Too Rapid a Rise?

Being fans of Portsmouth and Plymouth Argyle, most of us have probably been too busy with our concerns about our own respective clubs to notice this.



After attaining five promotions in the past six seasons it has been an incredible time for Truro City, who are now in Conference South, the highest ever league status achieved by a side from Cornwall.

But is their bubble about to burst?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/15675134.stm

Have they been too successful for their own good?
Can they sustain football at this level?
What does the future hold for them?

 

Kevin Heaney is the problem down at Truro City.............he couldn't prove he had the money to buy Argyle............and now he doesn't seem to have the money to keep his own club afloat at the level they have obtained.

Truro's main problem is their rapid growth........beyond the ability of it's owners pocket and backroom staff development.........it cannot expand without everything moving up to another level. Heaney's money helped it on the playing field to grow,now it needs the clubs organization behind the scenes to catch up,Heaney is not strong in that area.

 

Gretna were in a similar situation in Scotland. 3 promotions in 3 years and then they got completely demolished in the Scottish Prem.

Then ran into money troubles. Not in the top 3 divisions anymore.

Not even sure they exist anymore.


Saw Truro at Wembley in FA Vase about 6 years ago, they beat AFC Totton 3-1!

 

It's a very well known phenomenon that rapidly growing businesses run out of cash as the growth in its expenditure outstrip the growth in its income. It's a very frequent occurrence even when the underlying business is a good one.

In Truro's case, the crisis has come when it's trying to finance a new stadium to take it to the next level.

In part, the gap is usually bridged by bank lending but there's not much of that about and certainly not in an "industry" like football which has zero credibility for financial management!

I'd question why football fans seem to think that people like Heaney or the owner of any other football club is obliged to put his hand into his pocket and buy overnight success for those fans with his own money. It's a dangerous concept as it puts the life or death of the club into one person's hands.

I do hope EUFA manage to ban the worst financial excesses - on which subject, who else is feeling guilty pleasure at Man City's likely failure to progress in the Champions' League? Success should be earned, not bought.

 

The higher up the leagues that Truro get it stands to reason the more interest from the Cornish would grow surely. We could suffer if they ever achieved League status in that the Cornish would be more likely to turn inwards and abandon us from another County. There is no given that anyone has to put the funds into anything out of their own pocket but you would have to ask what was expected to have to happen if the successes continued. If Truro were to make it then the club must increase in value and therefore be a saleable commodity in an area with little else of high level sport going on. That's the profit in it for the person putting the money in. You have to have some faith that it is going to happen and a bit of patients but why hire professional management if that was not your intention. I think Heaney has financial problems full stop and having once had the money to do it probably no longer has so it is not Truro outstripping him it is more the point that he has fallen below them in financial clout. He does seem to be a sort of Del Boy character who has ducked and dived a lot but now he has been found out with his failed bid for Argyle his luck has run out. I feel sorry for the Truro fans who have invested their support in all of this and gone along with the dream only to seemingly have it dashed.

 

Gretna did indeed go out of buisiness about a year ago.