CBX1985

The old carrot on a stick regime. I give us more chance of winning the Champions League in the next ten years than Birmingham having a 60,000 seater stadium.

He has four years left in his contract as well.

I would normally be with you on this. I usually feel some compassion -as we have all been in their shoes. But having been on the train between Derby and Birmingham after the 2022 match with the repugnant BCFC fans, they deserve all they get.

Me, too - it was great fun. The coverage on Sky was funereal - which was amusing as I was laughing me head off.

And as I said, we pay 20% tax on that ST figure - so lose £1.32m to HMRC. The monies from Sky will be VAT free, as it would be charged on top (by the EFL) and reclaimed by Sky (from HMRC).

A little. Back of a fag packed calculation and 22,000 sold (with £300 per season ticket as average - some will be nearly twice that and some much below) nets you £6.6m.

I like Rams TV, but it would mean a lot less money for clubs at this level. The Premier League has value in that millions like watching that standard so they will always rake it in; at this level it is more hard fought. The thing that gets forgotten with clubs selling games themselves is that not only do they need to meet all the costs of production and sale etc, they also need to pay VAT on each sub. So 20% of all the sub goes in tax. If they sell to Sky they charge collectively they would do this + VAT, but Sky get to reclaim it from HMRC - so there is no tax on the sale. In other words, you need to outperform what you are offered by 20% to simply break even. Same with ticket sales - let's say we gain £1m more by going with the TV deal in revenue but £1m worth of ST holders cancel - you are actually up by £200,000 on that deal - as the ST would attract VAT at source.

Good question. I don't know.

I think Sky have said that part of the agreement is that Sky are going to be bound to choosing games much further in advance. Therefore, more games will be shown but much more notice is going to be given for each game. If this is contractual rather than "agreement", then this might actually work the other way for you - giving more certainty even if times are slightly off.

I also don't live all that close, coming from probably the same distance the other way. I quite like early Saturday kick offs (as last day of the season), but not evenings if at all avoided. I am going to chime in that I think it's swings and roundabouts. People living abroad get to watch all the games on TV, but we can't. I rarely go to away games (haven't been to one for about eight years sort of rarely), but try to go to every home game with ST. I have a projector and wall blank-sheet, so can watch televised games in comfort at home with a beer on cinema like screen. For me, I value being able to watch away games on TV all the time even if a bit of inconvenience is relevant to home games. I know there are VPNs and such, but it is a major hassle to do that- so pleased more than one or two Sky games and the same for Rams TV will be on.

Remember how averages work. Maybe CEO and head of recruitment will be on good salaries (£150k pa?), but many backroom are minimum wage (i.e. shop, ticket office etc). Now, we have players like Collins and Hourihane who signed when we had no one credible to play. PW has stated there are some players on very high salaries he might not have gone with. It one takes one or two of them, on extremely high salaries, to skew the average. Bill Gates on a train: If everyone on this forum was on a train with Bill Gates the average wealth of people on the train would be over £1billion. At the levels you are discussing, it doesn't take many players to skew the average quite perversely.

They can apply for date exemptions (as is done for international weeks and the FA Cup Final). However, it would appear - especially as Lg 1 and Lg 2 are going ahead that date, we are probably looking at most games being Saturday lunch time.

I think Sky will be showing all of them. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12873679/sky-sports-agrees-new-five-year-efl-deal-over-1000-matches-per-season

Indeed. I would go further and say, for instance, I would be prepared to play for Derby in any position for free. The club instead pays players in excess of £250,000 pa to do that role. You could make the point that is a "gamble" on more established players. I would be useless and we would be thrashed each week and relegated, but there would be a massive one off saving. The gamble was paying very high wages to inexperienced managers (who are famous) and who, should you lose a few, would be sacked with compensation to boot. And paying extremely high wages (and even higher fees) to fringe Premier League players to entice them to take a step backwards. Paying a "promotion specialist" to increase revenue without taking debt to do so is very good business sense.

it is very subjective. I would say bullying would be ad hominem attacks. I have seen very few of these on this site in any direction. You then get the "I'm offended" brigade who confuse offence with disagreement and cite their offence as bullying. I'm with Stephen Fry on this one: so f***ing what.

