Remember, Remember the money available in November!

 

This time of the year is often known for its frightening effect and we had our own fright with a comeback win against Harrogate Town on Saturday. Even with my blue and yellow tinted glasses on, I have no doubt that Harrogate did enough to take something back to Yorkshire, but as we all know, football isn’t always about what you deserve and it's a result business. 

Plough Lane was turning against the team when Pattison scored the second for Harrogate and the introduction of Hudlin & Senior straight away, then Alfie Bendle a minute before we got back on level terms, provided us with the momentum and we managed to turn it around and make it a seven out nine point week. 

Personally I was shattered at the final whistle and just took it all in and watched the celebrations whilst clapping the team off. The image I took away was the celebrations on the touchline. JJ along with his coaching team hugged each other in a round circle and I couldn’t help thinking that they all knew the importance of this comeback. I can’t imagine the pressure JJ must be under at the moment as it feels that social media is full of fans predicting that he will get dismissed if we lose the next game and this was a make or break week for him with nine points available. 

I am happy to go on record that after a few doubts early on, I am now firmly of the opinion that JJ needs to be given time and at least another transfer window in January to shape this team. We have picked up so many injuries and it seems that when one player returns, someone else picks up an injury. We can’t keep changing the manager for changing sake and we need to build something with JJ and let him benefit from the impending recruitment of our Head of Football Operations. One thing I think the club needs to do is to get JJ in front of the fans more, away from the football and build up his relationship with the fans. Everyone that I speak to who knows JJ speaks highly of him and tells me what a really good person he is. The club needs to allow us fans to see this and it will only help him when he no doubt has some rough moments, and he will benefit from an improved, closer relationship with us fans. 

The start of November is always an interesting one in the football season as we enter the FA Cup at the First Round Proper stage. Add the Dons Trust Elections taking place this month and then add that our new Managing Director, Danny Macklin starts today, it could be a welcome distraction for the fans and give JJ a chance to do some work under the radar. 

Cup football will dominate the football calendar for Wimbledon this month and of course the national team departs for the Middle East in a couple of weeks for the World Cup, which is going to be the weirdest World Cup ever, with it being in the middle of the season. 

Every season we budget to be knocked out of the three cup competitions our senior team enter in the first round, to be drawn away and effectively make no money whatsoever. That was wise for the Carabao Cup as we lost 2-0 to Gillingham, however we were drawn at home and will have made some additional money compared to what we budgeted, although the profit will be limited based on the 3,008 attendance on the evening. We were drawn away to National League South bottom team Weymouth, in the FA Cup being played this Saturday and the winners of this tie will be rewarded with £41k. Weymouth’s FA Cup campaign started in mid-September and wins against Winchester City, Welling United and Havant & Waterlooville have earned them £18,375 up to this point. Depending on the draw for the second round, a draw for either team against a team in a higher division at home could attract the TV cameras which will provide £72k guaranteed and the winner £67k and a third round appearance. 

Tonight we go to Portsmouth in the final group game of the Papa Johns Trophy and a win will guarantee us a home game in the second round. This competition has been boycotted by the majority of fans over the years since the introduction of the EPL U21 teams and some fans reading this will be wondering why I am even bothering to discuss it and treat it as a senior team competition we should be even bothered about. 

My attitude with this competition is that the moment we enter it, we should be trying to do as well as possible, considering all the bonus money that we didn’t budget for.  This season each club entering the competition was guaranteed £20k, an additional £10k per win and £5 per draw. With our wins against Aston Villa U21’s and Crawley we already have banked £40k including any money made from attendances for the Crawley game once expenses have been deducted. 

A win in the second round is worth £20k, Third round £40k, Quarter Finals £50k and the eventual winners receive £100k. Potentially it's worth up to £260k to the winner and even if we don’t get that far, the additional money from attendances would make it a competition that could significantly help our budget. 

When you think that we had a £900k shortfall in the summer we needed to make up to have a competitive budget for the playing budget, November is a month where a few wins at the right time could give our new MD, Danny Macklin some additional fixtures and opportunity to maximise any additional income.

Interestingly Danny Macklin was tweeting yesterday, and this is something that I think we will see more of from him, that he is going to use the same tactic as he did when he joined Leyton Orient, of using the first 100 days to absorb as much information as possible and speak to key stakeholders and fans.

All I would say Danny, is that 7 days is a long time at Wimbledon, so hold on tight and get ready for the ride!