Cost of Mansfield Town promotion push so far revealed at AGM

Mansfield Town's promotion push, starting with the '˜Steve Evans Revolution', over the past two years has inevitably come at a cost.
Mansfield Town - a bright future?Mansfield Town - a bright future?
Mansfield Town - a bright future?

But club chairman John Radford and CEO Carolyn Radford were happy with the figures released at the club’s annual meeting today and, with crowds and income on the up, all pointed to a bright future for the Stags.

Having made a loss of £10,077 the year before, the club’s finances to June 30th 2017 even showed the promised profit from last year’s AGM - the first for many years - with a surplus of £6,403.

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However, the Radford ultimately want to bring the club in line with the rest of John Radford’s One Call group of companies, and eventually bring it within the group to give it more strength, so for the first time produced extra figures for the six months ended 31st December 2017.

They showed how wages, travel costs and agents fees had shot up under previous manager Evans when he was given his war chest to help the club chase promotion.

So by the turn of the year on 31st December 2017 that small profit had turned into a £132,785 loss.

Wages for the year ended 30th June 2017 were £1,884,446 (up £420,000 from the year before), but just for the following six months were £1,600,221 – a rise of 68 per cent over a whole year’s period compared with 29 per cent the year before.

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Agents fees for the 12 months ending 30th June 2017 were £10,324 but the next six months alone saw them total £58,690.

Travel costs for the 12 months ending 30th June 2017 were £7,999 but the next six months saw them total £117,457 as boss Evans began to plan overnight stays before almost every away game to have players better prepared.

New boss David Flitcroft has continued that and the Stags are now on a club record 12 away games unbeaten.

The good news was that attendances had increased and other income shot up with the club turnover totalling £2,619,535 over the 12 months ending 30th June and over the next six months already bringing in almost the same with £2,170,127.

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Attendances had risen from an average 3,439 in 2015/16 to 3,774 in 2016/17 and then 4,757 last season.

Another significant change in figures came in the year ended 30th June 2017 when Stags’ net current liabilities figures changed due to John Radford and directors Steve Hymas and Steve Middleton all agreeing to convert their loans into share capital.

That saw share capital rise from £278,405 to £1,382,957.

Stags financial director Jim Beachill explained: “There is a big difference to the football club between loans and share capital.

“Loans can be recalled at a specific point in the future. But when it becomes part of the share capital it can only be repaid when the club is sold or if it goes out of business, if there are any assets left.

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“It is a sign of the confidence of the directors in the future of the football club.

“It is growing because of the directors’ determination to get this football club where they feel it rightly belongs, which is League One. All efforts are being made for that purpose.

“The great thing is that attendances are rising too.”

Chairman John Radford said: “These accounts are not a bad set of results and it does seem like we are making progress.”