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8 Sep 10

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AFC Weekly Report

As all the dust settles from the Wembley success and we start to put together the plans for next season it's time to take stock of how far this club has come over the past few years.

I've always said that success will bring its own problems and to an extent that's has happened. There is now an expectation that we will deliver these successes year in, year out, but that won't be the case and what we have to be aware of is that season when things just don't happen.

That's fine and that's why, as a board, we have to stay firm on such things like the budgets and expectation of the fans. Yes, we want to play the highest level possible, and we want to bring more success to the town, but this is a long trip and not a short term plan.

The most important thing now is to control the growth I mentioned the other week. Playing at this level is expensive, and the impact of the gates and sponsorship massively affect what we do, and we have to be aware of this and have contingencies in place for those times when things don't go our way.

This year the travelling will be less than the last couple of season due to the teams that have gone up and come down. From a financial point of view this is great news as we've been spending over £50,000 per season on travelling and that's the minimum of what we can do, so as the league moves to a more northern bias this figure should come down.

The close season is a big time for preparing the club and we are looking to do some new things this Summer. Hopefully next week we will be announcing our first coaching schools to run over a 4 week period and it will be your chance for your kids to be coached by Darren and Dave and some of the first team players on Holker Street, so please look out in this weeks press for more details.

If this is a success then we will bring in such things as a football camp during the Summer holidays. We want to make the club open to everyone and it's the community side of the club that can really make the difference. One thing that has been great to see is people proudly wearing their Barrow AFC shirts around town. A few years ago this would not have been seen, but now you see it all the time, on both adults and kids, and that can only mean good things for the future of the club.

The club has changed so much over the years and we hope to have the new reception open over the next couple of weeks. This will finish off the work that we have wanted to do in the crossbar over the last couple of years. Business is going really well with the meeting rooms now being used daily by a variety of companies and organisations. This again is great news as its this type of work that will allow the club to move in the future to an even more full time basis, and that's what we have to do if we real have ambitions of returning to the Football League.

It's funny with all the work going on nowadays that we forget it was only four years ago that the club would only be open on a match day. We would turn over ok money in the bar and around 10 people would turn up as the match-day sponsors. The growth has truly been incredible and credit to everyone who's been involved. Not even we could predict such growth, but the hard work now is to keep it growing and growing. There is some way to go until we are where we want to be.

I have noticed quite a bit on the unofficial site asking about the feasibility study. Well work is on-going and progressing, these studies are not quick things and we want to make sure that when we present the findings we've got it right, so we are probably a month or so off communicating anything to you all but again, once we have got something we will present it to you.

The friendlies look great this year with Manchester City and Blackburn Rovers bringing sides and if you look on the Manchester City website there is an article telling their fans that a team is coming to play the FA trophy winners so hopefully we'll get plenty of Manchester City fans, plus our own fans of course, watching that one. We will be doing hospitality for the friendlies this year, so if you are interested please contact the office and they will take your bookings.

Also, the World Cup kicks off soon and again the club will be open for the games, so if you fancy a pint and watching England progress, there is no better place in town to watch football than at a football ground, so when you are with your mates making plans please give us a thought.

All these things help the club. All the money that we make from everything we do goes back to the club, to improve things both on and off the field, so at least you know when your handing your hard earned money over it's going to improve things here at the club and not into someone else's pocket as profit.

Have a great bank holiday whatever you are doing.

See you soon.