By Cherry Picker
January 11 2012

Gloucester's latest accounts, published this week, show that the club is at the top of the Premiership's financial table thanks to turning a £1m loss the previous year into a theorietical profit of £300,000. 

What a pity they aren’t as good on the pitch as they are off it.

Because that, after all, is what really counts - results will always impress the fans far more than good financial figures do.

Managing director Ken Nottage has every right to be pleased with the figures for the 2010-11 financial year, especially as some other clubs have reported massive losses for the same period.

But the trick, of course, is to combine healthy finances with healthy results, and at present Glaws can’t cut the mustard on the pitch.

Their inconsistency this season has been alarming, and their away form doesn’t show many signs of improving, as last weekend’s defeat at Worcester demonstrated.

What helped the club produce those good financial results, of course, was the fact that Glaws finished third in the Prem and won the LV= Cup. The prospects of them repeating that sort of success look bleak.

Nottage admitted to the Citizen: “We obviously haven't hit the heights we've expected and aimed for on the pitch so far this season, but there's still plenty of time to change that and there are encouraging signs of improvement.”

He’s got better vision that some fans if he can see signs of improvement, but of course he’s duty bound to look on the bright side.

Whether that improvement is on view this weekend at the start of a four-week break from the Prem remains to be seen.

Glaws are at Harlequins in the Heineken Cup on Saturday, while Toulouse are at Kingsholm the following Friday in the same competition. Glaws are not going to win the Heineken, of course, but they are defending the LV= Cup in the next two weeks – at home to Cardiff Blues on January 28 and away to London Irish on February 4.

If the form on the pitch takes on the healthy look of the club’s finances, those fixtures won’t look so demanding.

Glaws finances healthier than team form

Discussion started by Shedloads (IP Logged), 11/01/2012 11:36

Shedloads
11/01/2012 11:36

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