Pedro has had enough of you nasty people being mean to him on Poppynet, and has found a new home for his "forthright" views here at PATGOD. Don't be jealous. You too can have your say! Just contact us with your well written, expertly argued article that basically states that Imraan has lost the plot, and we'll gladly add it to all of ours!
ET phoned Pedro’s home to get his view on the latest happenings at Rockingham Road:
ET: So it seems you were right that there’d be trouble at Rockingham Road.
Pedro: Have you been on another planet ET, we’re at Non Park now! Yes, I predicted things would turn sour in November; I even have the emails to prove it! It doesn’t make me happy to be proved right because it means it’s yet another wasted season and, even worse, I’ve wasted £200 on a season ticket!
ET: Whoops sorry Pedro, I have indeed been on another planet! So what do you think went wrong?
Pedro: I don’t think anything’s gone wrong, instead I think the whole venture was doomed from the start. Let’s quickly recap some facts:
One club had already gone bust at Non Park. It’s an expensive place to run so anyone going there would have to exploit it better than the previous occupants. But we know Silvio Ladak is a great salesman but useless prime minister. It’s beyond me how he thought we could do any better there than the previous occupants. Doing a budget for a football club is hardly rocket science.
ET: You can say that again, I know all about rocket science!
Pedro: Anyway, carrying on, a budget for a football club is fairly straightforward. The outgoings are easily calculated: you’ve got the rent, rates, ground maintenance, match day expenses etc and of course wages. You can probably calculate the whole budget to at least 10%. The hard bit is working out your income so you don’t spend beyond your means. However, the most important thing is to be conservative about it!
ET: First time I’ve ever heard you advocating being conservative!
Pedro: That was with a small “c”!
ET: Anyway, your point is?
Pedro: I wouldn’t assume that in the first year we’d have a massive income from anywhere.
So we know the outgoings, we therefore know what income we need as a minimum. And it doesn’t take a genius on a spreadsheet to work out what sort of attendances we’d need. If you then find that they’re higher than you think realistic, you have to go back to the outgoings and see what you can trim, really only the wages! Go round that loop a few times and you can see if it’ll ever work or how much you’ll have to fund it or borrow (but beware the markets can turn as Silvio found out!).
ET: You used an odd word in there, at least in the football world, realistic?
Pedro: Yep! The previous tenants averaged bigger crowds than us. There was no love lost between the two sets of supporters so you wouldn’t expect many of theirs to come over to us. It’s 10 miles away and some of our supporters couldn’t or wouldn’t travel.
ET: I travel several light years for each game. And I can.
Pedro: Nobody can predict the future. Haha, very clever!
Anyway, so before the season’s even kicked off, you can hazard a figure at what our attendances would be and you can even band them by the success we might have: play-offs, mid table or relegation battle.
ET: OK, but so what?
Pedro: It tells you how viable the whole thing is and how successful you have to be. You could also have done the same calculation for Rockingham Road (and with the new rent proposed by the landlord) and compare which was more viable.
ET: And...?
Pedro: It tells you how big a risk you can take on your manager! Nuff said.
ET: And...?
Pedro: It tells you if it’s ever going to be successful. Maybe you’ll realise it’ll never be successful and you need to get out completely!
ET: Are you saying that before we even moved to Non Park it would have been obvious to Silvio that he would have to sell up?
Pedro: I’m glad you said that and I didn’t!
ET: But what about staying at Rockingham Road?
Pedro: Well, despite it being a dump, that option might actually have looked better, at least financially.
ET: So why not stay there?
Pedro: Well I thought hard about that because I couldn’t understand why you’d go for the more expensive option. I thought despite the evidence, surely Silvio isn’t that stupid. At the time, the only thing that made sense to me was that it was Silvio’s intention all along to sell it as quickly as possible. Obviously a long lease at Non Park looks better than a short one at a dilapidated Rockingham Road. But, with the benefit of some hindsight, I think Silvio actually went for a shit or bust tactic: hope that we’d do well, gates would be high and sponsorship money would flow in. Putting Morrell in charge made that as likely as someone riding a bike into the sky!
