The hard work starts NOW!!

 I have never liked the end of a season and that long eight week or so break until the fixtures were released and players returned from their holidays in the sun. With the pandemic and countries not allowing us in, or our government ranking countries Red, Amber and Green, this summer has been like no other for the fans and the players in the lower leagues, trying to find work for next season. 

 

Of course, the restrictions don’t matter if you are a International player, or one of the 2.5k VIP’s due to descend on Wembley for the finals of Euro 2020, but enough of that for now.

 

Personally I have been able to keep myself busy as my family have moved to Epsom after eight years in Crawley. Due to Covid, it was just me for the move and we had around 10 days to get everything sorted, which sounds decent, but as I realised, it fly’s by!

 

I completed the final car load yesterday and now we can un-box everything at our leisure and enjoy being in a lovely part of Epsom. Of course, the main celebration of my move was that I am now 25 miles closer to Plough Lane than I was at the end of last season. My wife & I moved to Crawley simply for work, yet eight years is a long time and since we moved, we have had a son and my wife is no longer able to work, and with the pandemic over the last 16 months, working from home is now a thing and we certainly took this into consideration when we looked at new properties. I can imagine in years to come, high streets being changed from commercial to residential and new properties taking into consideration that a working area or room is needed even more now.

 

I have watched all of England’s games in this years Euro 2020 tournament but it just isn’t the same with 25% capacities at stadiums like Wembley. This is the second biggest international tournament in the football calendar and it just isn’t the same with the ground being so empty. I can happily watch a football match locally with 2 people and their dog, however its very difficult to get caught up in games when important goals are scored in front of fans social distanced, or supposed to be. To ask a fan at these games to stay in their seat when a goal is scored and not hug or be within two meters of the next person is impossible and never going to happen. Half the time I would be looking at crowd shots and thinking “COVID” and why are you not wearing a mask. Don’t get me wrong, I am now done with wearing a mask, especially outside, but we are creatures of habit and routine and I can’t be the only person thinking this when they watch games. Does anybody also watch tv programmes and instantly judge somebody who is not socially distanced and then check when the episode was recorded?

 

On a separate note, the ground capacities at other stadiums are so disjointed and it was literally full capacity in Bucharest. 

 

With freedom day moved back so that the former Health Secretary could bond further with their colleagues, we are now starting to realise that freedom day, take two scheduled for 19^th July is actually going to happen and summer sporting events are now starting to release details of their plans. Wimbledon Tennis has started at 50% capacity, with people being asked to produce evidence of being double jabbed, or a negative test result taken recently. Silverstone has announced that they will have 120k people attending the Grand Prix later next month and we have confirmed that our second test event for Plough Lane will be on Saturday 17^th June with Brentford from the English Premier League (EPL) the visitors. The event is a freebie for ST holders and they will be able to apply for their ticket from Thursday 1^stJuly.  I understand the debenture holders without ST’s for this year are not included in the free tickets which I find a little harsh. Many people I know purchased debentures so they could guarantee their seat for 11 years and pay a discounted price for a match ticket. Those people have financially helped the club in its time of need and I would of hoped we would of considered that when looking at the criteria for the second test event. 

 

The second test event is for the West Stand only and will include the facilities being open for refreshments and food, although I am confident that the entry to the ground is the only thing free of charge on the day.  It will be just under a month since the first test event when Brentford visit Plough Lane and it will be good to see the progress.  Most of the work is behind the stands at Plough Lane and I am hoping that club shop will be open for business on this occasion, along with the other facilities that we have an outside company Elior controlling and this will be our first experience of them and I hear good things already. 

 

Our first team returned to the training ground last Thursday for the dreaded bleep test and general health checks. No longer do you see players return for pre-season out of shape, which can make the first pre-season friendlies a bit boring as you can no longer poke fun at players returning on the larger side. Bayo did return overweight in his second season with us after six-weeks in America, however nobody was brave enough to let him know, that we knew he was a little larger than normal. We all recognise the amazing transformation Robbo and his management team produced over the second half of last season and I am sure I am not the only person eager to see what players Robbo, along with the recruitment committee have managed to attract for his first full season in League One. We shouldn’t have been surprised this week with players returning to an improved training ground and new messages. 

 

“Welcome to Hard Work” was the message at the entrance for the players (credit to Rocket for the picture)  first day and instantly they would be reminded of the job in hand. These messages are priceless as the last thing Robbo wants to be doing every day is verbally reminding them of this very simple, but effective message. As fans we may think this is a given for any player, but we are all human and need to be reminded of the values and expectations of Robbo and his management team, which has seen a new coach arriving this week and promotion for others from the club. Rob Tuvey impressed Robbo so much last season that his promotion from U18’s to Assistant Head Coach is now permanent. Rob started as a U7’s coach in our academy nine years ago and this demonstrates that a pathway into the first team is not limited to players only. 

 

Micheal Hamilton will take on the Loans Manager role that will be instrumental for our players to gain the experience needed and Jack Matthews will be responsible for individual development as a coach, setting goals and targets for the players. Micheal has been with the club for over 13 years and you can see that our management team now is steeped in Wimbledon culture and that excites me for the future. Finally Robbo was busy after the season finished doing the rounds presenting at EPL clubs to encourage them to send their young stars to Plough Lane. Robbo felt these went really well and we have now seen that part of that presentation was built around offering the EPL clubs young coaches, an opportunity to join his first team management team and Chelsea’s U18’s assistant manager, Jake Simmonds joins us until the end of the year. This is a master stroke by Robbo as this further strengthens our relationship with these clubs and also we anticipate they go back to their parent club with additional experience of first team football, but also championing our club and that they should be sending their players to Wimbledon because of the set up and experience they had personally. You only have to look at the experience former England U16 & U17’s coach Justin Cochrane gained last year and he has now moved into Head of First Team Development at Manchester United, to see how much this helps coaches. We also have a person at one of the biggest clubs in the world who will actively look at sending someone to us hopefully and not build a plan to take Coxy from us to United. 

