Bath is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Britain. I organised a conference there a few years ago and the foreign visitors were enchanted. The town exudes an air of prosperity, although no doubt there are pockets of poverty as there are everywhere.
Bath is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Britain. I organised a conference there a few years ago and the foreign visitors were enchanted. The town exudes an air of prosperity, although no doubt there are pockets of poverty as there are everywhere.
Running a non-league club in today’s economic environment is challenging. Even at that level attracting the best players costs money. At my own third tier club 51 per cent of our revenue goes on player renumeration. So Bath City FC did very well to get a top ten finish in their first season in the Blue Square Premiership with a part-time squad.
But margins are tight for the Romans. The club made a loss of £70,000 in their first year in non-league’s top flight. The club can borrow against its own ground which is a prime piece of real estate worth £5m-£7m. Total debts amount to £600,000-£700,000 in bank borrowing and directors’ loans.
Manager and chairman Adie Britton told the Non-League Paper, ‘Short-term we have a bit of a cashflow problem because any losses normally would come out of the bank. Obviously it’s difficult to get a bank to lend to a football club at this moment, so we have to find it from other sources. It’s been really hard work during the summer to generate enough cash to make sure we paid all our liabilities, and in particular the ones that are biting, because the creditor who knocks on the door first is the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise.’
Bath City FC probably had the lowest budget in the league last season apart from Histon. Gates went up from 650 the previous season to around 1,100 but they would have to increase substantially before there could be a full-time squad. At the moment the club has 16 players rather than the 19 or 20 last year and the whole budget is used up. It’s a real struggle to raise the funds to get another couple of players.
Britton is an advocate of regionalisation from League Two downwards. One can understand why Bishop’s Stortford are frustrated at being re-allocated to the Blue Square North and face an away trip to Workington. But travel costs are not the major factor at this level. Like everywhere else in football, it is player wages that take up the bulk of the budget, even if they are part-time.