the mariners rang

[FFC Mariner]

Get involved.
Contact Shaun direct rather than politely telling a minion.
Hand out pitchforks and torches at Ettalong.

Shaun knows, he gets feedback every day but what can he do?
Charlesworth is the cancer at CCM no one else.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Shit eh.

I can’t believe we’re having this conversation now.

Imo, and now self evident, pretty unwise by the club to start making renewal calls to members ahead of a few more positive signings or at the very least hopefully a successful fan forum. I mean, it could be worse timing, they could have done it the day after City thrashed us. Or the day after they announce extensions for Kennedy and Hoole. But it’s not far off. Pain is still fresh and confidence at an all time low.

A few more weeks delay (or even more if they could) would have made a lot more sense.

To all the forum supporters opting out...

I’d really encourage you to reconsider and at least follow the wait and see path. Always best to make decisions from a place of as much info as possible. Unless regardless of what Staj shows, what side we put together and how well they’re playing you’re simply sick of it and done. Otherwise you really should not have been prompted to making the decision now imho.

That said, I honestly don’t know whether members failing to renew now will prompt positive action more than it will deepen the nose dive like AM says. Hard to know. But if you love the club and want to see it come good again, at best it’s definitely a high risk strategy that could just seal it’s fate.

For myself, I see the other side of the ledger being a few hundred bucks to watch potentially another year of dire football and cry and laugh about it with family and friends then rave, rant and banter on here afterwards with you all. Which despite everything, imho, is still a lot of fun at times.

Cycles of feast and famine are common to most clubs in world football. Personally I’m in survival mode and not much will budge me. It’s been a long cold and hungry winter, but I still think if we can resist the temptation to end the suffering and walk out into the blizzard, eat each other, or go mad and burn the joint down, and instead just focus on staying alive as long as we can, then we’re giving ourselves the best possible chance for the weather to break and eventually see another feast come our way.

Will be unbelievably sweet. And prefer to share it with you all. Forum alone would suck if all the people on this thread gave the Mariners away.

Alternatively, I guess like FFC, and Ancient Mariner, I’d still rather go down with the ship, drunk and bellowing out a final flute song as we slide into the depths.

 

[true believer]

Well nero is still fiddling .
To quell the uproar you need a fireman.
Phelan is the road block thats gotta be replaced and soon.
Thats my tipping piont

 

[finally retired]

I will renew....but I think 7 of the 10 in the box we share won't be.....that's a big loss.

 

[nebakke]

I'm in the wait and see camp, but the reality is that I've been here since last year... I actually did let Shaun and the club know then that it was a close call. I think you're spot on FP, the timing is horrible and that was definitely also part of the problem last year... The early bird discount barely lasted past the signings and again this year we're being asked to sign up on faith - well the club has burned through my faith and doesn't seem to appreciate that all of us have already given more faith than could reasonably be expected... So here we are, I don't think I'm alone in saying that some decent signings, the right noises from the coach and a couple of preseason wins, paired with some cup success, would go a long way.
But I'm not made of money, despite what the club might think.

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

I've decided that I will be renewing, I've watched three teams of mine disappear into the great beyond in various sports and others go perilously close. My concern is that without a significant spend and Charlesworth digging into his own pocket, we will have our license taken away and no longer have a team. My investment might be a small one, but as percentage of disposable income for a uni student it is quite a sizeable one, all I ask is for Charlesworth to match to a similar percentage.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

If it's not, nothing is - given that as already discussed, memberships have actually been increasing over the last couple of seasons. I'm entirely with Antlion on this - it's not like any of us are lost to the club, some good recruiting and potentially some useful pre-season results would likely do a lot to get us - well at least me - back.
Let me ask you though - if not renewing isn't the thing to do (apologies for the double-negative) - how do you propose we send a signal? And if it's something that's already been done, why do you believe that it'll change anything?

I honestly believe there is not a great deal we can do to encourage Charlesworth to invest more.

Trying to look at it from an investors owners point of view.

The numbers first.

The top teams have a budget of about $20m.
The majority have budgets of about $10m t0 $12m.
Reportedly our budget is $7m.

These numbers explain the results. The money does not have to be spent on the squad to make a difference. A lot of the spend at the bigger clubs is on people like John Crawley and Andrew Clarke. They are not cheap but are expensive and they make a big difference. Look at it across all club positions and it adds up.

