Mariners 2017/2018- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Gratis]

Can Celtic buy us now?

hehe, i was going to say something similar in a previous post

 

[Capn Gus Bloodbeard]

. say what you like about not making the most of opportunities, etc ... but Bingers hasn't really been given chances 'up front' ... i'm not surprised the guy looks shit as a winger, because he is not a winger (and that is where Okon insists on playing him when he makes a cameo)

Attackers also need to be creating their own chances by linking up with each other and effectively running off the ball to create space or draw defenders out to create space for others

 

[priorpeter]

Can Celtic buy us now?

The Russians are coming. Honestly, they're on their way.

 

[Wombat]

The Russians are coming. Honestly, they're on their way.

I'd prefer Celtic just quietly.

 

[Big Al]

The Russians could dope the boys up.

They need some size and aggression

 

[BrisRecky]

Does anyone have the email address for the Nigerian lottery, they got money to burn apparently

 

[Gratis]

Time to reflect on some good

https://www.a-league.com.au/news/remember-when-mariners-break-grand-final-curse
Beaten in their three previous Grand Final appearances, Central Coast Mariners entered the 2012/13 decider wary of again being a footnote to another team's treasured success.

Western Sydney Wanderers had been the fairytale story throughout their debut Hyundai A-League campaign, claiming the Premiers' Plate by three points and going 13 games unbeaten on the way to the big stage.

This, however, was to be the Mariners' time as they avenged their trio of defeats to prevail 2-0 and win the championship for the first time.

Graham Arnold's men only had to wait until the 44th minute to make the breakthrough, veteran defender Patrick Zwaanswijk heading in Michael McGlinchey's corner.

And they were well and truly on their way in the 68th minute, Daniel McBreen sending Ante Covic the wrong way from the spot after Jerome Polenz handballed inside his own area.

Unlike their heartbreak against Brisbane Roar two years prior, the Mariners held firm through a Mat Ryan clean sheet to see out the long-awaited triumph.

RE-LIVE THE MATCH IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

The final part of my “Good the Bad and the Ugly” trilogy of postings:


What does the future hold?


First a brief potted history.


The Mariners have had three quite distinct periods in their 13 year history.

1) The Lawrie era

2) The Arnie era

3) The disaster years


The first period was the one where the team was most successful in terms of developing a culture and punching above its weight. It was a time of a salary capped league that was fairly even with the allowance of only one marquee player.

Mariners won a premiership and featured in two grand finals. We had one marquee (Vidmar) and had the use of a marquee equivalent with the injury replacement (Aloisi). This was probably the era of best fan support.

Whether the club was spending beyond its means was not obvious at the time but the club did benefit from an injection of cash by John Singleton.

Towards the end of this era performances began to taper off and there was a fair number calling for Lawrie out.


The second period was the most successful with the appointment of Arnie the club won another premiership and featured in two grand finals, finally winning a championship.

Unfortunately the club spent more than it earned in this period to generate this success and towards the end the “chickens were coming home to roost” in terms of unpaid wages and debts outstripping income.

At the end of this era Mike Charlesworth bought out the other two major shareholders and settled the club’s existing liabilities.

The important thing to note by those saying that you must spend money to make money is that this period disproved that point. Success did not return a profit. It very nearly caused the demise of the club.


What we are going through now can be titled the hungry years. Charlesworth will not or can not afford to spend the money that other teams are. Simple. The club will have to survive on what it earns. This means lean times in terms of results unless we can be real savvy or lucky in terms of who we sign. I am thinking in terms of Jedi or Matty Ryan. This year we almost got lucky and with a bit of luck with some of the results could have been well up there. However, when the 50/50s don’t go your way it is hard to maintain form. I have been very impressed with Okon’s signings and his ability to recognize potential talent. For that reason alone I hope we hang onto him for a bit longer.

Bottom line for the hungry years? Most seasons we will finish in the bottom half with the occasional good year where we make the finals and can beat anyone on our day if injuries do not do us in.

There will be no more money invested in the club at the moment because there is no return on success in this league at present, as was shown through the Arnie years. The only people who will buy success are those who can afford to lose millions (Tractavenko or City Group).


What of the future?

