Matt

It's a very hard division to get out of. You can have an absolutely storming season which most years would see you up yet as there is only one automatic place- it can easily count for nothing if someone else has a great run as well. Plus the general standard of football and the away ground experience is well below the level of the National North and a lot of places are a bugger to get to on public transport. Blyth as a club should really be able to hold their own in that division, even with a lower budget. Unfortunately they've appointed a guy based on the fact he's well known rather than whether he's any good at managing.

No-one picked him up in the summer and I don't think he's signed on a contract at Blyth, so at least he'll be getting regular competitive games and a wage in the meanwhile.

I was wondering about this and had a look through the records and it seems he’s neither bought nor sold since the IPO when he floated 50pc of the company. The company itself has been actively buying shares back which has has the impact of increasing the relative ownership % of MA and any other remaining shareholder.

This needs to be a specific bit of work around key areas of concern not just a general ‘true and fair view’ otherwise it will not tell us anything that hasn’t already been reviewed by the current auditors. the audit comment has the hallmarks of the sort of throwaway comment Ashley seems to make when he’s under pressure, so good on someone for calling him out on it.

Errea have done a nice job with the Blyth home kit.

I don't think he's bought any since the IPO completed. SD themselves regularly buy shares back, which has the effect of increasing the % held by anyone not selling their shares back.

At the minute the NL don't accept reserve sides although they might have to once next season's restructure is complete.

So we've basically got no money. Makes total sense if you can get it agreed. Frees up cash for other players / black paint / leopard-print sofas for Mike's house.

Anal Oliver. 'Wide of the mark' was another one he liked to use every other paragraph

Partly because it's not an option- there are various accounting standards which require such action to be taken- although deeming obligations to be onerous involves some subjectivity- even more so in the case of footballers. As for why it's not recorded over time- that's really just accruals vs cash accounting- there'll be plenty of stuff on that online. It makes sense eventually, but you may lose the will to live in the process.

We'll just be waiting for other clubs to get their squads sorted so we can look around for the cast-offs.

All about allocating revenue and cost into the period they actually occurred, rather than when cash changes hands- known as the ‘accruals principle’ Trick is not really the right word. A few people have mentioned that it was used as an excuse not to spend, but that doesn’t really hold up. The club was already making a whacking loss that season without the charge. If the club wanted to manage earnings, then they would be better off looking to take a charge when we were back in the PL and profitable- we could have had two losses rather than a massive loss then a profit. So I don’t really think that would be the rationale for it. The auditors have to consider whether the charge is reasonable (they might have suggested it themselves). If the provision turns out to be not warranted- we manage to exit the contract (player sold) or the contract is no longer onerous (the player is getting games) then the remaining element of the provision would have to be written back- this would increase profit for the period. All of these will be tested as part of the club’s audit and the charge was big enough for it to be considered material (IMO). It’s pretty common in other industries, for example where someone has leased a warehouse they no longer need but have to keep paying for, or where they have agreed a contract at a price which is now well above market rates but I haven’t seen it used much in football. Quite often clubs have written down the value of player registrations (assets), which has a similar P&L but non-cash effect. All of this is why it’s so frustrating that NUFC do not publish cash flow statements. If we had that, it would be much easier to see the true state of affairs within the club.

What that charge did was effectively say 'we're committed to paying these guys, but they are of no use to us'. In those cases you have to record the future cost in the current year's income statement, but that doesn't impact the contracted cash flows, that is still paid out as per the contract. So in future years the cost will not be shown on the 'wage bill' per the P&L - that's why our wages / turnover ratio last year looked lower than it probably was in cash terms. The cost had already been recorded but the cash still has to be paid.

Not even splashing out on recorded delivery? Tight gets.

Operating profit for 17/18 was £17.6m (last season's numbers won't be out for a while) - let's say a ST is on average £600 taking into account concessions- and that's about 30,000

Aye, and Fat Sam with a 3 yr contract paid off, and a new Spanish Villa on the way. Mad thing is that in hindsight he was Ashley's ideal manager.

He's also being shown up by the continued resurgence of JD Sports, who took the opposite approach to Ashley's pile-it-high outlets. JD Sports is worth £6bn. SD is worth £1.4bn. Cheaper than the opposition in more ways than one.

Got a link for that? Been following the Woodford story.

He found the magic formula for selling low-quality sports clobber. Everything else he's touched has turned to absolute shit.

If that's true, there's a god awful lot of cash being filtered in and out of NUFC. A proper investigate reporter could have a field day. Just a pity there are few left, let alone any in the local media. Thing is- it doesn't need any investigating- it'll be the same move as last year. It will all be there in black and white- but it takes so long for the accounts to come in that there's always a more up-to-date clusterfuck keeping us all occupied. And we'll find out just how much truth was in the club's comment:

The guy still believes in Father Christmas FFS

£111m, on the basis of what the club said at the time of last accounts, presumably the amount paid to him subsequent to 30-Jun 18 is the £33m in Current Creditors (note 17 to the 2018 accounts) In terms of cash coming in, you will need to look at years where the loan balance grew year-on-year. In 2017 the amount due to Ashley 'within one year' increased from by £15m from £18m to £33m (which is now repaid). So he will have put in that £15m over that 12 month period. NUFC does not publish a cashflow statement which means you have construct the cash changes (either in or out) from the P&L and balance sheet entries.

So if the club have known for 8 weeks that Rafa was going, have they simply made no effort to get a manager or is the position so toxic that no-one wants to touch it?

Not interested in playing anything down, it's quite obvious that NUFC would have made more money with advertisers actually paying for the coverage. If someone posts that Crystal Palace would make £40m from a similar deal, when it's quite clear they wouldn't, then it's fair to call that out as bollocks and it shouldn't come with some implication that you're the enemy.

How dare Godzilla use actual facts to counter numbers someone pulled out of their arse. Because it's Ashley, it must all be true! Remember when NUFC fans were painted as morons because some people actually thought transfer funds were being used to buy House of Fraser and were ringing the phone ins about it? When the Mag (I think) posted an online article about how Ashley was leasing the Gallowgate plot back to the club for £60m? That's why I respond to bollocks spouted about Ashley. It all deflects from the clear evidence about him which should always be the focus of our ire. See 54's brilliant post for that. So I'm not having you come out and paint people as apologists because they are calling out bullshit posted on here.