Coast Football Ramble Podcast

[Yoda]

Listening to the podcast, and sorry Mike, to coin a phrase from Game of Thrones, words are wind.

I think Mike can talk and talk and talk all he likes, so much so that he might start believing his own words, but his kidding himself if he thinks the Mariners can win the league again in the next couple of years and kidding himself even more if he thinks the Mariners can become the biggest club in Australia.

 

[Big Al]

Listening to the podcast, and sorry Mike, to coin a phrase from Game of Thrones, words are wind.

I think Mike can talk and talk and talk all he likes, so much so that he might start believing his own words, but his kidding himself if he thinks the Mariners can win the league again in the next couple of years and kidding himself even more if he thinks the Mariners can become the biggest club in Australia.

Why will have a squad hitting there prime 24-28 a few like Trent and Berry getting ready to hit prime and add some experience bingo.

SFC Roar and Victory be to old, WSW change squad every year.

What I more worried about was having a sale of a player in the budget.

 

[Yoda]

And that's the problem, Trent, Berry, Galloway, Liam Rose, they'll be sold before we see them at their best.

 

[Big Al]

And that's the problem, Trent, Berry, Galloway, Liam Rose, they'll be sold before we see them at their best.

Was the Dutch midfielder mentioned a Dutch player or Aussie in Hollland?

DeSilva never got released as suggested and the two years is up in August 2017 fitting the off contract mentioned

 

[Big Al]

And that's the problem, Trent, Berry, Galloway, Liam Rose, they'll be sold before we see them at their best.

Maybe Trent but big IF but speedy wingers always will have jobs

 

[Wombat]

Episode 21:
A must listen to for Central Coast Mariners fans.
This week, we talk to CCMFC owner Michael Charlesworth and CEO Shaun Mielekamp. We discuss the stadium, council, the COE, player signings, marquees, business models, the FFA and the A-league.
All the usual reviews,previews and much more.

The signings bit would have been interesting!!
Let me guess, we had two or three world class players, all available for free, lined up after 3 days of intensive research of the net.....but couldn't pull the deal together when they declared they wanted more than $18.50ph and all the BBQ sauce they could eat.
Not the sort of team players Mike was looking for.

 

[scottmac]

Listening to the podcast, and sorry Mike, to coin a phrase from Game of Thrones, words are wind.

I think Mike can talk and talk and talk all he likes, so much so that he might start believing his own words, but his kidding himself if he thinks the Mariners can win the league again in the next couple of years and kidding himself even more if he thinks the Mariners can become the biggest club in Australia.

Why not?

Just dream big for a second. He said 2 yrs. Next year with Paolo at the helm I reckon we could just make that next step. His team. His was of playing. I can't wait to see his signings and the first game with a different squad and a full pre season. Maybe a marque, who knows?

I'm excited for the rest of the this year but f fully amped for next season.

 

[pjennings]

Listening to the podcast, and sorry Mike, to coin a phrase from Game of Thrones, words are wind.

I think Mike can talk and talk and talk all he likes, so much so that he might start believing his own words, but his kidding himself if he thinks the Mariners can win the league again in the next couple of years and kidding himself even more if he thinks the Mariners can become the biggest club in Australia.

I tend to be on the tempered optimism side.

On the football side I think is way to early to say that we can't win the league again. First of all we haven't seen what Paul can do with a squad that he chooses and as was pointed out in the podcast whether Paul will be here. At this time of year I am much more optimistic looking forward to next season than I was 12 months ago.

Off the field not that long ago we were hours away from folding. Today we are lessening our losses. In the near future with an improved FFA deal and likely management rights we will be sustainable in the current HAL and then there is the 'grander plan'.

The big take out for me was both Mike and Shaun seem much more upbeat about the prospects of management rights, hopefully before the next season. This is the big game changer that we need. People can argue about the next stages of leases, public/private trusts or ownership of the stadium at a later date but the management rights and the ability to make 'modest improvements' can change us from losing money on many home games to making money on all of them and having no real need for NSO, Canberra or Dubbo. Then the additional revenue we can generate from other events (remember that Shaun has connections in NRL especially Penrith and Souths for a start) including sports and other events really can make us more secure in the HAL as it stands.

