Transfer fees paid

£250 for Scott Partridge in 97/98?! That will shut-up those who accused the board of not pushing the boat out to support Kevin Hodges!

I'll be revisiting this thread later when I've got some time, even just to document the profligate spending of the Wes Saunders era!

I guess this ties in with the question about “undisclosed” fees because - from memory - I cannot recall clubs ever being obliged to disclose fees. It probably comes under the catch-all of “commercial confidentiality”. Therefore we’ve always had a mixture of fees disclosed by the clubs together; by just one of the clubs; amounts which have been admitted or disclosed in retrospect; educated guesses and the wholly fanciful. Reference and year books often use a caveat along the lines of “as widely reported in the press at the time”.

Over time the waters have been muddied by instalment plans, sell-on clauses and extra payments based on a number of appearances, honours, achievements, etc. Frequently there’s a basic figure given that “rises to” in the eventuality. Increasingly, too, there’s the business of fees being paid for loan players although I’m none too sure how much this happens at our level.

The issue of staggered payments could have a delayed impact on the figures quoted in club balance sheets - either us making an extra payment for a player after a period of time or our receiving of money when a former player has progressed or been sold.

For reference the current Sky Sports Football Yearbook - and I’m not saying that is any more or less accurate than other sources - gives our record fee paid as £75,000 for Leon Constantine; record received £650,000 for Rodney Jack. Unless anybody knows any different…….

It’s a nice little poser from Jon and he’ll know that the centenary history (which covered the years to 1999) placed a monetary value on around twenty transfers between 1992/93 and 1998/99.

During this period incoming transfers included Mark Sale (£10,000), Jamie Ndah (£20,000), Alex Watson (£50,000), Paul Baker (£25,000), Andy McFarlane (£20,000), Robbie Herrera (£30,000), Brian Healy (£25,000) and Eifion Williams (£70,000).

Outgoing: Matt Elliott (£50,000), Paul Holmes (£40,000), Chris Myers (£90,000), Mark Sale (£20,000), Adrian Foster (£60,000), Paul Trollope (£100,000), Greg Goodridge (£100,000), Darren Moore (£65,000), Paul Baker (£15,000), Scott Stamps (£10,000), Charlie Oatway (£10,000), Rodney Jack (£500,000), Matthew Gregg (£400,000), Andy Gurney (£100,000) and Scott Partridge (£100,000).

That list is worth quoting in full just to show how active we were in developing and selling players during that period. I’m sure there are others to add such as Duane Darby.

Another incomer from that time: Steve Winter from Taunton. I remember a £10,000 fee being quoted somewhere. That surprised me because he’d only played a couple of games for Taunton who must have signed him on a contract knowing there was other interest.

A few more clues.

We also know when the players signed for fees left if they did so after 30 June 1998.

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Jon, what does your latest table mean?

Does it mean that the fee we paid for a player is then re-recorded in the “out” column when he leaves?



Checking Wiki - as you do with caution - the quoted £7,500 fee for Toddy rings bells.

There's also mention of us paying £17,500 for Phillips which - if I'm reading Jon's latest table correctly - explains the outgoing figure for 2007/08 (Phillips leaving us at the end of his only season).

The £17,500 for previous season equates to the figure we're believed to have received for Adam Murray. You can read that as saying we got what we paid for him. But, providing I'm following this correctly, that would contradict us paying a fee for Lee Mansell.

Further back, to the era of Wes, we paid the best part of £100,000 for Williams and Healy in 1998/99; both left during 2001/02