Response to Michael Cokerill's article in Sydney Morning Herald on Dec 21

[mariner72]

Clearly the club has always had to sell its players because that's what the players want surely and the club becomes a victim of its own success. In regards to the 'lowest rent' in the league this is probably very misleading bearing in mind many councils encourage and subsidise clubs to play in their grounds. I don't believe for one moment CC Stadium is the cheapest in the country regardless of what Lawrie says, ever thought that N Sydney council subsidise costs much like I assume Canberra did when we played there a few years back or many of the other councils around the country do which attract clubs to play much like Auckland where we played recently. Mate of mine in NZ said there was no major issue from Wellington fans around that game and many more planned apparently. I'm from Hornsby and have supported the club since around year 1 and go to most home games and would much prefer the odd game played in N Syd rather revert to Canberra or elsewhere which produce a profit.

 

[Big Al]

The issues are lack of professionalism of the running of the club.
ACL no shirt sponsor when they knew for 6 months they were in it. Last year
Last two years members not getting membership tickets prior to the season kick off. Even though they paid months in advance.
Talk of north sydney games changing every year we play there.
Local engagement being minimal yet everything is pumped into NS
For someone who wants to run it as a business it's not run very well. If it were the local take Away it would go broke as well.

 

[Big Al]

It was interesting to get a text about the next game. It means they took the critisim on board or felt they better act to fix the perceived favouritism to NS.

 

[Gratis]

That 13k average from 07/08 was only achieved because there were games with 17k, 18k and 19k in the same season. Take those games out and the average drops back to around 10k.

so? why can't that happen again? heavily promote a few key games a year to bump up the average. stores do it with their main sales around Christmas or mothers day or whatever is their bumper time

 

[Woody]

Are you Mike Charlsworth???

Quack Quack Mr Ducksworth, I mean Charlesworth.

 

[bikinigirl]

To Michael Cockerill: Michael, I agree with your article in general but you have a few important facts wrong. I know the history of the Mariners and have spoken to Mike Charlesworth. Firstly, the club is losing well over $1M a year today and that's the main driver for Mike; to try and reduce losses and make the club commercially viable. Secondly, when McKinna was active with the club, it lost multiple millions of dollars, that's why the other shareholders left and Mike Charlesworth stepped in to become the sole owner at significant expense! McKinna needs to support the club constructively and not try and constantly undermine it. If the community truly want a "local" club, then more fans need to understand that it has to be commercially viable and they have to do what they can to help. I think it will be great if 10,000+ fans show up to the next game "to prove the club should stay." The issue is, that needs to happen for every game. The community has to do what it can to help the club reach financial viability and from my sources that means to breakeven not make a huge profit. My guess is that if the club could do this, there’d be no question about where the Central Coast Mariners should be based.

. may i suggest you now balance up your opinions and speak to lawrie as well (who has been involved with the club through all the highs and lows). i would advise extreme caution basing your opinions on a conversation with charlesworth - it is likely your next conversation will yield a different response

. from what i understand the other shareholders did not 'leave' ... they were forced out by charlesworth as he made a play for taking complete control. his increased stake did not come until turnbull was pushed to the wall financially and had no option but to cede control. this was always going to put gorman's (minor) stake under increased pressure especially considering the perceived conflict of interest

. interesting that you talk about 'commercial viability'. more information has come from the club since lawrie has made his stand:

• they have admitted that the rent is 'fair' in gosford ... this after 18 months of publicly pressuring the council to 'do more and reduce the rent' and asking that the fans to support that stance
• admitting that crowds less than 10k will allow the club to 'break-even' ... crowd numbers we were achieving before more games were moved, but are not achieving now
• admitting that our main issue is a lack of corporate support ... this is no fault of the fans or the council. i have heard from more than one source (first hand in a number of cases) that this is the engagement that is completely lacking from the club nowadays - smaller, local supporters don't even warrant a 'how do you do?' but are shown a complete lack of respect

. it seems the club's commercial marketing 'gurus' are only interested in landing the 'big fish' ... despite reports that the only year the club turned a profit was when engagement with small, local supporters was at its peak - and no disrespect to Masterfoods ... but how many 'big-fish' have they managed to land?

. landing a 'big-fish' in north sydney appears to have been the plan ... but that may have back-fired spectacularly with a crap venue, poor crowd, criticism in the media and an angry and disillusioned fan base - who would want to get on board with that?

. charlesworth needs to see past his recent 'investment' and stop blaming those that have kept the club going as long as it has (the fans, council and people like lawrie, lyall and turnbull) ... and look at the management he has in place and what they have managed to achieve

 

[LOYALCCMFAN]

Quack Quack Mr Ducksworth, I mean Charlesworth.

Haha...wish I had that kind of money to invest in CCM, that's for sure.

 

[bikinigirl]

I'm not saying that I agree with everything that MC and the management is doing, things need improving there for sure. However without the support of the fans and the community, there's little chance of changing anything. Let's remeber MC took over after others bailed. He's in this 100% because he was the last man standing and that deserves some credit. I think we can get MC to work with the supporters club to do what's necessary.

