It’s never too pleasant writing a blog when the men’s team has been struggling, but in the interests of good communications – here goes!
As I write this, George’s men have a crucial home game tomorrow against Maidenhead, who are always tough opposition. Can George rally the troops and turn our poor form around? Time will tell. Why have we found it difficult this season? Here’s my take.
We had several recruitment meetings in May and June. We set a budget at a higher level than last season but after the effects of increases in employer National Insurance costs, it was more or less the same as the season before – giving Bill, George, Craig and Zach a real challenge to retain and recruit players in a highly inflationary environment.
The plan was to retain our preferred players and recruit a strong group to replace others who had not impressed as much. However, some of the offers of new contracts to our top players were rejected in favour of moving to play at a higher level in the National League. For some other players, we were outbid by clubs with much higher budgets.
We did, however, make excellent offers to sign several new players this season (like Jack Barham), which have been trumped by heavily subsidised clubs opening their massive wallets. In the case of Joe Pigott we (Bill) tried ever so hard to persuade him to come back to his home club but in the end the lure of evening training and the attraction of Jay Saunders was sadly not something we could compete with. We still managed to sign some excellent players but three of them – Carvalho, Beeden and Yila (remember him?) have been out injured for most or all of the season so far.
In the end, we had to replace all but four members of the squad. This is arguably an excessive challenge but it is where we are: in need of rolling up our socks and battling to get results, winning 50/50 tackles, not getting brushed or pushed off the ball, showing our supporters we mean business.
A word about other areas of the club. Our revamped, reinforced women’s first team has started the season well, and we plan to challenge hard for promotion. Please go down to the stadium and support them this season whenever you can, women’s football is on the up all around the world and our girls, under the stewardship of manager Tori Campbell and coaches Herschel Lowry and Nathan Baker, are on the up too.
Our charitable trust, Stones in the Community, has also been very active and has recently raised more financing to undertake valuable projects around the local area. I am immensely proud of what Mike Littleboy and his team have achieved – and you can be too.
Our academy, under Billy Jones, is off to a new academic and football year with the challenge of emulating the successes of last year’s group. We have some 90 students at the Gallagher this year.
Around the ground most of the renovated or new facilities are up and running thanks to the hard work of Bob Gouldson and his team. We hope that you are enjoying the new food and beverage provision around the ground, we continue to monitor service levels, and that the Total Machining Solutions (Town End) toilets are now providing comfortable relief. We also are committed to improving other areas of the ground that require an upgrade, such as the dressing rooms which get an awful lot of use during the week.
Last but not least – where are we financially?
It bears repeating that while Terry and I own the business, we carry all the risk. The stadium has cost £5.4m to build over the 15 years of its existence.
We vowed back in 2010 that we would run the club as a profitable business and not subsidise the ongoing operations. This is partly because it is good business practice, partly because all successes are so much sweeter when not bought by lorryloads of cash – and partly because we didn’t have any more money anyway!
I have no regrets on that score, even if I admit to frustration and even anger on occasions at the way some clubs can make huge losses and drive up player inflation. I have long argued the league needs a salary cap in the interests of fair competition, but I have given up expecting the National League to do anything sensible, let alone levelling up competition and reducing the excessive sugar-daddy subsidies, which can put clubs at risk.
What is the current strategic plan for the club? I will try to summarise as follows:
Aim 1: Identify and secure long-term investment into the club to take over from Terry and me. It is time to move on and hand over responsibility for the club after 15 years at the helm – effectively as unpaid volunteers. NB: We have never taken a penny out of the club – no salaries, no expenses, no interest on our loans.
Current situation: We have brokers managing this divestment process and several potential investors are currently doing due diligence with a view to taking a majority share of the club. Nothing is done yet, but things are moving in the right direction.
In this respect, I would add that our first priority was always to offer the opportunity to take over the club to our major business supporters. As of today, none of them have shown sufficient desire to take responsibility for the future of the club, which is disappointing. However, we entirely respect such decisions (it is far from being an easy job!) and the club is immensely grateful for the support of all its business supporters.
Aim 2: While we continue to run the club, we will do our utmost to be successful financially so as not to put the club at risk – while endeavouring to enable our men’s and women’s teams to compete at the highest possible level. In the case of the men’s team our goal is to compete for promotion to the National League and, if successful, do our level best to stay there. This may sound ambitious to some but last season we came within one match of achieving just this so the ambition is realistic.
Aim 3: Ensure our communication with supporters is as transparent as possible and get major business supporters involved more in the club.
Current Situation: We have increased our output on social media, revamped our web site and continue to be honest and open about the club whenever possible. Our financial accounts are among the first football club accounts to be published every year.
We have set up an Advisory Board, with representatives of our major business supporters and the Chairman of iMUSC, which meets every few months to discuss matters of strategy and operations.
Finally, I would like – from the bottom of my heart – to thank all our playing staff, office staff, volunteers, sponsors and supporters for all the support you give the club. Your support is invaluable, so please back George and the team even when the going gets tough. It sounds like a cliché, but ultimately you are the club, particularly as Terry and I seek to move on by the end of this season.
As ever please don’t hesitate to approach Terry and me on a match day. We have been fans for many years – and fans like talking to fans!
COYS
Oliver Ash
