Turning gold into mud tricky for English clubs

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Owen Coyle has probably no idea the trouble caused in his name at Celtic.  Notions that his granny’s uncle’s cousin passed on verifiable information that either Owen rejected the Celtic job, or that he did so because he didn’t agree with the direction the club were going, were clearly nonsense at the time and are more evidently the case now.

Having just earned promotion to the English Premier League the man chose not to be interviewed for the Celtic position, a perfectly defendable decision.  He was never offered a job.  Coyle performed well at St Johnstone (without winning promotion) and did well at Burnley before managing an inevitable decline at Bolton.  He remains a good manager who I hope gets back into the game soon.

The Bolton lesson to football is stark.  On some levels the club was well run.  Good manager, good scouts, a small but faithful following, a chairman who could see the iceberg ahead, all signed up to the ambition to remain in top flight football, but their budget was forever under pressure.   Debts topped £100m, although the directors ensured public services didn’t suffer as a result of their ‘ambition’.

Three years ago Phil Gartside, the Bolton chairman, knew the model in the English game was unsustainable and tried to change things.  He failed, unfortunately, and was unable to produce a reverse alchemy – turning tens of millions of pounds from Sky TV each year into a 17th place finish in the Premier League.  I hope the change works for them.

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705 Comments

  1. Miki 67….

     

     

    Are You ‘Sectarian’ And ‘Fattist’ Too…?

     

     

    Yer Pal….Who Thinks Yer Smairter Than Buttermulk Dainties….

     

     

    ~~~~~~~~

     

     

    How come GigaWatt didn’t make the Bench on Sunday…?

     

     

    Was he injured…?

     

     

    Get him signed up for the next decade…

     

     

    He is a ‘natural’…..

     

     

    Not a ‘manufactured’ player,like Hooper..

  2. Good evening friends.

     

     

    Good news for me as a Celtic and Scotland fan that Kris has finally been called up to the squad, a squad he should have been in from the outset. Of course it’ll only become really good news if he actually plays.

  3. googybhoy ♥ Celtic

     

     

    16:51 on 9 October, 2012

     

     

    asonofdan

     

     

    16:15 on 9 October, 2012

     

    miki67

     

     

    Out of interest, what was Hitler’s confirmation name?

     

     

    Ghenghis?

     

     

     

    Was it not Minty

  4. Valentine's Day on

    miki67

     

    17:56 on

     

    9 October, 2012

     

    I’m outta here. Enough is enough.

     

    Lurking from now on.

     

    ____________________________

     

     

    I enjoy you’re post’s m8 you must always fight the fight.

  5. South Of Tunis on

    Hitler had one ball to play with .–

     

     

    Did Minty leave The Huns with no ball to play with ?

  6. Two memories of Jock Stein

     

     

    Standing in the celtic end as a boy with my da(r.i.p) , at that time celtic park

     

    held 80,000+, and someone said big jock`s up and it seemed to me that the whole

     

    stadium stopped watching the game and turned to see what he was doing. It was the

     

    first time that I realised that a manager was just as important or even more important

     

    than the players.

     

     

    In my day, dont know if they still do, but once a year you went out with your teammates

     

    to do a collection for the sfa and went door to door. Someone said that Jock lived in that

     

    house there, me and my mates didnt have the courage to go to his door and stood for

     

    twenty mins in the street just looking at his door, such was the awe we felt, someone,

     

    not me, plucked up the courage to go to his door and he wasnt in lol.

     

     

    Great man

  7. Hope to God Kris doesn’t get to play or we run the risk of bringing on the curse of the internationals – something we Celtic fans are quite familiar with….

     

     

    The fewer international games that our players are involved in this week the better as far as I’m concerned.

     

     

    Who gives a t*ss about them anyway?

  8. I thought you might Jobo! No probs – just HOPE he doesn’t get injured if that’s the case.

  9. Afternoon all,

     

     

    If anyone is interested in watching someone do something really, really stupid watch this guy free fall from 120,000 feet in an attempt to break the sound barrier.

     

     

    http://youtube.com/redbull is showing live footage.

     

     

    He has only just got into the capsule which will be hanging under a balloon so the action wont happen for a few hours yet as it floats to the correct altitude.

     

     

    There are only two outcomes to this madness!!

     

     

    Hail Hail

  10. Dublinbhoy,

     

    intrigued as i am by the mad sky diver if this goes ahead

     

    unfortunately i can only see one outcome

  11. Is there still an archive for CQN?

     

    Trying to place a posters ole blog name,it will come to me eventually.

