It’s been a difficult week at the club after that disappointing men’s first team result at Weymouth and the nature of the performance.
We have been spending hours and hours with Terry, Bill, John and Hakan reflecting on what is currently not right and how we can fix it. Everybody has their view on what to do and we appreciate this.
However, we have the responsibility of doing our best to operate the club successfully and put things right when needed. We know we don’t have all the answers but we are working hard.
The team struggled on Saturday because we were missing at least five key players and because the team endured a five and a half hour coach journey after a closure on the M25, arriving at the stadium less than an hour before kick-off! All this puts huge pressure on the team. To his credit Hakan made no excuses for all this but I will.
This week we know the players and coaches will try their damnedest to get the win, recover some self-respect and give something back to the supporters. Having said that it will not be easy. Welling are in form and we will still be missing several of our key players. It’s up to the others to show some pride and extra effort for the cause.
More generally we are suffering somewhat off the field as well. Due to overspending on the playing budget since the beginning of the season, some below par performances and a 15% drop in attendances, cash-flow is extremely tight. This reduces our room for manoeuvre.
As I say repeatedly, we cannot and will not operate like several other clubs in the National League, where owners subsidise annual losses to the tune of between £500K and £1.5M.
We believe several clubs in National League South also run at a significant deficit. We can’t match that and sometimes it’s frustrating.
We budget to spend less than we produce in income. It’s that simple and it will keep the club alive and kicking when others fall by the wayside.
As stated previously we are still trying to identify possible investors to help the club grow sustainably faster but for the moment we are no further than several preliminary discussions.
We are therefore unable to create financial miracles as we toy with ways of improving performances.
We are already considering carefully how to operate next season. Clearly there are choices and changes to consider and we hope to make an announcement about all that shortly.
In the meantime all Terry, Bill and I can do is to thank you for your support and please continue to get behind the team whenever you can, even when things are not going the way we all want them to.
The club is a great club and it needs you to push behind it.
Oliver
