finances!!!

how on earth do you make a profit. i am within my wage budget with guiseley. my ground doesnt get filled fair enough but im worried that when i go up im just going to have no funds available to strengthen.........

It's fairly common to make a loss. As long as you're within the wage budget, you should be fine. A good way to grab some funds before the season starts is to arrange 5/6 or more home friendlies against high profile opposition. I did this with Welling in the Conference South and nearly wiped out my £140k debt.

lower league you might as well forget it in trying to make a profit unless you have a good cup run.

Stick within your wage budget like you've done, arrange friendlies against large teams and go for free or loan signings & youth that have been released.

ok, people have said arrange friendlies pre season, and get 30-40 trailed players to play in them so your squad dont get ****ed. but thats cheating to me, as this dont happen in real life!!

No one said you have to get trialists in to play those games instead of your first team.

Plenty of large teams send XI teams to smaller clubs for friendlies and i tend to play my first team squad as it's good practise.

but they will become nackered?

Most Non-League sides have various friendlies against teams from way higher up the pyramid. It's not cheating at all. There's no need to sign a load of trialists, just restrict your players to half a game each to begin with and monitor their fitness closely.

I'm playing an LLM game and had 5 friendlies with about a week gap between each one during July & start of August. The week break gives them time to recover and if you notice someone's condition getting low just take them off, it's a friendly after all.

i do this, i just done do it in mid season, someone before suggested doing them in your spare days with trialists.

i do this, i just done do it in mid season, someone before suggested doing them in your spare days with trialists.

I think you misread my previous post.

Stick within your wage budget like you've done, arrange friendlies against large teams and go for free or loan signings & youth that have been released.

The friendlies and free/loan signings were separate.

So it should have sounded more like arrange friendlies against larger teams

Also to add to your squad just go out and get free/loan signings or youth players that have been release from larger clubs.

Doesn't matter in the end you're still getting the incoming and it's your game.

Friendlies during the season is just asking for trouble.

Make sure you've told your assistant that you'll arrange friendlies and just after the last game of the season, you should be able to arrange some. I normally go for one a week for the first few weeks of pre-season and then go Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday until a week before the start of the season which then gives you a week's rest.

I've never had players burn out in pre-season but don't have all the games against good teams, throw in a couple against lower opposition so the players' morale doesn't drop too much.

In terms of players, just look around. Send your scout(s) out, they've really helped me find some players that are way too good for my level. Look at other clubs in the Conference North/South and if you need to freshen it up, nab a couple of players that are on non-contract.

As long as you keep within budget or within reasonable distance, you'll be fine.

cheers lads!

Really good advice here. Thumbs up.

Of course, whenever you sell a player try to get a friendly and/or a 10% or more add on. Really helps.