Bristol City: QPR Wannabees - Lose Almost £12 M

Bristol City Official Site

CITY ANNOUNCE LATEST FIGURESPosted on: Thu 04 Nov 2010

City's annual accounts are now available online, showing a loss of £11,808,085 on the year ended May 31st 2010.

This is compared to a loss of £6,565,072 for the previous financial year.

Annual Accounts 2010 - Download PDF Here (16mb)
www.bcfc.co.uk/staticFiles/f0/5f/0,,10327~155632,00.pdf

Steve Lansdown writes in his chairman's statement:-

"The results for the year ended 31st May 2010 reflect the difficulties we have encountered as we seek to establish Bristol City as a major football club.

"The loss for the year of £11,808,085 reflects the investment made in the playing squad, management structure, training ground and stadium developments.

"Although we finished once again in a creditable tenth position in the Championship, this masks considerable turmoil. In February we had sunk to 16th position in the league and our poor form culminated in a demoralising defeat at Plymouth Argyle. It was at this juncture that Gary Johnson, our manager and I, after much soul searching, decided the club needed a change of leadership and Gary resigned. On a personal note I was very sad to see Gary go as I thoroughly enjoyed working with him over four successful years and am pleased to see him back in management with Peterborough United.

"The season did however finish well under the guidance of Keith Millen as caretaker manager with five wins, three draws and one defeat in our last nine matches. This gave the club time to review our options for the appointment of a new manager, and Steve Coppell was brought in on the 11th May. This appointment captured the imagination of not only our supporters but the football world as a whole. Steve's record of taking both Crystal Palace and Reading into the Premier League was first class and is what we are looking to replicate. However, after only two games of the 2010/11 season Steve felt that the drive he needed was not there and resigned. This was a brave decision on his part and in the long term right for the club. In the short term, however, it caused uncertainty and dismay and set us back a long way in our preparations for the current campaign.

"Keith Millen, who had shown his credentials in managing the team so well at the end of the previous campaign, with his knowledge of the club, desire for it to succeed and having learned his trade for the past ten years as a coach and assistant manager, was the natural candidate for the job and I was delighted when he accepted the manager's position. A long injury list in addition to the turmoil caused by Steve Coppell's departure has meant a difficult start to his full-time managerial career and at the time of writing we are at the wrong end of the league table. It will be a difficult year but with the right attitude I am confident we can come through it successfully.

"Our lack of major success on the field, where we exited both cup competitions early again this year, has seen our ticket revenue drop again. This coupled with the recession, a poor start to the new season and higher wage bills presents us currently with a challenging financial position to manage going forward."

Steve continues: "The delays to our stadium project have not helped our position either. By now we had hoped we would have started the construction phase and been able to draw down on the facility we have arranged for this purpose. Certain fees have been incurred by the group pending construction and should be recoverable against the project when it gets underway, which will help our cashflow. However, until there is certainty over the project it would be wrong of us to draw any funds down.

"In the short term the support of the board will see the club through these difficult times; in the longer term, however, it needs to increase its turnover and control its costs. The building of the new stadium is an important part of this as well as success on the pitch, and you can be assured that the Board as well as the staff, whom once again I thank for all their hard work over the past year, will be working tirelessly to achieve this.

"Of equal importance is the backing of our supporters. We need fans coming through the turnstiles, not just from a revenue point of view, but also to ensure the team receives vociferous and passionate support on the pitch, especially in difficult times."

- The club will be holding a Supporters Meeting in the Dolman Exhibition Hall at Ashton Gate on Thursday, November 25th at 7pm. This meeting will be open to all fans on a first-come, first-served basis (900 limit on numbers due to room layout).

Chairman Steve Lansdown will make a short presentation, before opening up the floor for a question-and-answer session alongside manager Keith Millen and chief executive Colin Sexstone.

Note: Shareholders who requested hard copies of the Accounts will receive them by post. All other shareholders will receive a postcard prompting them to view the Accounts online. All shareholders who requested the Accounts by e-mail should have them today.

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www.bcfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10327~2203993,00.html