Athlone Town FC - Time to call it a day?

54and56

Sad to hear the perennial financial and club administration problems continue - http://www.westmeathindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2016/06/03/4121034-athlone-town-match-off-as-players-refuse-to-travel/

1887 -> 2016. If this does turn out to be the death knell for ATFC it's not been a bad run. Two LOI championships in the early 1980's, some memorable European games (most notably AC Milan in 1975) and the FAI cup in 1924.

I recall as a kid the excitement of being brought to games in St Mels park (including the AC Milan match!) by my Dad and the odd away trip to Limerick or Dublin. I also vividly recall people streaming from all parts of the town with their blue and black scarves through Sarsfield Square to St Mels park. You had to negotiate graffiti covered laneways and skirt round big puddles as you queued up to get through the turnstiles but it felt great. There was excitement and a great sense of anticipation as kick off approached. I recall the time Linfield came to St Mels park and there was almost a riot and the excitement of when Derry joined the LOI and were bringing huge travelling support with them.

Sadly all those great times are long long ago. I left Athlone in the late 80's and have never lived there since. I sometimes go to see them when they play in Dublin but that's my only connection to them now. I talk to family who still support them (i.e. actually go to matches) but they have become very disillusioned and no longer go to every game.

Looking from afar but filtering info I get from family and friends in Athlone and still close to the club it seems a number of things have contributed to the club finding itself in the latest predicament but the absolute bottom line is that there is no longer a sufficient fan base or potential demand in the Athlone area for a LOI soccer team which can be commercially viable on a stand alone basis i.e. it can be run without the need for constant subsidies from the FAI or being baled out again and again.

Over the years the following seem to have impacted negatively on the demand/support for ATFC:-

- The # of soldiers and their families in the Athlone area has declined - these were always a strong cohort of the ATFC fan base.

- ATFC are competing with other sports (both GAA and Rugby have really taken off in Athlone over the last 2-3 decades) and the availability of UK premier league and European soccer on TV not only makes it easier to watch soccer but it then sets a very high bar for what people expect to see when they go to a game and going to watch ATFC just doesn't live up to that.

- I recall after the success of winning the LOI twice in the early 1980's and the whole AC Milan adventure ATFC spent a pile of money buying a new clubhouse and that, for me anyway, was the beginning of the slippery slope. The clubhouse became a glorified late drinking club, lost a pile of money and was shut down. It was eventually demolished. Since then there's been the move from St Mel's park to Lissywollen which is a fine stadium but the club can't attract the gate receipts and sponsorship to run a commercially viable club. They are forever incurring deficits and having to be baled out one way or another. It's simply not sustainable any more.

- There doesn't seem to be any formal connection or affinity between ATFC and the local soccer clubs such as Willow Park FC and St Peters FC. People who play for or support Willow Park and St Peters tend not to support ATFC.

- Local businesses don't seem to view ATFC as a good marketing/PR opportunity. Why would any business want to spend a few thousand Euro advertising to a couple of hundred people every week? Why would any business want to be associated with such a poorly administered club when there are other sports or social activities they can spend/donate their money to which will give them a far greater audience and/or positive PR. Clubs have to offer something compelling for businesses to part with their hard earned cash and ATFC seem to do a very poor job relative to the other sports clubs in the area.

Clubs, regardless of their heritage, don't have a divine right to exist. Unless the FAI are going to start subsidising clubs (which I personally wouldn't agree with) who don't have sufficient paying support to make them viable have to be allowed re-organise themselves and enter the Leinster Senior League or similar or be allowed to die all together. After all, it wouldn't be the first time ATFC left and later re-joined the LOI. They first played in the LOI from 1922 to 1928 but then left and didn't rejoin again until 1969. In the interim they survived so leaving the LOI isn't necessarily the end of the world for the club. It might provide the club with the time and space it needs to redefine itself, reorganise it's ownership and financial management and re-emerge a few years down the line as a leaner more locally focused club with a solid support base capable of sustaining another stint in the LOI.

There will be a lot of wringing of hands and pointing of fingers if the club does drop out of the LOI many of the people complaining loudest will be armchair supporters who haven't been to any matches in years.

What do people think? Should ATFC remain in the LOI via an FAI bale out or some sort of local benevolent bale out or accept they don't have enough of a sustainable support base locally to maintain a LOI club?

applehunter

If they had their budget right before the start of the season and they wouldn't be in this mess.

dan1895

How did they get through the licensing process?

Harry Palmr

The side Athlone Town were due to play - Waterford FC United are 80k in debt. Hand to mouth, week by week.

