CCM Fans and the club

[midfielder]

Unfortunately he needs a buyer before he can sell

Tony Sage just sold 80% of PG for 8 million... thats with a foundation club in a city of 2 million...

I have heard he wants a lot more than Sage sold for...

 

[turbo]

Tony Sage just sold 80% of PG for 8 million... thats with a foundation club in a city of 2 million...

I have heard he wants a lot more than Sage sold for...

Sage is also the chairman of the group he sold to so I wouldn’t be surprised if he got some ownership of that as part of the deal but I haven’t read all the articles about it so might have missed if that was mentioned more.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

The deal looks dodgy in the extreme. I will be very surprised if it goes through.

 

[Insertnamehere]

The deal looks dodgy in the extreme. I will be very surprised if it goes through.

https://lfe-token.com/

The theory of it is interesting. But as with anything financial when there's only a single page website I'm very sceptical.

 

[Wombat]

https://lfe-token.com/

The theory of it is interesting. But as with anything financial when there's only a single page website I'm very sceptical.

Even the bloke hand balling on the beach was dodgy.

 

[BrisRecky]

Horrifying reports about how CCM fans going to advertised venues are getting shafted ...both the CCLC and the Ele treated fans who went to watch the Adelaide game ( and spent a quid or 6 in the process) like absolute shite ....so I guess they just wanted free advertising by the mariners promotion team

 

[ashman89]

Horrifying reports about how CCM fans going to advertised venues are getting shafted ...both the CCLC and the Ele treated fans who went to watch the Adelaide game ( and spent a quid or 6 in the process) like absolute shite ....so I guess they just wanted free advertising by the mariners promotion team

I warned about the Elly. No word of a lie a few back. Me and a few mates went in to see if they had it on and the response was “what? We don’t watch that shit around here”

Staff were laughing behind the bar so I went fair enough and took my money to Troy at sidelines. Never been back since to the Elly.

 

[jacobsfl]

Horrifying reports about how CCM fans going to advertised venues are getting shafted ...both the CCLC and the Ele treated fans who went to watch the Adelaide game ( and spent a quid or 6 in the process) like absolute shite ....so I guess they just wanted free advertising by the mariners promotion team

Devastating. Will be avoiding those spots in the future, hopefully this catches the ear of others

 

[marinermick]

I warned about the Elly. No word of a lie a few back. Me and a few mates went in to see if they had it on and the response was “what? We don’t watch that shit around here”

Staff were laughing behind the bar so I went fair enough and took my money to Troy at sidelines. Never been back since to the Elly.

Now owned by Singo. Looks like nothing has changed.

 

[ashman89]

Now owned by Singo. Looks like nothing has changed.

I did bring this up on the Elly fb page advertising they were an away day venue and was told they welcome all.
Clearly bullshit if something happened Friday evening

 

[scoober]

I did bring this up on the Elly fb page advertising they were an away day venue and was told they welcome all.
Clearly bullshit if something happened Friday evening

They probably figure we gamble enough with our mental stability supporting the mariners that we won’t gamble enough in their gambling dens, so we are no value to them....

 

[Ozhammer]

I have been dwelling on this for a while but am struggling to come up with something on my own, so wanted to raise the issue on here, as there are a number of members who are deep and clear thinkers.

The thing that is really eating away at me is just how do we get MC to properly fund the club? It’s clear that he is prepared to let CCM languish at the foot of the table year after year but that is killing the fabric of the club and the souls of us fans.

Since he took over, our trajectory has only been in one direction and his apparent business model has created a situation where CCM brings little value to the HAL, hurts even the most loyal fans that have been there since before the fall and must make bringing in sponsorship a really tough sell in the marketplace.

I really can’t believe that MC runs any other part of his business like CCM, as any true entrepreneur knows that to succeed they must invest appropriately. At the moment it feels like the club is being kept on life support whilst CCM dies a death by a thousand cuts. There clearly is no plan or vision to turn things around and all us fans keep getting sold are false dawns (like MC will invest more when the league becomes independent or stadium management rights will solve our problems). Does anyone genuinely believe any of this?

Given the club’s track record in recent years, I personally have doubts about its ability to successfully manage CCS, certainly not to the point where any income might meaningfully outweigh the outgo. Shaun might put a positive spin on this publicly but my gut is telling me that this is primarily about finding one of the few realistic ways that MC can reduce his contribution to CCM and possibly absolving him of having to tip in anything. Best case scenario, I believe that taking over CCS would need to generate a net profit in excess of $3M before it might have a meaningful impact on the club spend.

