Today we need to talk about money - or rather the lack of it - at King’s Lynn Town FC.

I posted on Wednesday on Twitter, or X if you prefer the new moniker, a breakdown of our gate receipts from our Tuesday night home game against Banbury. I am not quite sure what I hoped to achieve by doing so, but the topic was debated by fans from all clubs, with, as you expect, a complete mixture of views.

For those that have the good sense not to bother with social media, the figures showed that once travel and accommodation to our next away game was deducted from the gate receipts and very basic costs were deducted from hosting the game, we lost nearly £1,000 and that is before a single pay cheque was paid.

Actually, the loss was worse as we had to pay nearly £2,000 of additional bills that night for a mixture of small items that had occurred during the past week or so, but the point remained the same - gate receipts do not (for us) cover wages. So if you set out to run a club prudently how do you fund the playing budget whilst fielding a competitive team? I do not have the answer, but I wanted to ask the question.

The one consistent was that anyone that owned or run a club that replied understood - they know how tough it is and had empathy for our situation. Some fans had little sympathy, a tiny handful sent me abusive messages suggesting that our defeat to Banbury was my doing, whilst others found the process very transparent and applauded my stance.

I, of course, know the mistakes that I have made; often they are very clear in hindsight but not so obvious when making the decision. I am not sure it is possible to run a club without making some errors as you will never get every appointment right in the same way that a manager will never get every signing right.  

The reason for my actions was probably because I had just returned from America, travelling to seven cities and meeting with around 33 would-be investors. I averaged five hours sleep a night, stayed in hotels that needed sound proofing, and did all that I could to try and find some investors.

The whole process got to me as on two occasions whilst walking through an airport and feeling perfectly fine, I suddenly found myself having to run to the bathroom to be physically sick - this was a whole new experience for me and not one that I want to repeat, but after an exhausting trip  I was very disappointed that only 604 fans were in the stadium on Tuesday night, although I understood.

The trip itself included meeting some old friends of the club, potential new investors and some financial institutions that were looking for sporting investments. Some turned me down as they would not write out a cheque for less than £50 million and really wanted Premier League involvement. Some looked at the forums and saw the negativity and wondered if they would suffer the same humiliation, and whilst I explained that the vast majority of our fans were decent people who were not on social media they remained unconvinced.

One or two really wanted to help as there were genuine synergies that could exist, but timescales were the big problem - they were not sure they could get a deal done until the summer and by then we could be in trouble. We remain in talks with a few parties and hopefully one of them will step up to the plate, but our enemy is, of course, time.

Personally, I am simply not able to fund all of this season’s further deficit, which I estimate could be as much as £300,000, and I am quite happy to be less of a chairman and more of a minority investor - flexibility from my side has never been the issue, the club is more important than any person.

I have been on the money-raising treadmill for quite some time as, after I suffered a personal financial catastrophe a few months ago with one particular investment, I knew that I needed to find a solution.

Most clubs when they raise money (and there are several that do every season) have a huge amount of debt. In the main, most of our bills are paid and all wages, VAT and taxes are to date fully paid, but we do need to find a source of finance sooner than later. Any loans we have are long term with fixed low interest rates for the life of the loans.

On the positive side, whilst in the States I found an idea and put the concept together around it, that should pay most of our deficit for future seasons, which will make life going forward so much better than it is today. I cover a lot more on this issue in today’s programme notes.

If you would like to help please do email me at chairman@kltown.co.uk and if you can come to The Walks today and get behind the lads when we play Warrington at 3pm your support would be appreciated by everyone at the club.

Whilst many owners and directors suffer abuse for doing their best, it really is being directed at the wrong people.

Often it is not their fault that they are in the mess that they are, but usually a number of events occurring at the same time have put them where they find themselves - call it the perfect storm if you like! It seems to me that the football model is broken rather than most owners or directors being responsible for breaking their clubs. Maybe it is time for a change as to how things are done going forward.