Acting Chairman Mark Harris phoned me late this evening, from London, to ask me to piece together and then post the following state of play article.
“I’m hoping that supporters realise that in the last three days a lot of the groundwork has continued to be done, on the club’s budget, in order to try and give the Football Manager of Witton Albion respectively the best possible playing budget, without jeopardising the financial stability of the club!
Despite an excellent playing season last term the hard fact is that the club’s income had to be supplemented. We therefore now find ourselves having to find the additional monies needed to refund what was a significant supplemented amount.
Consequently we are trying hard to identify additional income that would enable us to make more resources available to the prospective manager. With this in mind, at the Information Meeting, that I have called for 7:30pm on Thursday May 29th we are going to share with the supporters, the club’s running costs together with what we are looking to raise via both the club’s own fund-raising and you, our supporters vital contributions.
In the meantime we have a preliminary playing budget figure, which we are trying to increase. Naturally we are very much aware of the urgency as I can not ask a manager to take on the task without me first having all the information, that he would require, available.
I’m keenly aware that supporters want this crucial issue resolved and - so do I!”
“One very important step the Board has taken is to appoint Alan Simpson as Commercial Director. Alan will already be known to some of you as he was involved with our Reserve Team as Secretary prior to having to relinquish the position when appointed into a commercial role at Tranmere Rovers Football Club.
As I know and many of you have also pointed out, the commercial side of the club has under-performed of late. Bringing Alan in, to work closely with our fairly recently appointed Commercial Manager Samantha Raistrick, now gives the club what we consider to be the expertise necessary to explore the various streams of fund-raising.
I welcome Alan officially on board and hope all will now look forward to assisting our commercial section.
Thank you for your patience and understanding during this difficult period.”
Mark Harris