The Alloa Athletic Thread

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

This is genuinely interesting and hopefully it remains civil.

Shame we don't have the actual figures.

No reason why it wouldn't be civil. Nobody has an axe to grind here, but the income from 3G pitches is usually massively over-stated because they were seen as moneyspinners when they first arrived I think. The truth is somewhat different. We choose not to hire ours largely and up to this season we don't train on it either, although we are now doing so every Wednesday. It's used by the first team every second Saturday and every Wednesday. The Reserves have a daytime home game every 2 - 3 weeks in the season. The 16s and 18s are at home every second Sunday and they also train on the pitch for a couple of hours two nights a week. The ladies team occasionally use it but generally play their home games elsewhere. We have two indooor five a side pitches which do well but we don't encourage main pitch hires generally.

28 minutes ago, LeodhasXD said:

I'll concede @Skyline Drifter300k is optimistic after sitting down but prize money isn't. Alloa Ath - £116k SPFL prize money as estimated by @SPFLmediawatch on twitter. Stenhousemuir is estimated as just £89k after winning the fourth tier last year.

I'll keep it as simple as possible through timeslots its used. Obviously for Alloa Athletic you're not going to get any income but you'd pay to have the same facility elsewhere. 4 days its fully booked from 6-9. £40 a third would give you over 48 weeks £69120. Dunfermline would have been in 4 days a week for 4 hours.  They'd have got a healthy discount however I'd wager.

I don't massively keep up with the youths and women due to time involved but estimate they're at home 24 times a year on Fridays - Sundays. Throw the use our changing facilities in it might be £300 instead of just £200 for the pitch. For the 4 teams - £28,800. 

There's kids youth teams in most Saturday mornings even before our first team games. We've got some welfare cup final on next Saturday while we are away, we had three girl's/womens cup finals last month. There's walking football on during the day three times a week and there's also some free football programme - I forget its name but I had a conversation with the guy the other week. I did weekly play on the Sunday nights before I started playing in a Sunday afternoon league. I'm not sure on the 5-a-sides because they used to be community club income. So what I've accounted for isn't necessarily exhaustive.

I don't think ticket sales go that far even if you have you have 4x Dunfermline and Falkirk bringing 800 or so fans. 

Not disputing any of that, and as I said I wasn't sure how much you hired it commercially as it's nowhere near as obvious online. There's a phone number to call for "pitch bookings" but no online booking and availability system like Stenny have. Stenny have always pushed the community use of their facility big time since it went in.

Were Dunfermline just training there through the week or did they use it for reserve games etc? If it was simply training usage it's doubtful you got more than £10k - £15k a season from it. Appreciate Broomhill were playing games there but they weren't training full time so probably even less. Neither does so now though? Chances are you're taking less than £70k from it now in income. It won't be absolutely fully booked. Not all bookings will be for thirds presumably (and I'm assuming a whole pitch booking isn't the same as three thirds? Maybe it is). Do the women run separately and actually pay for usage or are they part of the club?

Of course there's the savings in booking other accommodation. As noted previously you could do your first team training at Ochilview for likely less than £15k per annum. Same again for the youths I suppose. Could easily be saving £50k or so in facility hire by not needing to.

If you add the savings to the income it will certainly outweigh your gate receipts, certainly now that you don't have either Dunfermline, Falkirk or Stirling for that matter. I presume you don't have an away team bringing much more than the 150 or so we probably do? Kelty? It's almost a home game for them.

Whatever, anyway, I don't see any mileage in working it out to the nearest tenner. The initial point was there's not a chance anybody's making £300k hiring a pitch out, even including cost savings. £100k + is just about arguable IF it's hired out pretty much exhaustively and there's demand for it. I don't think we're disagreeing on that (now).

Edited Tuesday at 11:40 by Skyline Drifter

[LeodhasXD]

6 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Whatever, anyway, I don't see any mileage in working it out to the nearest tenner. The initial point was there's not a chance anybody's making £300k hiring a pitch out, even including cost savings. £100k + is just about arguable IF it's hired out pretty much exhaustively and there's demand for it. I don't think we're disagreeing on that (now).

I wonder if the original 300k was over the life of the pitch. Would make much more sense.

and Dunfermline were paying more than that I think but they were storing all kinds of kit here too and having the odd behind doors friendly. I'll say on the bookings - it was certainly fully booked the last time I checked. In our area the kids team seem to run the show in terms of astroturf bookings so we're stuck playing on grass. There's not availability despite the increase in astro pitches.

