The Next Step Up

[The 17 Bus]

I see Mr Madejski was bemoaning the money levels in footy again last week, so the question is where do we go from here at RFC?

Wages have already gone up massively in the last 3 to 4 seasons here, yet Sidwell went despite apparantly being offered £1.3million a year, Shorey and Lita have both turned down improved contracts recently.

I dont know what we do pay but we must be among the lowest in The Prem at the moment, so will we have to up the salaries or just resign that we will not compete for the better players?

My thinking is really to compete out of the top4, as in reality if any of those wanted a player he would be mad to not go, and we would be mad to try to stop him going.

[brendywendy]

in my opinion its not about wages
its about ambition

if reading match any offer made by the big 4, they just trump it with champions league footy and th echance of winning trophies, which we cannot give

current policy is correct

[Forbury Lion]

I think teams like Reading may be the future for players who wish to play for England as they will likely get more starts and experience.

Shaun Wright-Phillips, Scott Parker.. just two examples off the top of my head of players who went to Chelsea and their England careers suffered as a result.

[The 17 Bus]

I think teams like Reading may be the future for players who wish to play for England as they will likely get more starts and experience.

Shaun Wright-Phillips, Scott Parker.. just two examples off the top of my head of players who went to Chelsea and their England careers suffered as a result.

both earning double what they would get at Reading though, money talks big in football, and we need to try to keep up as best we can.

[brendywendy]

its not about the cash

if we had offerd sidwell 50K per week he still would have gone to chelsea. to win things, play in europe, be considered for an england call up etc.

therefore its about that, not the money

[BonBoh]

One important thing here, which I fully support...
Reading FC is run as a business, which should not be losing money.

Once we have a larger stadium in place (starting next summer) we will hopefully attract larger crowds (providing we stay in the Premiership). With larger crowds coming through the turnstiles we will automatically see larger income and that is where the money comes from to be able to sustain the payment of larger wages.

We are 5 years off realistically paying a lot more money to players. The important thing is that we have to stay in the Premiership for 3 more seasons at least (including this one) before the stadium expansion is ready and we can regularly attract a potential crowd of 38,000.

The club has constantly said that we need the big crowds to be able to fund players wages. They said that back in League 2 and particularly often in the Championship when we were getting between 11-16 thousand crowds.

Until we get there, I support our wage structure and would rather support RFC in the Championship than see us do a Leeds by getting into ridiculous debt.

[Top Flight]

When we have a 38,000 seat stadium we will be similar to Sunderland before they got investment.

A bigger stadium doesn't guaruntee anything.

[floyd__streete]

When we have a 38,000 seat stadium we will be similar to Sunderland before they got investment.

A bigger stadium doesn't guaruntee anything.

Worse still, a 38,000 seater stadium with barely 20,000 in it - and that is provided we don't get relegated. My source in the ticket office tells me that we are struggling to break the 21,000 mark for Everton on Saturday . RFC needs as 38,000 capacity about as much as I need a two-car garage.

[Forbury Lion]

I think teams like Reading may be the future for players who wish to play for England as they will likely get more starts and experience.

Shaun Wright-Phillips, Scott Parker.. just two examples off the top of my head of players who went to Chelsea and their England careers suffered as a result.

both earning double what they would get at Reading though, money talks big in football, and we need to try to keep up as best we can.

Let's hope we get a few Matt Le Tisser/Steve Bull characters who are content to play at a club they enjoy playing for even if the relatively low wages mean they can only afford one Aston Martin and not a fleet of them.


Perhaps the league should restrict clubs to fielding just 25 named players over a season like the Champions League... It would stop Chelsea and co buying up loads of players, assuming the players actually want to play football.

If they want to field another player they can do so in return for a points deduction, although goalkeepers would be exempt.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

The next step sadly is using getting sold to some multi millionaire whose interest everyone will question.

Fair play to JM, he deserves all he's gonna get, I though am certainly not comfortable with the idea of some foreign investor coming in. Coppell wouldn't stay and I can only see the spirit that has got us here being ripped apart....

[Old Biscuitman]

Just keep going the way we're going and try to break the depressing Premiership mould. If it doesn't work, so be it, at least we will have had the experience.

[Chaney]

When we have a 38,000 seat stadium we will be similar to Sunderland before they got investment.

A bigger stadium doesn't guaruntee anything.

Worse still, a 38,000 seater stadium with barely 20,000 in it - and that is provided we don't get relegated. My source in the ticket office telsl me that we are struggling to break the 21,000 mark for Everton on Saturday . RFC needs as 38,000 capacity about as much as I need a two-car garage.

so you just want us to stand still and stagnate do you?
can you remember (if you are old enough) when we had just the 8,000 die hard fans at elm park?
now we have 20,000, whether you like it or not RFC is a growing club, and growing clubs need bigger facilities and more income to keep admission prices at a reasonable level.
we need this stadium expansion badly, because if we can survive in the premiership for another few years, those 8,000 die hards from elm park could turn into 30,000 at the new bigger madstad

[rabidbee]

When we have a 38,000 seat stadium we will be similar to Sunderland before they got investment.

