I am sure like me you are delighted with the club securing our third promotion in five seasons.

This is great testament to Nigel, his management team and the players.

For a club the size of Scunthorpe with limited resources this is, in my view, a tremendous achievement particularly as this has been done without incurring any external debt.

Over recent years there have been numerous examples of other football clubs over extending themselves in their quest for success, only for them to later end up in some form of insolvency procedure when they have been unable to pay their debts.

I am acutely aware that my fellow directors and I are custodians of the club for future generations and to have achieved our success on the field whilst at the same time maintaining the finances of the club at a level most other Football League clubs would envy, is to me the ideal combination.

Promotion to the Championship will deliver the highest levels of income this club has ever received but I wanted this opportunity to detail clearly:
a) Exactly what transfer income we have received over the last two seasons and how that money has been spent.
b) The additional income we expect to receive in the Championship and our plans to establish the club in the Championship for the years ahead.

Transfer Fees Received since January 2007

Headline Fee
Billy Sharp £2m
Martin Paterson £1.6m (Including £0.6m of add on payments)
Andy Keogh £0.75m (Including £0.15m of add on payments)

This gives total headline fees of £4.35m however out of this money we were required to pay their former clubs (Sheffield Utd/Stoke/Leeds) a combined total of £0.838m in respect of sell on clauses agreed when the players originally joined Scunthorpe.

After deducting these sell on payments (which are now common place in many transfer deals), we were left with net transfer income of around £3.5m

Given what we originally paid for these players this represents a profit of almost £3m, which to me is strong evidence of a very healthy player recruitment strategy at the club.

Transfer Fees Paid

The unprecedented level of transfer fees received has enabled the club to invest in a record level of new players both in terms of transfer fees and wages.

In a similar period we have acquired nine players in addition to Paterson, for combined transfer fees of £1.405m i.e. Morris/Forte/Hurst/Hayes/May/McCann/Woolford/Hooper/Mirfin

The majority of the remaining surplus transfer funds have been used to sustain a wage bill over the last two seasons, which would not have been ordinarily possible from our usual level of income. This has been a key factor in our ability to regain our Championship status at the first attempt.

To put this in perspective at the time of the last AGM, I said we were budgeting a loss well in excess of one million pounds and whilst our two Wembley visits have significantly reduced this figure, we are still likely to record a loss for the current financial year in excess of three quarters of a million pounds.

The Championship

Winning the play-off final has enabled the club to benefit from the higher income available to Championship clubs from the new Football League television deal.

Scunthorpe will receive from a combination of League payments/TV money and the solidarity payment from the Premier League around £3.3m.

In addition we expect to generate additional income from our commercial activity and from increased gate revenue from both home and away fans due to higher attendances.

Having tasted Championship football our aim is now to establish Scunthorpe as a permanent fixture in this league. With this in mind we are currently finalising our plans for both the short and medium term development of the club.

Primarily the additional funds received will be used for two purposes:

1) To fund the development of the squad

Our performances over recent seasons, has shown we have the nucleus of a very talented squad but we know we need to strengthen to compete at the higher level.

Nigel has therefore been allocated by far the highest playing budget in the history of this club. Even so we do have to be realistic that it is still likely to be the lowest budget in the Championship and we will be competing against a number of clubs who have the resources to fund budgets five times higher than we can safely afford. You do have my assurance that the board will do everything possible to support Nigel in building the best possible squad at Scunthorpe.

2) To fund the development of the ground

Over recent years we looked at various options for the development of Glanford Park and these were only shelved, as a potential viable option to move to a new ground, at no cost to the club, was explored. This however has now been discounted as due to the 'credit crunch' and its impact on the property market the scheme is no longer feasible in the foreseeable future.

Given our aim is to establish the club in the Championship, under the relevant rules and legislation, we are required to convert Glanford Park into an all seater stadium before the start of the 2011/12 season. In doing so, if we do not undertake any new development our capacity will fall to below 8,000.

In addition we have to undertake such work as improving the Lux levels of the floodlighting and the size of the dressing rooms for both players and officials.

We are also looking at ways at improving the training facilities for all levels at the football club.

The board are currently finalising our priorities and our intention is to have all the necessary plans in place to commence the major work in the next closed season.

Once our priorities are finalised I will arrange a supporters meeting so that we can share our thoughts with you in more detail.

In the meantime we have drawn up a list of minor improvements which will be completed during this closed season which will include the installation of the long awaited lift.

I remain keen to hear of your ideas on how we can improve further at the club and I would welcome any constructive suggestions by letter or email (admin@scunthorpe-united.co.uk)

Finally I am very aware of how the current economic difficulties are making life hard for many of our supporters and I want to put on record my thanks for the tremendous support you have given the team particularly with the costs of two trips to Wembley.

By freezing ticket prices and by increasing the range of family concessions available we have attempted to keep the cost of watching the team as low as possible.

I do hope as many of you as possible are able to watch the team in the forthcoming season especially when the likes of Newcastle and Middlesbrough are visiting Glanford Park.