Running a Footy Club

1finny

Well-known member
Spent the morning with the Chief Exec of Lincoln City today. Really interesting stuff.
The club were on their knees around 10 years ago and the business I currently work for recognised the community importance and bailed them out over a number of years. At one stage we were paying gas bills and players wages.

They are in good shape now but very careful on their outlook. No surprise - money talks.
The stats tell us the key indicator for success is money spent on players. Over any 5 year period teams will finish in the league relative to how much money they have spent (plus or minus 3 positions). So, if you are the 7th biggest spender you will finish between 10th and 4th - regardless of the capability of the manager.
Maybe we spend too much time worrying about our managers :cool:

Div 1 clubs lost between them lost 88m last year - Lincoln know they will have to sell their best player every season and want to be pushing for the championship next season.

30% of their fans live more than 50 miles away - sounds really high. Wonder what it’s like for us?
 
The stats tell us the key indicator for success is money spent on players. Over any 5 year period teams will finish in the league relative to how much money they have spent (plus or minus 3 positions). So, if you are the 7th biggest spender you will finish between 10th and 4th - regardless of the capability of the manager.
Maybe we spend too much time worrying about our managers :cool:

boksic (the poster not the player) has spent the last 20 years posting that on the other board.
 
It is still wrong as explain shef u in this model or do they have a bigger budget than msn u and arsenal. I do like Simon kuper but I have serious issues with him on this matter.
A manager is important to say otherwise is ridiculous. Look at Lincoln for proof at well the brothers did there.
 
It is still wrong as explain shef u in this model or do they have a bigger budget than msn u and arsenal. I do like Simon kuper but I have serious issues with him on this matter.
A manager is important to say otherwise is ridiculous. Look at Lincoln for proof at well the brothers did there.
As Boksic, and the book explains, there will always be anomalies and accuracy was around 93%,
 
Look at Lincoln for proof at well the brothers did there.

How will did they do compared to wage spend? I honestly don't know. But it is arguably a better measure for success.

Like if you were going to compare Woodgate to Pulis for example, or Monk.
 
It is still wrong as explain shef u in this model or do they have a bigger budget than msn u and arsenal. I do like Simon kuper but I have serious issues with him on this matter.
A manager is important to say otherwise is ridiculous. Look at Lincoln for proof at well the brothers did there.

" Over any 5 year period teams will finish in the league relative to how much money they have spent "

Sheff Utd have done well, no doubt, but will they keep it up for the next 4 seasons ???
 
No, no, no
in statistical models there are always outliers - Leicester being a good example. There are also examples of teams who have spent shed loads to get out of the championship and not achieved it.
If you are CEO of a club you will run your business looking at stats. If you end up doing better you take the bonus. His eaxact words to me were 'the manager is irrelevant'. In Div 2 they outspent most of their rivals.....

Atypical - as far as wage spend is concerned, as far as I know there is no analysis.
He kept referring to the 'war chest' and, from what I understood most footy clubs understand this.
 
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The difference between tenth and fourth is huge. You would be very lucky to find a single player who could have that much impact on your league form.

Teams who spend more money do better in general. That's blindingly obvious.

What would interest me is seeing how the amount of money spent on youth recruitment and scouting affects a club.

Especially since it's my contention that we've been wasting tons of cash on a large squad and an academy. You shouldn't have both.
 
No, no, no
in statistical models there are always outliers - Leicester being a good example. There are also examples of teams who have spent shed loads to get out of the championship and not achieved it.
If you are CEO of a club you will run your business looking at stats. If you end up doing better you take the bonus. His eaxacg words to me were 'the manager is irrelevant'. In Div 2 they outspent most of their rivals.....

Atypical - as far as wage spend is concerned, as far as I know there is no analysis.
He kept referring to the 'war chest' and, from what I understood most footy clubs understand this.
The book, Soccernomics, did loads of analysis on it and concluded that wage spend was far more accurate/indicative than transfer spend.

When you said 'money spent on players' I assumed you meant wage spend as usually they are a bigger contributor to the total cost of ownership of a player than the transfer fee.
 
The book, Soccernomics, did loads of analysis on it and concluded that wage spend was far more accurate/indicative than transfer spend.

When you said 'money spent on players' I assumed you meant wage spend as usually they are a bigger contributor to the total cost of ownership of a player than the transfer fee.

Seems to make sense Atypical
 
Tbf Have no issue with the net spent analysis it’s that phrase that I take issue with.
"The role of the manager is, at best, overstated."
Because it’s not and never has been.
 
I lived in Lincoln 10 years ago, good place and a fun night out, with a few distinct parts of the town with different atmospheres, that we used to call the top, middle and bottom. Never went to a Lincoln game but their fans seemed to be fanatical and not critical at the time.

Not surprised on their fan base being from miles away, Lincolnshire is quite big, and spread out, just little villages dotted all over. I was actually living near where I worked, but moved to lincoln 25 miles away for some nightlife. 25 miles of driving through country roads every morning in winter with glaring sun as there's no buildings or hill for shade!

People don't realise how small that place is, the population is only about 80,000 and has no other towns of similar size or larger within an hours drive, it's like it's own little world.
 
Theorists might - so you really think puel and Rogers are the same then? Or that Chris wilder has Role has been at best overstated?
To say a manager has little or no impact on a team is just silly look at leagues around Europe italy inter under conte compared to last year. Of course a manager makes a difference. Yes money helps but it has to be used correctly.
Look at Spain -
Getafe, the club with the 12th largest budget in La Liga of 52m euros (£43.3m), are sitting loud and proud in third place and are, on present form, the second best team in Madrid.
So money is only part of the equation
 
Theorists might - so you really think puel and Rogers are the same then? Or that Chris wilder has Role has been at best overstated?
To say a manager has little or no impact on a team is just silly look at leagues around Europe italy inter under conte compared to last year. Of course a manager makes a difference. Yes money helps but it has to be used correctly.
Look at Spain -
Getafe, the club with the 12th largest budget in La Liga of 52m euros (£43.3m), are sitting loud and proud in third place and are, on present form, the second best team in Madrid.
So money is only part of the equation

Of course they're not 'the same'. They're two entirely different people. Would they end up with the same results over a 5 year period with exactly the same club and the exact same amount of resources spent on their team? Quite possible that they'd end up with similar results, if not the same, but PR plays a huge part in managerial/hiring decisions and there's a good chance they both wouldn't last 5 years unless they were meeting and managing fans' expectations well which are extremely fluid. This theory is purely about results though, not PR and certainly not style of football or endearment to fans.

I don't think anyone has said the manager has 'little or no impact' but the line Boksic always used to trot out was that the role was overstated, which I can buy into. I mean the way football managerial decisions dominate the media nowadays, its hard to see how it could be anything other than overstated. Football fans nowadays are largely in a state of perpetual hysteria about managerial appointments/sackings/non-sackings. So I would at least agree that its 'overstated'.

Yeah there are loads of examples of teams who are punching above their weight, the theory isn't 'absolute' and it is based on a 5 year period. The point is, if you could be bothered to take ALL the data you have available and test the theory, I think you'd find its probably quite accurate. Scouring the leagues for anomalies to 'disprove' the theory is entirely missing the point. It is literally not possible to dispel the theory by focusing on only tiny data samples.
 
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