At the moment it is reported that Charlesworth coughs up about $1m to keep the Club out of the red but on a diet of bread and water.
To make us competitive he would have to come up with about $5m per season.
What would he get in return for spending that kind of money?
Under Arnie the Club spent that sort of dosh and ended up $6m in the red. The income from more bums on seats or more sponsorships did not balance the books. $6m is the reported amount that it cost Charlesworth to settle the debts and take over the other shareholders.

I do not know if Charlesworth's pockets are deep enough to fork out $5m a year to match the other clubs' spend. I also do not see it as a great investment. Other clubs are also tightening belts as they do not see the returns. The only exceptions seem to be those owned by billionaires with money to burn.

Charlesworth's stated tactics at the moment are good business in that he wants to see the Club be able to run at a break even point. This is what all clubs want to be able to do but you cannot do it and remain competitive when Russian oligarchs and Arab oil money make the playing field very uneven.

To try and even the balance his tactics are to look for more investors to share out the load. Hopefully we are seeing progress in this direction with the appointment of the two new directors at the Club.

How do you encourage new investors? You try and sell them a dream of of owning a successful football club. Not only in results but financially as well. Mind you the two should fit together, but in the Aleague that is not happening which is why the owners want control.

What can the hardcore fans do to help. In reality very little apart from turning up encouraging others and trying to put as positive spin as possible on what is a dire situation. Basically support the Club. The worst thing that these fans can do is to start talking the Club down and threatening withdrawal of support. Negativity can develop a life of its own and can prove fatal in the long term. It then becomes harder to attract investors, sponsors or even new owners. This is why I get upset about it.

The second worse thing that can happen is for the hardcore, rusted on fans to start fighting among themselves.

Mea culpa.

I must learn to post before having a glass of wine (or six) or write my posts then but post them the next morning (after reviewing them). My recent posts in this thread were not meant to be insulting, but were meant to express the scale of my frustration with what I see as unhelpful threats.

My posts did not help the situation and probably have a further negative effect on things.

My apologies to those who were offended.

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

I honestly believe there is not a great deal we can do to encourage Charlesworth to invest more.

Trying to look at it from an investors owners point of view.

The numbers first.

The top teams have a budget of about $20m.
The majority have budgets of about $10m t0 $12m.
Reportedly our budget is $7m.

These numbers explain the results. The money does not have to be spent on the squad to make a difference. A lot of the spend at the bigger clubs is on people like John Crawley and Andrew Clarke. They are not cheap but are expensive and they make a big difference. Look at it across all club positions and it adds up.

At the moment it is reported that Charlesworth coughs up about $1m to keep the Club out of the red but on a diet of bread and water.
To make us competitive he would have to come up with about $5m per season.
What would he get in return for spending that kind of money?
Under Arnie the Club spent that sort of dosh and ended up $6m in the red. The income from more bums on seats or more sponsorships did not balance the books. $6m is the reported amount that it cost Charlesworth to settle the debts and take over the other shareholders.

I do not know if Charlesworth's pockets are deep enough to fork out $5m a year to match the other clubs' spend. I also do not see it as a great investment. Other clubs are also tightening belts as they do not see the returns. The only exceptions seem to be those owned by billionaires with money to burn.

Charlesworth's stated tactics at the moment are good business in that he wants to see the Club be able to run at a break even point. This is what all clubs want to be able to do but you cannot do it and remain competitive when Russian oligarchs and Arab oil money make the playing field very uneven.

To try and even the balance his tactics are to look for more investors to share out the load. Hopefully we are seeing progress in this direction with the appointment of the two new directors at the Club.

How do you encourage new investors? You try and sell them a dream of of owning a successful football club. Not only in results but financially as well. Mind you the two should fit together, but in the Aleague that is not happening which is why the owners want control.

What can the hardcore fans do to help. In reality very little apart from turning up encouraging others and trying to put as positive spin as possible on what is a dire situation. Basically support the Club. The worst thing that these fans can do is to start talking the Club down and threatening withdrawal of support. Negativity can develop a life of its own and can prove fatal in the long term. It then becomes harder to attract investors, sponsors or even new owners. This is why I get upset about it.

The second worse thing that can happen is for the hardcore, rusted on fans to start fighting among themselves.

Mea culpa.

