What a few weeks it has been. After two seasons of Covid disruption at last we are seeing some regular football, live at the stadium, with enthusiastic fans creating a great atmosphere.
The men’s first team are doing us proud right now, second in the table as I write this and on an unbeaten (well you know what I mean…) run of 12 matches.
I must congratulate Hak and his staff for turning the season around after our form collapsed in October. It seems a simple demand on the players has paid off: work harder! We can see the effect of this in our performances. Opponents are given far less time on the ball and pushed to make mistakes; when we attack we have more players available making runs, getting into good positions; when we lose the ball players are working their socks off to get back in position and defend.
When we the fans see our team playing with such effort and commitment it makes us even keener to shout our support. It’s win-win and long may it continue.
If I could just add one important additional reason for our recent success: my absence from the matches. I have been stuck in France as the Covid restrictions tightened in November and this appears to have had a miraculous effect on results. Finally, I’ll have to admit that Tim Murrell and you others are right, I am a bad omen…don’t worry I’m not returning to Kent for a few weeks yet!
Despite being away for so long there have been a few questions flying around and so I thought I’d give you my answers to some of them.
Is this the best team we’ve had at the Gallagher since coming home?
I think it’s too early to
say. We’re on a great run and the team is playing some exciting football but
let’s judge them after a full season. Hopefully in May we’ll be celebrating
something special. It would take an exceptional season-long, effort however to
match Jay’s promotion squad of 2016. The squad which sat near the top of the
National League table towards the end of 2017 was decent too. Players such as
Pigott, Lewis, Loza and Hines were outstanding and we beat teams like Dagenham,
Woking, Eastleigh, Sutton and Macclesfield all away from home…and Cheltenham!
What’s going on with all these contract extensions then?
Terry, Bill and I feel we
have an exceptionally talented and hard-working management team and playing
squad this season. Given there is a reasonable chance of promotion we felt it
was timely to secure the services of our manager and the spine of next season’s
team early.
We are delighted with where we have got to with this but of course other players still have the opportunity to prove themselves too. There is abundant talent throughout this squad.
We are of course aware that extending contracts like this at our level of football is not without risks. In other situations I have seen the award of a long contract cause players to stop trying so hard or go off the boil. Others are unlucky with injury. In the case of this season’s squad we have a very honest, hard-working group so I have no worries on that score.
How are the club’s finances doing?
Through Covid Terry, Bill
and the team worked very hard to batten down the hatches and avail ourselves of
all the public financial assistance going. You, the supporters, have been
generous in donating season ticket moneys and in many cases working as
volunteers around the club to help us where possible.
So, despite being shafted by the National League in the October 2020 funding distribution (more on this later), we have managed to turn in another profitable year. We will be publishing the figures in a few weeks time. This is the ninth year in a row we have made a trading (EBITDA) profit and I will be asking Kieran Maguire, the guru of football finance, if he knows any other club with such a record.
It may not be as sexy a football record such as winning the league nine times in a row, but I’m mighty proud of the achievement nonetheless. Our profitable business model underpins the club and makes it safe and sustainable in an era of bankruptcies and financial over-stretching.
Are there any plans to expand the stadium?
In past years stadium
expansion was obligatory in order to meet grading requirements (the reason
behind the Genco Stand) and was paid for by the profits we made together with
grants made available by the Football Foundation. The situation now is slightly
different. We don’t have to expand the stadium for ground grading purposes now,
regardless of whether we get promoted this season or not.
However this season has seen the occasional return of a horrible phenomenon – crowd disturbances. We are trying to address this by improving our security operation and by restricting access to unaccompanied, non-member youths. Nonetheless we have to admit that the way we are able to accommodate away fans is not ideal. Placing home and away fans in the same stand is always provocative to a certain section of support. It’s not just at the Gallagher. We have seen this at Eastleigh, at Dagenham and at other stadia. It’s never ideal.
