Collapse Of Weymouth A Familiar Tale - 21/01/2007

Whether it's the Premiership or non-league, it's a familiar tale. An ambitious chairman makes a bid for glory, but the money runs out and the club is left in a worst position than it was before. Just think Leeds. The latest club to suffer in this way is Conference outfit Weymouth. Chairman Martyn Harrison has been forced to pull the financial plug on the club as its overdraft at Barclays climbed to £500,000. His Hollybush Hotel group is also owed £2m by Weymouth and his advisors warned that any more spending would be highly damaging. Harrison, funding a reported £24,000 a week playing budget, had had hoped a deal for an ASDA supermarket at Weymouth's Wessex Stadium would bail him out, but the deal fell through when the council failed to grant permission for the plan. The manager and all the players have been sacked with local players being brought to fill the gap. Given that Bournemouth is the nearest league club, boosting Weymouth was not a totally ill conceived plan, but ambition seems to have out run practicality.