CSF

It's not time for Athlone to call it a day, if they can get themselves out of this mess its time for them to cut their cloth accordingly and stop trying to stretch so much in terms of their budget. Look at Cabinteely, not trying to compete with other teams bidding for players, just building their squad as best they can and hoping to improve over time. Worked for Wexford.

LuckyLloyd

Exactly - you should never go bust halfway through a season. You put the best side together you can within the budget available and if that's a fully amateur side so be it. The lack of responsibility / discipline involved every time a LOI side gets into this kind of situation is stunning tbh. No sympathy.

CSF

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Exactly - you should never go bust halfway through a season. You put the best side together you can within the budget available and if that's a fully amateur side so be it. The lack of responsibility / discipline involved every time a LOI side gets into this kind of situation is stunning tbh. No sympathy.

I have sympathy for the people at the club who would have thought just the same last year. It only takes one or two people with a bit of power to completely f*ck things up.

gimmick

Are people really blaming Athlone for being granted a license?

The licensing committee will accept any ol crap it seems.

From what I believe their board are a shower of little hitlers and have alienated the entire town.

Darkglasses

Is it true that we are talking about 25 to 30 euro per player expenses though? I imagine the fan boycott hit them hard.

CSF

Darkglasses wrote: »

Is it true that we are talking about 25 to 30 euro per player expenses though? I imagine the fan boycott hit them hard.

I think they've scaled it back this year but I doubt the likes of Matthews, Cassidy, Chindea and Purdy are there for that.

Darkglasses

CSF wrote: »

I think they've scaled it back this year but I doubt the likes of Matthews, Cassidy, Chindea and Purdy are there for that.

That was the word on Twitter but I find it very hard to believe. Hardly worth jeopardising your club's existence for 30 euro.

Masala

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Sad to hear the perennial financial and club administration problems continue - http://www.westmeathindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2016/06/03/4121034-athlone-town-match-off-as-players-refuse-to-travel/

1887 -> 2016. If this does turn out to be the death knell for ATFC it's not been a bad run. Two LOI championships in the early 1980's, some memorable European games (most notably AC Milan in 1975) and the FAI cup in 1924.

I recall as a kid the excitement of being brought to games in St Mels park (including the AC Milan match!) by my Dad and the odd away trip to Limerick or Dublin. I also vividly recall people streaming from all parts of the town with their blue and black scarves through Sarsfield Square to St Mels park. You had to negotiate graffiti covered laneways and skirt round big puddles as you queued up to get through the turnstiles but it felt great. There was excitement and a great sense of anticipation as kick off approached. I recall the time Linfield came to St Mels park and there was almost a riot and the excitement of when Derry joined the LOI and were bringing huge travelling support with them.

Sadly all those great times are long long ago. I left Athlone in the late 80's and have never lived there since. I sometimes go to see them when they play in Dublin but that's my only connection to them now. I talk to family who still support them (i.e. actually go to matches) but they have become very disillusioned and no longer go to every game.

Looking from afar but filtering info I get from family and friends in Athlone and still close to the club it seems a number of things have contributed to the club finding itself in the latest predicament but the absolute bottom line is that there is no longer a sufficient fan base or potential demand in the Athlone area for a LOI soccer team which can be commercially viable on a stand alone basis i.e. it can be run without the need for constant subsidies from the FAI or being baled out again and again.

Over the years the following seem to have impacted negatively on the demand/support for ATFC:-

- The # of soldiers and their families in the Athlone area has declined - these were always a strong cohort of the ATFC fan base.

- ATFC are competing with other sports (both GAA and Rugby have really taken off in Athlone over the last 2-3 decades) and the availability of UK premier league and European soccer on TV not only makes it easier to watch soccer but it then sets a very high bar for what people expect to see when they go to a game and going to watch ATFC just doesn't live up to that.

- I recall after the success of winning the LOI twice in the early 1980's and the whole AC Milan adventure ATFC spent a pile of money buying a new clubhouse and that, for me anyway, was the beginning of the slippery slope. The clubhouse became a glorified late drinking club, lost a pile of money and was shut down. It was eventually demolished. Since then there's been the move from St Mel's park to Lissywollen which is a fine stadium but the club can't attract the gate receipts and sponsorship to run a commercially viable club. They are forever incurring deficits and having to be baled out one way or another. It's simply not sustainable any more.

- There doesn't seem to be any formal connection or affinity between ATFC and the local soccer clubs such as Willow Park FC and St Peters FC. People who play for or support Willow Park and St Peters tend not to support ATFC.

