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| How did the match come about? |
| They had already got the West Ham game organised. One of the directors, who's been here today, saw us playing Leyton Orient (2nd Round FA Cup) on live TV in Poland. From that he thought that they would try and play Kingstonians. They where staying near hear, he liked what he saw, put the two together and basically that's it. He confirmed that this morning because that's what I'm telling the media. He said "Well that is the case. I saw you playing Leyton Orient on live TV in Poland. Very much enjoyed what I saw" this was obviously the first game wasn't it and here we are tonight. He said "Well it's a typical promotion exercise from the TV company. You've got yourselves a good game against quality opposition all through the TV." |
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| Do you see any similarities between Widzew Lodz and teams in our Premier League? |
| They've got a 20,000 capacity stadium and I think their average gate at the moment is 6 or 7,000. But the players earn a lot less than ours do. They've got a player at the moment that's just been offered terms at Blackburn Rovers, they've offered ?4 million for him, but the players turned it down. Which has upset the club a bit because they could've done with the money, but you can't force the player. |
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| How many players will be playing tonight that may get in the Polish national squad for the forthcoming Euro 2000 qualifier with England? |
| There will be one definitely and probably one more. Most of them are under 21 international, B international, 1 or 2 are full internationals. So they've got a very good pedigree. |
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| How do you and your players feel about the game tonight, because it's an extra match in your busy schedule? |
| It's a bad night in terms of our preparation for Saturday. But if we look upon it another way, this team here tonight play total football, everything is on the floor, everything, we can use it as a training exercise providing we don't embarrass ourselves and go silly no problem. They're delighted with the opposition. But maybe not so delighted about playing on Thursday when they gotta come in and do it on Saturday. This is not be all and end all. But we don't want to go out there and get walloped ten-nil, because straight away you come in Saturday and your confidence might have gone down. |
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| What do think this match tonight means to Kingstonian Football Club? |
| This match tonight is really about making some new found friends from across the water. Raises the profile of the club. Those are the 2 main things really. It is only a friendly but we're honoured because they've come to England they're playing West Ham United, which they've played and drew 0-0, and we're the only other team they are playing. Now to do that we've got to be half decent. The fact that they've seen us they want to play us and probably score a few goals as well. It's a good bridge building exercise for us. They're coming again next year and we'll probably play them again. But also we can take our team over there, if we can raise the funds. I mean Poland's an hour and fifty minutes by plane, not far. Maybe we can take Bill (Club secretatry for 26 years) out there for his retirement party or something. |
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| Do you feel the team is fulfilling your aspirations for the season? |
| Yes without a doubt. Came here, this is my second season, changed the personnel put most of them on 2 year contracts. We were in the Isthmian league for 80 odd years. Then we hit the conference first time round. Where we thought it might take 2 or 3 years to do it we've done it in one. This season, sitting nicely in the conference, there's no point in winning it because the ground is not ready to go on yet. We've got to do some work on the ground. So now we've got to concentrate on the FA trophy. We're in the last sixteen of that so we've done well. They've done everything and more, I'm the biggest critic they've got, forever moaning, but I've got to take my hat off to them they've done far away better than anybody here expected. |
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| What will you have to do to the ground to make it ready for league football? |
| Terracing. Mainly terracing and crash barriers. You're talking about 3/4 of a million quid. |
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| Where's that going to come from? |
| We will have to fund probably 30% of it ourselves, we get grants from the football trust 1/4 of a million. Plus other bits and pieces. We're hoping to get it down from that price. You know, I think we can get it done cheaper we're talking to other clubs that have all had it done. |
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| Do you see Kingstonian going onwards and upwards? |
| That's our dream. Our dream is to hit the football league. We're probably good enough to win the conference now on some of our performances. The ultimate aim is football league status. There are teams that have been in the conference since its inception in the 70's. Kidderminster harriers have been there along time and actually won it but couldn't go. It's very hard to get out of the conference but we'll certainly be giving it our best shot. |
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| One of my assumptions about Kingstonian was that this season would be a one of consolidation. Would you agree with that? |
| I would have said that at the start of the season. But having come as far as we have done I would change that. Because we've done better. We're good enough to be in the top 2 or 3. We've only lost 5 all season. "There's only one team lost more than that or less!" I would've said consolidation at the start of the season, we looked at the fixture list and said Jesus Christ we might not have a point after 11 games. We was top of the table for one week. In answer to your question yes consolidation, we want to stay in the conference that's the main thing, our main aim was survival, 45 point cut off point, we've now on 41. |
