Quote Originally Posted by Jeterpool View Post
I've been thinking quite hard about our situation for the last few weeks and I'm genuinely concerned about our long-term viability. The club is starting to again develop the same stench we have had with previous owners, with the obvious cost-cutting approach again consigning us to being run on the smell of an oily rag.

While I'm not saying that Ledman Group are not paying their bills or their players, but we aren't actively investing in the structure of the club. Youth coach leaves, assistant coach leaves, meeting minimum requirements for squad size, willingness to let a forward leave unpaid to pursue a rap career, removing the links with Everything Football. As one-off instances it's not an issue, but as a broader picture it's all about balancing the budget. We certainly failed to build on the season of success we had 2 years back.

We know Mr Lee wants to sell the club. So if we get to a point where we need to be bailed out again, I fear this time we won't. There's now interest from would-be expansion clubs and choosing one of them might be the easier option.

What do we actually bring the League? Andrew Howe calculated each team's performance over the last 10 years and unsurprisingly we were the worst performers. We used to be able to rely on our crowds, however we have had a crowd >10000 just once in the last 12 months and the crowd figures are declining despite having 11000 members. These are some of the metrics Wellington were judged by - so when will they apply to us? We can't rely on the often-used argument that "the Hunter is a footballing region and has footballing heritage".

I'm worried the apathy around the club, particularly from the fans, is returning. We've been up and fought for the club before - I wonder if we have it in us to do it all again.
It is a real concern and i had a discussion with my young bloke just the other day about the clubs future and how things look from a outsiders perspective not from a club official or supporter perspective and would there ever be pressure to only have one club north of Sydney. This is by no means my personal opinion but the powers that be may very well believe that maintaining the status quo north of Sydney with two seperate clubs is not working and that maybe a more successful approach would be a single entity play out of the area to the north of Sydney.

I would not put anything past Martin Lee and Charlesworth and the bean counters who would effectively get to sell another license to say the ACT or Wollongong Wolves. You don't need to be a genius to know the club is going to take at min a 2 thousand hit to the membership numbers next season if the same cost cutting approach is adopted for next season.