A thoughtful and interesting post, MGM. However, I am not so sure we are at a sliding doors moment as relegation from the Championship will be consequential on the trajectory of future events for a season at least. Such is the ever expanding gulf between League One and the Championship we will become one of the biggest two or three clubs in League One, instead of the smallest in the Championship should we stay up. However, the Sky TV money will exacerbate that gulf further making the return to the second tier an even greater step to breach in the future. A relegation, this of all seasons, will be consequential.
However, we are uniquely blessed with a Chairman with a record of excellence in long term thinking and strategy as his business record ably demonstrates. Of course that will jar with the 'we want it now' brigade happy for someone, anyone, to spend money on players and wages to compete on the gamble as Simon once put it, to get into a fringe play-off place with a 25% chance of securing the financial prize of at least a season in the Premiership. That is the reality of parachute payments in the Championship. A paying of wages we couldn't afford underpinned the frightening decline in 2010/2011 that almost cost our existence in the EFL. It is a salutory lesson that all should remember.
What has almost gone unnoticed is the significant enhancement of the asset value of the club. The completion of the acquisition from James Brent of all of the Higher Home Park land gave the club vital 'on the doorstep' room to expand. We now have an exceptional gymnasium, a fan zone and shortly a new GTs marquee. It also longer term gives the space for the necessary, albeit with a quantum leap in cost, Mayflower capacity expansion. The acquisition of the GTs building gives an immediate and significant enhancement to matchday corporate expenditure whilst reinforcing and expanding essential non-matchday income. Then you add Goals, and the land alongside it, which offers not only income but a site for a proper first team training home adjoining the existing training pitches. Finally, you can add Brickfields which whilst requiring an £11m equity investment that benefits from an additional £9m grant funding - what a bargain to achieve a Category 2 Academy that will benefit the club for decades to come. This is all long term thinking and strategy par excellence. What is even better is that all this has been achieved without any borrowing and is all paid for or covered by equity investment. It is truly a remakable achievement.
One of the hallmarks in Simon's strategy is the pursuit of excellence off the pitch. We have sponsorship and hospitality income at previously unthinkable levels. We have Evergreen with 6,000 signed up memebers, we have ArgyleTV generating additional income. All this will add up to a turnover this season that probably will double that achieved last season. Not many companies in the region will be achieving that sort of financial growth.
Finally, we have something that is priceless. A 'One Argyle' culture, a togetherness that is unparalleled throught the EFL. We travel in numbers, we are loved by many fans wherever we go but most importantly we are able to generate an atmosphere such as v Leicester that can make us an almost unstoppable force. The alleged potential investor present at the Leicester game surely could not fail to be impressed as long as it is understood that investing in Argyle in long term project. The Argyle Green investors that left chased perceived immediate returns in Tel Aviv - that went well. It just shows how short term gambles can turn out.
Simon did in an off guarded moment suggest being relegated may not be a disaster - he is right given what has been quietly assembled off pitch. We would return in a position of unparalled financial and facility strength better placed to make a more indelible mark in the Championship. I hope and pray that we don't go down - not least for what Simon and Jane have achieved, as Simon would put it, being contrary by embracing long term thinking. 'One Argyle' will prevail and I am sure will remain at the forefront of Simon's thinking. The difficult bit, now, is getting the next Head Coach appointment to buy into it and translate it into performance on the pitch- ironically, that is the bit that the best of long term thinking and strategy off the pitch cannot control. That's football as Simon well knows.