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| And for next season? |
| The pressure will be on us next year, because you make your own pressure, you set your own targets, you set your own standards. Next year we will be looking to push on a bit, it's a tough competition to win the Nationwide Conference. Only one team is promoted, but that will change over time, but I don't know if its going to change soon enough. Now that Nationwide are involved I'm sure its going to be two up two down or maybe even three. It's become a question of standards between the Football League and the Conference, and believe me the top half of the conference could hold their own in the lower Football League. That's been proven by the team getting results. |
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| So do you think will win the conference this year? |
| Cheltenham. They'd be my favourites. But there are still plenty of points to play for. Kettering are top at the moment, they come here Saturday. Rushden, I think, have got too much to do. |
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| Rushden and Diamonds have had a lot of investment haven't they? |
| You take the average non-league club in the conference might have a weekly budget of say ?3,500 or 4,000. Whereas, Rushden and Diamonds, are about 24,000. They've got blokes on ?1,500 a week. They've got good backing, through one man; he's one of the richest men in the country. He's got personnel wealth of nearly ?300 million, Max Griggs, Dr Martins. Lovely man, lovely man. He's one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet. We played Rushden and Diamonds in the Umbro trophy, 2 legs, we lost up there 1-0, at our place we beat them 2-0. He came into their dressing room after and he said "Never mind lads there's always next year." Just like that. Lovely man, everything for the people. He built the ground himself, spent ?20 million on it. Beautiful. You'll never see another non-league place like it, ever. Absolutely brilliant. Done all the roads in, the roundabouts outside, its covered all the way around, they got electric scoreboard. |
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| So what league status does there ground alone represent? |
| Second or first, its limited by the fact that you can only get around 10 thousand in the ground. So if they got in the Premiership they would have to double tier everywhere, but that's not beyond him. He has all the snooker championships there, Steve Davis, Jimmy White are always up there. Banqueting halls. They own their own coach; they've got their own directors coach. Everything. |
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| Do you think that this takes away the motivation from their team? |
| At this level, possibly because you're sometimes in a no win situation. They're not on a level playing field with the rest of us. Everybody else wants to see the back of Rushden, only because it's such a huge gap. I mean they've got a squad of about thirty. Although its good it's far too many because the manager then doesn't even know his best side. I mean I saw Kevin Keegan the other night. They (the media) said to him "You've got a squad of 28 Kev." "No" he said " I have 28 players but they're all first team players. All first team players all I got to do is pick 14 out of that 28 that's hard to do. If they're all bloody equal." (Geoff shrugs) |
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| What's your squad size here? |
| It's been about 16-17. I've just increased it by 2, possibly 3. You'll see because I'm playing a couple of new boys tonight. |
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| Does Kingstonian Football Club get much support from larger clubs? |
| We play Chelsea 1st team each year as part of the deal which sees their reserve team using our ground for training. Chelsea share the ground but I've got contacts at Arsenal. When I was at Woking we played Everton, its just about having the contacts and ringing people up. We've got West Ham coming down again this season their full side, full 1st team, which West Ham have to do as part of the Gavin Holligan deal. Not only do we get the fee we rake another 30 grand out of getting them here if we get a gate of 4 or 5 thousand, 8 quid a shot, its good money. The Chelsea game is always a sell out start of the season. Normally we get about 6 thousand here for that. They're all Chelsea supporters all round the area. Vialli sometimes comes in here and takes this office over some Mondays because he's doing a live link up to Italy. So he clears me out for the day, I spend all day making bloody tea for him! He's good, Vialli, good with the people he sent me a photograph back because we had our picture taken in here, which he signed. |
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| Do you like the guy? |
| I do. He smokes. So we have something in common, he smokes Malboro lights. |
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| But he still keeps fit of course. |
| Yes he's bloody fit, he keeps fit through sex doesn't he, always making love apparently. Jammy bastard. |
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| What do you think the club means to the people of Kingston? |
| Well a lot judging by the gates. The gates have increased something like 200%. We've had gates over 2,000 this year. Last year was 3 or 4 hundred. The TV coverage has helped. It's a bit like religion. We're spreading the Gospel according to Kingstonian. We've had some nice bits of media coverage this year for various things. Like the transfer of Gavin Holligan to West Ham. |
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| Do you have any players in the first team squad that come from Kingston? |
| None. No real local players. Our longest serving player, Eddie Akuamoah, he lives in Hammersmith and has just scored his hundredth goal for the club last week. |