     

    hh

  12. gordybhoy64

     

     

    They have been given the go ahead for the attempt.

     

    I suspect you are correct…as some wag said, “it’ll only take a few minutes for the descent but will probably take a couple of hours to dig him out of the hole”.

     

     

    Crazy people everywhere!!

     

     

    Hail Hail

  13. i think all clubs in big leagues will continue to struggle with income because no matter the level of income via t.v, the players simply take it all and want more. anyone know how many clubs in the EPL are not in debt?

     

     

    eventually these clubs will have to address the gap between income and outgoing and the result will be less income available for playing squads. the current setup is unsustainable. the only clubs that will benefit from this is big clubs in smaller leagues, like us. we will be able to offer better wages than those on offer at the likes of bolton, west bromich albian and swansea etc…

     

     

    celtic will be in a good shape by sticking to our current business model, so long as the income we generate now goes towards increase and diversify our business model.

  14. That bloke attempting to break the sound barrier while freefalling from 120k feet has got to live another day. Weather conditions have caused the suicide mission to be postponed til probably tomorrow.

     

     

    Hail Hail

  15. The Battered Bunnet on

    Thanks to Malcolm Murray, we now know that he has managed to sell 36,000 season tickets. No mean feat given where the business was when he was appointed Chairman.

     

     

    Net of VAT, a season ticket to watch games at Ibrox this season costs £215, meaning his business has generated £7.74 Million in revenue. Add in walk up sales and the odd cup tie, match day sales of catering and the revenue from the retail shop at the stadium, some sponsorship and advertisiing, plus his share of the SFL’s £1M TV deal, he can rely on around £12M of income for this year.

     

     

    I understand that the business has cut the first team payroll to around £6M, and when added to the fixed overhead costs of the business, match day costs and running the Murray Park operation, he has a cost base of around £20M, leaving an £8M shortfall this year. (The Adminstrators Final Report was very helpful in understanding the nature of the cost base.)

     

     

    Murray looks forward to a “successful IPO later this month”, although it remains to be seen whether the business will be permitted to trade shares on one of the exchanges. Charles Green’s comments last week indicate that subscription will be by invitation only rather than a public offering, indicating that the offer will be restricted and the business will remain unlisted.

     

     

    In any event, Murray needs the share issue to generate sufficent cash to cover the requisite trading shortfalls over a minimum 3 years, more likely 5 years, of the business plan, suggesting the definition of ‘success’ starts in the order of £25m.

     

     

    Such an outcome, in addition to being somewhat ambitious when set in the context of the traditional reticence of his target “investor group”, will deliver only sufficient cash to cover the foreseeable cash shortfall in the coming period of business. There needs to be an exit for the Sevco investors in due course, indicating a dilution for investors who take up the offer this time around.

     

     

    More likely, total subscriptions will provide cash sufficient for the coming year only, compelling the business to undertake the kind of cost cutting suggested in Jon Pritchard’s piece in Forbes today.

     

     

    The above takes no account of the complexities, obligations and interests wrapped up in the initial Sevco investment.

     

     

    Seems to me that the target ‘investors’ are being sold a vision that is unlikely to be realised, and consequently that the likely outcome is a substantial and sustained slashing of the cost base following the IPO in early course.

     

     

    All in my opinion, of course, which is entirely unreliable even on a good day.

     

     

    TBB

  16. The Battered Bunnet

     

    All in my opinion, of course, which is entirely unreliable even on a good day.

     

    ——

     

    More reliable than anything that comes out of the “dupers factory”

  17. Bhoy on Snyde said it was reported at this week’s NUJ Conference in Newcastle,25 of their members have been personally threatened by huns fans.Delahunt said he heard about it ,wee Dawwell takes the 5th,as he does on anything negative about his heroes.

  18. miki67

     

     

    No offence was taken. Take into account, I do not read all the posts, I sometimes do not understand tongue in cheek, do not know all the posters.

     

    Should have not asked the question? I must have missed something.

  19. New issue of CQN Magazine just about ready. If all goes to plan this evening, Paul should be posting it tomorrow lunchtime on here. It’s the best issue of the magazine yet by a country mile. Looking forward to reading the feedback tomorrow…

  20. TBB

     

     

    Even before your figures my intuition and the speed Murray’s response tells me this is a scam where the turkey is being fattened so that the farmer will run off with the legs and breast leaving the customer with the giblets and a parson’s nose

     

     

    It looks like a spiv operation to me. Heard a caller on Clyde say their support need to be vigilant and DK agreeing so maybe lessons are being learned