The Bedge wrote:I'm sure they'll be fine, the sporting club just need to be more finance savvy moving forward and find a way to reduce the debt. Cricket will continue (at least this season), and let's be serious cricket is reasonably easy and affordable to operate if done correctly, so cant see cricket folding.
Those who are on the sporting club board perhaps need to be held to account though, it was always going to be a struggle losing senior football over the winter - they needed to tighten the purse strings and operate smarter - opening most days of the week and paying staff to be working those days is just dumb. You're never going to get the recurring patronage to make it sustainable.
Sell the pokies, reduce the sporting club opening hours significantly, perhaps even see if you can remove your FTE staff and get volunteers to work the bar whilst open, get your members to support the club more and that debt wont take long to disappear.
Yep, many contributing factors, they have paid staff for as long as I have remembered, hence their inflated drinks prices which leads to players generally having a few on the hill after games, I always went in for one or two but I'd have a few with the players that didn't go in first straight after the game.
At the end of the day I'm sure cricket will see the season out and the council allow them to use the oval, the cricket club is so strong that they would find a way to continue as their own identity, cricket doesn't cost the earth to run and they have some great people out there to make it work regardless of having access to the clubrooms
But hey, it's just heresay at the moment.