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| He's scored a few this season. |
| Yeah not enough! We've got them coming from far afield now. Sheffield, Nottingham, Weymouth, you name it. |
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| Is there a lot of support at the grass roots level, the youth program etc? |
| We go right through from under 11 right the way through. |
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| Do you see any of that? |
| I don't get the time. With us we're playing twice a week, they're sometimes playing the same nights. When the opportunity presents its self yes we go along and look, except the reserve side which we obviously keep tabs on. |
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| Any promising talent? |
| Yes there's a few. The reserves are mainly youngsters this year, there're running away with the league. Way ahead. It's a poorish standard the suburban league but it's the only one we can go in for reserve teams. Their goal difference is somewhere near 60. They're several points clear at the top with games in hand. One of the teams, that I think is third, came down the other week and we won 6 or 7-1. We've got a nice youth policy that's hopefully going to produce, but you never know. I'd like to say that Gavin Holligan came through the youths, but he didn't, but he was at the youths with Walton and Hersham, but they didn't bother to play him. He came here and did very well for us, a lot of interest. But we're hopeful. You've got to nurture your own talent now if you can. If we could do one of them a year (a big transfer). (Geoff shrugs) |
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| Do you get a lot of support from local business ? I noticed you didn't have a shirt sponsor at the start of the season? |
| Well we was resting all our hopes, at the start of the season, on a main sponsor who we thought was coming on, everybody did, the timing wasn't right so we ran with what we had. Then we decided we would put it out for the rest of the season for a draw, which was a hundred quid a ticket, we got 2 hundred companies, so we raised 20 grand out of that. Greenfields came out. So for a hundred quid they got their name on the shirts and the stationery and stuff like that. A lot of the businesses are involved. You see them here match days, different people, companies, which is nice. We do meals as well in the banqueting suite. |
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| So you have other forms of income? |
| Yes. We're not solely reliable on the football pitch. We are a football club but we have other facilities like banqueting suite and bars. The hospitality suite is often busy; we've done very well with that. We've had a lot of weddings here, parties, singles club, line dancing. |
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| How many fulltime staff do you have? |
| Secretary and odd jobby, Chris Kelly chief executive, myself, and a full time club administrator. |
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| Do you have a groundsman? |
| No it's contract. |
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| What's your role here? |
| I'm Manager/Director. I oversee all the football. I deal with the press and television and I do a bit for SKY. I'm here everyday, full time. I've just done a bit for Radio 5 Live on why league chairman don't take a chance with non-league managers. It's going out on digital TV as well. That'll be interesting when it comes out. Because I've just said it's basically fear. I couldn't go and manage Alan Shearer because the respect wouldn't be there. But the lower levels, what ever a football league manager does I'm doing the same. |
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| How did you get involved with football management |
| I was a player. I was a player/manager at Alton town when they were in the old Athenian league. Won that and then won the cup. Then I went to Windsor and Eaton to play. Broke my leg in 1980. Then the manager left and went to Woking, took all the team with them. They then asked me to take over 3 weeks before the start of the season. We never had a team. We had 2 players. Got a side together went right through the 3 divisions (non-league) in 4 years, which I think is still a record, Off the back of that I went to Woking in 1984. After 13 years I moved here to Kingstonian. |
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| What's your own football philosophy? |
| My philosophy on football is there's grass on the pitch and that's where the ball should be. No grass in the sky. Which is what Wimbledon sometimes have been known to think. But to be fair to them they've done very well at it. Wimbledon are the poor relations. They're on about getting a new ground now again, in Merton, its all back on to move up here somewhere. |
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| How will you look back on your memories of being a Football Manager? |
| Although I'm non-league I'm one of the fortunate ones where I've been reasonably successful, there's a lot that are not. I've never applied for a job in my life, people say how do you get motivated. I get motivated through winning. Money doesn't motivate me, I wish it did, because you've got to look after your wealth. I've had the Ispian League Manager of the year. Conference, I've won that. Manager of the year for the Conference. I've got some nice memories. Wembley 3 times in 4 years for the Umbro trophy. |
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| What's it like leading your team out at Wembley? |
| It's brilliant. The best time is always the first. But people always said, that have been there more than once, take it all in because it goes so quick. All I can remember about the first time is that it was raining very, very hard. The second time we went there, the very next year, that was nice. I took more of that in. Then we missed a year but went back the following year. We won all three years. First with Runcorn, then Kidderminster and finally with Dagenham and Redbridge. |
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