Update on the club from Kenny Amor
Feb 4, 2022 22:08:08 GMT
via mobile
spitfiresteve and hantslondoner like this
Post by nobadspitfire on Feb 4, 2022 22:08:08 GMT
Some on here may not have seen this posted by Kenny on FB today, so here it is.
Hi All
I hope you are keeping well, I have received a bit of feedback about communication and wanted to post an update on here regarding few things. Hopefully this will keep you in the loop and answer a few questions. I've been reluctant to put some of this stuff across our official social media/website as I find Twitter etc. just opens you up to lots of abuse and ridicule from fans of other clubs.
In no particular order here is a general update on a few matters:
Travel: I have worked closely with Kev Bennett on away travel and the club have decided to stop offering it as the uptake was unfortunately very poor and it was just costing us too much money. The Away support this year has actually been excellent, but understandably people want to travel in their own way and have a good drink etc. We have spent £7400 this year on travel and recouped only £2700 so this obviously couldn't be sustained financially. We will continue to try and run ad hoc big away days like the Yeovil game, but we just can't do any others unless the support is there. We haven't wanted to put out that its cancelled because sharing the fact that we couldn't sell 30 spaces is something we felt that would just open our club up to grief. Even at 30 spaces it would mean losing between £3-500 per game but we were willing to take that hit to try and keep travel going. I hope that makes sense and covers travel.
We have brought Brett Pitman in now but will unlikely bring any others other than a potential loan here and there. We are working very hard behind the scenes to find a few more gems as we have before but that will now be with next season in mind most likely. We felt we were very close to bringing in Charlie Kendall from Eastbourne prior to him signing for Lincoln, but understandably the pull of League One was too much. But hopefully that shows we are still looking at young talent going forward.
Ben Strevens leaving us I don't want to comment on too much really as Ben is my friend and someone who I have been very close with during my whole time at the club. It probably had just got to the stage where it was time to make a change and look to plan for the coming season with a fresh approach. It goes without saying Ben had done a wonderful job and I am not sure anyone could have done more with the budget and stabilise us through a very testing time with Covid etc. We part on good terms and I know Ben will do well wherever he goes next.
Jason Bristow will be in control whilst we conduct a thorough process for the next appointment. Jason will be assisted By Ross Flitney with Danny Hollands stepping up to have a more active role within the coaching team.
Richard Hill has been working with us in a Director of Football role, I had spoken with Ian Wilding about it so thought it was out there. His main duties are the contract negotiations and dealing with agents and the finacials for the 1st team. He has done a great job in ensuring we did as well as we possibly could from the Joe Tomlinson and Ben House deals. He also has a big job now in ensuring our Youth programmes continue to develop and will oversee all football matters.
Joe Adams the scholar that recently left us for Wigan is unfortunately an unavoidable situation in the league we're in, had we been an EFL our youth scholars would be more protected and we could have been compensated for losing him. He was in full time eduaction with us and under 18 so therefore could not have been put on a contract. I have been a little disappointed in Sholing's conduct when it comes to Joe. All of our scholars are Eastleigh players who we actively encourage to dual-sign for lower league men's teams so they get more valuable experience, it is far better for them to play for those teams than for our scholarship teams. In fact often we have to sacrifice positive results in the scholarship in order to ensure the lads get what is best for them. This has always been on a dual signed basis with us being their parent club. Joe is a great player and a very good lad - we recently promoted him to our EDS squad from the 2nd year in a bid to show him his value to the club. We wish him all the very best at Wigan and will watch his progress closely.
We have been blown away by the crowds this season, the support has been unreal and has helped massively in balancing the books coming out of Covid. We are just about to start being in a position to host monthly club events such as live music, quizzes, guest speakers etc. and would love it if you could support those as much as possible.
We are also going to be reopening the restaurant so watch this space for updates regarding that.
Stewart Donald has been at the club much more this season but is not back, his Dad has remained an exec club member ever since Stewart left and with less involvement at Sunderland Stewart has been using us for his football fix. Stewart, along with fellow Director Pete Vickery, remains the club landlord so we are in communication and I have brought up the subject of him one day coming back. What is very clear to us now is our budget is a lower mid-table budget these days and without serious investment we cannot expect to compete anywhere near the top end against the clubs with the money they are spending. Stewart isn't in a position to come back at present but that will not stop us trying to progress and still look for outside investment to try and bridge that gap to the top end of the National League.
