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While this page often highlights financial problems encountered by big clubs, small clubs can also run up surprisingly big debts and can find it even more difficult to get out of them than their larger counterparts. Take the case of Weymouth in the Nationwide South. The club's trading accounts were released last week and reveal a loss for the last financial year of £866,000. This is up from a trading loss of £252,000 the previous year, meaning that the club is now £1m in debt. Some of their problems arise from a very generous contract for Steve Claridge negotiated by the former owner which cost the new owner £200,000 to terminate. Longer term prospects for a way out centre around a new stadium deal, but that cannot be relied upon. Similarly, former League club Cambridge United are trying to re-purchase their Abbey Stadium home. Until an agreement is reached, they will be unable to cut their £250,000 running losses. These losses have been reduced from £1.1 million after a summer player clearout. However, finance director Nick Pomery admitted, 'where you're trying to go from a large loss-making situation, while it's relatively quick cutting the costs, you reach a point where you can't cut them any further. We've cut all we can and now we're trying to build the income streams which is a tough job.'
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