Edited Tuesday at 11:48 by LeodhasXD

[Skyline Drifter]

Just now, LeodhasXD said:

I wonder if the original 300k was over the life of the pitch. Would make much more sense.

Possibly, if you don't include the cost savings.

We'll get about 10 years from our pitch. I'd imagine Stenny, and presumably you, going by your reported usage, are more like 8 years? I suppose £300k over 8 years is feasible although if anything it's a bit low.

I'd guess that it meant one year but was just massively exaggerated to prove a point. In Stenny's case it probably includes the income from their separate five a side pitches also.

[LeodhasXD]

2 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Possibly, if you don't include the cost savings.

We'll get about 10 years from our pitch. I'd imagine Stenny, and presumably you, going by your reported usage, are more like 8 years? I suppose £300k over 8 years is feasible although if anything it's a bit low.

I'd guess that it meant one year but was just massively exaggerated to prove a point. In Stenny's case it probably includes the income from their separate five a side pitches also.

Yeah I'd like to see it replaced sooner rather than later!

[HoBNob]

1 hour ago, LeodhasXD said:

I wonder if the original 300k was over the life of the pitch. Would make much more sense.

and Dunfermline were paying more than that I think but they were storing all kinds of kit here too and having the odd behind doors friendly. I'll say on the bookings - it was certainly fully booked the last time I checked. In our area the kids team seem to run the show in terms of astroturf bookings so we're stuck playing on grass. There's not availability despite the increase in astro pitches.

Dunfermline were paying more than 100k? What a shambles. 

[LeodhasXD]

2 hours ago, HoBNob said:

Dunfermline were paying more than 100k? What a shambles. 

No more than the 15k for hiring a Stenhousemuir  equivalent. You've not got that much money to splash around if you hadnt noticed.

[printer]

When Alloa first installed the artificial surface (c 15 years ago?) I had a conversation with a then director I knew well, who quoted me a figure of £70,000 for the annual financial benefit (#) of the pitch.

Most of that number was costs savings from not having to hire pitches to train and play on. (ETA For all our teams.)

(#) I assumed no account was taken of amortised cost.

Edited Tuesday at 18:21 by printer

[WeeWelshy007]

7 hours ago, LeodhasXD said:

I'll concede @Skyline Drifter300k is optimistic after sitting down but prize money isn't. Alloa Ath - £116k SPFL prize money as estimated by @SPFLmediawatch on twitter. Stenhousemuir is estimated as just £89k after winning the fourth tier last year.

I'll keep it as simple as possible through timeslots its used. Obviously for Alloa Athletic you're not going to get any income but you'd pay to have the same facility elsewhere. 4 days its fully booked from 6-9. £40 a third would give you over 48 weeks £69120. Dunfermline would have been in 4 days a week for 4 hours.  They'd have got a healthy discount however I'd wager.

I don't massively keep up with the youths and women due to time involved but estimate they're at home 24 times a year on Fridays - Sundays. Throw the use our changing facilities in it might be £300 instead of just £200 for the pitch. For the 4 teams - £28,800. 

There's kids youth teams in most Saturday mornings even before our first team games. We've got some welfare cup final on next Saturday while we are away, we had three girl's/womens cup finals last month. There's walking football on during the day three times a week and there's also some free football programme - I forget its name but I had a conversation with the guy the other week. I did weekly play on the Sunday nights before I started playing in a Sunday afternoon league. I'm not sure on the 5-a-sides because they used to be community club income. So what I've accounted for isn't necessarily exhaustive.

I don't think ticket sales go that far even if you have you have 4x Dunfermline and Falkirk bringing 800 or so fans. 

3rd in the 3rd tier of scotland £116k 

6th place in the english championship and playoff win £100M

 

no wonder we're part time 

[printer]

13 hours ago, WeeWelshy007 said:

3rd in the 3rd tier of scotland £116k 

6th place in the english championship and playoff win £100M

 

no wonder we're part time 

I know which I prefer watching.

[LoganAAFC]

Good to see the Wasps back on the telly. 

Edited 17 hours ago by LoganAAFC

[Kevchenko]

New episode of the podcast is up, starting with a huge development at the Recs. We also look at the Women's team progressing in the Scottish Cup and announcing a new shirt sponsor, before looking at the Men's draw with ICT and the the visit of Kelty this Saturday.

 

https://waspsnest.buzzsprout.com

[WeeWelshy007]

3 hours ago, LoganAAFC said:

Good to see the Wasps back on the telly. 

Solid away ground too

 

easiest away day for me too