I thought we showed that our revenue was pretty good compared to other L1 clubs but our player wage bill is quite low? If so, what else is causing our annual loss?

Trig. He has a lot of pseudonyms

The reason we are uncompetitive and loss making is most likely because of the amount that wages have increased in L1/2 as a whole, not because of the costs of the stadium. The stadium has probably put us in a much stronger position than if we were still at kingsmeadow.

Pint of Harveys £5.25 is fine by me.

Under Sam Hamman's stewardship, planning permission for a new site in the borough was allowed to elapse. Read into that what you will but I will always believe he shafted us.

Nice pub the little Windsor, bit pricey though

There is a lot of work being done on it.

I believe so Spit ... it's going to be a Sports Bar. My new local is The Little Windsor.

Thanks Airsy :) Didn’t know Bertrand had joined the channel.

Just read in the paper that Wimbleball reservoir in Somerset is at 13% capacity. What a great name that would be for our style of play ... whatever that is?

6MDm – I don’t disagree with you that there is an emotional aspect to having one’s own ground – but it comes at a significant cost. One which I have repeatedly stated I am happy to pay my personal share of. The Independent Football Regulator found that 17 EFL clubs are currently spending more than their total revenue even without player’s wages. So to blame everything on the playing budget doesn’t tally with the facts. I suspect that our own men’s players wages are substantially less than 45% of our revenue (but someone may have an accurate figure). The rest presumably goes on running the stadium, academy, Women’s team etc. I believe our revenue puts us in the top half of League 1 Clubs but our playing budget is second from bottom. Whatever the benefits of owning one’s own ground versus ground sharing, I’m sure that we can both agree that the move to PL has increased our losses and accelerated the need to “sell out”.

Agreed 6MDM, no criticism of your post implied. Owning your own stadium seems important to me but I have no issue with WIJG starting a discussion about it.

OI - I agree the stadium does have to generate enough surplus income to cover player salaries, which ours does not and we cannot keep relying on fortuitous cup draws and player sales to plug the gap. My post was purely in response to the suggestion by WIJG that we'd be better off not owning our own ground as we'd have those salary costs to cover and no sources of revenue other than admission prices to do so as no doubt a landlord would keep any profits from concessions or other matchday income. We'd still have to pay the matchday costs like stewards and would probably lose a lot of our volunteers that save us money. All this assumes someone else would be prepared to buy and own a stadium and lease it to us on acceptable terms as if we couldn't make a profit owning it then how would they without doing something drastic and unpleasant. The Italian examples were of teams sharing a state owned ground as opposed to one of them owning it and another one leasing it. I doubt the Merton taxpayers would be too pleased if they bought our ground and leased it back to us. Other than WIJG, I doubt any of us would be in favour of being tenants as someone else's ground in another location not in Merton.

They sell poppies in there each year.

I didn't was being sarky:-)

STD- why did you believe the internet about W’spoons?

I'd be horrified if the stadium didn't look profitable when you include sponsorship income. The problem is that it has to cover most of the football budget as well and, despite Woodruff's efforts, it definitely fails at that.

WIJG is quite interesting, I enjoy his posts and ideas though I don't believe (m)any of them would work let alone be the best outcome.

Well said 6MDM.

Galty is a troll, don't feed it

Looks like Galty has received a bigger shoeing this morning than Tottenham gave Chelsea on Saturday

Trig - I can't work out what they are saying most of the time on FB, but most threads usually end up with someone saying that we should sack JJ

WIJG - We've been told by James Woodroof we now make a profit on owning Plough Lane through all the ancillary income like sponsorship, advertising, bar income, shop sales, function rooms, hospitality, etc. I don't know how true that is but that is what he said. Owning your own ground provides security of tenure, which we lost thanks to your idol Hammam. The losses are down to the ridiculous salaries players receive, having so many substitutes that you need more players, all the hangers on you have nowadays, etc, which are costs you would incur wherever you played. There is also the emotional aspect of having somewhere to call your own, which is what we fought for since 1991 when your hero Hamman relocated us with no intention of ever moving back to the area from where we take our name.

Can’t bring myself to look on FB Spit what are the happy clappers wanting to do instead of this deal?

I've always thought poppies were supposed to be worn between the 1st and 11th of November?