Treasurer’s Update – September 2026
September started badly and finished rather well. We went out of both cups inside a week, and then lost 0-1 at home to Wellingborough on a Tuesday night, which is about as flat as I have felt walking away from the Oval in a long while. The squad answered it the right way, though, winning the last three league games of the month, with Grantham Town beaten 5-0 along the way. By the time we came back from St Ives on the Monday night, the cup exits felt a long way off.
September’s Results
The full set:
• Sat 5th – Bromsgrove Sporting (a) – Emirates FA Cup First Qualifying Round – lost 0-2
• Sat 12th – Matlock Town (a) – Isuzu FA Trophy Second Qualifying Round – lost 1-5
• Tue 15th – Wellingborough Town (h) – lost 0-1
• Sat 19th – Shepshed Dynamo (a) – won 2-1
• Tue 22nd – Grantham Town (h) – won 5-0
• Sat 26th – Corby Town (h) – postponed, now Tuesday 27th October
• Mon 28th – St Ives Town (a) – won 1-0
Nine points from the last three league games, and Eesa doing it again to win it at St Ives. I said last month that I would take two wins from four at this level, so I am certainly not going to complain about three on the bounce.
The cup exits hurt, though rather less in the accounts than on the pitch, because the money is banked whatever the result. We take half of the gate after expenses, and the FA pays prize money to the losing side as well as the winners:
• FA Cup First Qualifying Round at Bromsgrove Sporting (5th) – gate share £1,968, prize money £750
• FA Trophy Second Qualifying Round at Matlock Town (12th) – gate share £1,715, prize money £575
That is £5,008, a little over a third of everything the club earned in September. Add August’s £6,978 and the two cup runs have brought in £11,985 this season, against £4,261 at the same point last year. That works out at close to £2,400 a tie for five games we did not have to stage. It was good while it lasted, however from here on every pound of matchday income has to be earned at the Oval, and that brings me on to the main subject of this update.
Midweek Football, and What It Is Costing the Fund
We did not play a home league game on a Saturday until the 3rd of October. All four of our home league games in August and September were on Tuesday nights, and the one Saturday we did have, Corby Town on the 26th, was postponed. It has been rearranged for Tuesday 3rd November, so that makes five midweek home league fixtures out of the first six.
Figure 1. Home league attendances so far in 2026/27. Midweek games in navy, our first home Saturday in gold, against our 700 target and the 400 average built into the playing budget.
The chart tells the story better than I can. 612 came for Mickleover on the opening night, then 507 for Coleshill, 411 for Wellingborough and 444 for Grantham. That is a midweek average of 494, comfortably above the 400 the budget is built on, and a long way short of the 700 we are aiming for. Then, on our first Saturday of the season, 705 came through the gate for Loughborough Students, nearly a hundred more than the best of the Tuesday nights.
The match receipts show exactly who those extra people were. Season ticket holders numbered 161 and 172 at the two September midweek games and 214 on the Saturday, so even those of you who have already paid turn up in greater numbers for a 3pm kick-off (I can hardly blame anyone on a work night). The bigger difference was on the gate. 200 paid on the night against Wellingborough and 217 against Grantham, while 435 paid against Loughborough, roughly double. 93 children paid on the Saturday, against 29 and 24 at the two Tuesday games. Families come on a Saturday afternoon, and on a school night most of them don’t.
Why does that matter so much? Every paying supporter above 400 has their gate receipt put into the Back to Nuneaton fund. On a crowd of 411 that is next to nothing. On a crowd of 705 it is a different story altogether, and the Loughborough game alone will put an estimated £2,105 into the fund, more than the four midweek games managed between them.
So what has the fixture list cost the fund? I have had a go at estimating it, using Loughborough as the yardstick for a Saturday. Had each of the four midweek games drawn 705, the extra 846 supporters, at the £6.90 average paid on the gate against Loughborough once VAT comes out, would have put another £5,838 into the fund. Corby Town would have added around £2,105 more if it had gone ahead on the 26th. Put together, the first two months have cost the fund something like £7,900.
Some of the Corby money will come back on the 27th. A Tuesday night in late October is not going to match a Saturday afternoon in September, though, and if it draws around our midweek average it will bring in about £645. On that basis roughly £7,300 has gone for good, which is very nearly 5% of the whole £150,000 target lost to the fixture list.
That is an estimate built on a single Saturday, and I would not want anybody treating it as gospel. One game is a small sample, and some of those 705 may well have come because it was the first Saturday chance they had all season. The direction, however, is not in doubt.