I quite like Warne. He has a nice sense of humour and seems to have a vision. Truth is, before he became our manager I'd never heard of him. Clowes rated him so that was enough for me. He was given one objective: get us up. He's achieved that. There are many who don't like him - whether it is is football, his David Brent jokes or his bobblehat. That I have no problem with; I am no loyalist to him only the club. What I personally find frustrating is these points are masked with constantly moving goalposts - "players won't sign for him"... when they do it becomes: "he needs to stop media interviews, he is alienating them"... "we are losing, he doesn't understand tactics and is "naive" "... when they win it becomes "we were always going to win this league, he doesn't have the ability to win a league above - he's not a Championship specialist". Just like a doomsday cult, when midnight arrives and the worst doesn't happen the deadline can move rather than admit, maybe, we need to rethink our position. Maybe he will fail, but he has been successful so far. What we need to do, in my view, is stick on what we want - and make that tangible and definable. Without that, debate is hard as the grounds for that debate will shift as easy as sand in the Sahara. Before writing this I read some of the season predictions. Promotion with second was a success for practically everyone. What has changed?

Clowes Developments are owned 100% by the Clowes Trust (2014). It depends on the type of Trust (my assumption would be a bloodline discretionary trust) about voting rights. I do not know whether DC has siblings (I know he has children), but he likely has total control (i.e. 50%+ 1 share) of the firm via the Trust (there are 5,510 shares in the Clowes Developments Ltd, to which the Clowes Trust 2014 owns all of them). Below is the very long link to the related page outlining ownership structure via Companies House. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/jA956asbmI8lFL9FTyAtuM73zW3Bw51NsN60X1HrmcM/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3NXFXCCTZ%2F20240429%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240429T164903Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjELz%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIQCU9jUT7JZ1TCpWcdiaC%2FdiypHOEkiqnSpQe3wNmzkwyQIgedNzRQo2vaD3cG5lYgaqHhDk48uO4VS1s7JNmw06iycquwUIFRAFGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDGsdtbtESQlesdFP7CqYBamk6RvrQOLCRfaWsohOhJAjo05jIHR3cgexAnvX155vn5PHFFeWPTlMCm%2FHhv6zwcsR4iaAWIRmRlDB6Bg8TTCxpnbNwAfrRVmTJhblfeepATMcAf7SqYp4WfVFGOOAsAoaF%2Fcuqnjihwa8iS%2FiEfyatI7uMAfW%2F%2FgKI3Mwa38YWmQYeHRn1VXIGibMdIGIyWl%2ByF4dCIeCoVfJKLYZTJpF1LspEi6Wp30qee%2FNnUwwvuXosmmbtdE382UNtvwAismHDPBReNLXpvzdXjtoVcRhx%2FT1x66EN4XGJ%2F6tRTg%2Bn5%2BGeVfak5a8Wkm8Sehc95aiRTLjSNMuSpTQbUUmUZE9QUCE6AR68Zgje%2FMd%2BzU8r%2B9m7HdvBobMQ20Ouh5A0nYaaXV%2FQ1g4DTq7OQ1BAljXyBJ6qMIFsFBCmZmOR3Zy%2BUXeqgGc3u4D18OHCTGA1NdyofO0eTCIgo7Z0l2wX9j7JVEwVq2B2MYAliUfUphORKlP1eqXkqqSpjZNsTSULbzBF%2FZoyOlYF74gQFtNGNbkdfdTsG7Jhus6w%2BQOnCj%2BYybVEuE77uWMN5t3%2FPZ9%2Bjv1cXn6OYdbmocjuPTpxwCRufpTgixgKmczGvE6E0mH4tyWhMTavjsX%2BO3o7AkUbBVLo%2B2uGA839Fzs%2BeMq9aj%2F8NvKAZ0o7gJDaN6yjwzQhw%2Fb7u2MlNNjAhiQbiTsKAq%2FqzmY6ayOavG53qMBtkVnY0ztul9UjhHt8o95lhQCt%2F8LsDgLtZ7257GxpIhv0O3%2FELbVEpadeketU5Nmn4dsPLg9a5ptMHzl%2F%2BNxvn8CqqoegxwtzJW0wWKxwNmJTikRmQsXlVR7QKL6V8nx9B9l%2BJHVwPBZ4P49P3jJdN4FmhV%2Bt5GcpcgwiZu%2BsQY6sQGFB2G0QMxbXdMrMutL8daPQQ2B3h1gXGKy5Lde5oOnb%2F6kUKYuWbmfuNQitgtd7jKXZpnI0TDpsz2A55uMDf7PV1rMfeK0JYjvCxgsODLYhERQ3L9nmKgLdi5ym5SRZ%2BxSnMUPeePAeIjT7bORpz75fg21GMvNwm6SP9AnN00xhNS%2B4gkIcNf%2BpdHnrZijNEbgEFhlSqn5BZCwsXtk01trxr0Oj1G4h2cpYWjV7y046BY%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D"companies_house_document.pdf"&X-Amz-Signature=a1d4aca32c5543f45b4278c1906a329e136cc1d591ba5513c006784583c9ed34

