Absolutely agree Greenie. I have every faith in those in charge of the club but I would like a vision for the future not just the next season. Are we happy with gates of around 300 and a possible play-off place or do we look a bit futher into the future.
I am afraid that we have a council that couldnt care less about supporting sport in Vale Royal and two football clubs who dont know where thay are going. I worry about the future.
As Wittoners I think its important that we debate what we want for the future and we may need to include the team from across the water in that.
THE REASON THAT I POSTED MY ORIGINAL MESSAGE WAS THE THOUGHT THAT IF OUR FRIENDS ACROSS THE CANAL WERE TO COME AND SHARE OUR STADIUM THE EXTRA REVENUE GENERATED COULD BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXTRA DEBT OR ALITTLE BIT OF PROFIT . I KNOW THAT SOME WITTON FANS DO NOT LIKE THE ABOVE MENTIONED SCENARIO BUT I THINK THAT IT MAKES SENSE.
I have no problem with THEM sharing OUR stadium. Maybe when the current deal with Runcorn ends, it may be worth making contact with the multitude of league clubs within 25-30 miles re: their reserve teams playing at WP. I’m sure V*cs make A LOT more money out of Man Utd than we do out of Runcorn. We should be speaking to the likes of Man City, Liverpool, Everton, Stoke, Port Vale, Crewe, Tranmere, Stockport, etc and showing them what we can offer…
Good shout Greenie. I believe Vics take the gate and the programme sales from their Man Utd Res games, which must generate nearly, if not more than their own home games. I believe Beaconet take the food sales.
In the past, we have sucessfully shared our ground with Stockport Reserves and Man City Reserves, so it can be done.
Tea Hut, we averaged 488 attendance at home last season and our first target is to retain that and build on it. With FCUM, Nantwich, Buxton and Bradford we may well be able to achieve that target. Our gates were up by an average of something like 150 a game last year (around 50%) and I think therefore we showed the stretch that can be achieved. We can still achieve more and whilst this is directly inline with the playing performance it does not stop us from undertaking more initiatives with the juniors and marketing to new and lapsed supporters. There are plans coming together (like the leaflet drop last season) to help in this area.
We absolutely need a vision for the future (and no one can argue with that). Unless we know where we want to end up we are never going to get there. I suggest though that the time to start turning attention to this is once the new season is underway, all of the current activity is focused on the next 6 to 8 weeks and there are still decisions being taken. There are quite significant costs of pitch repair, floodlight work, etc that are all being dealt with at the moment. There are also ongoing decisions on the social club and other commercial areas to consider, all of which have more immediate importance than where we are in 2 to 3 years from now.
Mark is planning another information meeting at the club (which will be the subject of a different post) which is likely to take place on August 7th. This will be another opportunity for fans to ask questions and put forward opinions on the club, as well as an opportunity hopefully for a mini fans forum with Nige (to be confirmed) ahead of the season. We are aiming for much greater transparency throughout the club wherever possible.
Regarding Vics, their current ground is owned by Mike Connett (as Landlord) and the team by a different set of investors (Bone, Rushe, et al). Each of those parties has their own agenda for their development and good luck to them. ANY alliance, should one even be appropriate, would have to be very carefully considered and is not on the current agenda. I genuinely believe that however unpopular it is that a groundshare makes sound commercial sense, however given that there is already a ground built around the corner would Witton fans want to play football there? (It will always generate a massive amount of resistance). I have commented before that we could sell our land and move in as joint owners (potentially and based on a willingness to sell), plus we could put money in the bank on top! BUT, this is not a popular suggestion despite very sound commercial arguments. Vics (as a football team) have signed up to a 25 year lease with the stadium owner so they are unlikely to be playing at a different location. It is pretty widely documented that the club would ideally want to buy the existing facility, whether this is achievable is one for them and not us!
There is lots to consider and plenty of different opinions, the main thing at the moment is to buy your season ticket for Wincham Park next season and help the club in any way you can over the coming weeks and months. The future is about next week, next month and next season, whilst plans can be developed for the longer term.