The future will not become clear until the FFA gets sorted out by FIFA. Scary but true. The A-league must emerge from under the shadow of the FFA and be run independently. Until that happens we will not see any investment in existing clubs, new clubs or a second division. Everything is on hold until this happens. Unfortunately until this happens nothing will change for CCM.

Investors do not make money out of football clubs on a day to day basis. They may make a capital gain when they sell as the value increases over time. Or they are in it because they love the game or the kudos of owning a football team (Elton Jon and Watford) and have nothing better to do with there millions/billions. Because things are so uncertain with the Aleague at the moment none of these types are investing.

Charlesworth is clearly looking after his investment but unlike our other investors who cut their losses I like to think he is here for the longer haul because he has some love for the game/Club. He may be willing to sell a share of the club to other investors but that will not happen until the future of the Aleague becomes clearer.

With luck he can find partners with bottomless pockets (Russians, Red Bull etc).

The one good thing about any future sale if he sells the lot is that the club is linked to the COE. I think that is a nice mutualism. The value of one is dependent on the other.

The only thing that scares me is that if the licence is sold whoever buys it is able to move it to a new area (South West Sydney). This is why it is so critical for the club to remain viable and in the black. If not, the FFA will be able to resume the licence and you can bet they would love nothing better than to do this and move it elsewhere.

Where does that leave the fans. Unfortunately, I see that there is no other option apart from sucking it up and sitting it out. There will be the odd great result (SFC this year) and the odd good season where we punch above our weight (next year?).


Me? I will stay rusted on and hope the good times come soon. The alternative does not bear thinking about.


Time for a double Laphroig. ;-)

 

[true believer]

Yep . We should have a day where you can wear your western suburbs , north sydney , maita eagles .or sydney croatia shirts .

 

[Wombat]

Good post Ancient but dont expect me not to whinge while Mike rapes and debases my club. He is a prolific liar.

 

[true believer]

Good post Ancient but dont expect me not to whinge while Mike rapes and debases my club. He is a prolific liar.

harsh

 

[priorpeter]

harsh

Fair.

 

[Ozhammer]

Yep . We should have a day where you can wear your western suburbs , north sydney , maita eagles .or sydney croatia shirts .

Not sure I see how would that help?

 

[true believer]

Not sure I see how would that help?

it's for the people that had followed a team for years only to have them destroyed by economic rationalism

 

[Ozhammer]

it's for the people that had followed a team for years only to have them destroyed by economic rationalism

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying.

 

[bikinigirl]

The final part of my “Good the Bad and the Ugly” trilogy of postings:


What does the future hold?


First a brief potted history.


The Mariners have had three quite distinct periods in their 13 year history.

1) The Lawrie era

2) The Arnie era

3) The disaster years


The first period was the one where the team was most successful in terms of developing a culture and punching above its weight. It was a time of a salary capped league that was fairly even with the allowance of only one marquee player.

Mariners won a premiership and featured in two grand finals. We had one marquee (Vidmar) and had the use of a marquee equivalent with the injury replacement (Aloisi). This was probably the era of best fan support.

Whether the club was spending beyond its means was not obvious at the time but the club did benefit from an injection of cash by John Singleton.

Towards the end of this era performances began to taper off and there was a fair number calling for Lawrie out.


The second period was the most successful with the appointment of Arnie the club won another premiership and featured in two grand finals, finally winning a championship.

Unfortunately the club spent more than it earned in this period to generate this success and towards the end the “chickens were coming home to roost” in terms of unpaid wages and debts outstripping income.

At the end of this era Mike Charlesworth bought out the other two major shareholders and settled the club’s existing liabilities.

The important thing to note by those saying that you must spend money to make money is that this period disproved that point. Success did not return a profit. It very nearly caused the demise of the club.


What we are going through now can be titled the hungry years. Charlesworth will not or can not afford to spend the money that other teams are. Simple. The club will have to survive on what it earns. This means lean times in terms of results unless we can be real savvy or lucky in terms of who we sign. I am thinking in terms of Jedi or Matty Ryan. This year we almost got lucky and with a bit of luck with some of the results could have been well up there. However, when the 50/50s don’t go your way it is hard to maintain form. I have been very impressed with Okon’s signings and his ability to recognize potential talent. For that reason alone I hope we hang onto him for a bit longer.

Bottom line for the hungry years? Most seasons we will finish in the bottom half with the occasional good year where we make the finals and can beat anyone on our day if injuries do not do us in.

