buyer? Yeah probably. But you need to be very careful what you wish for. Neerav Parekh has got things wrong and the club might have suffered for it - but his intentions aren’t what a lot of leeches in football’s are. Very rich people around the world might be attracted to a project with David Beckham as a figurehead. Some Hollywood celebs might want to take a club from non-league to the premier league as a vanity project. But there arent a queue of people wanting to indiscriminately throw money at Barnsley FC. We don’t have a load of rich and famous supporters. We don’t have many rich and famous people from the local area. The club isn’t based in an area attractive to people to want to move to or invest in. The ceiling on support numbers is much more limited. It is questionable why anyone would want to buy a football club. But unless you have an affinity to Barnsley as a place or to the club itself, it is very hard to acquire an owner who will absorb all the losses, inject even more money, and try to grow the club. If they were relatively successful and we got to be a competitive championship team, we’d still only shift 14k season tickets tops and at not a very high price. Like I said in the Reading thread, I’ll take a well intentioned owner that makes errors and is a bit naive over people like Conway and Lee any day of the week.
It's hilarious how every time some tiny shitty non entity club gets massive financial backing you find reasons why they're so much more viable than a club with 130 odd years of football history, a massively bigger fan base and a great geographical location. 25 years of Cryne and US ownership gaslighting as to our identity and place in the big scheme of things have truly taken their toll on people's expectations.
What’s hilarious is your sense of entitlement and misguided thinking that leads to a view that 130 years of history makes a one jot of difference to an investor (if it did they’d buy Notts County - or even Sheffield FC.) As for ‘great geographical location’ - that’s subjective at best. I’d argue a fair bit optimistic. I wouldn’t want to live outside South Yorkshire. Tried it and didn’t like it. All the amenities and comforts I need - with beautiful views and countryside on my doorstep; plus decent transport links to other places too. But I’m not so blinkered as to think that view would be shared by anything like a majority of people. If you are so insistent that I (and others who have made the same point) are wrong, what makes that the case? Why is Barnsley FC a good proposition? What makes the area ‘good geographically’? Why is 130 years of history important to people who don’t support the club or know much about English football history? On support - We don’t have a fan base that’s particularly bigger than Reading. Recent seasons their attendances are markedly bigger than ours and our official attendances are higher than the physical ones, we all know that. Salford are smaller of course but are trying to tap into the disillusioned Man Utd support (as well as get backing from people who will always ‘support’ Man Utd but might well attend Salford). With them it’s more about potential - but mainly because brand Beckham is involved. We don’t have that. We used to have loads of kids at our games in United shirts, Leeds; Liverpool even. It used to annoy me - until I realised that these kids won’t all abandon the club, and won’t always say they support the ‘big club’. Some will become our core support of the future. I don’t see it so much anymore, the odd one from United, City these days too. It is not unfair to point out that a club on the outskirts of London, and club within the Manchester metropolitan area, have a lot more to sell themselves on and a much bigger potential catchment to tap into. Barnsley FC will always be loved by the select few. You can’t force the outside world to buy into that. Wrexham is of course an outlier to my argument; there’s no sane reason for what is happening there. As stated that’s clearly a vanity project for some wealthy people who attract other wealthy (but not necessarily hugely intelligent) people to back them. Unless we get lucky, become the next Wrexham, I don’t know - maybe get the Hemsworth Brothers to invest as we are the nearest club to the place that shares their name; get a show on Disney plus, Netflix or Amazon etc - then we can’t really compare ourselves to them. Moreover, nobody knows whether the investments into Reading and Salford are actually going to lead to any level of success. In Reading’s case it seems to be club saving - for Salford, what is the ambition? Genuinely, I may be pessimistic, but if you offered me Barnsley FC still being in existence and solvent in five years, competing in league one or even two - it isn’t what I want that’s for sure - but I’d probably take it. We have a lot more in common with Bury, Scunthorpe, Southend, Oldham than we do with clubs like those mentioned, and maybe Bournemouth, Forest. I’d love for us to go up and establish ourselves in the next league - though I’d imagine Preston fans aren’t hugely happy with their lot either for example.
Salford averaged under 3k fans this season in league 2. Most of the population around the area are united, city or liverpool fans. I don't think you can say it's a great investment.
Sheffield FC aren't in League 1. Notts County would be a good buy except their market is massively diminished by having another huge club in the same town. Neither have the proven ability to sustain second tier football over the massive long term. We're very obviously one of the most attractive propositions for takeover in the country. Big potential support base, massively underachieving versus historic baseline. It's weird that people can't see it.
If that is your honest view then there’s very little point continuing the conversation. Suffice to say I don’t agree.
You’re right with a lot of stuff but not the comparison on the support number ceiling. Salford struggle to get 3k home fans in their ground and I’d be amazed if they could ever double that no matter what they did. No way will they ever compare to what we can get if successful.
We're definitely a more attractive investment than Salford. I think if we had the same success we would get similar gates and support to Burnley.