There is nothing anybody can do about the fixture list. What we can do something about is the midweek crowd. If you were one of the people at the Loughborough game and you have not yet made it down on a Tuesday, please give one a go. Corby Town on the 27th would be a good place to start, and once you are past the 400th person through the turnstile, every ticket you buy is going towards the ground.
Squad Changes and the Playing Budget
I’ve heard it said once or twice over the last few weeks that some of the recent squad changes happened because we’ve cut the playing budget. We haven’t, and I’d rather deal with that here than let it run.
Our sustainability mechanism exists to stop exactly that happening. The playing budget is set against an average attendance of 400 and fixed for the season. That is deliberately below what we expect, so that a bad run or a wet month can’t knock us over. The only thing that would bring the budget down mid-season is the average falling below that 400. It hasn’t. Even after a run of Tuesday nights, the lowest home league crowd so far has been 411, and the midweek average is 494. Once a Saturday crowd is added, the average goes higher still.
I’d also like to think that, after the way these transparent updates have been written so far, you would rightly expect to hear it from me if that ever changed or even looked like it might. You’ve seen the gate figures every month, including in this update, where I’ve been honest about how close some of the midweek crowds have come. If we were heading for that line, I would say so plainly and explain what it meant. Nobody would be left to find out through a change in the team sheet.
The players who have moved on did so of their own choosing. Some took up opportunities elsewhere, and others wanted more playing time than they were getting here. That is a normal part of a football season at any level, and every one of them leaves with our thanks and best wishes.
Player Sponsorship and Merchandise
A quick follow-up on player sponsorship, after I had a moan about it last month. We recognised £2,083 of player sponsorship in September, against £1,563 in September last year, which makes it the best month for it so far this season. The gap to last year has closed from about £2,600 to £2,125. A big part of that is down to Barry Jordan and his family, who between them took on 14 sponsorships in the month, which is nothing short of staggering. My thanks to Barry and all the family, and to everyone else who answered the call. If you have been meaning to sponsor a player yourself, please get in touch at commercial@nuneatontownfc.co.uk.
Merchandise was quieter at £1,186 for the month, against £2,417 in September last year, which is what happens when there are only two home games and both of them on a school night. For the season to date it is £9,121, still half as much again as the £6,072 at this point last year.
Expenditure
Two cup ties and two home games meant September’s outgoings were much the same shape as August’s. They included:
• Playing staff wages
• Playing staff expenses
• Coaching staff wages
• Stadium hire for the two home fixtures
• Coaching staff expenses
• Cost of sales on merchandise
• Match official fees
• External security staff
• Other matchday clothing
• Training ground hire
• Matchday travel costs
• Matchday volunteer expenses
• Players’ and officials’ food
• Training kit
• Hospitality catering
• Other matchday equipment
Administrative costs included:
• Administrative salaries
• General expenses
• Employers National Insurance
• Transaction fees (Stripe)
• Bank fees
• Subscription to Xero and other IT
Cost of sales was a little higher than in August and higher than September last year, which is simply what a bigger playing budget a division up looks like. Administrative costs nearly doubled on August, mostly on payroll, along with a general expense that has not appeared before this season.
September lost £7,356. Turnover was £13,644 against cost of sales of £19,387 and administrative costs of £1,613, and there were no exceptional items. None of that should come as a surprise. I said in July to expect a loss in most individual months from here, paid for out of the season ticket and sponsorship money we banked in advance, and I have not changed my mind.
Take the £5,008 of cup money back out and the month would have lost a little over £12,300. That is the honest picture of a month at Step 4 with two midweek home games and no Saturday. For comparison, September last year lost £1,452.
Gate receipts and match tickets brought in £3,202 in September, barely half the £6,033 we took in September last year. For the season to date they come to £11,520 against £12,668 at the same point last season, so we are actually taking less at the turnstile a division higher. Some of that is simply that more of you bought season tickets this year, which shows up on a different line, and season ticket income is up £8,477 on last year. The rest is the fixture list.
The third column is the one most of you will look at first. Turnover for the three months is £142,116 against £106,895 at the same point last season, up £35,221 or 33%. Cost of sales is down from £52,963 to £49,726, gross profit up from £53,932 to £92,390, and net profit up from £51,125 to £88,911.
The same warning applies as last month. Almost all of that profit is the £92,858 of Income in Advance we released in July, which is season ticket and sponsorship money for a season we are still playing, and the costs it exists to cover are spread across the months in front of us. The cost of sales comparison is flattered by ground hire, which fell differently last season, so please don’t read it as a saving. Where the comparison is genuinely useful is on income. Sponsorship and advertising stands at £77,612 against £61,340 last year, season tickets at £23,229 against £14,752, and cup money at £11,985 against £4,261.