There will be no more money invested in the club at the moment because there is no return on success in this league at present, as was shown through the Arnie years. The only people who will buy success are those who can afford to lose millions (Tractavenko or City Group).


What of the future?

The future will not become clear until the FFA gets sorted out by FIFA. Scary but true. The A-league must emerge from under the shadow of the FFA and be run independently. Until that happens we will not see any investment in existing clubs, new clubs or a second division. Everything is on hold until this happens. Unfortunately until this happens nothing will change for CCM.

Investors do not make money out of football clubs on a day to day basis. They may make a capital gain when they sell as the value increases over time. Or they are in it because they love the game or the kudos of owning a football team (Elton Jon and Watford) and have nothing better to do with there millions/billions. Because things are so uncertain with the Aleague at the moment none of these types are investing.

Charlesworth is clearly looking after his investment but unlike our other investors who cut their losses I like to think he is here for the longer haul because he has some love for the game/Club. He may be willing to sell a share of the club to other investors but that will not happen until the future of the Aleague becomes clearer.

With luck he can find partners with bottomless pockets (Russians, Red Bull etc).

The one good thing about any future sale if he sells the lot is that the club is linked to the COE. I think that is a nice mutualism. The value of one is dependent on the other.

The only thing that scares me is that if the licence is sold whoever buys it is able to move it to a new area (South West Sydney). This is why it is so critical for the club to remain viable and in the black. If not, the FFA will be able to resume the licence and you can bet they would love nothing better than to do this and move it elsewhere.

Where does that leave the fans. Unfortunately, I see that there is no other option apart from sucking it up and sitting it out. There will be the odd great result (SFC this year) and the odd good season where we punch above our weight (next year?).


Me? I will stay rusted on and hope the good times come soon. The alternative does not bear thinking about.


Time for a double Laphroig. ;-)

. great post Ancient – it doesn’t deserve to be dissected for the few things I don’t entirely agree with

. however one thing that I would like to clarify is that I think many people that may have used the clichéd ‘you have to spend money to make money’ simply because it is a well-known saying are actually more in the camp of ‘you don’t necessarily save money by cutting spending’. Perhaps a minor distinction, but in our context one worth making

. despite achieving record memberships (DDTMM truly is TM) I reckon we have been seeing the effects of underspending already. It is easy for people to go from full season to 3 or 6 game passes and still call themselves members and supporters of the Mariners. Where I think the hard decisions are about to be made is those with reserved seats (the gold and platinum – where the real money is) – people may have been hanging on not wanting to lose their seats awaiting the turn-around but I fear many have already made up their minds judging by the continual reports of walk-outs and no-shows

. and while I am on the subject of memberships, I can’t believe that Shaun as CEO didn’t know the proportion of full season members as stated on the podcast recently and I think it is nowhere near the number of about 5,000 he mentioned. My view is it is probably half the membership numbers and could very well be less in the future. Particularly when you consider this year people may have bought a membership on the assurance we would spend the full cap (for those that don’t remember there was talk of removing DDS from the cap and making him marquee depending on other signings – despite this it appears we may be only scraping the floor with the full DDS wage included)

 

[shipwreck]

Calling people who have a 3 game membership "members" and then chirping on about how its a record breaking big deal is garbage in my opinion, full home fame membership or bust.

Like has been said, where the real money is.

That's like when the bouncer tells you that there are heaps of chicks inside and you walk in to find a sausage fest and all the girls are working behind the bar!

 

[bikinigirl]

Calling people who have a 3 game membership "members" and then chirping on about how its a record breaking big deal is garbage in my opinion, full home fame membership or bust.

. most businesses would use a measure like 'full time equivalents' ... that'd do me

. by all means the club can still count all 'memberships' and even mention them occasionally in the correct context - but the current system* is misleading ... in other spheres it would be considered deceitful. i just don't think it helps any of the game's stakeholders and i think i could counter any argument that is given for using this alone as a valid metric

* i say 'system' because apparently it is what all clubs do in various codes

 

[scottmac]

It is what it is. The number is still the total amount of people willing to part with an amount of money to be in partnership with the club.

 

[Gratis]

It is what it is. The number is still the total amount of people willing to part with an amount of money to be in partnership with the club.

That's what I think too. How much money the club actually makes from those memberships is up to them to care/worry about