It's objective; if you're talking to somebody in Hull you can say "Tigers" without problem. Anybody who's ever asked me that question outside of Hull, I've always said Hull City.
Most football fans shorten their team's name in conversation. When I'm in the East Riding and someone asks me my team, I say 'City'. When those outside the area ask I say 'Hull' or 'Hull City'. It doesn't mean we want our team name to be changed by some money-obsessed old foreign **** with no regard for the history of our club. For now. When that changes, and our name officially becomes Hull City Tigers or Hull Tigers, I'm saying goodbye to football. It's a step too far. 1. It's a pointless and moronic change from our historic and original name. Some of us actually care about things like that; 2. It's the result of one man's selfish, petty decision to change our name because he doesn't like it; 3. It's a name you'd expect from a rugby or American football side, not a 109-year-old English association football club Then you belong to a generation I associate with an indifferent approach to football, and I'm not surprised by your apathy. I'd also like standing to be brought back into the game, but sadly that's outside of the club's control and I can't see the powers that be allowing it anytime soon. I only got a couple of years of watching City at Boothferry Park but I loved the place, especially on night games. It's a nice thought, but let's be honest - teams move grounds all the time, and they do so because it's essential to their advancement in the game to improve facilities and ground capacity when and where necessary. The KC's a decent ground... When it's full, at least... PS. Sorry for 'doing a Tickler', but it was easier for me to break your post down like this
Stan.... I meant Greavesy was so wrong saying people who don't mind about the name change would drop a neighbour in it for a bag of sugar..... Still every one has a right to an opinion.... Could be the last few years makes me not get negative or down about anything. And some things don't seem that important so my opinion is flawed in the bigger picture maybe.. ( nothing to do with football Stan) All the best Stan...Erik and everyone else ok
Stan, Filey - Your confusion is because Filey quoted Greavesy and the quote tags got messed up. I've fixed it now but when you (Stan) saw Filey's post you were reading what Greavesy had written as though it was from Filey when it wasn't. The only part he wrote was 'you're so wrong'.
No, it means in the next year he's going to have to ut in another £11M on top of the £66M he's had to put in to get promoted. When the deficit is removed, that's when we will START to repay him the money he's lent the club.
Someone needs to go and find it to correct me, but I think it's the projected loss using that breakdown of where the PL money would go that they put out a few weeks/months ago (the one that talked about the change in the wage bill etc). It definitely said that the 2nd season in the PL would be cheaper than the first due to having a stronger starting point to the transfer windows so projecting a loss this season wouldn't surprise me at all.
If this years tv and prize money is 60m, and we were running at a massive loss to start with; we have promotion increments to pay on every wage in the playing squad, have signed 8 players including 5.25 for Huddlestone, 1.6m for Sagbo, 1.8m for McGregor, 2m for Elmo etc... I'd say taking 50m out of this years budget and spending just 11m on increased wages and player recruitment was nothing less than a mathematical impossibility, don't you? Face it, no premiership club except Newcastle is paying a dividend - they're all run at a loss (the majority with a different holding company name incidentally.....) We are far from being run as a financially profitable business. Allam has put in £66m to get us where we are and we either need to massively increase our turnover or find another benefactor to continue at this level. If Allam thinks a company re-brand will help (as is all that is happening at the moment in an official/legal sense) then who are we to say "cheers for the £66m mate but we won't let you do what you feel you need to to see some of that back" ???? You can tell this City has a higher than average number of "something for nothing" types if this is the ****ing response to 6 ****ing letters in the club badge in return for £66,000,000 that we are ****ing benefiting from. Jesus Christ! ****ing level of denial on show here is nothing short of disturbing.
So where do other income streams like season ticket sales,sales at the gate, opposition tickets,merchandising,food sales etc come into your calculation>
Are they really likely to be much more than last year? Any increase will probably be a drop in the ocean relatively speaking. Fact we're selling out 19 games rather than 3/4 filling 23 won't even amount to that much of an increase in ticket revenue in real terms. Plus, any merchandise has to be sourced at probably 50% of the selling price, then VAT, marketing, sales staff, warehousing, shop frontage, website admin, banking charges etc, etc.... The actual amount of money you are talking about is probably less than 1/4 of what you expect it to be. Sponsorship is the same deal as the previous 2 isn't it? Season tickets are effectively a discount and therefore less money than if a larger proportion pay on the gate for the same seats - It does give you guaranteed income which helps working out your budget but 23,000 paying on the gate every week would be more money than 23,000 pass-holders without a doubt. Think about ticket prices for a second. Average £25 a ticket (taking into account passes, concessions and pay on the day x 25,000 is £625,000 a match. x 19 games and that is less than £12m BEFORE you pay overheads, staff, policing etc.... Sell 20,000 shirts at £40 at 50% profit - that's less than half a million quid, before tax, shop frontage, marketing and the wages of the person that sold it. So, 12 million in ticket sales, half a million in shirt sales, before 20% VAT deductions and overheads - you're lucky if that's 10m profit all in. £10 m is **** all in relation to the wage and transfer costs of putting together a premiership football club. Wouldn't even come close to paying Wayne Rooney's wages for a start. Now, if we can tap the chineese/U.S/Indian/middle eastern market and flog a load of shirts, or stay up and sign a sponsorship deal with a big offshore company, or attract a seriously rich benefactor then that might make a REAL difference....
These transfer fees will not be paid up front. I don't deny that the costs are huge but we need some credible plans. If getting a silly name was so obvious to commercial success why haven't any other clubs done it?
So you totally disagree with Allam when he complained that City is too common? You seem to be saying that you want something common to attract the US market. I don't think people just decide to support a club. I don't support any other club overseas or in the UK. I've supported Hull City since 1963-1964. If I did "decide to support a club" I don't think I'd base my decision on the name. If I was in Malaysia I would think I would watch matches on TV until I found a club that excited me rather than scan the league tables for a name with a cuddly animal.
Why don't we change his name to "Steve Tiger" so that all the asian players want to play for us. Who cares if people don't realise he used to be Steve Bruce who played for England and Manchester United and made quite a success of managing other football clubs?
