So, these are all things that have been said in recent weeks - can anyone confirm any further information? For me this is one of the biggest issues, people getting dribs and drabs and then rumours start flying all over the place...I'm assuming our WUSA leader who is on the board has these answers?
Club nearly went under this season on multiple occasions.
The club will be moving out of PVR in the near future.
The Chairman Paul Whitehead is stepping down
Someone was signing the players other than Warren Feeney
Over the last few years with lots of turmoil, the one constant has been the Chairman Paul. His support of the club and his interaction with supporters has been first class and a huge positive for the club.
To now hear he is stepping down but nothing official from the club ?
Can anyone from the club please confirm if these rumours are correct or not ?
Club nearly went under this season on multiple occasions. I've no insight into club finances, my guess is like all other clubs unexpected massive increases in cost of living - fuel etc, will have caught the club out in its budget.
The club will be moving out of PVR in the near future. First I've heard of this, though it seems from comments as though other fans already know about this.
The Chairman Paul Whitehead is stepping down. Nigel's comment was the first I knew of this. Paul has been fantastic in giving clear sight of the team goals are this season - top half of the table, looking up, not looking down, and building a core of players for next season. The core of players is unlikely to materialise, I can't imagine many current players want another season of Warren, and we ended up with another relegation scrap. A massive part of management is managing expectations, with low expectations it is hard to fail or disappoint, high expectations risks failure and disappointment. This is why Warren is self protective, so aims expectations low, just this aimless complacent approach of taking each game at a time and seeing where it gets us, unlike Paul's dynamic ambitious view. Casual fans aren't interested in coming to watch a team play games that dont really achieve anything, whereas teams going for promotion play games to attract fans.
Someone was signing the players other than Warren Feeney. Responsibility for signing players has never really been clear. You can see Warren as usual is trying to pass the blame onto others when things go wrong, so presents a version he plays players he is given. But he will have signed some of the current team based on his own view of them, so it will be a mix of some he rates and signed, others some others rated and signed. The problems happen when players he didn't sign get marginalised as he never actually wanted them in the first place, so wastes club money on them, and wastes those players' time.
When I was a kid there was only FA cup and England international football on tv, and Match of the Day which was on too late for me, so I had to listen to the radio to keep up with football. So I love Radio Wings, and Nigel's commentary, as it brings all that back to me, and hearing Paul and Mark going bonkers in the background over refs or the opposition is so enjoyable, as they are normally so calm and balanced.
But it shows again Paul's great support of the team. This stepping down as Chairman would make sense for him on a personal level if like us he can see what is going wrong, but gets frustrated by being ignored by the owners when he points it out. But for the club it is a massive mistake not to value Paul's clear direction, which is always driven by what is best for the club, not by the personal loyalties that the owners are mistakenly driven by.
Paul has given a clear transparent face for the club, whereas apart from drinking in the bar with fans the owners have been invisible. I got in touch with Paul a couple of times, once to make some suggestions about possible ways to increase attendances (putting up posters so casual passers by could see when we were playing, and then maybe drop in to watch a game, putting club site links on YouTube highlights so viewers could see when our next matches would be, things like that). Paul asked for my number as he joked my e mail was (surprise surprise!) so long it was impossible to sit down and reply to. But he took the time to call me and talk through all the points I had raised. That engagement of his with a fan really impressed me. I got in touch with him again to raise my concerns about the manager, as it is obvious to me our manager is another Frank Lampard type, a big ex player full of big talk as a manager, but not able to consistently motivate or show the tactical flexibility one needs to outwit other managers, so goes from one unsuccessful job to another, as he doesn't understand the strengths of his players so doesnt get the best out of a squad. That message was then passed on to the board, who did not have the courtesy that Paul has, of responding to a customer's concerns, as that is what we are, customers of a business, so should be treated with respect, rather than ignored or treated contemptuously.
In theory Paul and the manager should work in a partnership, Paul getting new fans to come along and experience a game at Welling to increase crowd numbers, and Warren puts on good football that makes them want to come back again. Paul has fulfilled his side, but Warren's often pub football approach of whack the ball high up to the striker isn't attractive to watch, so means he is not fulfilling his side. And if I were Paul, working so hard to get new fans in, and then see that effort wasted by someone else, I'd feel quite disillusioned. It is sad, there was a great buzz when we had 1,000 crowds, now it has gone back to 500 as people didn't like what they saw. I feel this has been a waste of a season, what has it actually achieved, but it can't have been easy for Paul to drum up new fans from the community, so he must be feeling it is even more of a waste than me.
So Paul is a fantastic link between fans and the board, and it is very sad if the board don't value that.
Dearest Odin and bexleylion, thanks for your highly relevant contributions to this thread, not off topic at all.
I can't disappoint you with a short relevant post about how off the field things can ruin a club, so here goes...
I said here recently how we could, (in theory!) after lots of promotions be in a much higher league in a few years, coinciding with us all becoming millionaires. Well Yeovil have done it the other way round, coming from the Championship down to our South League in just 10 years, with 4 relegations . An article about their problems shows mistakes very familiar to Welling fans, with lessons we should learn from, so we don't also go into freefall. The article says, The seeds of Yeovil's fortune have been sown in a mess brewing off the pitch for years. The club were already on a downward trajectory when owner Scott Priestnall took over in 2019 as they dropped out of the EFL. But his tenure has been marred by a lack of transparency that has rocked the ship more than steadied it.
Stephen Allinson, who was on the Yeovil board of directors for nearly 20 years until he resigned in 2015, says the blame is collective. "In terms of those who have been leading the club in recent years, we've had the lack of transparency, the lack of communication. Even now I see it - the fans are saying 'what is going to happen?' Sadly it seems at the moment there is not that accountability or responsibility, and then that feeds through." The discontent behind the scenes has seeped into the public domain and inevitably affected performances on the pitch.
For Yeovil to get back into League football fans need clarity over what is going on. The Yeovil manager said, "For [the fans'] sake, the turmoil needs to end. They need a football club to be proud of again and start afresh, put the right people in the right places and start to build the club again,". Hmm, we seem to have lost Paul, and got Warren and Jayke. Right people in the right places?
A club comms member said Yeovil could find it difficult to climb back up the football pyramid. "Don't underestimate the National League South. It will not be easy to get out of that division unless we are structured, have complete clarity or forethought on the way the football club is going to run on and off the pitch,".
We make mistakes Yeovil made, and like them aren't moving forwards because of the gap between the owners and the fans, and the complacency left right and centre, that all can see, but no one does anything to fix, while attendances fall as disillusioned fans keep going off to other clubs.