- Local businesses don't seem to view ATFC as a good marketing/PR opportunity. Why would any business want to spend a few thousand Euro advertising to a couple of hundred people every week? Why would any business want to be associated with such a poorly administered club when there are other sports or social activities they can spend/donate their money to which will give them a far greater audience and/or positive PR. Clubs have to offer something compelling for businesses to part with their hard earned cash and ATFC seem to do a very poor job relative to the other sports clubs in the area.

Clubs, regardless of their heritage, don't have a divine right to exist. Unless the FAI are going to start subsidising clubs (which I personally wouldn't agree with) who don't have sufficient paying support to make them viable have to be allowed re-organise themselves and enter the Leinster Senior League or similar or be allowed to die all together. After all, it wouldn't be the first time ATFC left and later re-joined the LOI. They first played in the LOI from 1922 to 1928 but then left and didn't rejoin again until 1969. In the interim they survived so leaving the LOI isn't necessarily the end of the world for the club. It might provide the club with the time and space it needs to redefine itself, reorganise it's ownership and financial management and re-emerge a few years down the line as a leaner more locally focused club with a solid support base capable of sustaining another stint in the LOI.

There will be a lot of wringing of hands and pointing of fingers if the club does drop out of the LOI many of the people complaining loudest will be armchair supporters who haven't been to any matches in years.

What do people think? Should ATFC remain in the LOI via an FAI bale out or some sort of local benevolent bale out or accept they don't have enough of a sustainable support base locally to maintain a LOI club?

I remember the AC Milan games... Noel Larkin was the main man. I still have a scarf thrown by Turlock o'connor off the stage on the night of the celebrations. Now it could be a young WANs scarf from the Bower as tgey had the same colours!!

Tell u what... That railway line hid many a scrote and their stone throwing.

Good to see St Mels street finally destroyed!!! scary place to walk thru them times

But... Would be gutted to see the Club go under. Sure if the FAI could sent down an international to them... It could set them up nicely financially. What is Delaney and Co saying about it???

SantryRed

The FAI Don't care. Sanctioned a game between Inter and Celtic in Thomond on a Saturday that Limerick are supposed to play. They're such hypocrites at this stage it's unbelievable.

adox

Still haven't paid some of their players wages from last season.

You would think its unsustainable.

KevIRL

The sad thing is the game went ahead last night in the RSC without Athlone and finished 0-0.

54and56

adox wrote: »

Still haven't paid some of their players wages from last season.

How can any club get a licence to start a new season unless the FAI have secured independent confirmation that there are no outstanding player payments from the previous season?

Also, paper doesn't refuse ink. In the business I'm in I see aspirational business plans all the time and in every single case the future always looks much brighter than the immediate past. What sort of sensitivity testing is undertaken to validate each clubs business plan prior to being given a licence in particular their assumptions around gate receipts and the sale of advertising etc? Does the FAI just take the assumptions underpinning business plans at face value? If they do its an act of gross negligence in my opinion.

Saint_Mel

Je_suis_Jean wrote:

How can any club get a licence to start a new season unless the FAI have secured independent confirmation that there are no outstanding player payments from the previous season?

For licencing you only need an agreement in place with players over outstanding wages.

Regarding the wages, there are only 4 players on pro forms so the 15 or so others in squad are amateur and on expenses (some of which are €20 a week)

Amateurs and coaching staff hadn't been paid in a month or so
.... allegedly....

Unfortunately there are several agendas behind the scenes that see the underage structure as a cash cow and it would suit their plans if there was no 1st team .... allegedly....

54and56

Saint_Mel wrote: »

For licencing you only need an agreement in place with players over outstanding wages.

Can't believe the unpaid platers didn't use this leverage to their advantage. If I was one of them there's no way I'd sign any agreement with a financially challenged club like ATFC which "promised" payment of my overdue wages and expenses. I'd insist on payment and put the FAI person running the license process on notice that ATFC still owed me money. I guarantee you 24 hours before the license deadline my phone would be ringing and I'd have my money.

Saint_Mel wrote: »

Regarding the wages, there are only 4 players on pro forms so the 15 or so others in squad are amateur and on expenses (some of which are €20 a week)

Amateurs and coaching staff hadn't been paid in a month or so
.... allegedly....

Doesn't sound like a lot of money but when the cupboard is bare it's bare. If you don't have any cash doesn't matter whether you want to write a cheque for €100, €1,000 or €10,000 they are all going to bounce.

Saint_Mel wrote: »

Unfortunately there are several agendas behind the scenes that see the underage structure as a cash cow and it would suit their plans if there was no 1st team .... allegedly....

Is this a reflection of the fact the club is "fan" owned? Committees all pursuing their own personal/narrow agenda, no joined up thinking and no one with the sort of ownership authority needed to make decisions based on the big picture and long term planning rather than short term agendas.