A bigger stadium doesn't guaruntee anything.

Worse still, a 38,000 seater stadium with barely 20,000 in it - and that is provided we don't get relegated. My source in the ticket office telsl me that we are struggling to break the 21,000 mark for Everton on Saturday . RFC needs as 38,000 capacity about as much as I need a two-car garage.

Which is precisely the kind of thing that was said at the time a 24-000 seat stadium was mooted; apparently, we'll never fill it.

Oh.

[floyd__streete]

so you just want us to stand still and stagnate do you?
can you remember (if you are old enough) when we had just the 8,000 die hard fans at elm park?

Don't patronise me, I've been in plenty of crowds at Elm Park of less than 4,000 people as it happens.

Just how many clubs actually average more than 30,000 fans at home games anyway? Not got the stats to hand but at a guess I'd say only Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Man Utd & City, Liverpool, Everton, Villa & Newcastle managed it last season. These are all big city clubs. And the problem - as I see it - from the RFC point of view is that a good many locals would always rather travel to watch those first four clubs named over RFC anyway.

If we can't sell the 22,000 home tickets available for a game against a top six side whilst the Premiership novelty value hasn't quite rubbed off then what makes you think we'll ever need 38,000 seats? The only sign of second season syndrome I can envisage thus far is in the stands.

[Hahnemann's Hairdresser]

Personally I think the club are expanding 4 years too early. If, after 4 years of Premiership football, we were still getting 24,000 every week then we should expand. Doing it before then seems quite short sighted, especially if what floyd has been told is true.

[Royal Lady]

Personally I think the club are expanding 4 years too early. If, after 4 years of Premiership football, we were still getting 24,000 every week then we should expand. Doing it before then seems quite short sighted, especially if what floyd has been told is true.

feck me - where have you lot been? We've been slated for saying this on Club Policies!!

[Hahnemann's Hairdresser]

Personally I think the club are expanding 4 years too early. If, after 4 years of Premiership football, we were still getting 24,000 every week then we should expand. Doing it before then seems quite short sighted, especially if what floyd has been told is true.

feck me - where have you lot been? We've been slated for saying this on Club Policies!!

Which thread? It's simple supply and demand really, the club have dramaticaly raised supply before they've fully discovered the extent of the demand. It's like all the supermarkets having rediculous amounts of fans (no pun intended) on the shelves at the moment because there was a heat wave in April.

[Behindu]

Personally I think the club are expanding 4 years too early. If, after 4 years of Premiership football, we were still getting 24,000 every week then we should expand. Doing it before then seems quite short sighted, especially if what floyd has been told is true.

feck me - where have you lot been? We've been slated for saying this on Club Policies!!

Which thread? It's simple supply and demand really, the club have dramaticaly raised supply before they've fully discovered the extent of the demand. It's like all the supermarkets having rediculous amounts of fans (no pun intended) on the shelves at the moment because there was a heat wave in April.

Carefrul, massive scope for heated debate here !!

I'll make one comment and then withdraw !

Plans are to expand to 30,000 not 38,000. 38,000 is a seperate phase and I can see then doing phase 1 then pausing.

30,000 seems entirely logical to me whereas 38,000 needs careful consideration. But we are 2 years away from starting the second phase at least so I wouldn;t worry too much about that yet.

If we haven;t sold 21,000 for Everton that means there have been about 500 non ST who have bought tickets. Which seems implausible.

[andrew1957]

Worse still, a 38,000 seater stadium with barely 20,000 in it - and that is provided we don't get relegated. My source in the ticket office tells me that we are struggling to break the 21,000 mark for Everton on Saturday . RFC needs as 38,000 capacity about as much as I need a two-car garage.


Unless Everton are bringing nobody this is very unlikely. We have 18,000 season ticket holders and Everton's allocation (which I would expect them to sell) will be in the region of 3000. That would mean that no Reading fans have bought tickets in South stand. There may be a few hundred to sell but not more than that.

I have been a member ever since the current system was launched and have plenty of royalty points so although not a season ticket holder I attend virtually all matches unless I am away on business/holiday. Last season several friends wanted to attend matches for the first time but by the time matches went on to general sale only odd seats were available so I could not get them tickets next to me. There are literally thousands of potential new supporters out there who would probably begin to attend regularly if someone takes them for the first time (just as I first went along to Elm Park with a friend many years ago. If we do not expand the stadium these people will never attend their first game.

Do not underestimate the current interest now that we are in the premiership.

[Royal Lady]

Personally I think the club are expanding 4 years too early. If, after 4 years of Premiership football, we were still getting 24,000 every week then we should expand. Doing it before then seems quite short sighted, especially if what floyd has been told is true.

feck me - where have you lot been? We've been slated for saying this on Club Policies!!

Which thread? It's simple supply and demand really, the club have dramaticaly raised supply before they've fully discovered the extent of the demand. It's like all the supermarkets having rediculous amounts of fans (no pun intended) on the shelves at the moment because there was a heat wave in April.

Try and trawl through 14 pages of "A Bit Worrying" on Club Policies - it's a laugh and a half. Edit: Try reading from p6 onwards.