Since promotion

[papereyes]

What about watford, leicester, southampton, norwich, crystal palace and ipswich?

All were prem sides who didn't spend much and look at them now.

At least three of them have had their fingers severely burned upon previous relegations from the Premiership, with CP bankrupt at several places and Leicester went into administration.

Ipswich did spend a fair bit after staying up in their first season (Finidi George, Matteo Sereni) and went close to financial trouble upon relegation.

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

[Hoop Blah]

I'm with those that don't want the club to spend beyond it's means to gamble on Premiership football. Partly because gambling the future of my club on a few big name signings and high wages is asking for long term trouble, but also because I don't think the Premiership isn't the fantastic product it thinks it is for the paying punter.

What I do want though is the club to be honest and not to rip it's loyal fanbase off with tales of big budgets and plans in order to justify ticket price rises that aren't used to strengthen the playing squad.

Even as a season ticket holder of 15+ years I'm on the border line of not renewing because of the price these days. Yet again I coughed up by cash for the pleasure of supporting my club but I do think it's a bit rich of the club to have basically doubled it's prices (and added £75-£100 on it's previously budgetted Premiership season tickets) to supposedly meet the demands of the Premiership only for us to bring in a couple of loan players and freebies plus a £1.5 million winger from a mid table championship side.

[Hoop Blah]

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

Totally agree, but did our ticket price increase slowly inline with the transfer kitty and wage expenditure?

[Vision]

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

Totally agree, but did our ticket price increase slowly inline with the transfer kitty and wage expenditure?

Depends how you look at it. If you wanna look at it over the 5 seasons it took us to get the 2 promotions then on average yes.

[papereyes]

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

Totally agree, but did our ticket price increase slowly inline with the transfer kitty and wage expenditure?

Don't know and don't want to say. Do we have the accounts to check?


I also wonder how linear the growth would be - are we paying a certain amount for things that we don't see pitch side and, as fans, probably don't even consider?

Are we investing any of our extra money into the stadium expansion?

What I do want though is the club to be honest and not to rip it's loyal fanbase off with tales of big budgets and plans in order to justify ticket price rises that aren't used to strengthen the playing squad.

I agree with that.

I'm not quite sure if the club are spinning wild tales - this summer looks much the same as last, imo.

[Schards#2]

Has anyone actually said they do want us to spend beyond our means? I would like to see us spend within our means as opposed to not spending at all.

There's a whole lot of grey beween the black of spending sod all and the white of spending like Leeds/Bradford.

[Behindu]

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

Totally agree, but did our ticket price increase slowly inline with the transfer kitty and wage expenditure?

You could argue that we'd seen our prices held artificially low for a number of seasons and on reaching the Prem there was an element of catching up and an element of needing new money.

I'm not sure how sustainable the argument is, but we did have a number of seasons where prices were pretty much pegged and I suspect if we'd seen 10% rises each year there would have been no complaints, whereas a smaller increase in one go leads to the feeling that there was a huge hike...

[Hoop Blah]

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

Totally agree, but did our ticket price increase slowly inline with the transfer kitty and wage expenditure?

You could argue that we'd seen our prices held artificially low for a number of seasons and on reaching the Prem there was an element of catching up and an element of needing new money.

I'm not sure how sustainable the argument is, but we did have a number of seasons where prices were pretty much pegged and I suspect if we'd seen 10% rises each year there would have been no complaints, whereas a smaller increase in one go leads to the feeling that there was a huge hike...

My gut feeling is that that arguement doesn't hold up at all because I never remember thinking that we had artificially low tickets in the first place. That's just my personal feeling from travelling up and down the country paying on the gate at a wide range of quality of stadiums but I have no hard and fast facts to back that up.

I have a lot of time for the way the clubs finances are handled, but it defies all logic to think that all the increased revenue couldn't have covered the increase in expediture we experienced after not bringing in major additions to the playing staff.