Iused2likebusts

Sad state of affairs the problems clubs like athlone face are shown in the fact that a thread on a charity soccer match has 6 times the amount of posts this thread has.

Zebra3

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Sad state of affairs the problems clubs like athlone face are shown in the fact that a thread on a charity soccer match has 6 times the amount of posts this thread has.

Irrelevant. That's been the reality of life for LOI clubs for decades now and is no excuse for how poorly run some of them are.

Darkglasses

News just released that the FAI are commissioning an independent review of the club. Better than just fining them I guess.

Iused2likebusts

Zebra3 wrote: »

Irrelevant. That's been the reality of life for LOI clubs for decades now and is no excuse for how poorly run some of them are.

I think there are a lot more distractions for your typical Irish sporting fan to attach themselves to now then there was a couple of decades ago. I'm not totally clued in on athlones situation but a few seasons back they were getting decent crowds as things were going well. When the going gets tough the crowds dissappear. I think this is a very common thing in Ireland. I'm sure it happens in other countries but not to the extent it does in Ireland. If you look at teams that go down a division in England the crowds drop but not as dramatic a fall as in Ireland.

Captain Havoc

Fining Athlone would be just a blood and stone situation. Could there be anything said for making the first division, strictly amateur or you can't spend more than last season's profits?

54and56

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Fining Athlone would be just a blood and stone situation.

Totally agree. ATFC are in the ER dept and need intervention and support so the underlying problem which put them in the ER dept is identified and addressed.

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Could there be anything said for making the first division, strictly amateur or you can't spend more than last season's profits?

I think the idea has merit but I think a one size fits all solution would be difficult to implement. Not all clubs have the same fixed costs e.g. Athlone have a 5,000 capacity stadium Vs Cabinteely using Blackrock RFC pitch in Stradbrook Road. Some clubs have a large support base even in League 1 e.g. Shelbourne and can therefore predict annual gate receipts of €X whereas "country" clubs like Athlone have a relatively small support base and can only realistically predict gate receipts of €Y for the coming season. Same goes for advertising and corporate sponsorship. Dublin clubs have a chance to snag some big local firms as sponsors/advertisers whereas country clubs have a much smaller pool of businesses to appeal to.

Personally I think the current licensing process is the right way to go but the business plans submitted by each club prior to the start of each season need to be stress tested a lot more vigorously than they currently are, in particular the assumptions underpinning gate receipts and advertising etc. In my experience (in a related field) forecast revenues can be massively aspirational and not grounded in reality.

Lovely Bloke

I think that's the first time ever on Boards that Shels have been described as having a "large fanbase".

Can I get some of what you are smoking?

54and56

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

I think that's the first time ever on Boards that Shels have been described as having a "large fanbase".

Can I get some of what you are smoking?

Don't let a bit of context get in the way of misinterpreting my comments will you? Relative to Athlone, Shels have a large fanbase. That's all I was saying.

eagle eye

I think given, from what I've read here, that there seems to be a little club inside the club that is causing a lot of problems and I think people should just walk away from the club and hope it folds.

If/When it does then start again with the right people in place and make your way back up, rebuild the fanbase and hopefully at some stage in the not too distant future we can see the Town back in the LOI.

Lovely Bloke

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Don't let a bit of context get in the way of misinterpreting my comments will you? Relative to Athlone, Shels have a large fanbase. That's all I was saying.

lighten up brother, I was taking the bleedin piss.

54and56

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

lighten up brother, I was taking the bleedin piss.

Fair enough, consider me lightened up brother.

ArnoldJRimmer

Sorry to see this happening, there are few enough clubs down the country struggling to keep afloat. I'm a Finn Harps fan and they've had their problems over the years too.

I'm going to go full on nostalgic here and say that my favourite ever Harps game took place in St Mel's Park around 1996. It was a cup replay when Harps were in the first division and Athlone doing well in the premier. We won 4-1, with Jonathan Speake scoring a cracker of a free kick. Myself and my Dad were the only two Harps fans behind the goal, and going nuts when by the time the 3rd went in. Spent a lot of time chatting to some of the locals (mainly about Minnock Jr who scored the 4th for Harps and his Dad of course) who couldn't have been nicer.

Anyway, whatever issues are there, I hope they're sorted out and soon.

Darkglasses

Darkglasses wrote: »

News just released that the FAI are commissioning an independent review of the club. Better than just fining them I guess.

http://www.sseairtricityleague.ie/news/32-premier-division/6786-news-athlone-town-issued-a-number-of-sanctions-following-nonfulfilment-of-waterford-town-fixture

Jokeshop. They've fined them.