Goals Soccer fails to score as weather takes toll on results

● Five-a-side group assures investment programme remains firmly on track

Soccer Centres, the East Kilbride-based five-aside football operator, saw its shares punctured yesterday after it warned of full-year results “materially below” market projections.

The group, which has 49 sites, including three in California, in the US, said trading had been battered by the extreme weather conditions during March and April.

It warned that the fall-out had led to a further “substantial knock-on impact” on trading throughout the second quarter of 2018. This is due to amateur 11-a-side games deferred from the first quarter to dates in the following three months when teams would normally be playing five-a-side.

The result has been a decline in underlying like-for-like sales for the first half of 3 per cent to £16.1 million, the firm noted in a trading update.

However, the group pointed to “continued good progress” in growing and refurbishing its UK facilities with 260 of its 460 individual arenas now “fully modernised”.

In the US, its South Gate club is said to be performing well, while Pomona and Rancho, which opened in January, are progressing and “showing growth”. A fourth club, at Covina, Los Angeles, is now under construction and work is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Goals told investors: “While we expect [the second half] to benefit from the investment programme that has been undertaken, the results for the full year are expected to be materially below market expectations, due to the impacts of the extreme weather in H1.”

Chief executive Andy Anson said: “The investment strategy that is being executed is improving the underlying performance of the clubs.

“However, frustratingly, the first half was impacted by the snow and its significant after-effects, which masks the performance of the busigoals ness where positive trends are clear. With the improving underlying performance, we expect a better second half.”

The group’s planned investment of £3m in upgrading a further 78 arenas is now under way and will be complete by the autumn. This will increase thenumberofarenasmodernised to 338 – or almost threequarter of its estate.

Thefirm,whosesharesfell21 per cent to 68p, has also renegotiated its covenants with its lenders, giving it headroom for covenant tests which are due in September.

At the time of its annual general meeting in May, Goals noted that the Beast from the East bad weather spell had cost it £500,000 in lost sales.

The snowfall saw overall like-for-like sales fall by 1.9 per cent in the first 18 weeks of the year. However, the group said that its investment in improving facilities was paying dividends as underlying sales excluding the weather impact had risen by 2.3 per cent.

It said 2017 had been an important year for “rebuilding and refocusing” the business after a new strategy was put in place in 2016.