Take this season for example, apparently CCM is likely to lose between $1.5 - 2.0M and that’s with MC already contributing $1M. In order to just break even (assuming MC continues put in his contribution) management rights would need to earn CCM between $1.5 & $2M. The cynic in me feels that anything beyond that optimistic figure would simply be used to reduce MC’s contribution, thus reducing the cost of ownership to him. On that basis, management of the stadium will need to potentially generate in excess of $3M in clear profit before any funds might flow to the club for bolstering its spend and I am therefore highly sceptical that this will suddenly improve the fortunes of CCM.

The bottom line here is that MC owns a football club and that comes with clear responsibilities to the fans and community within which CCM is based. The current business model (if it can even be called such) results in losses being incurred every year, so is clearly flawed. As has been repeatedly demonstrated by others on this forum, the continued repetition of the existing plan can only lead to one outcome - failure. Therefore, how do we as fans make the case to MC to fund the club to at least the minimum required level and by that, I mean spending the full cap and ensuring that the football department and administration are funded to at least realistic levels?

I have been contemplating writing an open letter to the media to try to get the message across but perhaps others on here have better suggestions? The fact that MC seemingly hardly ever visits the Central Coast any more, says to me personally how detached he has become from the club. If he had to suffer the ridicule and public apathy that us fans have to endure, perhaps (just perhaps) he might feel ashamed enough to actually do something about it?

Well that has got it off my chest, so I look forward to hearing what others have to say....

 

[midfielder]

^^^^^^

OZH

My reading of the tea leafs and tarot cards is MC, from the get go wanted to move us to a different location... North Sydney was his first choice and Canberra his second.... between SFC & Gallop he was told he had to stay on the Coast he could not transfer his license to a new location...

Since then he has been trying to sell the club me thinks but wants to recover his losses...

We have improved this year but the previous 3 years we put a good state league side on the park...

I am becoming quite disillusioned and doubt I will be back next year... 14 year member and attended all home games in year one but was not a member... so if I stop coming I think quite a few others will as well...

I hope he finds a buyer my guess is we are worth on what PG sold for about 9 million.

 

[pjennings]

I have been dwelling on this for a while but am struggling to come up with something on my own, so wanted to raise the issue on here, as there are a number of members who are deep and clear thinkers.

The thing that is really eating away at me is just how do we get MC to properly fund the club? It’s clear that he is prepared to let CCM languish at the foot of the table year after year but that is killing the fabric of the club and the souls of us fans.

Since he took over, our trajectory has only been in one direction and his apparent business model has created a situation where CCM brings little value to the HAL, hurts even the most loyal fans that have been there since before the fall and must make bringing in sponsorship a really tough sell in the marketplace.

I really can’t believe that MC runs any other part of his business like CCM, as any true entrepreneur knows that to succeed they must invest appropriately. At the moment it feels like the club is being kept on life support whilst CCM dies a death by a thousand cuts. There clearly is no plan or vision to turn things around and all us fans keep getting sold are false dawns (like MC will invest more when the league becomes independent or stadium management rights will solve our problems). Does anyone genuinely believe any of this?

Given the club’s track record in recent years, I personally have doubts about its ability to successfully manage CCS, certainly not to the point where any income might meaningfully outweigh the outgo. Shaun might put a positive spin on this publicly but my gut is telling me that this is primarily about finding one of the few realistic ways that MC can reduce his contribution to CCM and possibly absolving him of having to tip in anything. Best case scenario, I believe that taking over CCS would need to generate a net profit in excess of $3M before it might have a meaningful impact on the club spend.

Take this season for example, apparently CCM is likely to lose between $1.5 - 2.0M and that’s with MC already contributing $1M. In order to just break even (assuming MC continues put in his contribution) management rights would need to earn CCM between $1.5 & $2M. The cynic in me feels that anything beyond that optimistic figure would simply be used to reduce MC’s contribution, thus reducing the cost of ownership to him. On that basis, management of the stadium will need to potentially generate in excess of $3M in clear profit before any funds might flow to the club for bolstering its spend and I am therefore highly sceptical that this will suddenly improve the fortunes of CCM.

