Search for the right continues in 2024
ringfenced for potential major investors.
We would also like to encourage supporters to support us through revenue-generating initiatives currently running at the club:
Plaques can be purchased for the Dale Fan Wall at £80 and £150 from www.funditnow.co.uk/ thedalefanwall. 70% of the revenues from each sale go to Club funds, and your plaque will be displayed in a fabulous installation by the player’s entrance.
Use the club facilities at the Crown Oil Arena for your meetings, events and celebrations and book in for matchday sponsorships and experiences via commercial@rochdaleafc.co.uk
Help us to convert some of the returning supporters and first-time visitors who attended the Boxing Day fixture into more regular fans. Increased attendance plays a massive part in driving club revenue.
Further initiatives are being actively explored in conjunction with the Dale Supporters Trust. We will communicate these to shareholders and fans in due course.
On the field, it is also a good time to reflect on the
season so far. We made the appointment of Jim Mcnulty permanent in the summer, and with Kevin Gibbins, John Shannon, Kris Dixon, Ben Ekins, Tom Say, Cameron Lukash, and Jack Northover, he has built a strong team around him. We had a thorough review of our football operations in early 2023, and the board made the appointment with the clear objective of developing a possessionbased, attacking style of play that would allow young players to come in and have the opportunity to succeed. We must be a place where clubs from higher up the pyramid want to loan us their best talent, as they must know we are a club where they will develop.
Speaking of development, our Academy continues to perform admirably in difficult circumstances. As many of you will know, Academies are largely externally funded. Upon relegation from the EFL, clubs continue to receive 100% funding in the first season post-relegation, and 50% in the second season postrelegation. In the third season post-relegation, clubs are no longer permitted to operate an Academy in the Premier League / EFL games programme and are therefore not permitted to draw down funding. Against this backdrop of uncertainty, the emergence of George Nevett, as well as the senior debuts of Brad Kelly, Isaac Burgess, and Luke Mann, is a superb achievement and a huge credit to each and every person involved.
We were fully aware that this season would bring a lot of challenges as we transitioned from an EFL playing budget to a National League one. Although our budget is competitive, with some of the playing contracts carried over from the EFL, it means that we have not been able to build a squad as big in numbers as we would have liked. However, we are certainly not short on quality within our squad.
There will be tough times throughout the season
when injuries bite. We are suffering from that now, but the quality, spirit and fight among the players, shown no more than during the two Christmas fixtures so far, has been incredible. With one or two of those injured players returning from injury, there is cause for optimism on the horizon. We will try and support Jim the best we can to freshen the squad where we can, but that will be strictly
within the financial parameters already set out.
As mentioned above, we tried a new initiative on Boxing Day for the AFC Fylde game to try and attract new supporters to the ground. Although not all those who had purchased tickets turned up, there were many young, first-time visitors to the Crown Oil Arena and we hope that they enjoyed the experience and were
pleased to see a 2-0 victory, with a classic Hendo goal, a first professional goal for Kwaku Oduroh, and two assists from our Goalkeeper Louie Moulden!
We continue to work closely with our Community Trust on initiatives such as the Boxing Day game. For attendance purposes, they have partnered with us on the ‘Seats For Schools’ programme, in addition to helping us
collectively reach local people from all areas of life. As well as ability counts provision and walking football, teams also run for military veterans, refugees, and more or less any other group you can think of. They also played a critical role in reestablishing our open aged Women’s team, who we look forward to welcoming back to The Crown Oil arena for a second time in April.