Quote:
Originally Posted by bdc
the club have already messed Burnley Reserves around too many times and it wouldn't surprise me if they lost the contract for next season.
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So what if we do? No offence to LancsDave and his burnley mates here, but I for one wouldn't mind keeping our pitch for us for a couple of seasons especially if we're gonna spend a bit of money on the pitch to get it right. A pitch needs time to bed in and one less friendly won't do any harm. I mean no offence to burnley but they don't exactly come out in their droves anymore for the friendly at our place I think the gate is usually between 2500 - 3500 now, which don't get me wrong is a good gate but if its a tenner to get in and 2/3rds pay full price (baring in mind the amount of concessions), it works out at approximately £20,000 less costs (including a considerable and costly police presence).
Now factor into this that over the past 12 months we've played burnley not just in preseason but also at the Turf for the SOS game, I anticipate that the turn out for any friendly with us, at the beginning of next season at least, would be poorly attended, maybe between 2000 - 2500.
So my suggestion is this, if the club can find a stadium sponsor, then why not cancel the Burnley friendly for this season and use some of the sponsorship money to offset this (this would also save us the costs)? Ask burnley if they would mind playing their reserve games elsewhere this season (something I don't think will be a problem after this season), and for this season at least give our pitch a rest. Letting our pitch get some rest, will in turn save us money throughout the season on postponing games and groundworks such as vertidraining and the like. If you then add up the savings made on the pitch by giving it time to rest and add this to the costs we would incur through various channels by staging the burnley friendy, it seems pretty fair to assume that the total monies we save, would be similar to the amount used from the sponsorship moneys to allow the cancellaton of the burnley friendly in the first place.
This essentially means the club breaks even on the sponsorship deal and we have a pitch that is in reasonably good nick for the entire of the 2010/11 season.
Not a bad trade off for me really.