The bottom line here is that MC owns a football club and that comes with clear responsibilities to the fans and community within which CCM is based. The current business model (if it can even be called such) results in losses being incurred every year, so is clearly flawed. As has been repeatedly demonstrated by others on this forum, the continued repetition of the existing plan can only lead to one outcome - failure. Therefore, how do we as fans make the case to MC to fund the club to at least the minimum required level and by that, I mean spending the full cap and ensuring that the football department and administration are funded to at least realistic levels?

I have been contemplating writing an open letter to the media to try to get the message across but perhaps others on here have better suggestions? The fact that MC seemingly hardly ever visits the Central Coast any more, says to me personally how detached he has become from the club. If he had to suffer the ridicule and public apathy that us fans have to endure, perhaps (just perhaps) he might feel ashamed enough to actually do something about it?

Well that has got it off my chest, so I look forward to hearing what others have to say....

First of all - great post.

I think we are all feeling the depression of the past 5 years.

First of all to address the false dawns - and there have been many.

The COE has been stalled by Council since the last building was completed. Whether it would actually make a meaningful profit to add to the team is questionable but a competed COE would be an asset for the Coast that won't disappear.

The HAL is independent operationally at the moment. It is not independent in either a legal or financial way and apparently won't be until the Fox deal runs out. Supposedly there is work under way where the FFA will keep their current contracts but engage a new independent HAL to run the HAL, W-League and NYL. The target is for next season.

Stadium management rights discussions hopefully will also be completed before next season.

As to your question "Does anyone genuinely believe any of this?"

If you believe that we are going to keep a professional team on the coast - whether that is in the HAL or in a future second division then the answer needs to be yes.

If you don't believe you may as well give up like the many thousands that already have.

The equation is simple. We need to invest more in the team from a level somewhere around $2.8M a year to somewhere around $4.2M a year on a consistent basis. The first team has to be made up of players that could walk into most other teams plus a couple of marquees. The second XI needs to be made up of the best youngsters and players that will bleed for the club.

How you get to that level of investment is a problem for Mike, Anton and Shaun. If they think they get some of it via stadium rights good. If they think they can get it via shirt sales and other merchandise where they own their own IP then the team will need to be invested in. If the team is invested in then game day costs will come down and receipts through food and drink will go up. However, on the flip side the club will need to employ more people to run the stadium and attract other tenants.

Simply put - if there is the same investment next season I fear it will be our last.

 

[Wombat]

Now owned by Singo. Looks like nothing has changed.

The manager (ex owner) was often at Mariners games so I doubt he has any idea his bar staff are being dickheads.
I will mention it to him.

 

[Wombat]

Horrifying reports about how CCM fans going to advertised venues are getting shafted ...both the CCLC and the Ele treated fans who went to watch the Adelaide game ( and spent a quid or 6 in the process) like absolute shite ....so I guess they just wanted free advertising by the mariners promotion team

Can you expand on what happened at the ELLY please Recky or PM me.
Cheers Lad.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Very good post OH.

I believe that MC has been contributing the minimum until the "good times" arrive. These good times being brought about by an independent A-League, at which point he will invest more to make the team successful, in a successful league, and be a desirable purchase for either a part or whole sale. At which point he will either walk away or stay as a part owner without it costing him more money whilst increasing in value.
His lack of more investment at the moment is understandable as in the present economic climate no one will purchase an A-League side on the Coast no matter how successful. Any further investment at this time would be wasted money from a business point of view. It is clearly a long term strategy and will involve more pain for fans. How long? Who knows? He has lost $5m over the last 5 years. Some here say if he had invested that over 2 years we would have been successful. True, but after those 2 years I suspect the Club would be back where it was after Arnie left.

If you think about the circumstances how he ended up owning the club it helps to understand. The Club was in debt, his partners were broke. The only way he could protect his investment was to buy them out and pay the debts. Thankfully he did that rather than walk away. He does see a long term future for the Club. Whether he is mistaken or not only time will tell.

What is looking uncertain to me is when, or whether, the "good times" will come with an independent A-League. We will learn more of his long term intentions when that time arrives.