Mike's 'grander plan' where we have a finished COE including hotel/Mariners pub, own or long term lease an improved stadium (particularly if it has a hotel attached) means that much more security. If in the future the HAL has promotion and relegation then even if the worst happens and we are relegated we would have the wherewithal to bounce back quickly rather than disappear into oblivion. That isn't the case now but could be the case in three or four years time.

To sum up we were a basket case, we are no longer a basket case, the immediate future has the likely potential to look brighter and the medium term has some potential to be extremely bright. That is why I have tempered optimism.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Great Post.

 

[nebakke]

Listening to the podcast, and sorry Mike, to coin a phrase from Game of Thrones, words are wind.

I think Mike can talk and talk and talk all he likes, so much so that he might start believing his own words, but his kidding himself if he thinks the Mariners can win the league again in the next couple of years and kidding himself even more if he thinks the Mariners can become the biggest club in Australia.

Why? This time three years ago we were still in the fight, ended up third on points.
Last year Sydney looked shit throughout and ended up out of finals - now look at them.
As for the biggest club thing - listen closer. He's pretty careful in directing the conversation to finances rather than attendances.
He's saying he sees us with the potential to become a vaguely wealthy club if we can get management rights, hotel building rights, restaurant precinct etc. I think he's probably not wrong but I'm not convinced that we'll get all of that.

 

[Coast Football Ramble]

Why? This time three years ago we were still in the fight, ended up third on points.
Last year Sydney looked shit throughout and ended up out of finals - now look at them.
As for the biggest club thing - listen closer. He's pretty careful in directing the conversation to finances rather than attendances.
He's saying he sees us with the potential to become a vaguely wealthy club if we can get management rights, hotel building rights, restaurant precinct etc. I think he's probably not wrong but I'm not convinced that we'll get all of that.

This is exactly why I asked him to define "biggest club".

Jimmy.

 

[Holy]

I tend to be on the tempered optimism side.

On the football side I think is way to early to say that we can't win the league again. First of all we haven't seen what Paul can do with a squad that he chooses and as was pointed out in the podcast whether Paul will be here. At this time of year I am much more optimistic looking forward to next season than I was 12 months ago.

Off the field not that long ago we were hours away from folding. Today we are lessening our losses. In the near future with an improved FFA deal and likely management rights we will be sustainable in the current HAL and then there is the 'grander plan'.

The big take out for me was both Mike and Shaun seem much more upbeat about the prospects of management rights, hopefully before the next season. This is the big game changer that we need. People can argue about the next stages of leases, public/private trusts or ownership of the stadium at a later date but the management rights and the ability to make 'modest improvements' can change us from losing money on many home games to making money on all of them and having no real need for NSO, Canberra or Dubbo. Then the additional revenue we can generate from other events (remember that Shaun has connections in NRL especially Penrith and Souths for a start) including sports and other events really can make us more secure in the HAL as it stands.

Mike's 'grander plan' where we have a finished COE including hotel/Mariners pub, own or long term lease an improved stadium (particularly if it has a hotel attached) means that more security. If in the future the HAL has promotion and relegation then even if the worst happens and we are relegated we would have the wherewithal to bounce back quickly rather than disappear into oblivion. That isn't the case now but could be the case in three or four years time.

To sum up we were a basket case, we are no longer a basket case, the immediate future has the likely potential to look brighter and the medium term has some potential to be extremely bright. That is why I have tempered optimism.

Great post PJ, the management rights prospect is the real key. Whilst you can get caught up in Mike's dreams, the positive reaction from Shaun, who is the person doing the heavy lifting to make these all these plans happen, makes me excited to think that it's most likely going to happen and soon.

And your right, the need for taking games away from home lessons, however I still think they will, as they will want to continue to grow the brand. But it then becomes more strategic about where those games taken away are played, with the driver being about growing the brand rather than being financial. I can live with that.

 

[FFC Mariner]

MC completely ignored the question of ownership of any deal for CCS.So we can surmise that CCM won't be doing the deal.

I for one am shocked

 

[nebakke]

This is exactly why I asked him to define "biggest club".

Jimmy.

Heh yeah, I figured I'm still not quite sure whether he actually intended to leave it as vague as it ended up, or whether it was just that the conversation got a bit side-tracked... I'm thinking it's probably the latter, because there's not much gained from being ambiguous about it...

