Club Financial Statement

[ScottishRoyal]

And fair play to the club for finally making this statement.

They deserve a lot of credit for doing this. How many other clubs would openly publish this information...

[Yorkshire Royal]

Interesting that you only quote the borough population for Reading when the Urban sub area comes to 232,662.

Not sure if you add those two figures together or whether the borough is already included. But seeing as there is no such distinction for Stoke that's pretty misleading.

The Urban Sub-Area includes areas that aren't technically part of Reading. It's a measurement that allows for Reading folk to claim their town is bigger as they can "absorb" parts of Oxfordshire and Wokingham..

Stoke is a City made up of 6 separate towns. It is without doubt bigger than Reading and to suggest otherwise is wrong. I'll take a different measurement of "club size". On a matchday, compare number of visitors to their main online fanzine (The Oatcake) compared to this. About 5 times more people... Considering Reading is the home of IT geeks, you'd think there'd be thousands.

[Ian Royal]

Interesting that you only quote the borough population for Reading when the Urban sub area comes to 232,662.

Not sure if you add those two figures together or whether the borough is already included. But seeing as there is no such distinction for Stoke that's pretty misleading.

The Urban Sub-Area includes areas that aren't technically part of Reading. It's a measurement that allows for Reading folk to claim their town is bigger as they can "absorb" parts of Oxfordshire and Wokingham..

Stoke is a City made up of 6 separate towns. It is without doubt bigger than Reading and to suggest otherwise is wrong. I'll take a different measurement of "club size". On a matchday, compare number of visitors to their main online fanzine (The Oatcake) compared to this. About 5 times more people... Considering Reading is the home of IT geeks, you'd think there'd be thousands.

Stoke maybe bigger in population, but quoting a figure that increases by roughly half as much again by extending the area by 15 km is still misleading. Afterall, those people are still very much connected to Reading even if they aren't officially in the Town borough.

[Alivey]

guys this could be the end of reading fc as we know it.. we had a fun run but the risk we put on getting promotion was too much.. rip. we are doomed.

[Ian Royal]

guys this could be the end of reading fc as we know it.. we had a fun run but the risk we put on getting promotion was too much.. rip. we are doomed.

Why are you still trying? It's not like anyone is paying any attention. Go back to trolling AE, and try again here another time when the fish might be more inclined to bite.

[Alivey]

Moderated

don't worry after the club goes i'm sure there is a website where you can go to harass grandmas and make fun of disabled people

[Ian Royal]

don't worry after the club goes i'm sure there is a website where you can go to harass grandmas and make fun of disabled people

I can harass RL on here if I want to. Not sure I'd make fun of V though. she'd probably get the better of me quite easily.

[FiNeRaIn]

Stoke are a much bigger club. To suggest otherwise is silly. Population of Stoke in 2001 was 239,000, based on census. Estimated population of Reading in 2008 was 145,000. Wikipedia is my source, but usually pretty good on this sort of thing.

Talking crap. We've always been ahead of stoke in recent years and the attendances are roughly the same, with us again have the better until last season. You go one further by suggesting we are silly when you are the one talking pish, priceless.

If they got relegated they'd be back to getting similar attendances to us.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

We lost over £4.7m in the Prem, if you like to read it that way,

therefore we came out of our two seasons in the premier League with a deficit of £4.75m

It's all bollox though, and as ever on HNA figures are forgotten from the past, wasn't Sidwell on 8k in the 05/06 season, this went up on promotion to about £12k a week, we then offered £15k and he wanted £18k as he had a family to feed, and would have signed the longer deal had we agreed to that figure, however JM and his gang said that was too much, so we let him play for one season on his current deal, then he went, we then upped the wages of other players to near obscene levels anyways.

[papereyes]

wrt Stoke, there's really nothing else to do. At least in Reading, there's ... erm ... a wonky lion.

[Deadlock]

The Urban Sub-Area includes areas that aren't technically part of Reading. It's a measurement that allows for Reading folk to claim their town is bigger as they can "absorb" parts of Oxfordshire and Wokingham..

