Club’s future is on a knife-edge

The Terras are facing up to debts in excess of £500,000 and with £100,000 worth of revenue having gone down the pan along with their Blue Square Premier status Ridley has made it clear that the Wessex Stadium outfit is now in the last chance saloon:

A FEW DAYS after facing up to relegation, it still hurts. And that hurt is tinged with sadness at the plight of the club and a reservoir of anger at the way it has been allowed to get to this.

First, we should thank the players who finished the season and were led by the irrepressible Bobby Gould.

They gave their all over the last five games to try and save us and the big defeats at least turned into narrow ones as we went down as lions rather than the lambs we looked like being.

Had the new board of directors been allowed to take over even just a couple of weeks earlier than they did – but were prevented from doing so by people with their own selfish agendas within the club at the time – we might have united sooner and pulled it off.

We should also be grateful to the club’s hard-working administrative staff who have bravely kept trying to hold it all together.

For them and the new board, relegation is a hammer blow.

There may be those who believe it to be for the best, giving the club a chance to cut costs and regroup, but I am afraid they do not properly understand the economics of the game at this level nor the culture and condition of Weymouth Football Club.

Frustration There is always a thin dividing line between being honest with supporters and airing dirty linen, along with revealing sensitive commercial information, but we do feel it best to be open after all the misinformation and frustration of the winter.

And after we have got the recrimination out of the way, we might then look forward.

There certainly needs to be an end to all the axe-grinding and back-stabbing that has gone on around the club for too long from people with outdated loyalties and which has contributed to the mess the club is now in.

And we should be clear. The club is still in a mess and its future is on a knife-edge. The current board of directors have performed six weeks of crisis management and resuscitation but the patient is still very sick.

The view seems to have grown up that the club has been saved and everyone can sit back with relief. It is far from the case, however.

Following relegation, we will lose a minimum of £100,000 in income and possibly up to double that given an inevitable fall in attendances and sponsorship. On top of debts totalling around £500,000, it remains a dangerous situation and one, we have to be frank, that could yet sink the club.

It would all be more manageable if the club was operating to its full revenue-producing capacity but it has sadly been allowed to become run-down. It has been generating so little income from gates, sponsorship, fund-raising and merchandising that it is currently hard to see a way forward just to service debts and cover costs.

We need, for example, to find at least £40,000 over the next month to pay off the 10 former players who went without wages for six weeks during the winter. If we do not, the Football Association are likely to stop us signing any new players which means quite simply that we cannot operate as a club.

With some share income we inherited and with an injection of funds by directors, we limped to the end of the season on the lowest wage bill in the Conference and by part-paying creditors who could have shut us down. That way of seat-of-the-pants funding simply cannot go on if the club is finally to stand on its own two feet.

And that will be difficult given the problems with income. There are areas of the club, in fact, where some traditional revenue sources have been handed over to outside agencies.

All the while, large sums have been going out in contracts and deals, salaries and expenses, which the club simply could not afford. Sadly, there have been too many people looking to make money out of the club, unconcerned about whether the club could pay it.

And it cannot any longer. The gravy train has hit the buffers.

Over the next week, the board will be meeting to decide a variety of issues. The first, to be brutal, is whether it has the capacity within it – in terms of time, energy and finances – to keep the club going. As a now honourable club, we desperately wanted to avoid administration but it remains one option, we have to admit.

We also have to look at restructuring the club with more volunteers and ways of raising more income through sponsorship and events, involving the Terras Trust and the Supporters’ Club.

We have to look at things as diverse as setting season ticket prices and finding a new manager who can work within very strict and frugal guidelines.

We are not short of ideas, and neither are the fans who contact us, to whom we are grateful. But what is really needed are people willing to give their time and effort to implement those ideas free of charge, rather than simply expecting the board and the hard-pressed club staff to carry them out.

With the recent share sale disappointing, we need, quite simply, fund-raising ideas from people willing to do that fund-raising. We can only hope – if we as a board can see the way ahead, that is and still exist after this week – that season ticket sales are healthy.

But as well as our loyal fans, who have been magnificent in sticking with the club, we need local businessmen with an interest in the club to play a part in that, both commercially and with moral support.

There are some who may think they could do better. They are welcome to approach us with a view to joining us or even taking over the running of the club from us if they are so inclined.

In addition, we hope that Morgan Sindall, the company who now own the land surrounding the Wessex Stadium, will see fit to help out the club to protect their acquisition.

If all these things do not come to pass, there may not be much of a club for Morgan Sindall’s subsidiary, the Wessex Delivery Partnership, to build a new stadium for.

What the new board do not need is what has dogged us for the last month. There are clearly disaffected people out there who have made our life difficult, people gossiping and sniping anonymously on message boards, egged on by the previous factions who have brought the club to this desperate state.

They are not doing the club any good but then we should beware the background presence of predators who seem to want us, and the club to fail so that then they can pick over the carcass.

You cannot blame people if they do not want to serve the club in such an atmosphere. We can take criticism and comment – it is the lifeblood of the game, after all – but people should at least be aware that the current directors are on board without pay or vested interests to take hard decisions for the good of the club, not themselves, and will do so because they want to see it survive and prosper.

First we have to examine this week whether it is feasible to implement a new phase of a rescue plan towards financial realism, with a cash injection from somewhere then practical help.

Then, there needs to be a change in attitudes and mood. For if we do not recreate a happy club and respect for each other and what the club is seeking to achieve, then what is it worth keeping alive for?