Good job by the way.

 

[nebakke]

MC completely ignored the question of ownership of any deal for CCS.So we can surmise that CCM won't be doing the deal.

I for one am shocked

I actually thought that was pretty clear from more or less everything he said... My take away from the whole thing, is that he's trying to keep everything focused on core business. For CCM that means being a football club, not grounds management... That's neither really that rare or that unreasonable, as long as there's an intrinsic link to everything else. Shaun touched on it very briefly when talking about the NPL/NYL/CCA setup - how the club was so heavily in debt when that was all set up, that it just wasn't feasible to have them setup as part of the same business.... It's all about indemnification.
But Mike did also mention, the last time he was on the podcast, that there was some consideration given to how the businesses were linked, so as to avoid a future entity coming in and splitting everything up, leaving CCM to falter while doing their own thing with the property consortium.

So I'm not necessarily sure why it's an issue, or a surprise, that the deal likely mightn't be done through CCM.

 

[adz]

MC completely ignored the question of ownership of any deal for CCS.So we can surmise that CCM won't be doing the deal.

I for one am shocked

You're not the only person that brings this up as an issue, but I don't understand why it's such a problem that the owner of the Mariners also owns the COE, rather than the Mariners owning the COE? Does Manchester City own the oil wells that fund it?

 

[Big Al]

I tend to be on the tempered optimism side.

On the football side I think is way to early to say that we can't win the league again. First of all we haven't seen what Paul can do with a squad that he chooses and as was pointed out in the podcast whether Paul will be here. At this time of year I am much more optimistic looking forward to next season than I was 12 months ago.

Off the field not that long ago we were hours away from folding. Today we are lessening our losses. In the near future with an improved FFA deal and likely management rights we will be sustainable in the current HAL and then there is the 'grander plan'.

The big take out for me was both Mike and Shaun seem much more upbeat about the prospects of management rights, hopefully before the next season. This is the big game changer that we need. People can argue about the next stages of leases, public/private trusts or ownership of the stadium at a later date but the management rights and the ability to make 'modest improvements' can change us from losing money on many home games to making money on all of them and having no real need for NSO, Canberra or Dubbo. Then the additional revenue we can generate from other events (remember that Shaun has connections in NRL especially Penrith and Souths for a start) including sports and other events really can make us more secure in the HAL as it stands.

Mike's 'grander plan' where we have a finished COE including hotel/Mariners pub, own or long term lease an improved stadium (particularly if it has a hotel attached) means that more security. If in the future the HAL has promotion and relegation then even if the worst happens and we are relegated we would have the wherewithal to bounce back quickly rather than disappear into oblivion. That isn't the case now but could be the case in three or four years time.

To sum up we were a basket case, we are no longer a basket case, the immediate future has the likely potential to look brighter and the medium term has some potential to be extremely bright. That is why I have tempered optimism.

Also Mike pointed out that they never expect the football club to make money.
This makes it undesirable to future investors as they will never make any money so why would they invest?
That is what Mike is doing, creating himself wealth and wealth for the club that will fund the club.
Mike will get his money back on a future sale as he has a sellable probably profitable asset. The Mariners will also be a much better investment for a purchaser and they can take it further or run it how it is.
As Mike suggested a foreign football club would be more interested with all the assets instead of a small town team with limited membership.

Shaun and Mike are building a bricks and mortar business to fund our Friday night partying

 

[dibo]

Also Mike pointed out that they never expect the football club to make money.
This makes it undesirable to future investors as they will never make any money so why would they invest?

As long as the club isn't *losing* money, the game is a little bit different to now.

If we get to a point where investment in the club grows the club rather than fills a hole, it means that there's an incentive to come in and put your money in, knowing that you can probably get it back (by selling your stake to someone else) and knowing that if more money comes in, the pie gets bigger and we can do more.

 

[Coast Football Ramble]

Scott Galloway joins us for a chat.
We talk Subbuteo with Steven Dettre.
Previews, reviews, gypsy talk and much more.

 

[Coast Football Ramble]

We're looking to have Liam Rose and Ray Gatt on this weeks show.
If you have any questions for the guests, write them here and we'll try to get them answered.