Yes, there's no way anybody can really claim that Woodley, Earley, Tilehurst and Calcot are part of Reading.

[Arnie_Pie]

Reading = anywhere will an RG postcode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RG_postcode_area

[Man Friday]

And fair play to the club for finally making this statement.

They deserve a lot of credit for doing this. How many other clubs would openly publish this information...

I'd be amazed if it told more than half the story.

Besides they were under pressure from the fans and the media so a media-savvy RFC had to come up with the goods eventually. FCOL, don't be fooled by this.

[CMRoyal]

As a casual observer these days could somebody please explain this to me.
Steve Sidwell wanted £25,000 per week as a Premiership player and arguably our best player.
The club decides not to pay him that much out of a total salary bill of £30 million.
Our best player leaves for nothing rather than the £6million or so fee that he would have commanded.
Well-run club?

I can't believe people still think Sid would have stayed with us for more money.

[brendywendy]

Stoke are a much bigger club. To suggest otherwise is silly. Population of Stoke in 2001 was 239,000, based on census. Estimated population of Reading in 2008 was 145,000. Wikipedia is my source, but usually pretty good on this sort of thing.

Talking crap. We've always been ahead of stoke in recent years and the attendances are roughly the same, with us again have the better until last season. You go one further by suggesting we are silly when you are the one talking pish, priceless.

If they got relegated they'd be back to getting similar attendances to us.

and still be a bigger club purely by dint of their achievements

[brendywendy]

And fair play to the club for finally making this statement.

They deserve a lot of credit for doing this. How many other clubs would openly publish this information...

I'd be amazed if told more than half the story.

Besides they were under pressure from the fans and the media so a media-savvy RFC had to come up with the goods eventually. FCR, don't be fooled by this.

dodgy accounting?
funnelling funds to the hotel?
used to buy statues?

[CMRoyal]

One thing all this highlights for me is that we need to give Rodgers a damn sight more support and patience than many on HNA have done so far. He seems to have a genuine feeling for the Club and frankly it's hard to see how we could expect more than we have seen so far - some signs of promise and a fragile developing young team.

Agreed. In fact, the appointment makes even more sense now - boy do we need someone who'll do this for the love as much as the kudos and money. Egocentric he may be, but that doesn't mean he isn't pouring his heart into this job. He must be, knowing what he would have known going into it.

[Uke]

Stoke are a much bigger club. To suggest otherwise is silly. Population of Stoke in 2001 was 239,000, based on census. Estimated population of Reading in 2008 was 145,000. Wikipedia is my source, but usually pretty good on this sort of thing.

Talking crap. We've always been ahead of stoke in recent years and the attendances are roughly the same, with us again have the better until last season. You go one further by suggesting we are silly when you are the one talking pish, priceless.

If they got relegated they'd be back to getting similar attendances to us.

Attendance figures =/= size of club
Attendance figures are a factor of the size of the ground and team performance



Size of club (these days) = merchandising + TV rights + exclusive catchment area + about 2-3% from ticket sales

[Whore Jackie]

I think it is a FA rule that if a team is relegated, each player must take a 25% mandatory pay cut.

[Sun Tzu]

Stoke are a much bigger club. To suggest otherwise is silly. Population of Stoke in 2001 was 239,000, based on census. Estimated population of Reading in 2008 was 145,000. Wikipedia is my source, but usually pretty good on this sort of thing.

Talking crap. We've always been ahead of stoke in recent years and the attendances are roughly the same, with us again have the better until last season. You go one further by suggesting we are silly when you are the one talking pish, priceless.

If they got relegated they'd be back to getting similar attendances to us.

and still be a bigger club purely by dint of their achievements

How does this pointless 'bigger club' debate keep coming back ?

Whatever the population of Stoke, it makes no difference to the stature of the club that plays there. The population of Kensington and Chelsea is around 150k, so where does that put the mightly Blues in the rank order of clubs ? Somewhere below Wycombe Wanderers I suspect....