Dire Straights...

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/2hF97jyym5e67Nnb/

Whitehaven CEO Les Messenger has made an impassioned plea for help from the local community as the rugby league club is said to be in dire straits.

Messenger’s video, released this morning, is an honest appraisal of the financial state of the club at this late stage of the season.

He says the club owes the taxman around £8,000 but he has made an arrangement with them to repay that amount.

The players have not been paid for recent matches, including the winning pay over Swinton, and the club are well behind in contract payments which is in the region of £14,000.

He said: “I am not going to let the club fold. I will be the last man standing, I won’t be leaving the players in the lurch. I told them last night that I will still be here.

“Please get on board, please engage. I need the good people of Whitehaven to come to the aid of the club. We are in dire straits, we need help, we need some money.”

He says that he has spoken to the RFL hoping they can pay the money due at the end of the season, earlier to help them through the next weeks

 

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

Doesn't make pretty reading and just shows how thankful our Supporters should be to the current Town directors for making the hard decisions and steadying the ship when they did.

Really feel for the Les Cunningham as he obviously loves Whitehaven and doesn't want to see the club fail, but listening to him suggesting cutting ticket prices even further to attract supporters just shows how out of depth he is.

Haven were bailed out last season, and excuses of a bad run of home games etc, just don't stack up. End of the day, the club know exactly how many home games they have. Without modern facilities they have to take a season's worth of income over 12 trading days (give or take) plus any sponsorship they can pull in - it doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out the maths don't add up! 

Asking the RFL for upfront payments creates cash flow issues moving forward and just postpones the inevitable.

Honestly think the time has come for all parties to sit down, take a step back and take an in-depth look at West Cumbrian RL - this can't go on and if Whitehaven were to cease trading tomorrow it wouldn't really benefit Town other than stopping the merry-go-round of players between the two clubs if anything it would further reduce the games profile in the area.

The area needs a long term sustainable development plan, but looking at the state of the RFL at present with redundancies in the offing. its something the RL fraternity in West Cumbria would have to undertake themselves

[gillmeister]

1 hour ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

Doesn't make pretty reading and just shows how thankful our Supporters should be to the current Town directors for making the hard decisions and steadying the ship when they did.

Really feel for the Les Cunningham as he obviously loves Whitehaven and doesn't want to see the club fail, but listening to him suggesting cutting ticket prices even further to attract supporters just shows how out of depth he is.

Haven were bailed out last season, and excuses of a bad run of home games etc, just don't stack up. End of the day, the club know exactly how many home games they have. Without modern facilities they have to take a season's worth of income over 12 trading days (give or take) plus any sponsorship they can pull in - it doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out the maths don't add up! 

Asking the RFL for upfront payments creates cash flow issues moving forward and just postpones the inevitable.

Honestly think the time has come for all parties to sit down, take a step back and take an in-depth look at West Cumbrian RL - this can't go on and if Whitehaven were to cease trading tomorrow it wouldn't really benefit Town other than stopping the merry-go-round of players between the two clubs if anything it would further reduce the games profile in the area.

The area needs a long term sustainable development plan, but looking at the state of the RFL at present with redundancies in the offing. its something the RL fraternity in West Cumbria would have to undertake themselves

Could not agree more with you. A local think tank is needed to discuss the way forward or the future of the sport in Cumbria is bleak

[Unicorn 106]

It’s so predictable when you look at the players they have brought in, as a Town fan, I don’t get any satisfaction reading that. It’s a sad reflection on local RL 

[town4me]

 It's a sad state of affairs. West Cumbria needs one club supported by Two towns. 

Edited August 7 by town4me

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

16 minutes ago, Unicorn 106 said:

It’s so predictable when you look at the players they have brought in, as a Town fan, I don’t get any satisfaction reading that. It’s a sad reflection on local RL 

I think only the truly bigoted supporters would revel in another teams decline - but unfortunately all teams have supporters like that in their support base    

[JMB]

It's so sad, that the RFL doesn't care about either championship or Championship 1 clubs, all the clubs should have been offered help to set up business plans after the reduced rfl money and the loss of sky money, no forward thinking by them.

 

[Derwent Parker]

47 minutes ago, JMB said:

It's so sad, that the RFL doesn't care about either championship or Championship 1 clubs, all the clubs should have been offered help to set up business plans after the reduced rfl money and the loss of sky money, no forward thinking by them.

