[Citygull]

Fantastic progress Alex. Here's to happy days ahead.

[Alex Petheram]

Fingers crossed. Big week this week preparing for a lot of more 'visual' progress next week.

AP

[Joe]

Thanks Alex. Everything is looking really positive.

It'll really start to look and feel "real" when the pitch goes down. When can we expect this?

[Alex Petheram]

During June was the plan... ready for the new season on the 08 August 2020... but now we're no idea when the season starts.... so is spending massive money with no season start date a good business move as clearly it won't start to get a return until football restarts... answers on a postcard... Darran was saying January I think i read for a football restart ... ekk!

AP

[Joe]

Thanks. All makes sense. 2 potential thoughts:
1. Will having, or not having, a pitch impact on ground grading?
2. If a pitch was laid then it could be hired out when recreational football without crowds is spectators is permitted (likely to be much earlier than football with crowds I'd have thought). I'm not sure if an opening match featuring random groups of local footballers is a great idea mind you....

[Alex Petheram]

Hi Joe,

To answer your points:

1) Yes, it will affect the grading. We had conformation yesterday from the FA that the league start date is likely to be delayed. They have introduced a matrix to allow players to be signed now, it's very simple and very good... it basically says 'Gloucester City AFC will sign Joe Green x days before the start of the season'. And the x days you can alter to suit, so you could put 1, you could put 25. My point is now this matrix has been agreed for players it will allow everything to move.
I think the ruling is the pitch must pass a UEFA test 14 days before the start of the league... I might be wrong on the 14 days, I don't have a rule book in front of me. We've already got that ruling altered, changing the word league to say game played. This allows us to change grounds mid season. So back to my point... now the FA have accepted the sliding start date for next season, everything will slide to suit. Lots of words this, sorry, but you raise a very good question, so I felt you needed a very good answer, rather then my normal style of jokey and punchy. As this is written not in my normal style lots of dyslexia mistakes i'm sure, so sorry!

2) I need a return on the circa £600k asap, so if random local groups will pay decent bucks, we're open for business! Get them tills ringing are Dave!

Thanks Joe, I genuinely enjoy our back and forth Q&A on here.

AP

[Joe]

Thanks again Alex. A quick and very thorough response (I look forward to being signed up btw!).

On 3/4G funding, I hire a couple of pitches weekly and the general Gloucestershire cost is around £50-£80 per hour for a full pitch, and £30-£40 per hour per half/third pitch (depending on location and quality of pitch). Most of them are fully booked every evening of the week apart from the summer. Certainly could be a good money spinner if done well.

[OldDirtyGlasses]

Thank you for the continued hard work AP.
Not sure I can see how football behind closed doors is really any better or safer than football in front of crowds, granted - bigger groups of people = larger chance of distribution, but there are still questions to answer on players and staff, playing a contact sport, undergoing physiotherapy, going home to family...
The spread of the virus is also not well understood, there is no doubt that social distancing has worked to reduce transmission of infection, but does the virus live on particulate matter in the atmosphere (air pollution), people visiting shops with air conditioning are going to be susceptible to infection? Don’t see how football as a sport can be exempt just because crowds are not allowed.

[Alex Petheram]

Thanks Joe, just re-read what I wrote and corrected some of the mistakes... it does my head in. In the moment I cannot see what i'm writing. I can read it back 100 times and read what I want the word to say, not what it should say. It really gets me down at times! Whats worse is I can re-read it say 2 hours later and I read whats written, not what's I think is written... anyhow!

You're pricing is bang on what I expected it to be. The issue we have is as we're laying a UEFA pro pitch. The only UEFA pro pitch in Gloucestershire, next nearest is Oxford... to keep there warranty you can only use it for 25 hours a week, that's the full pitch. So 50 hours if you rent it in two halves. Oxford pitch is over 5 years old now, but under 10. So there currently theory is rent it every daylight hour to max the return. We can't do that until ours is circa 7 years old. As that's when it's out of warranty but within life expectancy... so you hit it hard for the last 3 years and pray it passes the roll test, getting the max return.

AP

[Prorsum Semper]

Thanks again Alex. A quick and very thorough response (I look forward to being signed up btw!).

On 3/4G funding, I hire a couple of pitches weekly and the general Gloucestershire cost is around £50-£80 per hour for a full pitch, and £30-£40 per hour per half/third pitch (depending on location and quality of pitch). Most of them are fully booked every evening of the week apart from the summer. Certainly could be a good money spinner if done well.

That’s a lot cheaper than what I would expect UK prices to be,Is that with floodlights?,5 a side?
Due to the size of the pitch and like Alex says 
it’s standout quality’s I’d imagine 7 a side on a half pitch would be no problem and we could charge 42 pounds ( 3 pound per head) that’s a steal I’d say on a national league standard pitch/stadium.

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Next time I’m back in the UK il message on here s couple of weeks before to see if I can get a game if your short one as I would enjoy the experience of playing at the the new MP.