Torquay United Fans Forum

forevertufc wrote: Yes, but you two old gits are talking about an era in football when young Mr Hovis was still delivering bread on a black bicycle with square wheels, times in football have moved on in the last 100 years..

forevertufc wrote: Yes, but you two old gits are talking about an era in football when young Mr Hovis was still delivering bread on a black bicycle with square wheels, times in football have moved on in the last 100 years..

stefano wrote: You could be right .... same as we did with Billy Kitchener from West Ham. Loans didn't exist then so we had to sign him on 'permanent' terms but with an agreement that we would transfer him back for nothing when West Ham wanted him. They did and he went straight into a top tier game within days of transferring back. Glad you can spell 'winkey'!

Trojan 67 wrote:Lukey is here on "loan". In several or four seasons when football wise he's old enough and mature enough his "loan" will end and he'll go back to Argyle on a Bosman.

You read it here first. (a Stefano winkey -> )

friendlygas wrote:The big problem you have is that Luke Young is far and away your best player and in all honesty you as supporters will miss him more than amybody because you know that any money you get probably won't go on a replacement. The club will look on the money as a relief same as our Board did with lambert but football wise you just can't replace your best players with free transfers unless you are very lucky.
He looks a class player but you may be lucky and keep him because of the fact that he didn't shine in League 2 last year and because of that it is a risk that clubs may not be willing to take on a Conference player. I am sure you would all rather keep your star rather than have the money.

hector wrote: I suspect the re-signing of Ryan Harley is the replacement for Matt Grimes.

I cannot see Exeter blowing a big chunk of their windfall on Luke Young, because 'IF' £200k is the mooted price, would they ever get that back if they signed him, especially if it was only a transfer embargo that prevented them getting him for free 6 months ago? Exeter's record fee paid is £65,000, 30 years ago for Tony Kellow - I don't think they are the sort of club who would spend that sort of money, that they would need to spend to sign Young.

That £1.75m will no doubt be used to safeguard their long-term future.

hector wrote: Anyway, in 'the price of bread' terms, the £60K we paid for Wes Saunders in 1990 was more than the £75K we paid for Leon Constantine in 2004.

Gulliball wrote:I might not have explained it extensively, but the concept of looking at transfer fees in relation to the world record at the time comes from the book 'Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era' by Paul Tomkins. At full length, it's a very useful concept to compare spending patterns in different eras at Premier League level.

The main reason that doesn't work so well at our level is that 4th division sides spend what they have available. We were able to spend £70k on Billy Bodin recently because we had just received fees of £600k that summer, as well as a £50k donation. If Bodin had moved to Crewe instead, we likely wouldn't have spent anything in transfer fees - it was Bodin or no-one, not a case of having a transfer budget of £70k and buying the best player available for that price, as the Premiership sides do.

Manchester United could buy a player for £500m if they really wanted to, it is their (and every other top division side's) policy not to do that as there is no player worth that. The reason why the top end players go for the fees they do is because it is the balance point between the money available and what both sides feel the player is worth. If Gareth Bake is priced too highly then they can go out and buy a different player for a slightly smaller fee. In 1988 they made us an offer based on the value of players at that time, which is why the footballing context at that time is significant and not inflation.

£60k for Wes Saunders is a lot of money, but we obviously had it at the time, and so spent it because there was a good player available at that price. In all likelihood without Lee Sharpe bringing in £180k 18 months earlier, we would not have spent £60k on Wes Saunders, just like we wouldn't have signed Bodin without selling O'Kane and Olejnik.

IlshamSchmilsham wrote:Without wishing to further muddy the waters surrounding this fascinating debate, comparing historical transfer fees with today's values must be complicated by the very different contractual status of players in the modern game. Post-Bosman (i.e. since 1995)clubs can only secure a player's services for a mutually agreed, limited period. In times past once a club registered a player he remained theirs until they decided to dispense with his services, with the club retaining all of the "equity" that the player's registration represented. In today's footballing world the value (to the club) of any player purchased for a fee can also decline rapidly the closer he gets to the end of the contractual period. Grimes's fee of £1.75m guarantees Swansea his services for just 4.5 years, which means that the "unit cost of the product" (i.e. £s per season) is considerably higher than for a player purchased in the pre-Bosman era, whatever the inflation measure deployed. So, for example, Manchester United's investment in Lee Sharpe's potential probably represented considerably less in cash terms than Swansea have spent on Matt Grimes (although the financial means of clubs in the top tier have, of course, increased exponentially during the intervening period).