 

Haven on 40k CF whilst SL teams on 1.5 Million each - its a disgrace an some L1 on 15K - which is only 1% of SL money

[Unicorn 106]

3 hours ago, town4me said:

 It's a sad state of affairs. West Cumbria needs one club supported by Two towns. 

Absolutely mate, as long as it plays in blue and white with the Town badge on the shirt.

[Unicorn 106]

Just now, Unicorn 106 said:

Absolutely mate, as long as it plays in blue and white with the Town badge on the shirt.

Oh, and is called Workington Town

[IanMac]

I’m a die hard town fan of too many years but that was hard watching that video, whilst I’ll always want Haven to get beat I wouldn’t want them to go out of business. To survive they’ve surely got to change how they operate drastically. I think it shows two things, 1) that we have a board who, following our own financial issue's, were prepared to cut their cloth accordingly whilst also looking to generate income through use of the stadium facilities and 2) the RFL couldn’t really give a toss about rugby league outside of super league. It’s not that long ago league 1 clubs were getting 75k I think, so for championship clubs to get 40k and league 1 only 15k it tells you what the rfl want to happen. 
We obviously haven’t moved on as we would have wanted on the field this year but in every other respect we seem to be doing many things right. I sincerely hope that the clubs pledge for 2027 is achievable, and we are able to stick a metaphorical two fingers up at the rfl and show that a club that involves its community, through rugby, football, netball or whatever sport is able to thrive, despite the complete lack of any meaningful support from the governing body. 
Good luck to Haven and their fans, West Cumbria needs both clubs to be viable. 

[silverfox]

Really sad news ..  Nobody wants to see any club  with money problems    it's only a few years ago that we weren't that far from going under . Players taking wage cuts, bills to pay.   Its only with the foresight of Gary Murdock  Graeme  Peers  and the rest of the board that the club has pulled it round . With all the good  things that are happening around the club .  So a massive  thank you  .that we still have a club to support . 

[town4me]

2 hours ago, Unicorn 106 said:

Absolutely mate, as long as it plays in blue and white with the Town badge on the shirt.

Well I'll keep supporting  town too but we have to be realistic about the future if things stay the same as they are now.  

[Route66]

Going to be very difficult for Haven to survive this time but hopefully they can pull through however there has to be something the league can do to stop clubs grossly overspending. I think our board has done great work in developing the community side of the club and are gradually reaping rewards with both increasing attendances and sponsorship 

[silverfox]

Unfortunately  the only time we get increased attendance  , it's when we have amateur clubs takeover days .We are far short of what we need to be 

[wonky]

Yeah it's awful reading but there still bringing players in, brought in god knows how many overseas over the last few years, how can the expect to do all that on awful gates. This isn't the 1st season it's happened, it's basically every year. Bounty competitions have thrown money at them and there still in such a state, I feel for there fans who get asked to continuously dig into there own pockets to bail them out,but that's a very poorly run club I don't care what anyone says 

[Derwent]

Sad to see but a lot of it is of their own making. Every year they seem to budget for much higher gates than they actually get, you'd think they would have learned that lesson by now. 

Then there is the "we have had no home games for a few weeks" excuse - sorry, but the flip side of that is that you had a run of home games with no away game costs (Buses etc) so should have been putting some money away to cover that. 

Also, they have 7 Aussies playing for them - the cost of that must be very high when you factor in accommodation, travel etc on top of their wages.

So yes I have sympathy for the Haven fans, but the Haven club seems to make the same mistakes over and over again without ever learning their lesson. The fact is, whether they like it or not, they can't afford to compete at Championship level on their current income streams. But they don't want to accept it, so they end up in situations like this regularly and relying on the same group of fans to bail them out. Its a lesson our club has had to learn the hard way before and are now taking steps to address - get the income streams in place before you take the step up, not just hope for the best.

[Neutralfan7]

45 minutes ago, Derwent said:

Sad to see but a lot of it is of their own making. Every year they seem to budget for much higher gates than they actually get, you'd think they would have learned that lesson by now. 

Then there is the "we have had no home games for a few weeks" excuse - sorry, but the flip side of that is that you had a run of home games with no away game costs (Buses etc) so should have been putting some money away to cover that. 

Also, they have 7 Aussies playing for them - the cost of that must be very high when you factor in accommodation, travel etc on top of their wages.

