Andy, our membership is going up and up with the cup and leage runs of late, and we have 100 seats for nearly 900 members. I think we have to make the adjustments to the ground that Statto suggested. I suggest the following for now:

Standing room: Take off 450 spaces.
Members seats: Add 500 (leaving us with 600 members seats for now).

This would cost £76,750, leaving us £116,750 in debt. However with the cup run and home games we are now making a profit, plus with the added member space and (hopefully) increasing attendances with our great form of late I think we'd make the money back in good time. We could maybe put 2-5k per week into the academy, but I think that should wait until we've made a decision on these improvements and had the next game at home on Friday, giving us an indication of how much profit we can make per week on games.

I agree that we need to look at expanding the stadium. Sounds a bit expensive for only adding 500 usable seats? I don't think we should be investing in the youth team until we're back in profit though.

Secondly, now that Skalding is 20, i've removed his bowling sessions and changed it to a batting session for the 17 year old Marsh. Sure he can hardly hold a bat at the moment, but if we coach him in batting until he's 18, hopefully he'll improve to be an ok batsman. I think you found us a bargain there, btw!

560 members
1540 covered
5600 uncovered
6300 standing
There were the dimensions I suggested, it includes taking off 3700 standing spaces. If I were you and you could afford both the work and the maintenance I would do the top 2 as a priority, forget about changing the bottom 2 for now.

Andy - we would be taking standing spaces off to lower the ground maintenance costs if we did the work I suggested, that's why the quote was so high. Statto - there's no way we can afford all that work right now, but as you said, I think improving the members seating and covered seating is what has to be done in the immediate term.

Right, revised suggestions:

Option A - Adding 1000 covered seats and 500 members seats costs £100,000.
Option B - Adding 500 covered seats and 500 members seats costs £85,000.

Going for option A will leave us £140,000 in debt, though what we make from the home game (this Friday) and the cup game this week (the team we are playing have a large capacity so hopefully we'll make a bit from the game next Sunday) will offset that a bit immediately. I suggest doing that, as we have more than enough members and support to fill those seats immediately.

The seats will pay for themselves, and it seems there's not much we can do about the standing room for now - this seems like it was expanded too much in the past. If this is causing us a problem in the future once we recover the cost of this work we could do something about it then.

I agree about Marsh, he has already improved since last week with his bowling and fitness nets, and a batting net will help our tail have a less bunny-like appearance from 9 to 11 once he overtakes Macey in terms of ability. As for the bargains, it's my job (!) - but a 17-year old competent bowler for £1k was too good to miss!

One more thing. I have a long term plan to move Beattie to 4 and Wright to 5, and once Heskey's batting is good enough to move him to 5 and Wright to 6. IMO 6 is the best position for Wright long term, but for now we need him at 4.

Well, our revenue from today's game, which we won by 150-odd runs after Adu made yet another century but got out for the first time this season (giving him an average, finally, of 276!), means we have £30,000 in the kitty. If you don't object over the weekend Andy, I'm going for option A above. We attracted nearly 12,000 fans today meaning our expansion could prove timely, if we continue our run.

We are now top of the league, though it is early days. The side for the next cup game on Sunday has been re-arranged for squad rotation and resting top order batsmen and Wright a bit:

Beattie
Cooper
Donnelly
Rajesh
Heskey+
Adu
Wright*
Castle
Macey
Marsh
Antoine

Also, given how much we can make from home games, I've changed the academy investment to £2k per week. We can easily afford that, and I think we should try to maintain the academy a bit before the next youth pull (spin bowling all-rounder to replace Midworth in 2/3 seasons time, IMO).

Okay, Andy, after what we've discussed I will make the following ground changes:

Covered Seats: +1000.
Members Seats: +500.

This will cost £100,000, but we are currently £45k in profit and should make the money back quickly with the income from home games, especially with the £25 per seat income from members seats. It will take 7 days, so for it to be ready in time for the game on June 2nd against Young Boys Burn I am doing it now.

We have a friendly next week, which I've just accepted, so a small amount of money will come in from that too.

Well, it had to be done. Once the ground size is equallised, we should start reinvesting in the youth team - which is still sitting at Nil at the moment. Definitely the right thing to do to get more friendlies. We should have a friendly per week and this should be top of our agenda. Its money for nothing, and as players can't get injured, the only cost is to player fitness. Make sure we rotate our batsmen for the friendlies and Marsh should play every one. Rest Heskey and let the other keeper have a turn. Should be ok. Even if they only bring in a couple of ks, its still money for nothing!

Hi Andy, I think you missed my post above. I started putting £2k per week into the team, then raised it to £6k per week to give us 3 new ITS per week - this has had no adverse effect on our finances. Apologies if you missed this and would like us to reduce the spending for now.

However, it has allowed us to reach 34 ITS. Due to our academy condition (Proficient, I recommend repairs when it drops another level) and investment up to now we can use 32 of those ITS. I don't know if this can increase, but if it can't I'd like you to allow me to do a youth pull for a bowling all-rounder with good stamina (this is something we lack from our team in general), probably when Beattie reaches 20. We could then possibly look to sell Castle, for around £10k.

The line-up for todays' friendly is:

Cooper, Beattie, Donnelly, Heskey, Fife, Midworth (b4), Skalding (b2), Scowcroft+, Macey*(b1), Marsh (b3), Castle (b5).

In last Friday's fixture we beat Oldham CC by 8 wickets, with Skalding 4-35 and Adu 93, leaving us clear as league leaders with 12 points. Hopefully we can continue this great run.

Ah - I had missed that. Good idea, we need some investment in the youth system, and we do seem to be doing a bit better financially of late. We may need to do one set of repairs before we do a youth pull. If we can maximise the youth structure before we do a pull, then we'll hopefully get a much better player.

Good idea. Castle is getting worse and I think we should do the repairs after the next home game on Friday, which should get us back into the black quite nicely. Then, the youth pull and sell Castle, and start the new guy on batting and bowling nets once Beattie reaches 20. I think a great idea would be to keep Adu and Antoine on permanent batting and bowling nets respectively, to maximise their careers.

I have emailed the Battrick people because we didn't receive the income from the friendly today, which was attended by over 11000 (!). We lost the game by 50-odd runs, mainly because I only put in about four people who could bat. We bowled them out, Skalding bagging 6-28, and Cooper got 57 but the lower order crumbled. Beattie smashed 25 off 17, but needs to hurry up and get to "Proficient" and 10000 soon!