Do we really want our game to become a vehicle for famous, Americans to park their money?
Looks like ASAP Rocky and Rihanna will get getting involved with tranmere.
How is this good in any way?
Wrexham
Re: Wrexham
Leicester was a fairytale, they hadn't spent big compared to other teams in the PL, they didn't have any big superstars that had been playing at a level above Leicester they were just a bunch of players who came together with their manager and went on a mad journey, I hated it but that's a fairytale. Two Hollywood superstars buying a non league club and bank rolling them with funds similar to clubs two and three leagues above them isn't a fairytale.
Time will tell how long it lasts, the higher they get the more expensive it becomes to run a club and sustain any success and the club will need to become more self sufficient and generate it's own income. The problem will come if the club drop back down a league or two and attendances fall back or the pair of them want out. Looking at their average attendance over the years, this season they've averaged just over 11,500 but prior to the take over they were getting around 4000 so they've a lot of fans who are new to the club and jumped on the bandwagon and we all know they won't hang around when times get hard or the prices start going up etc. They may do a Bournemouth and manage to stay at a decent level with 12,00 fans at a game but I think it's unlikely.
Time will tell how long it lasts, the higher they get the more expensive it becomes to run a club and sustain any success and the club will need to become more self sufficient and generate it's own income. The problem will come if the club drop back down a league or two and attendances fall back or the pair of them want out. Looking at their average attendance over the years, this season they've averaged just over 11,500 but prior to the take over they were getting around 4000 so they've a lot of fans who are new to the club and jumped on the bandwagon and we all know they won't hang around when times get hard or the prices start going up etc. They may do a Bournemouth and manage to stay at a decent level with 12,00 fans at a game but I think it's unlikely.
Re: Wrexham
I think 33 years of Premier League-style media hyperbole has completely eroded our ability to see things for what they are.
As @Gash says, "Richest Club Wins League" is not a fairytale story. In fact on its own it's quite a meh story like what the fuck else did you expect?
There are ways to improve on that of course, say if the rich owner was an ex-player who had to give up football due to injury, got rich in his new career and then returned to the club as owner, that's still not a fairytale but a much cooler story than random rich people buying random club.
I do appreciate that the owners seem to have a level of genuine affection for the club, good on them, and it really makes a difference so Newcastle or City comparisons are clearly misplaced.
But overall, when you strip away the bombast, not a lot remains at its core.
As @Gash says, "Richest Club Wins League" is not a fairytale story. In fact on its own it's quite a meh story like what the fuck else did you expect?
There are ways to improve on that of course, say if the rich owner was an ex-player who had to give up football due to injury, got rich in his new career and then returned to the club as owner, that's still not a fairytale but a much cooler story than random rich people buying random club.
I do appreciate that the owners seem to have a level of genuine affection for the club, good on them, and it really makes a difference so Newcastle or City comparisons are clearly misplaced.
But overall, when you strip away the bombast, not a lot remains at its core.
Re: Wrexham
And of course like every story, it means different things to different people, and that's fine. If I were a long-time Wrexham fan who saw them in Europe, I'd be buzzing like fuck, it'd feel like winning the lottery.
But winning the lottery still isn't a fairytale. Most weeks someone does, after all.
All that said, at the end of the day I can only really look at it from my perspective and from that it's really just a case of rich but comparatively decent owners throw money at club fallen on hard times to steamroller their way up the football pyramid and generate loads of publicity for the effort.
But winning the lottery still isn't a fairytale. Most weeks someone does, after all.
All that said, at the end of the day I can only really look at it from my perspective and from that it's really just a case of rich but comparatively decent owners throw money at club fallen on hard times to steamroller their way up the football pyramid and generate loads of publicity for the effort.
Re: Wrexham
They’ve eroded a lot of good will with some of the things they’ve done as well.
Signing Ben Foster to get them out the league. Spending well above national league level wages to get Paul Mullin.
Talking up signing Gareth Bale. Wanting to create a Welsh cup to fast track themselves into Europe.
It’s just another team spending their way to success but the reaction towards them is different as it’s all carefully managed from a PR perspective by Ryan Reynolds sitting in his hotel chair.
Signing Ben Foster to get them out the league. Spending well above national league level wages to get Paul Mullin.
Talking up signing Gareth Bale. Wanting to create a Welsh cup to fast track themselves into Europe.
It’s just another team spending their way to success but the reaction towards them is different as it’s all carefully managed from a PR perspective by Ryan Reynolds sitting in his hotel chair.
-
CannockPricey
- Posts: 1291
- Karma: 537
Re: Wrexham
Wrexham haven't won the league though. Luckily, massive Bluenoses Tom Wagner and Jeremy Dale persuaded fellow American massive Blues nut Tom Brady to buy in and recruit Jay Stansfield at a very reasonable league one price of £15m (could rise to £20m)
Their fairytale record points total was achieved miraculously on a top 3 Championship budget and like most league one winners over the years they have released plans for a stadium and sports complex in the city with a capacity higher than BMD.
Thank God they put moneybags Wrexham in their place.
Their fairytale record points total was achieved miraculously on a top 3 Championship budget and like most league one winners over the years they have released plans for a stadium and sports complex in the city with a capacity higher than BMD.
Thank God they put moneybags Wrexham in their place.
In a world full of adversity, we must still dare to dream.
Re: Wrexham
No, I agree that it's not right. It's not right at any level of the game, be that Premier league, League One or The Conference North... but this is the landscape of the game now. I'd love it to be an even playing field for all clubs at their respected levels.TheRam wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 9:01 am The reaction towards them has been overwhelmingly positive over here.
There’s a small minority of people, myself included who are questioning if this is really good for the game as a whole.
Look at the top three in league one. Wrexham and Stockport bankrolled their way up the leagues, Birmingham spending £15m on a striker.
Other teams hardly stand a chance.
I’ve seen it following barrow, bootle and marine. The wealth gap between the haves and have nots is getting bigger. Even further down the pyramid you have teams like Macclesfield operating on a budget ten times bigger than anyone else.
It’s not right that Wrexham can go and sign a premier league goalkeeper to get themselves out of the 5th tier, nor is it right that they can get a striker who was probably three levels above that league.
I personally think this shows the mentality of the country that as long as it’s you, or your team that benefits from the unfairness then it doesn’t matter. Few people actually care about the greater good.
What does grate is the fans being the ones having to cop the criticism (and yes, I am talking social media as I am obviously removed from the area these days). I don't even think it's the fault of investors, it's the governing bodies of the game that have let it get this way. I'm not sure there's a way back from it now either.
Re: Wrexham
I've said this a few times now, for the fans that's not the fairytale though. The fairytale is being saved from the point of extinction. The fairytale is for Wrexham fans, no one else. This is their journey. You need to research and recognise what had happened to the club and the sheisters involved to fully appreciate the turnaround in fortunes.
EDIT: just read your following post to that
Last edited by Jamokachi on Wed Apr 30, 2025 2:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Wrexham
Whilst I do agree, is it really any different to rich businessmen being your standard club owner back in the 90's and 00's? Clubs are still vanity projects and this is simply the evolution of that, is it not? Not saying it's right, but the horse bolted long ago when it came to club ownership.
Re: Wrexham
I would have hoped that over the years we've both been on this site that you'd know me better than that.
Re: Wrexham
Ironically we spent less that a million in the sixties, and only 250k net, equivalent to around 7m against today's normal* inflationary figures (not 'football inflation')
