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Special Meeting - Tuesday 4th May 1999
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| | Trophy Final and the Football Team (by Geoff Chapple) |
He didn't expect the team to win the Isthmian League in the first year, and similarly he didn't expect such a successful first year in the Conference. He said that, when he saw the fixtures, his reaction was "where the bloody hell's the first point coming from?"
Once the side reached Northwich he could see the "misty Twin Towers", he was very disappointed with the home attendance v Cheltenham, but even more so with the away following, which he reckoned to be about 2 or 300. However, he did tell us that he watched the video of the second leg the other night with the volume turned up: "What a noise!!" he said. After that game he did have a cup of tea on his own as he wanted to be alone - the one thing he did see was Steve Cotterill kicking in a door!! He said that he has since found out that some fans were upset that he didn't come over, but didn't know what was going on. Some senior players (probably David Leworthy - who has booked 4 coaches for Wembley, from his village) were in tears.
It's been his decision alone to play weakened sides against the likes of Hereford.
The Trophy has a prize fund of £125,000, of which £10,000 will go to the winners. |
| His Future |
| There's been a lot of rubbish in the papers, but he has had absolutely no contact with any other club. He believes in loyalty (as does Max Griggs!!) and he will see out the reamaining two years of his contract. Players may well be targeted by other clubs, but he can't help that. |
| The Pitch |
| "It's the worst in the Conference, with the possible exception of Leek". It's overused as the players need to train on it as well as first team, reserve and youth matches. Chelsea reserves may not be using the pitch next year as an FA Premier reserve league may be set up. Interestingly, he said that he "knew the reasons" why the pitch was in such a state, but didn't divulge these. |
| Attendances |
| He said that we need more people in the ground and, once they're there, he'll entertain them. The best way is to get out into the town, which he's been doing with local schools. Hopefully reaching Wembley will add a further 2 or 300 onto the gates next year, as he thinks that we need an average of at least 1500. |
| The Final |
| In 1960, K's took 60,000 people to Wembley, and the board sees no reason why this couldn't happen again (although we don't think that they thought it would happen). The players will be away for two days before the final, and will be training with the British Army on the Friday. They will be staying at a hotel in Surrey. They will travel to Wembley at noon on the Friday for a look-see, and will then go back for lunch and more training. On the day itself, they will be at Wembley by 1.30. Afterwards, everybody will be welcome back at Kingsmeadow where a marquee is to be laid on by Bass (see below). There is the possibility of an open topped bus parade on the Sunday, although this is "not the sort of thing you ask for, you wait to be offered" according to Geoff. However, he did say that it was disappointing to only see about 15 fans at last year's civic reception. |
| Input |
| Anybody with ideas can suggest them to Geoff, as he operates an open-door policy. There has never been a better time to attract local businesses. |
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| The new Kingstonian Sponsors (by the Business Unit Manager from Bass) |
The new sponsor is Bass, although the brand name on the shirts is tobe Grolsch. The shirt's will bear that name at Wembley and for the coming season. Two new shirts were shown. Bass have the right to extend the deal year-by-year, although they have left in the option for other companies to out-bid them.
Bass are in the process of signing a deal to see their brands in the K's bars for the next 5 years.
They need to improve their exposure in the South-East and Surrey so have taken this sponsorship. |
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| The Redevelopment of Kingsmeadow (by director Mr Terry Weir) |
The board has been criticised, and they don't deserve it. In 1997 the club was nearly relegated, so a new board was formed with a plan to reach the Football League.
When the board first saw Kingsmeadow, they thought "Wow", but they realise that it is now not good enough and that they now need to proceed to the next stage as it was one of only seven in this year's Conference which was not good enough to meet the FL criteria. This meant that Terry Weir was hoping that the team wouldn't win games as this would have meant promotion being denied.
Late in 1998 the board got a quote to use temporary terracing to meet the FL criteria which would have cost £150,000. They decided against this as it would have been simply thrown away if the club had not been promoted.
Since then, David Kerl has been involved with aiding the club for free. He is a Kingston based architect who has designed Chelsea's ground and has been involved with Fulham, Luton and Man City and he has helped the club to produce plans which have now been submitted for planning permission.