Some really sensible posts on here that has moved me to contribute at the risk of being controversial. I think what Rabbit has put on sums everything up very nicely and Greenie with his possible ground share intiative to generate a money stream is also good. I think when we do get round to looking at a possible ground move that we need to consider setting up a seperate project team leaving all the fantastic existing stuff in place with the great people doing it now to keep it going.I personally favour starting from scratch on this and seeing if we can build a joint community stadium perhaps with the sensible people at Vics if they don’t buy their current staduim. I think the site for a new staduim needs to be more central maybe the Winnington area as this will be surrounded by the new urban village plus existing catchment areas! Not sure if I would favour a move over the canal and trying to prise Mr Connett out!! Hopefully a community stadium say in Winnington would attract the grants off people like the FA etc.
The main thing is that this has to be right for Witton Albion FC and at the same time be an assett for the District.Any money generated from such a move must be invested in something secure so that people will be watching Witton Albion as long as football is contiuned to be played!!
Great stuff and really good to see people thinking about the bigger picture rather than just saying we are not going to consider anything including horror of horrors an initiatve with Vics!!
Well said everybody. If we can benefit from a ground share with anybody, where ever that is, then we should consider it carefully, and not dismiss it lightly.
I agree Mona, a community stadium would be the ideal. I think the complicated situation across the canal is one we need to steer clear of at all costs, and our club should not become linked in any way with a business as unstable and corrupt as Northwich Victoria V3.0 or whatever they’re now called - that is, in it’s present form. That’s before we take into account our general contempt for them!!! We are the ones in the strong position and any proposed link should be on our terms.
Lovely thought Greenie wish that could happen. Take your point about the vics side of things Greenie and we’d have to tread very carefully but I’m sure there are SOME good folk over the other side of the canal who can also see that having 2 grounds does not make much financial sense!!Whatever as you say Wittion Albion still has assets and a home thats ours so we could really come out of any community stadium project well if we handle things in the right way!!
Appreciate though that we need to stabilise first and deal with the oncoming season preparations as priority number 1 as Rabbit says!!
[quote]Lovely thought Greenie wish that could happen. Take your point about the vics side of things Greenie and we’d have to tread very carefully but I’m sure there are SOME good folk over the other side of the canal who can also see that having 2 grounds does not make much financial sense!!Whatever as you say Wittion Albion still has assets and a home thats ours so we could really come out of any community stadium project well if we handle things in the right way!!
Appreciate though that we need to stabilise first and deal with the oncoming season preparations as priority number 1 as Rabbit says!![/quote]
We’ll be alright, so long as nobody paints the centre spot red.
I’m talking about a person unknown who many many years ago, climbed into the Drill Field the night before a derby match, armed with a tin of red paint.
I thought the finshing touch was the beware of quick sand sign that was stuck in the centre circle!! Absolutely lovely times and the match the next day was superb even though northwich took a 1 nil lead. It ended up 6 1 for Witton with a certain Mr K Barnes just making everyone look second rate and to be fair vics were not that bad!! Wish Ken was 60 years younger i’m sure he used to make the ball talk as well!!
Maybe Halifax Reserves would be a better shout, on the basis half of them live in or around Northwich it would not be far for them to travel. OK maybe not!!!
As has been said, this season we have our home games, Runcorn’s home games and a private contract with the Police to use the ground. I think if Runcorn are going to move nearer home next season then we should be looking to see if we can get a league club’s reserve team that may be interested in using the ground. The more games we play on the pitch the more it costs us to maintain it’s upkeep and therefore it has to be financially beneficial. With internal heating and lighting, floodlights, diesel for the mower and line marking, etc the costs of hosting an evening game on the ground are not far off £300 by the time it has all added up. As such the opportunity to make profit from this is not huge and our priority (as well as financial return) will always be to have the best possible pitch for our first team to play on.
The Stockport Reserves idea remains a good one (especially with the links we have) and who knows it could extend further to the possibility of having loan players from them during the season. One to progress as we get into the new season.
