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Post by oldsealandroadender on Dec 1, 2020 17:59:28 GMT
Has anyone seen the online article from The Times with Andy Morris. I can't read it all as I'm not a subscriber and don't want to be. Any chance someone can copy and paste it for the rest of us.
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The Times
Dec 1, 2020 19:05:09 GMT
via mobile
Post by agl on Dec 1, 2020 19:05:09 GMT
Has anyone seen the online article from The Times with Andy Morris. I can't read it all as I'm not a subscriber and don't want to be. Any chance someone can copy and paste it for the rest of us. Yeah and can someone record the stream of tonight's match for me and send over so I can watch but not pay. Cheers
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The Times
Dec 1, 2020 19:14:17 GMT
via mobile
Post by league2 on Dec 1, 2020 19:14:17 GMT
misery arse
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Post by Deva Chanter on Dec 1, 2020 19:17:44 GMT
Has anyone seen the online article from The Times with Andy Morris. I can't read it all as I'm not a subscriber and don't want to be. Any chance someone can copy and paste it for the rest of us. Yeah and can someone record the stream of tonight's match for me and send over so I can watch but not pay. Cheers Surely this is tongue in cheek? Not paying a phone-hacking, billionaire scumbag like Rupert Murdoch for the privilege of reading an article is not remotely comparable to not paying the club for a stream.
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Post by Matt on Dec 1, 2020 19:23:42 GMT
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Post by ivawhopper on Dec 1, 2020 19:34:48 GMT
A useful contribution there son!
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The Times
Dec 1, 2020 19:42:45 GMT
via mobile
Post by agl on Dec 1, 2020 19:42:45 GMT
Yeah and can someone record the stream of tonight's match for me and send over so I can watch but not pay. Cheers Surely this is tongue in cheek? Not paying a phone-hacking, billionaire scumbag like Rupert Murdoch for the privilege of reading an article is not remotely comparable to not paying the club for a stream. Depends on your perspective really. We have a thread on here about the demise of the Chronicle. Print journalism is dying. Some papers have gone down the route of charging for content. It's your choice if you pay or not but if articles are simply copied and shared round surely you can see that ultimately people lose their jobs as papers make cuts. You may take the view that it's fine because it's a Murdoch paper and I guess you'd be the same with dodgy Sky streams, which hits the income of clubs. Oh hang on, it really is the same as pirating our stream. So no, not tongue in cheek
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2020 20:59:53 GMT
‘Cliff edge’ looming for Chester – and other non-League clubs
Andy Morris, the Chester FC chairman, tells Paul Joyce that difficult decisions will have to be made once funding runs out in the new year.
Just a few miles from where Hollywood has landed, the future for Chester FC is rather more uncertain.
There is, according to the chairman Andy Morris, a “cliff edge” looming on January 1 and whether the club will still be playing fixtures in National League North in the new year remains in the balance.
Wrexham may have embraced its new-found celebrity status following the takeover by the A-listers Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, but their local rivals must rely on less glamorous methods to survive.
Founded in 2010 after the winding-up of Chester City, Chester FC are one of a number of clubs who have called for transparency into how a £10 million National Lottery bailout has been allocated by the National League.
The belief was that the money would be based on lost gate receipts, with Chester, whose average gate prior to the coronavirus pandemic was 2,000, receiving £108,000 for the months of October, November and December. And yet Boreham Wood, who attracted an average crowd size of 700 in the National League last term, were awarded £252,000.
It has prompted accusations that some National League board members have had a conflict of interest and there have been calls for the chairman Brian Barwick to resign. Far from solving anything, the outlook is still precarious for many.
“We know we have got funding until the end of December,” Morris said. “We will cut our cloth accordingly but there is a cliff edge on January 1 where we don’t know if there is any future support.
“We are then left with multiple options, none of which are overly nice, as to how we keep running as a football club. It is not just us. I would say there are a dozen clubs who are going to be in the same situation.”
There are indications an independent review will be carried out into how the money has been dispensed (clubs are awaiting clarity over whether the funds are the same as those Oliver Dowden, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, outlined in his £300 million Sport Winter Survival Package).
Yet the former FA chairman David Bernstein is mooted to be overseeing it. He worked with Barwick, a former FA chief executive, and provides a testimonial on Barwick’s website. Future financial support is necessary, even though Chester has been allocated in tier two for coronavirus restrictions and up to 2,000 supporters will be allowed back into the Deva Stadium for next Tuesday’s home game with Hereford.
The likelihood is, however, that it will be a test event for the club’s 750 season-ticket holders and so the financial benefits will be limited. After that, there is not another home game until Chorley’s visit on December 28, by which time Chester could be reappraised, in tier three and unable to open its doors.
