“We have certainly enjoyed many exciting days at Brickfields with the crowd on the edge of their seats as our players engaged in battles royal with some great teams from around the land. Indeed, we were looking forward to a thrilling climax to this current season with two hugely attractive home fixtures to round of a good year in the history of Plymouth Albion. Unfortunately, it was not to be as Coronavirus saw to that.
What is for certain is that the current national lockdown will come to an end and normal service will eventually be resumed. For us at Albion Coronavirus conspired to be something of a ‘Perfect Storm’. Our revenue streams being hugely dependent on home games came to an abrupt halt with the ‘Lock Down’. Just when we were entering a lucrative end to the season our principal income stream came to an abrupt stop.
Our club’s fiscal challenges increased still further when we found ourselves marooned with a £57,000 rateable value that fell just short of a government provision for a £25,000 central grant. Having just paid our VAT bill the club exchequer was running low. Fortunately, we are largely debt-free and in a good place to consolidate and drive into a new era of sponsorship and support from the clubs long term and faithful supporters.
Currently, we have not been forced to declare any redundancies and have furloughed all playing and non-playing staff. Government support will eventually come through enabling us to meet our commitment to meet wages and salaries. In the interim, our exchequer is running on near empty and our bankers are behaving as bankers do not willing to loan us an umbrella until it stops raining.
As a business, we are not alone with this challenging cash flow issue. What is for sure is that we will come through it and go on to continue our consolidating, rebuilding and developing Plymouth Albion as a club of which the Ocean City can be proud.
We are working on our short, and medium-term plans with some hugely exciting long-term options progressively emerging from our talks with the Council, Argyle and Raiders.
The door remains open to like-minded business folk of Plymouth to join in with our planning for the future. In the interim, I ask you all to remain firmly fixed and focused on the forthcoming return of rugby.
The darkest hour is just before the dawn and I’m sure it will not be long before Brickfield once again resonates with the roar of the crowd as rugby returns to the city”