Middy, I am not a believer of the conspiracy theorists view that he was looking to move the Club to North Sydney. I believed at the time and still do that it was a move to increase our supporter base. This was a reasonable idea but should have happened earlier, at the start of the league. The timing was wrong. It has led to the North Shore Mariners as a feeder prospect. Canberra was done as a view to find a new feeder area. Western Sydney had been a great feeder area for us, but it was clear to anyone with foresight that that would disappear when the inevitable Western Sydney team started.

I doubt I will ever give up on the Club. I do not believe that the good time are just around the corner. I will continue to expect little and be happy with the unexpected win and enjoy watching the up and coming youngsters and take a long term view. If the Club does not fold, the buzz of our next championship will be massive.

Easy for me to say, but I was trained to be this sort of supporter, by following North Sydney Bears through nearly 20 years of gloom, sitting in the rain at NSO with my father and grandfather listening to stories of 1921 and 1922 or how they should have won the grand final in 1943.

All sporting leagues have the battlers, but I remember the old saying "it will happen when Chelsea win the cup".

 

[jacobsfl]

Some great and interesting posts.

I'm a foundation member, so like most of you, I've seen the good and the ugly. I was behind the goals when Zwaanswijk scored that header against Western Sydney, and have been a member for the past 6 seasons where we have been wildly disappointing

For me, the main reason we were successful in those early 2010s was through our youth grads and our recruitment. We had a couple of managerial hiccups since then which was, unfortunately, our biggest downfall. Fans stopped going to games, players were no longer interested in signing, membership and merch sales slowed and ultimately, the club stopped making the money required to stay afloat.

Gone are the days where we had the power to lure in the likes of John Aloisi and Luis Garcia. Those players, whilst they were past their prime, brought fans to the games. Now, we're stuck with performances where we have 20+ shots and nothing to show for it.

I said it once and I'll say it again. If one of these buggers can start hitting the target, we'll start winning games. I don't know who it is, but something has to click. I have faith in Monty's youth boys, but I fear if the next batch of talent doesn't make the cut, this may mark the end of the Yellow Army.

 

[Big Al]

I have been dwelling on this for a while but am struggling to come up with something on my own, so wanted to raise the issue on here, as there are a number of members who are deep and clear thinkers.

The thing that is really eating away at me is just how do we get MC to properly fund the club? It’s clear that he is prepared to let CCM languish at the foot of the table year after year but that is killing the fabric of the club and the souls of us fans.

Since he took over, our trajectory has only been in one direction and his apparent business model has created a situation where CCM brings little value to the HAL, hurts even the most loyal fans that have been there since before the fall and must make bringing in sponsorship a really tough sell in the marketplace.

I really can’t believe that MC runs any other part of his business like CCM, as any true entrepreneur knows that to succeed they must invest appropriately. At the moment it feels like the club is being kept on life support whilst CCM dies a death by a thousand cuts. There clearly is no plan or vision to turn things around and all us fans keep getting sold are false dawns (like MC will invest more when the league becomes independent or stadium management rights will solve our problems). Does anyone genuinely believe any of this?

Given the club’s track record in recent years, I personally have doubts about its ability to successfully manage CCS, certainly not to the point where any income might meaningfully outweigh the outgo. Shaun might put a positive spin on this publicly but my gut is telling me that this is primarily about finding one of the few realistic ways that MC can reduce his contribution to CCM and possibly absolving him of having to tip in anything. Best case scenario, I believe that taking over CCS would need to generate a net profit in excess of $3M before it might have a meaningful impact on the club spend.

Take this season for example, apparently CCM is likely to lose between $1.5 - 2.0M and that’s with MC already contributing $1M. In order to just break even (assuming MC continues put in his contribution) management rights would need to earn CCM between $1.5 & $2M. The cynic in me feels that anything beyond that optimistic figure would simply be used to reduce MC’s contribution, thus reducing the cost of ownership to him. On that basis, management of the stadium will need to potentially generate in excess of $3M in clear profit before any funds might flow to the club for bolstering its spend and I am therefore highly sceptical that this will suddenly improve the fortunes of CCM.

The bottom line here is that MC owns a football club and that comes with clear responsibilities to the fans and community within which CCM is based. The current business model (if it can even be called such) results in losses being incurred every year, so is clearly flawed. As has been repeatedly demonstrated by others on this forum, the continued repetition of the existing plan can only lead to one outcome - failure. Therefore, how do we as fans make the case to MC to fund the club to at least the minimum required level and by that, I mean spending the full cap and ensuring that the football department and administration are funded to at least realistic levels?