I made a remark to you that in the days leading up to a stunning promotion it is absurd to have a "debate" about the manager's future. No one told you you cannot discuss what you like but merely your position would be liable to appear ridiculous in the circumstances in the same way, say, an internal campaign to have a CEO fired for wildly outperforming his extremely challenging profit target, would have.

He is the football version of Uncle Albert.

That cap is for the Premier League, I believe - not sure it applies to Championship. I believe there has to be some available to purchase game-by-game. I suspect the club will want to sell as many up front as it can, so if there is no limit and demand is high, could be very hard to get tickets this coming year.

Hypothetically.... Brighton were interested in buying him but loaning him out to a Championship club. Now we are there, there is the option of selling him and loaning him back for the season. There is no way he would break into Brighton first team at this stage, but a Championship season would give him his springboard. If Brighton do want him, he will go but if we can get a further season that would be a big win with a fee on top.

I noted it at the time. I also thought he was taking the players off due to pitch invasion, as there was still two minutes of the minimum four to go.

I think we will. Every fan wants him too - and I cannot conceive how Clowes would think any different. The trouble is we don't want to appear too desperate in case Cardiff jack up the price. But, £8m TV money extra - we have the funds from secure income.

I think I posted on here at the time a few days before it transpired, that Rooney probably did want to stay,but his going was inevitable. When Chris Kirchner was "supposedly" going to buy us Rooney was all in on the idea - and seemed fully on board. Had that not have been fairy dust of a fraudster, I suspect he would have done. When that fell through, WR was somewhat tainted by it (I doubt any of which was his fault). Then when Clowes put his bid in and it was accepted, Rooney must have seen (or been advised) that there was no way Clowes was going to want to pay managerial salaries at that level (for an inexperienced manager, but with top level playing experience). Clowes clearly wanted us to be normal - rather than Wayne Rooney/Frank Lampard's Derby. In those instances, it was both inevitable that he was going to leave - and he got to make the decision himself.

A fair comment, but I just don't think we know what his football is like. At this level, we are never going to pay to get Championship level players (more than just a few) as the risk of failure is too large. He has to do what he can with what he has - means justify ends, and we need(ed) promotion. Should we be promoted on Saturday, my view is that PW starts again, a new coach on a two year deal. His new job will be very different from his last one - albeit from the same dugout. That is when, in my view, we judge the standard of his football.