I would assume that this was down to an inability to attract players for various reasons as opposed to Madesjki and Howe stock piling the cash in the back office.

[readingfc_4_life_and_beyo]

Not artificially low prices?

The club even advertised the fact that we had (the or somewhere near the) lowest Season Ticket prices in the Championship for at least one year

[Behindu]

[My gut feeling is that that arguement doesn't hold up at all because I never remember thinking that we had artificially low tickets in the first place. That's just my personal feeling from travelling up and down the country paying on the gate at a wide range of quality of stadiums but I have no hard and fast facts to back that up.

I was specifically thinking about the kids tickets - which IIRC were at £60-80 for quite a long time, well under what would have been 'market' value, less than £4 a game (but with good long term investment value for the club) !
Our ST prices always seemed to compare quite well with what we were asked to pay at places like Ipswich.
I'ma lso struggling on gfacts and figures but no doubt someone will pop up with chapter and verse and put us straight !

[Harold]

Stephen Hunt is on £35,000 a week apparently!

[Behindu]

Stephen Hunt is on £35,000 a week apparently!

Indeed, but his deal stipulates he works every other week for free...

[Ian Royal]

I'm with schards on this one. The spin coming out from the club these days is complete bollox. We're looking to spend big bla bla bla, no we're not, we haven't. We aren't attracting anyone and we aren't bidding high enough for anyone. We charge too much for season tickets when we don't need the extra funds. Madejski bleats on about not paying players and clubs massive funds, and how we won't be held to ransome in the transfer market, he also moans how everyone in football these days is overpaid. So then what does he do? Charges the fans ridiculously high modern day prices. Hypocrite.

A club like reading will never sustain premiership status, thats the sad thing. Its all about money in this day and age, you have to spend big to remain big. Clubs with good intentions finish nowhere.

Enter the kiss of death to Schards arguement. When Daniella agrees with you, you know your arguement is weak as it poses a great oppertunity for fishing.

[Daniella]

Ian royal- the biggest stalker on the board. Go run along to your clique.

[RG30]

The club now boasts a training ground that is hugely improved and is a credit to any club competiting at this level. The redevelopment of the stadium will apparently cost in the region of £30million, how true that is I don't no but as usual, we'll do things the RFC way and not get bullied by greedy agents/players and continue to prove people wrong.

[working class hero]

I agree with Mr Angry - the risks of spending outside of the budget are just too great for it to be considered a viable tactic. Build it, build it well and build it slowly, if needs be.

Totally agree, but did our ticket price increase slowly inline with the transfer kitty and wage expenditure?

You could argue that we'd seen our prices held artificially low for a number of seasons and on reaching the Prem there was an element of catching up and an element of needing new money.

I'm not sure how sustainable the argument is, but we did have a number of seasons where prices were pretty much pegged and I suspect if we'd seen 10% rises each year there would have been no complaints, whereas a smaller increase in one go leads to the feeling that there was a huge hike...

For the three seasons before we went up we were encouraged to buy early and enjoy Prem football at CCC prices - subject to us going up.... So the need for a doubling of prices in the season we romped away with the title seems debatable.
Clearly the cash was there in previous seasons for us to compete.

As to the claim that we have not lost out on financial grounds might I mention....... Sidwell? And I see Hammond wants to lure a 'top player' to RFC and says money is no object.

Well I would rather not sign someone if it destroys morale by giving one man huge wages. I don't think the club would be mad enoiugh to go along this route - so the 'top player' line is really a load of cobblers.

[Coppelled Streets]

Ian royal - Go run along to your clique.

Pot, kettle.........

[Daniella]

not really.

[The whole year inn]

Stephen Hunt is on £35,000 a week apparently!

[Wycombe Royal]

As to the claim that we have not lost out on financial grounds might I mention....... Sidwell?

WE could have matched Chelsea's offer and he would still have left. Why unsettle other memebers of the squad chasing someone who probably had no intention of ever re-signing?