I thought that the television programme that ran some five years ago about the challenges facing Weymouth was one of the best warts-and-all programmes that has been produced about football in recent years. Both the programme and the associated book Floodlit Dreams did not go down well on the terraces at Weymouth.
I thought that the television programme that ran some five years ago about the challenges facing Weymouth was one of the best warts-and-all programmes that has been produced about football in recent years. Both the programme and the associated book Floodlit Dreams did not go down well on the terraces at Weymouth. However, Mail on Sunday journalist Ian Ridley who wrote the book and was behind the programme has now returned as part of a team who have stepped in to save the Conference club. Ridley will come back in as chairman, but not on a full-timne basis. He will spend at most one day a week at the club and will continue his career as a sporting journalist. As well as three businessmen, the new board will contain representatives from both the Terras Trust and the Supporters’ Club. Chief executive Gary Calder, whose reported salary was £60,000 a year, quit to pave the way for the takeover after a bid from would-be white knight Stephen Beer failed at at the last minute.
Ridley and his colleagues think that the club’s £500,000 debt is manageable. Former chairman Malcolm Curtis will not seek immediate repayment of the £220,000 he is owed. However, fans have been warned that it will take years to get the club back on a firm financial footing. Ian Ridley warned, ‘These first weeks are all about crisis management. From then on it’s a matter of planning for next season and moving the new stadium forward. These six weeks [until the end of the season] are purely about survival, on and off the pitch.’ The Terras are certain to go part-time next season and hope the relaunch of a share issue to raise working capital will partly balance the books. As I emphasised in an interview in the Daily Mirror this week, many more Conference clubs will have to consider reverting to a part-time format and even some League 1 and League 2 clubs may have to have a core full-time squad supplemented by part-timers.