One housekeeping note for anyone checking these figures against last month’s report. August has moved slightly since it was published, because of entries posted after the report went out. It now shows a surplus of £3,193 rather than £3,711, with turnover £254 lower and cost of sales £264 higher. The year-to-date column above ties exactly to the balance sheet, so those are the numbers to work from.
Cash Position
The club received £14,773 in cash during September and spent £20,693, giving a cash deficit for the month of £5,921. That takes the closing bank balance to £136,231, split between £123,850 in the Back to Nuneaton account and £12,382 in the Co-op Bank business account.
You might wonder why cash went down by less than the loss. Part of the answer is that some of August’s income only landed in September, including the Lincoln United gate share and the FA prize money from the first two FA Cup rounds. Equally, some of September’s will only land in October, because the Matlock Town gate share and the FA Trophy prize money were still owed to us at the month end. Cash and profit rarely tell the same story in the same month, and in a cup season they tell it even less.
The Back to Nuneaton account went down by exactly £12,000 over the month, and the business account went up. That is the reverse of the housekeeping I described last month: money was moved back across at the start of September to cover the running costs. Nothing has left the club, and the two balances still want reading together.
Elsewhere on the balance sheet, debtors came down from £23,650 to £21,475, and Income in Advance was unchanged at £44,728, which will be released across the rest of the season. Stock of clothing came down from £10,080 to £9,361 as we sold through, and accruals stood at £9,348 at the month end, down from £12,539.
Back to Nuneaton Update
The “Back to Nuneaton” fund stands at £101,967, up £632 on the month and now 68.0% of our £150,000 target. A modest month, and after reading the section above you will know exactly why.
The rise comes from two places. £210 came from supporters making specific donations to the fund, and an estimated £422 from the gate at the two home games, £84 from Wellingborough and £338 from Grantham. I have worked the gate figure out on a slightly different basis from August, so for anybody who fancies checking my working, here it is. I take the month’s gate receipts and match tickets from the accounts (£3,202, already net of VAT), divide by the 417 people who paid on the night across the two games to get an average of £7.68 each, and apply that to the published crowd over 400, which was 11 for Wellingborough and 44 for Grantham.
As always, that figure is money specifically earmarked for the Back to Nuneaton project. The bank account of the same name held £123,850 at the month end, which is a good deal more, because it also holds short-term cash surpluses that are not committed to the fund. The difference between the two is season ticket and sponsorship money being kept safe until we need it during the season.
On the ground itself:
Many of you will have seen it reported in the local press that we attended this month’s council cabinet meeting and pressed the Reform-led administration for a decision on their preferred site for a community stadium. We have a meeting arranged for the end of the month with councillors and council officials. We are led to believe they will present the outcome of their review at this meeting.
I will report back on what we are told in next month’s update.
If anyone would like to make a donation to the fund, you can do so here or by emailing finance@nuneatontownfc.co.uk.
What to Expect in October
October brings eight fixtures, five of them at the Oval and three of those on a Saturday:
• Sat 3rd – Loughborough Students (h)
• Tue 6th – Boston Town (h)
• Sat 10th – Rugby Borough (a)
• Sat 17th – Belper Town (h)
• Mon 19th – Barwell (a)
• Sat 24th – Boldmere St Michaels (a)
• Tue 27th – Corby Town (h) – rearranged from 26th September
• Sat 31st – Coventry United (h)
After two months of Tuesday nights, this is the first month that looks like a proper football calendar. Three home Saturdays should make October our best month at the turnstile so far, and the first this season where the gate does some real work for the Back to Nuneaton fund. I would still expect a loss for the month once the playing budget has been paid, however a good deal smaller than September’s.
Something for the Christmas list, too. We have a limited-edition Christmas home shirt with Fused Sport, in Christmas Midnight Blue, with Father Christmas and his reindeer flying over Mount Judd and a Father Christmas version of the badge. They are £40, or £34 for Youth/Child sizes, and they are pre-order only, so we won’t be stocking them in the club shop.
Orders close on Sunday 1st November, and we are aiming to have them in time for the Basford game on Saturday 19th December, if not before. You can order yours here.
How can I help?
There are several ways that fans and local businesses can help support the club:
• Come along to our home fixtures and consider buying a 50/50 draw or Golden Goal ticket on matchdays.
• Join the NTSC 200 Club – support the club financially and win monthly cash prizes: Join the 200 Club
• Join the Nuneaton Town Supporters Co-operative and help shape the future of the club: Join the Supporters Co-operative.
• Local businesses: contact commercial@nuneatontownfc.co.uk to discuss sponsorship opportunities for 2026/27, including player sponsorship.
• Donate to the “Back to Nuneaton” fund: donate here.