ET: Funny you should say that, I’ve parked my bike in the tree!
Pedro: So we end up being up for sale when things are bad! I wonder how many takers there’ll be. We’re probably stuck at Non Park with a long lease, although I doubt very much it’s anywhere near as long as promised at Wicksteed Park, huge costs and little prospect of these costs being met. By the way, whatever happened to SIlvio’s promise that he would eventually hand over the club to the fans? Ha!
ET: So what do you think will happen?
Pedro: Let’s be realistic about this. The chances of a sale must be very low although a sale to Cousins or the Hills shouldn’t be dismissed and if that happens, well we have recent history to tell us what’s likely to happen! But if we ignore that possibility (and I only do that because I don’t actually think it’ll be any worse than what’s likely to happen), then the club will continue to haemorrhage cash. Silvio won’t plug the gap for long. With the squad being decimated, performances will continue to be bad and attendances will stagnate. Silvio will declare towards the end of the season that attendances are so poor that desperate measures are needed so the name will change (this will be timed as late as possible in order to stop any AFC Kettering 1872). There’ll be yet another re-launch next summer with a bastard club called Kettering Diamonds, maybe even without Kettering in it, with yet another fag packet business plan. But by then Silvio will have lost the trust of nearly all the fans (with the odd exception of those from Graceland) so few Poppies fans will go, the old Diamonds fans won’t be interested as they’ll have spent a year already doing something different, so this new “venture” will flop more quickly than Mr Floppy being asked “is that all?” on his wedding night!
ET: It’ll be that bad?
Pedro: Actually, I think in some ways that’s the “rosy” scenario. I think probably slightly more likely is that we’ll go into administration in the New Year and be wound up at the end of the season! Both scenarios lead to the end of KTFC after 140 years. And that makes me angry! It’s broadly what I thought would happen when this whole misadventure was proposed although the death of KTFC is happening more quickly than I expected!
ET: You’re angry with Silvio?
Pedro: Of course but in many ways I’m more angry with those fans that have gone along and helped this debacle! From the very start project Non Park has been doomed with the eventual outcome being the extinguishing of one of the oldest names in the world of association football. These fans could and should have been able to do some basic sums and work out the likely outcome. For god’s sake, some of them even had access to the figures! They didn’t only go along with Silvio, some of them highly trusted spoke and wrote to the fans, swaying many of those fans who had their doubts to go along with it as the only way. These people had a huge responsibility and duty; responsibility to today’s fans and a duty to all those people of Kettering who had kept football going through 140 years, including two world wars.
ET: And a galactic super war!
Pedro: Eh?
ET: Don’t worry about it, the good guys won!
Pedro: I think a lot of people forgot or didn’t understand that a football club is rooted deep in its local community, especially one like ours. That’s the main, almost the only, reason people go to watch it. Break those roots and with the first bit of difficulty it’ll die. People don’t have the same commitment to something they don’t associate with.
ET: So do you think it’s all over?
Pedro: I think it has to be almost certain unless by some miracle a new sugar daddy comes along. I’ve been saying we’ll be back playing at Rockingham Road next season. Well, I think there may be a football club playing there but I doubt it’ll be KTFC. As for Non Park, I won’t be as stupid as I have been for three seasons now; I won’t be spending any money other than for the games I go to!
ET: So will you be going on Saturday?
Pedro: Of course I will, I need to squeeze what value I can out of my season ticket! But seriously, I’m a Poppies fan through and through. Cut me in half and you’ll see KTFC all the way through. How can I not watch them and cheer them on, especially when there may not be many more chances to do so?
Pedro: Well thanks for talking to me ET. On your bike then!
ET: Don’t forget to phone home Pedro!
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