I must learn to post before having a glass of wine (or six) or write my posts then but post them the next morning (after reviewing them). My recent posts in this thread were not meant to be insulting, but were meant to express the scale of my frustration with what I see as unhelpful threats.

My posts did not help the situation and probably have a further negative effect on things.

My apologies to those who were offended.

Terrific post Ancient, and while I disagree with you, you articulate your thoughts very well.

From my point of view, endless positivity, optimism and a lack of questioning of organisational decision making has been tried and found wanting and is contributing to the situation we find ourselves in.

I personally cheer lead in the off season before Walmsley was sacked, tried to look at the positives of the signings of Faty, Tavares and our other meagre recruiting and beyond the short comings, but what came of that was a loss to a mid table NPL side. I did so in the seasons following as well, believing that if given support we would be able to spend more in later years because our income streams had been solidified and diversified but that has proven to be all smoke and mirrors.

We have given Charlesworth five years to implement a plan that will allow us to be competitive while restraining costs, those plans have been nothing short of a catastrophic failure. I have no doubt that we can be successful while restraining our spending, however, we have not found that formula and the wolves are at the door. The FFA will take back our license and we will not exist if we are not competitive next season, and because we have been unable to be competitive while restraining our spending we need to spend, if only for a season to maintain our license.

Michael Charlesworth is most concerned with how much money we are costing him, but owning a football club is not a money making business and only a handful of clubs around the world actually make money. His expectation to make money on a football club is not realistic in the slightest, football clubs are loss leaders for businesses around the world and are mostly used as marketing and propaganda tools for wealthy businessmen. Would Mr Charlesworth approve of his beloved Leeds being run as we are? I highly doubt it.

Michael Charlesworth and our club are frankly holding Australian football back at the moment, if we cannot spend the whole salary cap which is handed to us through the tv grant for that exact purpose, then we are dragging down the standard of our premier competition though a lack of acceptance that a football club is not a money making business. There are plenty of clubs and bids ready and willing to take our place who will spend the entirety of the salary cap and more.

Without a significant spend, without questioning the status quo, we will not have a club by the end of next season it is as simple as that.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

With the status quo of the entire A-league set up you are correct.

I think unless Charlesworth can pull off his dream of having a cheap successful club (long shot) come off we are well and truly f******. We will also have some company.

The only way we can avoid extinction is getting an investment from someone with a love of football and too much money.

The trouble with that thought is these sort of people will be setting up new clubs in areas of population(not regional) (ie big capitals) because that is what FFA and Fox want for their expansion sites. It is probably not what is best for the growth of football in Australia, but Fox wants it.

Now maybe this is why the owners (and Charlesworth) want an independent A-league. Maybe they can see that what Fox wants and what is best for football in Australia and the A-league, are not necessarily the same thing.

I do not see how but maybe an independent league could save us, because if we stay with FFA, CCM is cactus along with any hopes for Canberra, Tassie, North Qld etc.

We can only hope to survive until a new dawn and hope we can be part of it.

Call me an optimist or a dreamer, but I live in hope and am Mariners till I (or the Club) die.

 

[nearlyyellow]

It’s the ones that stop posting, attending and watching, the ones that just give up. They’ve stopped caring and that’s far worse than being angry.

Sadly, this is me :-/ I have lost the PASSION. I keep my knowledge up by lurking here occasionally, but that's all. Am I a fair weather supporter. Maybe. But there are plenty I know who are exactly the same, unfortunately for the club.

 

[FFC Mariner]

One area that Charlesworth has to invest in is a competent football manager. So far, scrimping on this (since he drove Lawrie out) has cost him, Trent, Wales and Millar - dumb business and THATS what he needs to fix.

 

[Insertnamehere]

Sadly, this is me :-/ I have lost the PASSION. I keep my knowledge up by lurking here occasionally, but that's all. Am I a fair weather supporter. Maybe. But there are plenty I know who are exactly the same, unfortunately for the club.

Not fairweather. Cant be expected to eat gruel and pretend its filet mignon.

 

[Wombat]

Terrific post Ancient, and while I disagree with you, you articulate your thoughts very well.

From my point of view, endless positivity, optimism and a lack of questioning of organisational decision making has been tried and found wanting and is contributing to the situation we find ourselves in.

I personally cheer lead in the off season before Walmsley was sacked, tried to look at the positives of the signings of Faty, Tavares and our other meagre recruiting and beyond the short comings, but what came of that was a loss to a mid table NPL side. I did so in the seasons following as well, believing that if given support we would be able to spend more in later years because our income streams had been solidified and diversified but that has proven to be all smoke and mirrors.

