Five Year Plan

[DonnyBazR0ver]

No, this is not another one of those threads. Bear with me if it appears to be a bit long winded.

The other day I engaged with another Rovers fan on Facebook after he waxed lyrical about the good old John Ryan days and since his departure the 'New Owners', TB & DW have failed to live up to the drive and passion JR brought to the club etc.... His post was getting lots of likes and 'right on' 'spot on' comments plus the usual 'sack the board' from a few.

Anyway, I challenged his comment about 'new owners' and after a brief exchange I asked him what he wants.

He said. A five year plan, fully costed including contingencies, communicated by the invisible owners so that the fans can buy into it and get behind it. (not word for word but long those lines)

I said fair do's. What he said wasn't unreasonable. So give me an idea how much this plan might cost I said? He said, err we'll I don't really know but I reckon £20m might cover it.

It got me thinking. If we, we being the owners, executives, managers, staff, fans and everyone associated with the club, collectively developed a Five Year Plan, what would it look like? Where should we be in year 1, 2, 3 etc etc.

The plan would have to be detailed enough to include commitments for it various elements, including costings and more importantly, who owns and takes responsibility for each element of the plan. There would also need to be contingencies and consequences that everyone understands and accepts might have to apply when things go wrong.

I could waffle on about what should be included in the plan but I'll let you chew over that but I think something like this might help bring everyone together from top to bottom and at least have a hymn sheet to sing to, particularly if fans are involved in the development and execution of the plan.

Sounds daunting doesn't it but why not?

Thoughts?

[Janso]

If we let our fans have any involvement in that we'd be out of business within two seasons.

[SydneyRover]

that long Janso?

[sha66y]

It’s nigh on impossible to implement a 5 year plan due to shifting unforeseen variables, however a light 5 year forecast might be the next best thing but even that kind of commitment could be fraught with empty promises…

The club could make a statement along the lines of

“ we have the funding within the club to commit to and support the next 5 years , however our final league position can not be known in any of these seasons obviously…
we will when required, make additional “contingency” funds available should we find ourselves in an unavoidable crisis!
The funds being made available for this division should be sufficiently high enough to stave off relegation (if said funds are spent wisely”….)

a bit archaic on its own but add in sliding scales of additional monies/ income  from other revenue sources/ streams this would be enough to give me hope that the club will still be here in 5 years time….

I personally don’t care for “ prediction based financial pledges”( we have a top 8 budget doesn’t cut it)  that ultimately may not come to fruition due to once again unknown factors!

This kind of statement though honest,  might have an adverse affect on season ticket sales, and to some show a “ lack of ambition” whatever that means?

[since-1969]

If we let our fans have any involvement in that we'd be out of business within two seasons.

The owners have spend over £30m and are bottom of L1 and I can’t see them going much further before a rethink of its financial support gets an over haul . Club Doncaster is paramount to the clubs ability to progress and that still looks at least “Five Years” off before break even happens, so in the wake of Covid the clock no doubt has to be reset !!

[roversdude]

Maybe more of a long term objective something like established Championship team, but even then a contingent of our ‘fans’ would look at that as failure

[Draytonian III]

If we let our fans have any involvement in that we'd be out of business within two seasons.

Well said, we are a full time professional football club not a computer game that you buy from Tesco’s

[Glyn_Wigley]

Five Year Plans should be rolling Five Year Plans, not tied to set dates.

[DearneValleyRover]

If we let our fans have any involvement in that we'd be out of business within two seasons.

The owners have spend over £30m and are bottom of L1 and I can’t see them going much further before a rethink of its financial support gets an over haul . Club Doncaster is paramount to the clubs ability to progress and that still looks at least “Five Years” off before break even happens, so in the wake of Covid the clock no doubt has to be reset !!

You are wrong about Club Doncaster

[SydneyRover]

Any business apart from self employed and v-small businesses or businesses not intending to be around very long would have long and short term goals aims and plans.

[drfchound]

To be fair, whatever five year plan anyone could put together could find it scuppered if a pandemic came along again.
It would almost certainly mean that promises made at the time would have to be changed to fit the new circumstances.
Even another change of first team manager could have another massive impact.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

In effect as said above, it envelopes to a 5 year rolling plan. However, I think there is scope for more of a bottom up, rather than top down approach and by default the more fans buy into it, have to take a more common sense approach.

However which way we look at this, we perhaps need a fresh approach and go some way to addressing some of the good points raised by Rovers Alias. This way, or something on these lines, would avoid the sleep walking approach by putting some fresh energy into it.

[Upton Rover]

Must be a 5 year rolling plan, seem to been on 5 year plans for many a year

[since-1969]

If we let our fans have any involvement in that we'd be out of business within two seasons.

The owners have spend over £30m and are bottom of L1 and I can’t see them going much further before a rethink of its financial support gets an over haul . Club Doncaster is paramount to the clubs ability to progress and that still looks at least “Five Years” off before break even happens, so in the wake of Covid the clock no doubt has to be reset !!

You are wrong about Club Doncaster

In what way wrong ?

[BobG]

I have a memory that back in the early days of the VSC and Andy Liney the supporters developed a pretty comprehensive, detailed, researched and well written multi year plan. In fact I know there was such a plan. I read it. I'll have a look see if it's on this computer still though I doubt it as I had a major hard drive catastrophe some years ago now.

Filo? DBR? Do you remember it?

Bob

[DMnumber4]

If you're 'Rovers Till I Die'  - ie an infinite period of your lifetime - why is there a need for a five year plan?

[since-1969]

I’ve been working on the five year plan
1)?
2)?
3)?
4)?
5) And then they’ll be sorry !
6)….

[DonnyBazR0ver]

I have a memory that back in the early days of the VSC and Andy Liney the supporters developed a pretty comprehensive, detailed, researched and well written multi year plan. In fact I know there was such a plan. I read it. I'll have a look see if it's on this computer still though I doubt it as I had a major hard drive catastrophe some years ago now.

Filo? DBR? Do you remember it?

Bob

Yes  I remember reading the comprehensive document. If memory serves, JR wasn't too keen to implement elements of it and it was eventually consigned to the filing cabinet. However, as things progressed well on the pitch and with Andy Liney leaving his position, I don't think there was much desire to revisit it.

That's not to say with the fans panels and 'In Rovers we Trust' there's been some good work done over the years.

Need for a 5 year plan? Well, seems there's plenty who use that as a stick to beat the club with, so why not challenge everyone to contribute to a fresh meaningful 5 year plan, rolling 5 year plan, whatever it takes to being fans and the board closer together??

Anyway, was just food for thought.

[Herbert Anchovy]

Didn’t Ian Jones/Peter Wetzel create a 5 year plan in the mid 80’s that included significant team/squad building, a strengthening of the youth squad & scouting network and considerable development of Belle Vue?

Unfortunately the plan was scuppered by Bremner going to Leeds, Snodins leaving and the discovery of mining subsidence on the Pop side.