Pictures of Crewe - Division Four 2022/23

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

(we are all doing Cure puns aren't we? )

We're still here and hoping for a more comfortable season than last season's three-manager roller-coaster. But we're hardly racing out of the blocks on new signings front, and currently have no goalie who could accept the Man of the Match champagne without getting ID'd.

[Crystal Staples]

Most of last season's squad are still under contract, I'd be happy to avoid wholesale changes and see what they can do at this level, complementing them with a couple of additions. Not expecting the club to approach it that way though, they'll be very active in the transfer market, and to start us off a Portsmouth journalist has just claimed County have priced Pompey out of the race for Kyle Wootton from Notts.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Hello. It's been a while.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I am a bit scared of Stockport's cash-spunking, truth be known.

[Sporting]

Should I put a moderate flutter on Wimbledon bouncing up again?

[DCI Harry Batt]

I don't approve of gambling, obvs, but we will definitely get promoted, there's no doubt.

[Sporting]

I hardly gamble, just the odd euro or two.

[Foot of Astaire's]

I am a bit scared of Stockport's cash-spunking, truth be known.

I can see them taking one of the promotion spots already. Good squad, good manager and more cash than everyone else in the division

[Discordant Resonance]

It seems the fixtures here are out today week.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Today. We start at home, that's nice. And we play all the other teams twice, once at home and once away.

[Tapiocahead]

Us too, it's very comforting

[lambers]

And we play all the other teams twice, once at home and once away.

It'll never catch on.

[andrew7610]

Crawley have signed League Two's top scorer from last season Dom Telford, who wasted no time in mentioning 'the project'... and the press release announcing that the new kit will be supplied by Adidas managed to shoehorn a reference to Web 3.0. I might be done with Modern Football.

[Fearful Symmetry]

Just popping in to say that the potential signing of the season is Bradford's procurement of Richie Smallwood. He's far too good for L2, I'd have expected him to go to a promoted Championship side or top L1 at least.

[Tapiocahead]

That's a nice thing to hear, it was a heavily rumoured signing for a couple of weeks but a lot of folk, me included, were heavily sceptical that there was owt in it.
The recruitment this year looks impressive, but easy to say that before any actual football has happened

[Discordant Resonance]

The loyalty of your fans, going by regular attendances, despite having had some fair lean seasons, is admirable.

[Nesta]

They do get good crowds- I've heard fans of other league two teams deride them for being 'massives', but they do seem like big fish for that division.

Mind you being a gloryhunter in Bradford must be demeaning- you've got to support someone from other side ut pennines (spit), that London (double spit), or Leeds (not enough saliva produced in the average lifetime)

[slackster]

Every season I think ‘Bradford must be due to come good this time’, but more often than not they underwhelm…

And I’ve always enjoyed visits up there. Think the place is under-rated due to its proximity to Leeds (which is also a fine City).

[Foot of Astaire's]

^ aye, I'm the same. They have a large, loyal following which would be impressive for a former giant who've fallen on hard times yet apart from a few notable seasons, I've only ever known them as a side from the lower divisions.

[andrew7610]

Crawley's NFT launch has apparently raised 3 million quid for the club this weekend - they've sold over 9000 at £355 a pop. What this is, who the 9000 people are, and why, I've no idea.

(Only link I have so far is for the S*n)

[My Name Is Ian]

Is it 9000 people or 9000 sales? Because if it's sales, well, I guess theoretically if you wanted to crash through FFP with outside investment, you could buy up a few thousand yourself and pump the money into the club.

It will also have the other side-effect of making the sale look successful at a time when crypto is either still in complete meltdown or before the dust of the crash has even settled. And while football is wowed by millions of pounds, it's an industry in which pretty small companies get a pretty large amount of attention. £3m a year would be the advertising budget for a company with an annual turnover of about £35m a year. In League Two, it ain't big business.

But football does know football's money well, and it may well not be a trifling amount to the EFL. How are they going to record this incoming money on the accounts? 'Miscellaneous Commercial Activity'? Because they'll still have to file annual accounts, just like every other club, and everybody Because I'd imagine the EFL will want to know who, exactly, is putting this sort of money into the club. And people will be looking. I know I will be.

And how do you check this for money laundering? Is that even possible?

[Patrick Thistle]

NFTs persist as a way to launder money, so I doubt they can be checked.

[Snake Plissken]

It's well documented that the first purchasers of an NFT drop are usually connected to the original sellers in a sort of "we're letting our mates in to sell to the suckers" move.

[Artificial Hipster]

37 year old Ian Henderson has returned to Rochdale needing just 4 goals to become the club's all time leading goal scorer. His departure 2 years ago was acrimonious in the extreme with club and player offering wildly different versions of the events leading up to his move to Salford. With the regime then in charge having all been subsequently ousted from the club it's safe to say the player some call our greatest of all time will be welcomed back with open arms.

[Simon G]

EDIT - Oops - wrong thread