We have given Charlesworth five years to implement a plan that will allow us to be competitive while restraining costs, those plans have been nothing short of a catastrophic failure. I have no doubt that we can be successful while restraining our spending, however, we have not found that formula and the wolves are at the door. The FFA will take back our license and we will not exist if we are not competitive next season, and because we have been unable to be competitive while restraining our spending we need to spend, if only for a season to maintain our license.

Michael Charlesworth is most concerned with how much money we are costing him, but owning a football club is not a money making business and only a handful of clubs around the world actually make money. His expectation to make money on a football club is not realistic in the slightest, football clubs are loss leaders for businesses around the world and are mostly used as marketing and propaganda tools for wealthy businessmen. Would Mr Charlesworth approve of his beloved Leeds being run as we are? I highly doubt it.

Michael Charlesworth and our club are frankly holding Australian football back at the moment, if we cannot spend the whole salary cap which is handed to us through the tv grant for that exact purpose, then we are dragging down the standard of our premier competition though a lack of acceptance that a football club is not a money making business. There are plenty of clubs and bids ready and willing to take our place who will spend the entirety of the salary cap and more.

Without a significant spend, without questioning the status quo, we will not have a club by the end of next season it is as simple as that.

JP,

I had lunch with my accountant today (my shout obviously, he is an accountant!!) and he mirrored your thoughts. He said the Mariners were damaging the A League with their lack of respect for the game as a whole.

hard to argue with either of you.

 

[Wombat]

One area that Charlesworth has to invest in is a competent football manager. So far, scrimping on this (since he drove Lawrie out) has cost him, Trent, Wales and Millar - dumb business and THATS what he needs to fix.

100%. Lawrie was driven out for being truthful and loyal to the club. A massive mistake by Pikey.

 

[bikinigirl]

100%. Lawrie was driven out for being truthful and loyal to the club. A massive mistake by Pikey.

. agreed - Lawrie was driven out because he was not a 'yes man'

. and while Charlesworth's marquee consultants may not be 'yes men' either ... they have not done the hard yards in Australian football clubs - i.e. they know SFA about running a successful club here (or anywhere considering their CVs)

. so if we are trying to find the right balance between cost savings and success ... stop wasting money on marquee consultants that offer neither

 

[JoyfulPenguin]

. agreed - Lawrie was driven out because he was not a 'yes man'

. and while Charlesworth's marquee consultants may not be 'yes men' either ... they have not done the hard yards in Australian football clubs - i.e. they know SFA about running a successful club here (or anywhere considering their CVs)

. so if we are trying to find the right balance between cost savings and success ... stop wasting money on marquee consultants that offer neither

The hiring of consultants seemingly solely based on Charlesworth's name recognition of them alone has driven me crazy. They don't know the A-League landscape, have wasted money that Charlesworth says we don't have and have done more harm than good. Wasn't it Phelan that instigated the disastrous academy overhaul?

 

[true believer]

The hiring of consultants seemingly solely based on Charlesworth's name recognition of them alone has driven me crazy. They don't know the A-League landscape, have wasted money that Charlesworth says we don't have and have done more harm than good. Wasn't it Phelan that instigated the disastrous academy overhaul?

the worst thing is if we had a proper football manager we may of had a mildly competitive team ,
with staj as coach . this is the biggest balls up in the whole shit show .

 

[Forum Phoenix]

I honestly believe there is not a great deal we can do to encourage Charlesworth to invest more.

Trying to look at it from an investors owners point of view.

The numbers first.

The top teams have a budget of about $20m.
The majority have budgets of about $10m t0 $12m.
Reportedly our budget is $7m.

These numbers explain the results. The money does not have to be spent on the squad to make a difference. A lot of the spend at the bigger clubs is on people like John Crawley and Andrew Clarke. They are not cheap but are expensive and they make a big difference. Look at it across all club positions and it adds up.

At the moment it is reported that Charlesworth coughs up about $1m to keep the Club out of the red but on a diet of bread and water.
To make us competitive he would have to come up with about $5m per season.
What would he get in return for spending that kind of money?
Under Arnie the Club spent that sort of dosh and ended up $6m in the red. The income from more bums on seats or more sponsorships did not balance the books. $6m is the reported amount that it cost Charlesworth to settle the debts and take over the other shareholders.