. i think i have already addressed your comment about the 'last man standing' above ... but i would be interested in your views on how 'we can get MC to work with the supporters club' but hopefully this has already changed over recent weeks (i am no longer involved in the day-to-day running of the OSC). if all this kerfuffle leads to better engagement then it will be worthwhile

. because in the past MC has shown very little interest in engaging (oh there is that word again) with the OSC or volunteers for his 'business' and that does come from personal experience

 

[bikinigirl]

I agree that the club CAN be viable on the coast. My personal opinion is that if CCM Management (including MC) and Lawrie McKinna get together with the aim of discussing making the club viable in Gosford for the benefit of all, that would be a great step.

. i think you may have a different view to many others as to the reason that lawrie stepped down from his role with the club

 

[Big Al]

When someone like BG is no longer part of the OSC or donating time to the club there is a problem.

 

[rbakersmith]

so? why can't that happen again? heavily promote a few key games a year to bump up the average. stores do it with their main sales around Christmas or mothers day or whatever is their bumper time

Relying on "a few key games a year" to drag averages up to 13K is a terrible idea. As we've seen time and again, all it takes is the hint of a storm and a predicted 15K crowd will plummet towards 10K.

We should be aiming to increase attendances across the board to 12-13K, with "a few key games a year" potentially dragging averages up to 14-15K. To me, that's going to require a few things:

• Better engagement
• Fans who don't jump off the bandwagon at the whiff of bad performances - supporting a club should be for life, not whenever the team happens to be doing well
• Better scheduling - when are the FFA going to learn that 5:00/5:30pm kickoffs in summer discourage people from buying tickets in the Eastern Grandstand
• Improvements to the stadium roof - at least on the Eastern Grandstand. People are more likely to want to come to games if they aren't going to get blinded or drenched, and the more fans visible on Fox/SBS the better

 

[Capt. Awesome]

Relying on "a few key games a year" to drag averages up to 13K is a terrible idea. As we've seen time and again, all it takes is the hint of a storm and a predicted 15K crowd will plummet towards 10K.

We should be aiming to increase attendances across the board to 12-13K, with "a few key games a year" potentially dragging averages up to 14-15K. To me, that's going to require a few things:

• Better engagement
• Fans who don't jump off the bandwagon at the whiff of bad performances - supporting a club should be for life, not whenever the team happens to be doing well
• Better scheduling - when are the FFA going to learn that 5:00/5:30pm kickoffs in summer discourage people from buying tickets in the Eastern Grandstand
• Improvements to the stadium roof - at least on the Eastern Grandstand. People are more likely to want to come to games if they aren't going to get blinded or drenched, and the more fans visible on Fox/SBS the better

Aside of putting a roof over the whole stadium there is no way to fix the blinding westerly sun. Show me a stadium that is actually good at fixing this? At 5pm the sun comes in at such a low angle that there is no roof design on the eastern side that will fix this. To have any affect there would have to be a much larger roof/stadium on the western side to cast s big enough shadow on the eastern side. This just isn't going to happen. Only solution is games at 7:30 but this then duscourages the families that come. There is no easy solution.

 

[bikinigirl]

When someone like BG is no longer part of the OSC or donating time to the club there is a problem.

. don't read too much into my personal situation ... as a family our priorities have had to change. we still do what we can and mariners games still get priority in our diaries ... unfortunately we can no longer afford to always put mariners 'business' above work on the list of priorities. i can't even spend as much time on here as i used to

. the current 'issues' are part of the reason the OSC was established ... the current issues are not a reason to shy away from our responsibilities as fans - it should encourage our persistence. this is what is so good about the standupforthemariners push it is all coming from fans

. the guys and girls of the OSC, just like people such as Fish from the YA as well as Adz and the mods from this place ... the amount of time, money and effort they have invested in this club over the past 10 years is incredible ... and they continue to persist with their efforts - and it is all done gratis

. their opinions may cause occasional conflict, but their dedication should not be questioned ... a little more respect from 'the powers that be' (or sometimes the fans) wouldn't go astray ... considering their volunteering efforts could put some full-time employees to shame. many of the initiatives put in place over the last few weeks have been suggested to the club many times over the years and in some ways it is gratifying to see the club now jumping on the bandwagon of the fan movement (even if it makes you a little sick at the same time)

. it is a shame that it seems to have taken a very public stand from lawrie to really kick these things along. for the sake of everybody's efforts i hope it all proves worthwhile and hopefully it is not too late

 

[bikinigirl]

Pretty sure your assumption that player payments being covered by FOXSports is inaccurate.

. i think it is pretty well known that the latest fox/sbs deal was intended to cover the salary cap. it was also meant to be structured in a way that the club couldn't spend the money ... it was to be paid directly to the players. this just makes it all the more baffling why any club would choose to spend less than the cap (which we are rumoured to be doing)

. which brings me to another rumour - that clubs have their salary cap contribution docked if certain KPIs are not met. these KPIs could include crowd numbers and TV viewing audiences. this may be mike's motivation, but it raises more questions:

• why is this not known to the fans? (if it is part of the 'deal' i am assuming the club can't talk about it)
• how is this fair on the smaller clubs with much smaller catchments such as ours?
• how is the situation meant to improve when the scheduling is constantly conspiring against us?

