After reading about the demise of North Ferriby United I got to wondering just how are the small clubs are supposed to survive. Sterling said that some of their player were on 500 quid a week, is that too much if that is their only income? or how much should they get if they are only part time giving up a couple of nights for training plus match days? It tough at the bottom. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...me-efl-starving-accrington-chairman-andy-holt https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/22718243
Some of the players they brought in, like Connor Oliver, Stephen Brogan and Ryan Fallowfield, were on full time contracts, but most were part time and had other jobs (I recall Liam King, when he was at Ferriby, was a primary school teacher in West Yorkshire who drove over to the club on match days and for training, hence him leaving for Halifax to be closer to home). Adam Nicklin was a lifeguard and personal trainer in his day job. A club like Ferriby shouldn't have had full time contracts, it's far too expensive for them given their income, but they had to be competitive in the NL so that's what they did. I think they were hoping that playing at a higher level would encourage more people to come in, especially off the back of an FA Trophy win. Billy Heath leaving with King and Denton was also a big blow, but they were offered 2 year deals with a professional club and you can't turn that down. Getting Steve Housham in wasn't a great move, he never pulled up any trees at Gainsborough, but he was a cheap option. A lot of people have pointed blame at Steve Forster, but I think that's largely down to the name associated with them. They guided the club through it's most successful period, they were faced with a decision and they gambled. Small clubs survive in a number of ways, whether it's through link ups with bigger clubs (the Allams pulling the reserves out was a massive ****'s trick), cup runs (something Ferriby never seemed to manage, they always seemed to draw clubs higher than them) or selling talented players on. Ferriby relied on local players, sadly none of which were ever good enough to go on and play professionally (although Tom Denton is doing well at Chesterfield, head like a ****ing orange). It's a club I've been involved with since I was a kid and this really isn't how it should have ended. Hopefully they can take a leaf out of Gretna's book and start over as a proper community club.
From the Guardian link above. It is understood Accrington and each League Two club will receive £430,000 in solidarity payments from the Premier League this season. The payments are linked to the value of the Premier League’s broadcasting rights, with League One clubs getting £650,000 each and Championship clubs £4.3m. And from the BBC link The Football Association has announced that the 32 non-league clubs who played in the FA Cup first round last season will each receive the sum of £11,313. And to give that some context. He posted on Twitter seemingly in response to newspaper reports claiming Zlatan Ibrahimovic is paid over £350,000 per week by Manchester United, and that agent Mino Raiola received £41m from the deal that brought Paul Pogba to Old Trafford.