 

Fixtures come out last week and we have an exciting trip to Doncaster for the opening game. I say exciting, but to be fair, any game is exciting. Of course with the pandemic limiting attendances and travelling, we have no idea if away fans are allowed for the start of the season, so purchasing those early bird train tickets might not be wise, However I have no idea if they have Covid insurance protection that most holidays abroad have free of charge at the moment. The EFL have again been silent about attendances which should not surprise anyone, but surely some information could have been released as the fixtures were announced. The only thing that was announced the evening before the fixtures were released, was that Derby County and Wycombe Wanderers will have reversible fixtures due to the EFL challenging the independent committee decision on Derby County around financial information not being as transparent as they would have liked.  Whilst I think Derby should be punished by a point deduction if its proved they did do something wrong, how the hell do either clubs prepare for this season when they don’t know what division they will be in. Wycombe have released five players, including Darius Charles, Ryan Allsop and Fred Onyedinma departing for Luton for and undisclosed fee – I hate undisclosed fees and this should be stopped by someone, anyone! Derby released 16 players in the summer and some big earners in Scott Carson and Scott Malone. The EFL need to act quickly so that these clubs can plan accordingly as I would imagine ST prices and wage budgets have already been set by both clubs. 

 

The Dons Trust Board (DTB) released an excellent financial review a few weeks ago and it clearly showed the challenges we have as owners to ensure the financial security of our club. The stand out information was the need to refinance the £4.6m bridging loan that has been taken out by the DTB. These types of loans are traditionally high interest loans and typically only used when all other options are closed.  Whilst we have a lovely £32m stadium, we have no financial data from the earnings due to no fans being allowed in the stadium. This naturally creates concern for banks lending us money which is understandable, but also frustrating. Recently we have seen 25 year season tickets launched with the aim of a sizeable number of these being purchased to reduce the bridging loan significantly as it needs to be paid and refinanced by April 2022. As good as the financial review was, it also made me realise what a challenging situation we are in as a club. The language used in the review is deliberate and the first time I have seen the DTB officially spell out clearly the implications if we don’t refinance it. We have to remember this doesn’t include the £5.5m owed on the Plough Lane Bonds, however this is controllable debt and from friendlier loanees. 

 

The DTB also provided a financial plan for season 2021/22 which anticipated an average attendance of 7.5k, Plough Lane fully operational, realising commercial income, including event space and London Broncos ground share. The plan also budgets for us being knocked out in the first round of every cup competition and no player sales. 

 

Little progress on the ground share and it is still with Merton Council after we submitted our plans to them over a month ago. If this is part of the financial plan for next season, we surely need this to start moving at some speed as the season has already started for Broncos and they finish in September. 

 

Not including cup runs is old school and Erik did this every season and I would think the player sales was not included also. We need to start gaining income from the player we produce, especially first team players. Our Academy effectively pays for itself with the fees received from players that we have not seen get even close to our first team. We don’t hear loads about this as these are small fees but they accumulate nicely and the sale of Leo Castledine will certainly see us receive some good add on’s as he progress in his career. For the old school Wimbledon fans from the 90’s, selling your best players in the summer was the norm and it kept us going season after season. To highlight a few, season 1994/95 saw John Scales go to Liverpool for £3.5m, 1995/96 saw Warren Barton go to Newcastle for £4.5m and Steve Anthrobus go to Shrewsbury for £25k.

 

We then invested this money for the next future star, for example we brought Oyvind Leonhardsen for £650k from Rosenborg in 1994 and sold him to Liverpool for £3.5m three years later. Another example is Ben Thatcher from Millwall for £1.8m in 1996 and sold him 4 years later to Spurs for £5m.

 

I appreciate times have changed and its not as easy now with the EPPP restricting clubs developing and receiving a fair fee for the time spent developing their talents, but we still have examples around the league, with Peterborough and Luton Town being success stories of buying cheap and selling high and its something we could follow if we are able to gain transfer fees from our players to then reinvest. Back in the summer of 1997, we had a total profit £1.5m with us selling 4 players for £7.8m and investing £6.3m for 6 players, yet one of those players sold for £3.5m was Dean Holdsworth, who joined in 1992 from Brentford for £650k. The 6 players brought that season ended up being a batch of players that we made little profit from them years later, but that was due to the unsettling times and relegation from the EPL.  Although we did pick up Michael Hughes, Andy Roberts and Carl Leaburn who all become legendary for many different reasons. 

 

Our own sellable assets at the moment are Jack Rudoni & Ayoub Assal and we have to accept that we will need to sell them at some point to start the journey of investing and selling at value. One thing that was always guaranteed back in the 90’s, was that we would always see our academy players get into the first team, help them to stay in the EPL and then move on with thanks and love. I always accepted that and a big percentage of the fans did, but it was a small price to pay rather than the current situation of players leaving for nothing, which has happened too much in recent years, not all by choice, but we need to learn and ensure that we receive money not budgeted to pay of the our debts, starting with the £4.6m bridging loan.