David Allen - Radio Cumbria Interview

Last updated : 02 October 2009 By Thetashkentterror

David Allen
United chief executive David Allen spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria on Wednesday morning about the club accounts for the latest financial year showing a £1.2 million loss, Allen suggesting that many factors are to blame :


" It has been a really disappointing year, the main thing is our poor performance on the pitch. We finished 20th in the league when the year before we had finished fourth. The year before last we were in the play-offs and we had a really exciting finish when we were fighting for promotion to the Championship.

" Then last season we didn't have any of that, we were fighting against relegation and that is not very satisfying for anybody. It is not the sort of performance the fans want to go and see and that resulted in our average attendance for league games reducing from 7,800 down to only 6,200, and that equates to just over £500,000.

" So we have lost revenue off the gate and when you have less people coming through the gate and it is less exciting football then it reduces the commercial turnover in the club, with the restaurants and bars and the shop income down as well. We had quite a lot of injuries last year as well so we brought in some loan players and our expenditure on loan players was about £160,000 more than the year before.

" In the year up to June 2009 we received £560,000 from the sales of players, in the year before we also received £544,000 from the sale of players. So where we are at in the campaigns that we have, we are relying on some income from the sale of players anyway, but we just can't have reduced gates like that.

" We have got to take responsibility for that, of course I am one of the directors there so my name is in the frame. So ultimately we are the board of directors and we have got to take responsibility for that. But there are lots of factors, injuries, John Ward contributed towards it as well and of course the recession - that had an impact. So lots of factors but ultimately the blame lies with the board of directors.

" We have just got to rally people to come and get behind the club. It is the fans' views that are important, if the fans think that we should be doing better at something then I would encourage them to come down and please tell us. We want to be doing everything we can to get that income back into the club. "