It is not a model by which to project spending patterns for March or April. “Football without spectators is pointless but allowing in the numbers we are talking about is not going to be a magic bullet,” Morris said. And so the difficult conversations have started.
The club is owned by supporters, City Fans United, and as a community interest company they cannot run up debt. Mothballing and liquidation have been discussed and it is to Morris’s credit that he is trying to plot the best course of action now so that should Chester find themselves peering over the cliff in January he knows which way to jump.
“If we cannot function as a football club then how do we safeguard the business until the 2021-22 season?” Morris, who saw the team lose 2-1 to Gateshead at the weekend before tonight’s home game with Alfreton Town, said.
“That may include mothballing and saying, ‘Actually we cannot conclude our fixtures,’ in a similar way that Merthyr Town have done this year. What Merthyr said was, ‘We can’t take part this season but we will be all right for next season.’ They have done the fixture list without them. Again, that is one of your worst-case scenarios.
“As a chairman, I would never commit to contracts that we cannot honour. We see in the EFL [English Football League] that clubs go into administration — but we can’t, we won’t, do that.
“So, effectively, it is either mothballing it or, if we go down the liquidation route, you start at the bottom of the football pyramid and it is a brand new company and you have got all the problems with that. “These are conversations we are going to be having in the coming weeks. All clubs at our level are assessing their options should we not get any further support. I don’t think that should be a surprise. It would be foolish to wait until January to have those conversations.”
There has been limited support from the Premier League giants in Chester’s vicinity, though Morris does not see it as the responsibility of Liverpool or Everton to ensure the smooth running of another club. Pre-season friendlies have boosted coffers in the past and would help again in the future.
“Ourselves, Wrexham and Tranmere are fiercely passionate about our independence,” he said. “I would never want to be ‘Liverpool B’ or ‘Everton B’ but working together makes the football economy stronger.”
Mention of Wrexham draws the stark contrast with the National League side who are just 13 miles away but, in many respects, now inhabit a different world. A Netflix-style documentary is expected to chronicle attempts to re-establish Wrexham, while Reynolds has said one of their aims will be to “always beat Chester”.
“He must be planning on either getting Wrexham relegated or us promoted by that statement,” Morris chuckled. “We will be delighted to play them and we will be delighted to beat them again.
“Behind the scenes there is actually a good relationship between the boards. They have come away from fan ownership and I respect their decision. I just hope they don’t lose that community spirit and what helped the club survive previously.
“We see them with so much money . . . it has happened before in football and it will happen again that a club will have significant windfalls and investments. It is how you spend that money. It is about developing your infrastructure and not spending it all on players.”
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Post by oldsealandroadender on Dec 2, 2020 0:30:30 GMT
Yeah and can someone record the stream of tonight's match for me and send over so I can watch but not pay. Cheers Surely this is tongue in cheek? Not paying a phone-hacking, billionaire scumbag like Rupert Murdoch for the privilege of reading an article is not remotely comparable to not paying the club for a stream. I am not depriving The Times of any income as they offer a free one month trial. I just don't want to go through the faff of the signing up process to read just one article. Apart from having to provide my bank details, which won't be used as long as I remember to cancel, I am not keen on the prospect of my inbox being bombarded with even more stuff I have absolutely no interest in and having to spend more of my precious time going through and deleting crap. And just to note I contribute my fair share to the streams of our games so nobody is losing out on anything.
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Post by superman on Dec 2, 2020 9:21:03 GMT
The Times article is a stark reminder of where we are. We can’t say we didn’t know or weren’t told. The board seem to me to be doing a terrific job under extremely difficult circumstances not of their making. We need to trust and support their judgements.
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Post by agl on Dec 2, 2020 9:55:30 GMT
Surely this is tongue in cheek? Not paying a phone-hacking, billionaire scumbag like Rupert Murdoch for the privilege of reading an article is not remotely comparable to not paying the club for a stream. I am not depriving The Times of any income as they offer a free one month trial. I just don't want to go through the faff of the signing up process to read just one article. Apart from having to provide my bank details, which won't be used as long as I remember to cancel, I am not keen on the prospect of my inbox being bombarded with even more stuff I have absolutely no interest in and having to spend more of my precious time going through and deleting crap. And just to note I contribute my fair share to the streams of our games so nobody is losing out on anything. Fair enough. And now that the article is on the forum, it should be essential reading. Unless we can get 2000 fans in the ground it's not looking great. I think we are maxed out on fundraising from within but is there any more that can be done to make sure the club completes the season?
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