Ralph Carr Memorial Match (Brothers Allaway Trophy)
Sutton United vs Middlesex Wanderers (Wednesday 8th May 2002, ko 7.45pm)

Key's selection extends to the Wanderers' tour to Indonesia and Vietnam (24th May to 31st May) to play against the national sides of each country. Lance will however be unable to tour due to his upcoming marriage, though he will be delighted to represent the Wanderers at Sutton's Gander Green Lane ground. He is already being penciled in for the next tour - to Cambodia in 2003.

The Middlesex Wanderers were formed in 1905 by brothers Bob and Horace Allaway. The Club was formed to tour and to provide recognition to those players deserving of such whom, through differing circumstances, may well not have been accorded national recognition. In it's 97 year history the club has carried out over 100 tours to more than 40 different countries.

This is the highest honour in the game that a non-league player can attain and they are very selective as to whom it invites to play in a match and especially who goes on tour. Each player picked must in the opinion of the Middlesex Wanderers committee be the right type of player to measure up to the standards of the Wanderers.

EGM deferred pending imminent news about the Clubs Future

The EGM convened for Thursday 28 March has been deferred to 22 April 2002 at 3pm at the same location. This is to allow further time for negotiations with the 2 main interested parties to take place. Letters have been sent to all shareholders today. Please do not attend at our offices on Thursday as there will be no meeting taking place. We will post further information as and when we have it.

Taylor impresses for National Game XI

The newly-named National Game XI took on the Combined Services at RAF Uxbridge on Monday night and won 3-1.


Joff Vansittart was the only Nationwide Conference player to be selected - after playing in last seasons corresponding fixture whilst with Dover Athletic and was no doubt on a high after coming off the bench on Saturday to score Farnborough Towns fifth goal in their 6-1 victory over Stevenage Borough.


The National Game XI's squad was comprised of players from Southern England, with this seasons current leading scorer in the Dr Martens League Premier Division, James Taylor of Havant & Waterlooville, getting the chance to impress the assistant-manager of the England National Game XI Steve Avory.


Drawn from all parts of the country and representing the RAF, Army and Royal Navy, the Combined Services side are managed by RAF Squadron Leader Dave McDermott.


His coach and team secretary would normally join Dave on the bench, but as Robert Moorhouse, Squadron Leader at RAF Coltishall in Norfolk explained, they were otherwise engaged.


Our team coach is currently in the USA testing parachutes, and our secretary, Warrant Officer George Frizzell, has been running a Field Hospital in Kabul since the beginning of January.


"Some of our players are also currently deployed around the world on different missions, so issues affecting team selection for the manager of the Combined Services FA are slightly more varied than those facing your average manager!


The annual fixture against The FA XI is the most prestigious in our football calendar, added Moorhouse.


Giving our players the chance to play against both former professionals and the next up-and-coming talent in the National Game.


The goals were scored by Havant & Waterlooville's James Taylor, who was very impressive on the night, Tim Hambley and Grays Athletic's Sammy Cooper.


The FA squad was : Lance Key (Kingstonian), Scott Tarr, Paul Wilkinson, Jason Bristow (Basingstoke Town), Ben Judge, Danny Carroll (Crawley Town), Jim McFarlane, Jamie Southam, Terry Bowes (Purfleet), Mark Bentley, Adam Parker (Aldershot Town), Craig Edwards, Sammy Cooper (Grays Athletic), Tim Hambley, James Taylor (Havant & Waterlooville), Joff Vansittart (Farnborough Town)

K's go walking

On Easter Monday Kingstonian are away to Sutton United, in a Bank Holiday derby, at Gander Green Lane. The Supporters Club have organised a sponsored walk from Kingsmeadow to the Lane which will leave at 10.30am for the five mile trek. All proceeds raised will be split between two charities. The first is towards melanoma which is a rare form of skin cancer and Consultant Oncologist Dr. Martin Gore at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London has two reserach projects that he is investigating. The second is a more local charity the Kingston Hospital Cancer Unit.

Bolt Off

Canvey Island have signed midfielder Danny Bolt from Ryman League Premier Division rivals Kingstonian.


The 26-year-old joined the K's from Sutton United in July last year, and scored 5 goals for the Surrey-based club this season.


His previous clubs include Fulham, Slough, Woking & Sutton United, where he was scored 26 goals during last season.