The plans were on display, and presumably will be for some time. Basically, the boundaries have to be extended, as there is not enough room to do all of the work. The East stand (opposite the main stand) will be moved back which will allow the main stand seats to be extended forward. The North (Kingston Road) End will be made into a "proper" terrace, as will the East stand. These are to be made in big blocks, so all development should be completed quickly. The South stand is slightly more complicated, as the idea is to produce a double-sider with the council so that people can watch athletics. This will include a 4 lane 60metre track, long-jump pit and female toilets. The council is hopeful of obtaining lottery money for their side of the stand.
Geoff Chapple will not be denied any money due to the re-development. |
| Numbers |
| The submitted plans give an overall capacity of 7,000 with the FL criteria being 6,000. However, there are rumours of the criteria becoming 6,000 which will have to include 2,000 seats. If this becomes reality then the capacity of the ground will be reduced to 6,000 which will include the required number of seats. |
| When? |
| Subject to permission, which will hopefully be granted this month, work will start "at the earliest", hopefully by late Summer. The development will be staged to cause the minimal amount of disruption possible with the East side being "done" first. They claim that the whole side could be demolished and rebuilt within three months. The South side will be the second side. Everything will be completed by every deadline that has been provided and the board can be proud of the project. Apparently. |
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| The New Share Issue and Redevelopment Funding (by director Mr Robert Woolfson) |
| One million pounds are needed for the work. Of this, £250,000 is to be provided by the Football Trust (this is not yet definite but is nearly approved). The authorised share capital of the Limited Company is currently £150,000. There will soon be an EGM to increase this to £1million which will then allow a further 150,000 £1 shares to be offered. These will initially be offered to existing shareholders with the balance being offered to "outsiders". A £500,000 mortgage will make up the balance, which should be approved with "no problems". The additional £100,000 will need to be provided by the supporters, either in terms of loans but more likely as gifts. |
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| Other Points |
| Promotion of the football club |
Many points were made on this subject. The board's basic answer was that they know that they've been crap, but that they hope that Wembley will provide a springboard for the club. Any suggestions of signs were given the "but we'd need permission for that" treatment with little concrete ideas being given. In fact, the only idea given was that "kids are the future" with the club saying that they'd sponsored the local little league for £2500. Terry Weir said that he hoped that Kingston would be a "ghost town" on the 15th and claimed that you couldn't walk through the town centre without seeing K's everywhere (we disagreed).
On the subject of match and matchball sponsors, again, they said that they realised that they needed to improve, but that it's been very difficult, as the team have had little exposure. Chapple has had much more experience with big matches than anybody else. |
| The Media |
Stories about discord within the board are not true, as they are totally united, although they admitted that they were woeful at communication. Chris Kelly was absent as he was said to have a "grave family illness" which didn't actually sound like an excuse. Newspapers try to sell newspapers with sensationalist stories so that was the reason for the recent "an unnamed director didn't get a match sponsor for the Cheltenham game" Surrey Comet story.
A question was asked whether Chris Kelly had planted the "Chapple to Rushden" story to publicise the club, although this was totally denied. "The club doesn't play games with the media" |
| Mark Murphy |
| He thanked Geoff Chapple and wished the club every success at Wembley and then made some further points about the ground. He wanted further clarification of funding and, when he was told that the company had "no debts whatsoever" he disagreed. This obviously hit a Woolfson nerve, who stated that he "mustn't make comments like that" - in an open meeting? Whyever not? Anyway... |
| Local resident concern |
One resident said that they felt as though they were "a bloody nuisance" to the club. The board said that that wasn't the case, but then did their best to dissuade any more questions from this area for the rest of the meeting. One lady was upset that the ballboys had destroyed her fence while getting the balls back, without her permission. The initial response from Terry Weir was that they were "trying to get a better centre-forward to prevent that from happening". All quite funny, but probably quite annoying for the bloody nuisance local. He did, however, say that the club "should" (not would you'll notice) pay for any damage.
CCTV may be installed soon, in association with DSS (the owners of Kingsmeadow athletic). |
| The reserves |
| The reserve team was only re-started as "an individual" said that he would pay for the running of it, but he didn't. This caused many problems, not least the travel to the last away game. The coach for this was partly funded by the manager, with the balance being made up by the players. |
| Supporter representation |
| A proposal was made that a supporters club representative sit on the board, which will be discussed at the next meeting. If this is voted down, Robert Woolfson said that he would be available for any meetings which were held by the supporters. |
| Replica shirts |
| Available Now!! |
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