Some fans have asked why we can’t put away fans in the town end. Well the stadium was designed to have away fans entering through the north turnstiles, they can be segregated more easily, turnstile capacities have been calculated with this in mind, extra seats can be made available in the main stand. Furthermore the town end has the greater facilities for home supporters, the Spitfire Lounge, the food outlets, the Club Shop, the meeting area in front of the turnstiles. There simply is no other way of segregating supporters safely in line with capacity, entrance and exit requirements.
In the master plan for the stadium, once built out to its 6,000 maximum capacity, the town end becomes the home supporters’ end and the Genco Stand becomes the away supporters’ stand, with a segregation line where appropriate. We may have to add turnstiles and exits at the north end at some stage. However we have limited funds for expansion at present. This might change if we are promoted.
In the National League we become eligible again for substantial grant support, although Football Foundation grants are always capped at maximum 50% of total building costs… As a result we are starting to look again at the feasibility of replacing the town end terracing with a larger terrace, maybe a slightly smaller version of the Genco Stand. This would have to be done within a tight budget, without restricting future development of the West side stand and with a design capable of having additional facilities (changing rooms, seats, bars, etc) bolted onto it in the future.
It will be a fascinating feasibility study. If we were to find a way of designing and funding this it would resolve our Genco Stand issues instantly. The town end would revert to its previous use as the home supporters’ end. It’s a long shot but watch this space.
Are we still contesting the National League’s disastrous governance during the Covid period?
Where do I start? Firstly,
let there be no doubt as to what happened. The National League board proved to
be incompetent throughout the crisis, from March 2020 onwards. There were
errors of judgement and errors of mismanagement, there was arrogance and
failure to admit to mistakes and apologise for them. Clear-headed directors
would have resigned but the ones we had were simply unable to grasp the
seriousness of the crisis and the extent of their statutory responsibilities as
directors, which are to represent all clubs fairly and not to feather their own
clubs’ nests.
The chairman, Brian Barwick, who finally resigned months after we and other clubs called for his head, kept blindly bleating ‘we are a well-respected league’ during every public utterance, as though he was conducting the orchestra on the Titanic.
Jack Pearce, who was the architect of the flawed distribution of October 2020, has refused to admit to or apologise for all the errors of judgement. Let’s not forget it was Pearce who saw fit to recommend a distribution which went against government guidelines to reimburse lost gate receipts. His distribution proposal rewarded seven out of eight National League board members’ clubs with £500,000 more than they should have received. He acted as though he knew better than government. To add insult to injury the directors of those clubs, whose pockets bulged after adopting the Pearce distribution plan, then had the gall to appoint him Barwick’s replacement as League Chairman. Even Stalin would have blushed.
It’s really no excuse to say ‘well it was Covid so what else could we do’. The then Chairman Barwick should have had the humility back in March 2020 to establish Covid crisis committees to assist the league. Some of his board colleagues, who subsequently resigned, had proposed this. He could have drafted in additional support. He could have seen what was going to happen and himself resigned, admitting he had no appetite for the challenges ahead. He and his board simply weren’t up to the task on their own. They behaved as though they were some village committee organising a knees-up, not a company board responsible for governing some 68 clubs, clubs with combined turnovers of £50 million, clubs with 2,000 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of fans. It’s very serious stuff.
In the meantime we have been made aware of a project to produce a film documentary telling the truth about the National League governance during this period. We are looking forward to working with the producers and writers to create a powerful documentary, whose exposure of the truth will have a real impact.
Have you finished now?
Yes, give me a cold
compress. Goodness, I haven’t even mentioned 3G pitches yet…
Er…Any news on 3G pitches?
Yes. Tracey Crouch’s
recent review into football governance, hopefully to be adopted by government
in the Spring, says League 2 should allow 3G pitches for a grace period of three
years, which is as good as unconditionally allowing them. Moreover there are
now clubs in League 2, e.g. Sutton, Harrogate and Leyton Orient, who have shown
they are in favour of 3G pitches. I remain confident that we will be able to
use our 3G pitch in League 2 if ever we knock on the EFL door.
Anything else?
Yes. Apologies for being
long-winded. That’s what not being able to attend matches and talk to you in
person does for me. So let me end by wishing you all a great end-of-season
spent following the Stones.
Yours in sport
Oliver Ash