Bolt went straight into action against Harrow Borough when he came on as a second half substitute.


Bolt said: "Things change so quickly. One minute I'm struggling at K's and now I'm at the top of the tabe with Canvey with big games to look forward to."


"I've got a chance of getting back into the Conference and getting my career back on track, which is what I intend to do."


Bolt holds no grudges about how things didn't work out at Kingstonian, however: "I thought it was going to be a good move for me, buit it didn't quite work out as planned."


"I don't think I really showed the fans what I could do, but then I didn't play as much as I'd have liked or in the position I prefer."

Mixing business with pleasure

Running the finances of a struggling football club can be much like doing the referee's job. The players give you a hard time, the fans hate you and the managers criticise. So why would you want to enter this theatre of nightmares?

Only very rarely does hard-nosed financial common sense impinge on the wonderful world of football. Directors of football clubs, who made personal fortunes running other businesses, completely forget business fundamentals - like trying to make a profit - when the passions of the game take over. And take over they do.

Sadly, it's only when the Inland Revenue or the local council's bailiff staff start knocking in earnest that the directors are forced to face up to financial reality.

Even then, the directors are still wont to rely on the deep pockets of the chairman. Yet even he has a limit, and it's usually when fans have lost patience with their poorly performing team, that he decides to call it a day and closes his cheque book for good.

It's at this point that I get a call to begin the task of rescuing something from the wreckage. Likely as not these days, it's a quick financial review and off to court for an administration order. This is exactly what happened when I took over the running of Ryman League club Kingstonian FC in October last year.

Receivership and liquidation are not usually options because the football authorities need to be sure that there is a chance to save the club.

The first tasks are pretty much like any rescue, except for one fundamental difference: the administrator is wandering through a financial wonderland where nothing makes sense.

Only one thing is certain, the club will be losing money faster than anyone could imagine.

Everything else is jaw-dropping stuff. Costs will be out of control, even in the unlikely event that you can find anyone who really knows what they are. There is more woodwork in a football club for unpleasant surprises to crawl out of than in almost any other business you can name. And you will be amazed at how many people have the authority to spend the administrator's money and how resistant they are when you try taking that authority away.

Cash is king, so internal control nightmares abound.

Every turnstile has its own potential fiddle. There are proceeds from programmes, the club shop, golden goal tickets, 50:50 clubs and a host of other fundraising wheezes. As fast as you collect cash it disappears into the black economy.

There are stewards to pay, the part-time physiotherapist, the club doctor's palms to grease and players' mileage claims. Everyone, including the lad who brings back all the balls that go over the stand, seems to have their hands out. If you're lucky the directors' bar is stocked from illicit booze cruises, but that's probably the only thing that isn't costing more than it should.

Fixture lists start to dominate your life, especially if funding is tight, which it probably will be. Murphy's law says that your first few weeks will be nearly all away games, or home games against clubs from far away places at the bottom of the league.

Impenetrable frost will permeate your pitch and get the juicy local derby postponed until after the next VAT payment is due.

With the exception of the top couple of leagues, cash flow is pretty much limited to home gate receipts. A vital early step is to open communications with the football authorities - 'the blazers' as they are called.

They are very important, because almost any rescue plan an administrator comes up with will break some rule or another. And almost any aspect of the footballing side of the club will trigger a fine, no matter how minor the mistake may be. If the printer fails to deliver the programmes, it's a fine. Field an ineligible player, it's a bigger fine of course. The list seems endless.

The other people you must talk to are the fans. It's curious, because as administrator you're there to do the best for the creditors and the chances are that the fans don't figure in that list. But you ignore them at your peril and if you let them have your email address, you might as well turn off your computer until you've sold the club. The fans' forum is something you have to attend and you have to control - you must make sure that you never discuss the past and you never get into discussing what's happening on the playing field.

The club's official website is also key. The people who contribute may be only a small minority of fans, but they are the opinion formers and the ones who will organise the protests when it all begins to go wrong. The bad news comes from the fans you never meet, either at the forums or through the website, because they may be the ones who will slash your tyres or send hate mail or worse to your home address.

And then there's the media. Even the humblest football club crisis will have the TV camera crews rushing down and finding out the weaknesses in your interview techniques.