So yes I have sympathy for the Haven fans, but the Haven club seems to make the same mistakes over and over again without ever learning their lesson. The fact is, whether they like it or not, they can't afford to compete at Championship level on their current income streams. But they don't want to accept it, so they end up in situations like this regularly and relying on the same group of fans to bail them out. Its a lesson our club has had to learn the hard way before and are now taking steps to address - get the income streams in place before you take the step up, not just hope for the best.

I may be wrong but think the VP's cover the cost of flights and travel etc, the rest of your post is bang on mate. I feel for the fans and also Les M who is basically managing the club on his own. Perhaps the best thing for Haven in the long run is to drop into league 1 and re-build like Town have done but then that might come with its own problems of even lower crowds and next to no away fans travelling, apart from the derby. Looking at the potential table next year I don't see many teams in L1 taking many fans anywhere, especially the rumoured new teams coming into the league. 

I seen Towns 2027 commitment and it's to be admired the aspirations of those in charge at your club, fingers crossed it works out for you. I think more clubs will start to struggle once the IMG era kicks in unfortunately.

[dkw]

I see some are turning on Gary Eilbeck, after he's put 10's if not 100's of thousands into the club, nice of them.

[Marrafan]

It is sad but not unexpected. It has suffered from years now of poor management. No one with any forward vision and just reacting to situations. That many bridges have been burnt because of arrogant attitudes it’s unbelievable. I’m afraid you reap what you sow. They do absolutely nothing to attract anyone. It’s embarrassing and that is from a die hard Whitehaven supporter. I’ll continue paying my money and going to games until the gates close. That hurts me a lot to say that on this forum but until there is a clean out at boardroom level and people in the background I’m afraid the gates will close. Gloat away those who want to but be careful what you wish for.

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

On 15/08/2024 at 09:52, Marrafan said:

It is sad but not unexpected. It has suffered from years now of poor management. No one with any forward vision and just reacting to situations. That many bridges have been burnt because of arrogant attitudes it’s unbelievable. I’m afraid you reap what you sow. They do absolutely nothing to attract anyone. It’s embarrassing and that is from a die hard Whitehaven supporter. I’ll continue paying my money and going to games until the gates close. That hurts me a lot to say that on this forum but until there is a clean out at boardroom level and people in the background I’m afraid the gates will close. Gloat away those who want to but be careful what you wish for.

I haven't seen anyone gloat pal, everyone recognises the seriousness of the situation Haven have found themselves in. How do they repay their debts?

There's rumours going round that they are 600k in debt, if they are or even close to that how will they ever pay it back?

I had a look on companies house but they only go to end of December 2022 and those accounts show a net deficit of -425k which is up 148k from the previous season's deficit of -276k. If that pattern has continued then 600k seems about right. 

[Bearintown]

2 hours ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

I haven't seen anyone gloat pal, everyone recognises the seriousness of the situation Haven have found themselves in. How do they repay their debts?

There's rumours going round that they are 600k in debt, if they are or even close to that how will they ever pay it back?

I had a look on companies house but they only go to end of December 2022 and those accounts show a net deficit of -425k which is up 148k from the previous season's deficit of -276k. If that pattern has continued then 600k seems about right. 

They are simply spending far more than is affordable to stay in the Championship.

If those figure are remotely accurate, then theres a lot of players,/ business's and government dept s going to pay the price

[homeandawayer]

3 hours ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

I haven't seen anyone gloat pal, everyone recognises the seriousness of the situation Haven have found themselves in. How do they repay their debts?

There's rumours going round that they are 600k in debt, if they are or even close to that how will they ever pay it back?

I had a look on companies house but they only go to end of December 2022 and those accounts show a net deficit of -425k which is up 148k from the previous season's deficit of -276k. If that pattern has continued then 600k seems about right. 

I don't think most people will have done that simple search to see the true position. 

[dkw]

On 08/08/2024 at 13:52, Neutralfan7 said:

I seen Towns 2027 commitment and it's to be admired the aspirations of those in charge at your club, 

You said in a post on the haven forum town putting feelers out for investment is us feeling the pinch, where you got that utter nonsense from.

[Rex3]

Haven only need to be able to service those debts. They have to repay them if they are called in by whoever holds them. Let's hope that doesn't happen. RL in west Cumbria needs both clubs IMO.