. cockerill's article discusses many reasons why this model discriminates against us. the salary cap and floor are there for a reason and the ffa are undermining their own competition and system if the clubs are not being treated equally (or perhaps i mean fairly)

. those that can least afford to spend should not be penalised ... they should be assisted. this may be via funds, promotional marketing or scheduling concessions ... and if this is not possible then the KPIs should be tailored to suit as an absolute minimum

. how are we meant to improve our crowds or viewing audiences if our games are always scheduled at times that will help neither. the figures are then used to justify those decisions and it becomes self fulfilling

 

[bikinigirl]

That 13k average from 07/08 was only achieved because there were games with 17k, 18k and 19k in the same season. Take those games out and the average drops back to around 10k.

. i don't think that you can look at these things in complete isolation, one thing feeds the other - consider this theory:

• the club is now stating (or did recently anyway) that sub-10k crowds would have us breaking even
• dibo's crowd analytics have us trending at that number (before further relocation talk) ... similar issue to our crowds dropping after games relocated to canberra (which saw a drop from the crowd figures above)
• proper engagement could have our typical crowd at 10k (easily i would have thought since we were practically there already)
• certain games will always draw a bigger crowd - which we need to embrace not exclude - these games help to increase the average but also our typical crowd
• if we can continue to increase our typical crowd ... the atmosphere should improve
• this should encourage further incremental growth (which is how you end up with the 17/18/19k crowds which further boost the average)
• this is what happened with the wanderers ... no inflated 'member' numbers with few game passes. member numbers were established by being the only way to guarantee a seat
• all the oft-quoted examples in world sport of small population centres achieving consistently high crowd/population figures rely on this 'must have' scenario - a scenario which is undermined if the local community loses their connection to the club

 

[bikinigirl]

Clearly the club has always had to sell its players because that's what the players want surely and the club becomes a victim of its own success.

. yes and no - mass exodus has set us back

. selling players is likely to be common for the foreseeable future (if we can continue to develop youngsters) but giving away our best is unforgivable. i don't blame mikey for going to wellington ... the fact is we should never have loaned him to japan

In regards to the 'lowest rent' in the league this is probably very misleading bearing in mind many councils encourage and subsidise clubs to play in their grounds. I don't believe for one moment CC Stadium is the cheapest in the country regardless of what Lawrie says, ever thought that N Sydney council subsidise costs much like I assume Canberra did when we played there a few years back or many of the other councils around the country do which attract clubs to play much like Auckland where we played recently.

. whereas i think it is very misleading to use one off games for such comparisons. of course NS and canberra subsidised the costs ... but gosford do it consistently

. somebody posted in here recently how the rent we pay at gosford doesn't even cover turf maintenance. now consider how much gosford have consistently subsidised for well over 100 games and compare that to how much NS have offered in total

 

[bikinigirl]

. apologies for all the consecutive posts ... i haven't had much time to vent recently

... and apologies if i seem to be focusing on the comments from some relative newbies ... just trying to bring you up to speed on what i think is the consensus

 

[nearlyyellow]

Nice posts bg, thank you.

. yes and no - mass exodus has set us back

. selling players is likely to be common for the foreseeable future (if we can continue to develop youngsters) but giving away our best is unforgivable. i don't blame mikey for going to wellington ... the fact is we should never have loaned him to japan

tbh I had never even thought about Weemac being sold, I just thought he was part of GA's deal with Vengalta Sendai Oh, and anyway, there was probably no reason at the time to doubt GA's intentions nor consider fully what the effect would be on the club in the future.

. whereas i think it is very misleading to use one off games for such comparisons. of course NS and canberra subsidised the costs ... but gosford do it consistently

. somebody posted in here recently how the rent we pay at gosford doesn't even cover turf maintenance. now consider how much gosford have consistently subsidised for well over 100 games and compare that to how much NS have offered in total

I seem to remember the Mayor of NS saying that for these games *no* ground rental was being charged because it was being billed and promoted as a local carnival, benefiting the local area more so than CCM. I can't find reference to that idea so maybe I am incorrect.

 

[mariner72]

Why not ask the OSC to request the actual figures for playing in Gosford compared to NSO (who do I believe subsidise) however what the club will claim is the sponsorship opportunity in Sydney will exceed that of the Coast. Still worth asking, likewise what the club would collect from the council in Canberra. I currently don't buy into any argument that Gosford Council have compared to the advantages of the Mariners playing there, transparency shouldn't be that difficult.

 

[bikinigirl]

Why not ask the OSC to request the actual figures for playing in Gosford compared to NSO (who do I believe subsidise)

. it should be no surprise that this has been asked ... likewise the response (we are never likely to know)

however what the club will claim is the sponsorship opportunity in Sydney will exceed that of the Coast

. this has always been the assertion but have we seen any evidence of it? not even a match day front of shirt sponsor which we occasionally see at gosford

I currently don't buy into any argument that Gosford Council have compared to the advantages of the Mariners playing there, transparency shouldn't be that difficult.

. sorry i don't understand what you are trying to say