I hope this answers some of the questions knocking about, we will organise a fans forum likely next month where we can answer more questions. In the meantime if you want to know anything please feel free to drop a question in here and I will do my best to answer it.
Hi All
I hope you are keeping well, I have received a bit of feedback about communication and wanted to post an update on here regarding few things. Hopefully this will keep you in the loop and answer a few questions. I've been reluctant to put some of this stuff across our official social media/website as I find Twitter etc. just opens you up to lots of abuse and ridicule from fans of other clubs.
In no particular order here is a general update on a few matters:
Travel: I have worked closely with Kev Bennett on away travel and the club have decided to stop offering it as the uptake was unfortunately very poor and it was just costing us too much money. The Away support this year has actually been excellent, but understandably people want to travel in their own way and have a good drink etc. We have spent £7400 this year on travel and recouped only £2700 so this obviously couldn't be sustained financially. We will continue to try and run ad hoc big away days like the Yeovil game, but we just can't do any others unless the support is there. We haven't wanted to put out that its cancelled because sharing the fact that we couldn't sell 30 spaces is something we felt that would just open our club up to grief. Even at 30 spaces it would mean losing between £3-500 per game but we were willing to take that hit to try and keep travel going. I hope that makes sense and covers travel.
We have brought Brett Pitman in now but will unlikely bring any others other than a potential loan here and there. We are working very hard behind the scenes to find a few more gems as we have before but that will now be with next season in mind most likely. We felt we were very close to bringing in Charlie Kendall from Eastbourne prior to him signing for Lincoln, but understandably the pull of League One was too much. But hopefully that shows we are still looking at young talent going forward.
Ben Strevens leaving us I don't want to comment on too much really as Ben is my friend and someone who I have been very close with during my whole time at the club. It probably had just got to the stage where it was time to make a change and look to plan for the coming season with a fresh approach. It goes without saying Ben had done a wonderful job and I am not sure anyone could have done more with the budget and stabilise us through a very testing time with Covid etc. We part on good terms and I know Ben will do well wherever he goes next.
Jason Bristow will be in control whilst we conduct a thorough process for the next appointment. Jason will be assisted By Ross Flitney with Danny Hollands stepping up to have a more active role within the coaching team.
Richard Hill has been working with us in a Director of Football role, I had spoken with Ian Wilding about it so thought it was out there. His main duties are the contract negotiations and dealing with agents and the finacials for the 1st team. He has done a great job in ensuring we did as well as we possibly could from the Joe Tomlinson and Ben House deals. He also has a big job now in ensuring our Youth programmes continue to develop and will oversee all football matters.
Joe Adams the scholar that recently left us for Wigan is unfortunately an unavoidable situation in the league we're in, had we been an EFL our youth scholars would be more protected and we could have been compensated for losing him. He was in full time eduaction with us and under 18 so therefore could not have been put on a contract. I have been a little disappointed in Sholing's conduct when it comes to Joe. All of our scholars are Eastleigh players who we actively encourage to dual-sign for lower league men's teams so they get more valuable experience, it is far better for them to play for those teams than for our scholarship teams. In fact often we have to sacrifice positive results in the scholarship in order to ensure the lads get what is best for them. This has always been on a dual signed basis with us being their parent club. Joe is a great player and a very good lad - we recently promoted him to our EDS squad from the 2nd year in a bid to show him his value to the club. We wish him all the very best at Wigan and will watch his progress closely.
We have been blown away by the crowds this season, the support has been unreal and has helped massively in balancing the books coming out of Covid. We are just about to start being in a position to host monthly club events such as live music, quizzes, guest speakers etc. and would love it if you could support those as much as possible.
We are also going to be reopening the restaurant so watch this space for updates regarding that.
Stewart Donald has been at the club much more this season but is not back, his Dad has remained an exec club member ever since Stewart left and with less involvement at Sunderland Stewart has been using us for his football fix. Stewart, along with fellow Director Pete Vickery, remains the club landlord so we are in communication and I have brought up the subject of him one day coming back. What is very clear to us now is our budget is a lower mid-table budget these days and without serious investment we cannot expect to compete anywhere near the top end against the clubs with the money they are spending. Stewart isn't in a position to come back at present but that will not stop us trying to progress and still look for outside investment to try and bridge that gap to the top end of the National League.
I hope this answers some of the questions knocking about, we will organise a fans forum likely next month where we can answer more questions. In the meantime if you want to know anything please feel free to drop a question in here and I will do my best to answer it.