I do not know if Charlesworth's pockets are deep enough to fork out $5m a year to match the other clubs' spend. I also do not see it as a great investment. Other clubs are also tightening belts as they do not see the returns. The only exceptions seem to be those owned by billionaires with money to burn.

Charlesworth's stated tactics at the moment are good business in that he wants to see the Club be able to run at a break even point. This is what all clubs want to be able to do but you cannot do it and remain competitive when Russian oligarchs and Arab oil money make the playing field very uneven.

To try and even the balance his tactics are to look for more investors to share out the load. Hopefully we are seeing progress in this direction with the appointment of the two new directors at the Club.

How do you encourage new investors? You try and sell them a dream of of owning a successful football club. Not only in results but financially as well. Mind you the two should fit together, but in the Aleague that is not happening which is why the owners want control.

What can the hardcore fans do to help. In reality very little apart from turning up encouraging others and trying to put as positive spin as possible on what is a dire situation. Basically support the Club. The worst thing that these fans can do is to start talking the Club down and threatening withdrawal of support. Negativity can develop a life of its own and can prove fatal in the long term. It then becomes harder to attract investors, sponsors or even new owners. This is why I get upset about it.

The second worse thing that can happen is for the hardcore, rusted on fans to start fighting among themselves.

Mea culpa.

I must learn to post before having a glass of wine (or six) or write my posts then but post them the next morning (after reviewing them). My recent posts in this thread were not meant to be insulting, but were meant to express the scale of my frustration with what I see as unhelpful threats.

My posts did not help the situation and probably have a further negative effect on things.

My apologies to those who were offended.

Great post Ancient. Nailed it.

You can’t fairly blame anyone from opting out after the past years, but I think you’re definitely reading the situation correctly. If you still love the Mariners, personally I just don’t think there is a viable alternative but to support them until they can either turn it around or we fold.

I think there’s been a lot of heat (deservedly) directed at the club from fans, and the podcast imo has done a great job of holding the club to account also. But the needle on the dial hasn’t moved noticeably in response. Why? Because I don’t think it’s wilful belligerence or a lack of care that’s responsible for our situation.

There have been plenty of mistakes that we can’t afford to make for sure, but clearly the main differential is $$. So I don’t think ditching our memberships will alter the trajectory because I don’t think the biggest lever that is determining our success, $, are being withheld out of pettiness or spite.

Could we have a richer owner? Undoubtedly. Would spending 20 mill a year make us consistently competitive? I’m pretty bloody sure it would. But we’re a small regional Club. And our owner is not a mining magnate.

So I don’t see anything changing our fortunes consistently until someone who is happy to spend a chunk of change buying a precariously balanced club and then lose well in excess of a million a year can be found.

The other option is to try and spend just enough and get pretty much every single thing right when it comes to recruitment and coaching and then punch way above your weight. And then do this as often as you can while you build support and infrastructure. I think that was the plan. But funds have been too small, resources too stretched, resulting in too many corners cut or important work undone, and our recruitment and coaches have dismally failed.

So what do you do... hope for an oil baron while you knuckle down and keep on trying to get a low budget model to work that is competitive and sustainable enough to try and build off the back of I guess...

I ‘think’ that’s the agenda, but it’s a hell of a gig. So as a fan, what do you do?

Say enough of this shit, good luck but I’m out. Or just strap in for the ride and hope the club can turn it around.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

One area that Charlesworth has to invest in is a competent football manager. So far, scrimping on this (since he drove Lawrie out) has cost him, Trent, Wales and Millar - dumb business and THATS what he needs to fix.

Thoroughly agree.

I’m hearing some very interesting whispers. Let’s hope the next one we get right. May be our last chance.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

100%. Lawrie was driven out for being truthful and loyal to the club. A massive mistake by Pikey.

This.

Lawrie is the only person who has shown himself able to get a low budget competitive model not just functioning, but close to thriving.

JP, I think that there has been a lot of pressure put on the club to change and spend. I don’t think it’s gone unnoticed. Unfixed. Yes. But not unnoticed, which leads me to believe they can’t pull the requisite levers we would like and worse, may be essential to keeping us competitive.

Money money money eh...

I’m hoping Staj in combination with a proper Australian based football director, can pull off what only Lawrie has managed for us in the past.