By Bruce Robbins

DUNDEE UNITED chairman Eddie Thompson last night urged fans to turn out in force for home games after a big drop in turnover marred otherwise encouraging financial results.

Although much of the £1.2 million fall in revenue was a reflection on excellent cup runs the year before, Mr Thompson also revealed that at some matches the club made more from commercial activities than from gate receipts.

The financial results for the year to June 2006 showed a further improvement in net losses, which fell £400,000 to £785,000.

Three years earlier, losses had been approaching £3 million.

Players’ wages also continued to fall, from £2.54 million in 2005 to £1.98 million last year.

The club’s progress in restructuring finances can be seen in the fact player costs as a percentage of turnover have fallen from 78% in 2003 to 48% last year.

Although that figure was 1% higher than the year before, turnover was also substantially down in 2006.

The reduction in turnover is said to be almost entirely due to poorer team performance, particularly in cup matches.

Last year, turnover was £4.151 million against a figure of £5.374 million the year, before when the club reached the semi-finals of the CIS Cup and were beaten in the Scottish Cup final.

Without such cup success, commercial income last year also suffered but the cup runs did give a boost to season ticket sales at the start of season 2005/06.

Bank borrowing last year was £6.8 million, “comfortably” within the club’s agreed facility of £7 million.

Once again, the chairman ploughed his own money into United to cover any exceptional costs so the team could be improved without adversely affecting finances.

Mr Thompson also used some of his own cash to fund directly the wages of certain employees and cover the “termination costs”—believed to run into six figures—for the sacked managerial team of Craig Brewster and Malcolm Thomson.

The chairman said, “If we hadn’t changed the manager at the end of October, we would have had severe relegation problems.

“We had a desperately bad second half of 2005/06 which impacted on all earning areas of the club.”

Although Mr Thompson believes appointing Craig Levein as manager will prove the right choice, it took fans a while to start responding to better results.

He added, “Although Craig Levein has turned things around, it’s still difficult to get the crowds back.

“I am sure our crowds would be bigger if we were in the relegation zone but almost everything in the league has already been settled.

“We need as much support as possible. In some games, we made more from the commercial activities than through the gate.

“At the moment, we are 10th in the league.

“The difference between 10th and sixth would have been £500,000.”