I have been contemplating writing an open letter to the media to try to get the message across but perhaps others on here have better suggestions? The fact that MC seemingly hardly ever visits the Central Coast any more, says to me personally how detached he has become from the club. If he had to suffer the ridicule and public apathy that us fans have to endure, perhaps (just perhaps) he might feel ashamed enough to actually do something about it?

Well that has got it off my chest, so I look forward to hearing what others have to say....

I have some different thoughts for you to consider.
MC is a half bad guy half good good with some wacky ideas.

Money is not the be all and end all. Sure in alot of sport the wealthy clubs win and especially in football as they pay more money to the better players. However if everyone had the same money exactly (in other words we were rich to) our mangement structure or lack there of is what is hurting us more than MC.

Your money is only good if spent correctly and if you are behind like we are and then spend poorly you get what we are right now

For me it’s our recruiting and managof crucial decisions. I had a shot at Shaun for our lack of leadership and vision to the structure of the football operations which is our core business. His response was he is not responsible for football related decisions as his expertise is not a coach or a recruiter or scout. While true it’s the level of accountability to the coaches and recruiters that is missing. If not shauns fault then who is responsible for setting up the clubs structure and recruiting guidelines? I blamw the CEO as he is the head of the chain. Others blame the Owner as he hires people to get it right. Could be both or it could be someone else but we don’t know who.

Paul Okon was so close but poor leadership or stubbornness from him ruined everything.
Pauls teams were very solid in the backs and mids and made us competitive with his setup. His problem was lack of adveture to attack after opening up the field. He valued possession over having shots on goal. He is a defender and this runs through his coaching. He needed someone with experience to teach him the attack part of the game.

His stubbornness maybe the problem and he blamed the club instead at looking at his own shortcomings. As soon as he started getting the shits and quit the club fell to shit again.

Paul was given the power to get rid of the youth coach (forget his name) who was having a great season and had the team within a whisker of NPL 1 (I believe that’s the case but not 100%sure)

Why would you allow him to get rid of someone successful in a club who prides itself on youth. Was a seriously stupid mistake. Made by who? Someone had to say no. You have to work with him. Especially as Paul was in his first job. If it was someone with long term success maybe consider it but not a green coach.

That brought instability to the youth setup when it was doing everything you ask of it and you potentially have unearthed a good coach as well. With a bit more time in the system he could have been ready for the first team just like a player.

Then we allow the signing of Kennedy. In the back of an achiles injury to a no 2 keeper who is slow and old and then hand him the no1 job

So many killer mistakes at club level that MC is not responsible imo

The vision of our small club is crucial. We will never have the corporate support of the big city teams. Why is football all about rich owners and fans demanding they spend so much money? Why is football not run like a proper business on financial restraints based on its income? For what ever reason it’s just accepted as how football is.

If our club was so worthwhile why is no one beating done the door to throw cash at MC to own it? Everyone yells sell but know one ever says sell it to me (for a decent valuation) - especially to stay on the coast. MC muobe given credit here. He could so easily sell it to someone who will move us ans cut his losses.

MC does however have a penchant for a gimmick. Bolt for example. In the end he should have gone all in.
But they even buggered that up. 15mins at the home game and a whole (basically farewell game) in fn Cambeltown. You can’t make this stuff up where is the planing the vision. You should have sold out CCS with a guarantee he was playing a full game. Just poor leadership and vision.
They can’t pull off there own gimmicks

MC is looking for sugar hits and who can blame him. We offer no commercial opportunities on the CC.

Sorry for the really long post as i hate reading them myself but I think MC cops a lot shit as an easy out. It’s simple to just say spend more you tightarse.

Look at Macormick.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Some very valid points Al.

I would guess we have not had a director of football due to the cost. We have let that role be taken by the the coach and in Mulvey's case his agent who was more interested in his income than the Club. This is probably the most important factor in why we have been a wreck and not just an also ran.

I am hoping that Anton will fill that role.

He has the authority that Sean does not, and have it on a week to week basis, not just at the end of the season when the owner is told this coach or whatever is not working. I would like to think he is communicating with our current coach on a regular basis and having a fair bit of input.

I suspect Anton's appointment will be more important than buying a new coach and a new squad on an annual basis.

Fingers crossed.