Local and national radio stations will take a keen interest, particularly for phone-ins, and you will acquire a coterie of local reporters who will call you every week without fail determined to get a decent quote for their back pages. They will of course all know more than you do, because every one even remotely connected with the club will leak rumours, half-truths and downright lies to them.

But despite all of this grief and aggravation, I defy anyone nursing a club through a crisis to avoid getting emotionally involved. When that team runs out on Saturday, you'll be cheering as loud as any fan who's watched for 40 years and when the last minute winner gets deflected past the opposition's stranded goalkeeper, you'll embarrass yourself as you hug the complete stranger standing next to you.

When someone slags off the manager in the bar afterwards, you'll defend him, because you know what an amazing job he's doing with a bunch of inexperienced kids promoted from the youth team despite knowing that the least secure job in the whole club is his own.

What you do need to understand is that running a football club is a very time-consuming exercise and it's a safe bet that you won't recover more than a smallish percentage of your costs, unless you get lucky with the exit route. It also consumes a lot of partner time from the insolvency practice.

Leaving junior staff to deal with the fans, the media or any of the potential buyers is a certain recipe for disaster, no matter how enthusiastic they may be.

And at the end of it all, the chances are that you will rescue the club. It's an old clich that there's always somebody with more money than sense who wants to own a football club, but almost always it's true.

Oddly, they're not always the mugs you think they are.

Football clubs offer a surprising range of commercial opportunities if properly run. Most have decent banqueting facilities that can be maximised.

Many are partial development opportunities - you may not be able to knock the stadium down for housing, but you might well get planning permission to build a business hotel.

Finally, why would anyone take on such a task?

The answer is that it's a huge challenge and its great fun - most of the time. Come on you K's!

Kingstonian's college for the future

With all the speculation and bad news surrounding Kingstonian Football Club, it will come as a surprise to many people that the club has a thriving football academy for gifted players from 16 to 19 years of age.

The academy is now in its second full season and is an alliance between Kingstonian FC and Kingston College of Further Education. The academy has 36 players who train on a full time basis Monday to Friday, who also undertake an educational course of their choice at Kingston College.

Four U.E.F.A. qualified coaches, including a specialist goalkeeping coach, are employed to both supervise and plan training as well as coach the two academy teams on match days.

Many people will wonder how a club in administration can afford, or even contemplate, an academy structure of this size. Well, the answer is that finance, organisation and planning are provided by Kingston College, who employ the coaching staff and - via the Academy Director - set the high standards expected within the academy, both in terms of football development and academic study.

Raising the standard

Everything about the academy structure has been organised to provide the best environment for young players to develop. This includes excellent private training facilities, top quality training equipment for skill and fitness development and venues for matches which provide the best playing surfaces, including the playing of many academy fixtures at Kingstonian's Kingsmeadow Stadium.

A route to the top

Kingstonian's recent revival after their very poor start to the season has come about due to the emergence of many young players. This has provided a great opportunity for many academy players who can now see a direct route for the top performers to go on and represent the reserve and first team of Kingstonian Football Club. A development path has been encouraged greatly by first team manager Steve Sedgley.

The academy also provides a shop window for players who have been released by professional clubs at 16 years old, to be seen by those clubs, continuing their football education, although they will have a contractual obligation to Kingston College.

The future

For the coming 2002/03 season, fourteen new academy players will be recruited to join the twenty-two going into their second year. This will be achieved by a series of entry trials and training days. Applications for trials can be obtained from Kingston College Sports Office on 020 8268 3069.

Exciting developments for the academy also include a tour to Barcelona in October 2002, the employment of a part-time fundraising officer to gain sponsorship and grants specifically for the academy, and entry to the Southern Youth League for the academy under-18 team.

Results this season have been excellent, with a sustained run in the FA Youth Cup, beating Football League opposition, as well as many other highlights.

For Kingstonian Football Club to re-emerge as a force in non-league football it will be dependent on many factors, not least the development of a sound Youth Academy. Fortunately in this area the club is ahead of many of its richer rivals.

3(a) No member may hold or be interested in more than 15,000 or if greater, 10% (ten percent) of the issued share capital of the company for the time being and this restriction in these terms is to be treated as having and effect from the incorporation of the company and being the only such restriction to have had effect.

3(b) For the purpose of calculating 10% holdings of a husband and wife living together or partners living together or any brother or sister of any lineal antecedent or descendant shall be regarded as one member.