Post by Gary Walker on Jun 15, 2013 18:26:34 GMT -5
Us long suffering supporters have had a crap time for most of the years we supported the club.
I remember when Derek Fossett and my dad used to travel with me when we would take 4 coaches to Yeovil Town FC, 3 Supporters and 1 team coach, I eat a pastie which Derek heated for me and was sick on the way. My Granddad Joe Walker RIP... was on the committee and used to arrange the entertainment. Bingo and Disco mainly put people used to turn up in their hundreds. He only went to home games because he was preparing the night entertainments. At that time we also used to have a supporters team and my Uncle Ricky RIP... for those who knew him he was a gentle giant used to play as I did. So Tooting and Mitcham United FC has been part of me and my family for all my life. I wanted to put I hope a balanced view on the clubs currant situation and the resignations of Bill Hill has prompted this from me. I would like to make it clear I have not spoke to Bill since about this.
At Sandy lane we reached real lows. Going down from the Isthmian at slough was the start of the decline ( I was there) or was it when Jack Pain was Manager then chairman or Chairman then manager I was a very young boy then, that must have been the 80s, if my memories serves me right we went down to the 2nd division which is about the combine counties level now.
When people say our once great club , I really do think, really? Where was you?
A lot has been wrote about the brewery demanding their money back, Steve Adkins took over and bla bla bla..................2005 the club was sold down the river ….............bla bla bla.......................
Now. I have kept my powder dry about my experience working there and there was in fact allegations regarding myself floating about which I have not defended publicly because I do not want to be banned from the club. Also it was 4 years ago and the people that was around me that I care about know the truth and saw the pain and hard work I went through, starting at 7.30 in the morning and having meetings with the Asian Football Association at 8 o'clock at night. If I charged the minimum wage then I would of earned thousands. Why am I mentioning this now ? Because what I am going to say next is very controversial. Might upset the vibe etc but I feel it needs to be said.
Before I do, I would like to say that I am very pleased our own golden son has returned. I will give him 100% support, if Craig can not keep us up ,with all his mates playing then nobody can.
Now the problem with Tooting and Mitcham United FC since 1938 the way I see it.
This are my views , right or wrong but this is how I feel after supporting the club for 38 years.
For me there is so many political and logistic problems at Tooting and Mitcham United FC.
Where do I start? I guess with the logistic and commercial side of the club.
When I was a kid I can remember and this is not a criticism against these hard working club people. Alan Simpson ,Dave McCann and Roy Simpson telling me all the amazing facilities that was being planned with a move form Sandy Lane. Here we are in 2013 and we have had them now for 8 years but its all wrong. If we take a step back and look at the new 3G or 4G pitches, the amazing and I mean amazing facilities at the back of the main pitch. WOW we are the envy of the whole non league footballing world .not alone the English league. Now I have said before and I will say it again, Steve Adkins did that. In fact Steve Adkins and the very hard working Jackie Watkins also did all of that. Who paid for this? From what I understand Jackie Watkins and Steve Adkins and their solicitors wrote countless proposal to the Surrey FA and other funders to get the funding. But please remember that the money was from the name and was proposed to support the community of Tooting and Mitcham United FC and the local people in the London Borough of Merton. Now they have both upset many many people. But, Every thing you see , the facilities is down to there hard work, Did they earn thousand of pounds out of all this? I bloody hope so. I know these 2 start very early in the morning because I was there with them and finish very late at night. Most of the time 7 days a week. So does anyone that puts in the hours and work hard making big commercial decisions deserve to earn big money? Yes of course they do. How much is not for me to say and I don't know and do not want to know. I just wanted to give a balanced view as I see Steve Adkins and Jackie Watkins.
Now the logistics of the club and the mistakes that for me have been made at the club, or is the club really design to fail so that Jackie and Steve can earn even more money out of a take over deal from another sporting entity.? I am not saying they are , I don't know, but this is on the supporters minds. So lets put it out there. For me if we continue as we are ,well will still be in this position and we Tooting and Mitcham United FC will not be in business for much longer. We will then all be forced to leave the old bastard we all love and follow the new break away club,which might be the only option if the club is designed to fail only time will tell. Now, what needs to change. We need to get rid of all the franchises. When the owner of Newcastle looked at the way his club was run, he very soon got rid of all the franchises, the gym they own the catering the lot. Now football clubs can cost a stupid amounts of money to run. I think I was told that with a reasonable budget it would cost £200,000 a season. to run the first team with the electric bills,wages,transport kits etc. For a normal club this would be a mountain to climb. For Tooting and Mitcham this should be a piece of cake. The more I am learning about football clubs the more I believe that Tooting can if the owners wanted be the best and largest football club in South London. Bigger and better than Crystal Palace one day. Maybe why not? I think there is so many company's that want to advertise at Tooting and Mitcham United FC so that's one income. Then the play centre the profits from that. The club shop,do a deal with Macron , I know Ray their sales director and sell there products to local football teams. With Steve Adkins buying power we could sell a range of football boots on line and to our own teams .The Gym,and the Catering all the profits should be going to the club after all the staff have been paid. Who could help you do this? Speak to my old mate Simon at Simon;s Café Wimbledon Stadium who used to do all the catering at Kingston and AFC Wimbledon before he was had over. I showed him round when I worked there and he was very keen to come on board. I would employ a osteopath in the surgery room at the back of the gym and again put the profits into the pot. The small match day takens would also go into the pot. I would bring back or Copy Sutton United FC's Boom Boom club, I went to the Queens tribute night, It was Rocking I loved it. I would advertise and do special entry prices for Tooting Fans and chance for Tooting fans to have a drink together and really get a community club feeling,
There is so much money that is made through football academy's in general. I don't mean our ones , I honestly don't know anything about ours. But other academy earn so much money if run correctly. Lets call it a figure of £2500 a kids x a squad of 15 makes £37,000 a squad, If you have 3 squads that's £112500 a season, minus the wages of the staff and travel .Plus I have heard that some clubs charge the parents £500 a season. So that's £7500 a squad. Then you get the squad a different shirt and kit sponsor each. Lets be really conservative and call that £2000 a kit, which will pay for 15 kits and tracksuits ,so that self funds itself. Then you get a first team sponsor at say £2000 a kit, the list goes on. Ground sponsorship etc. The club needs to mirror Sutton United FC, they have not got nearly half the facility's that we have,but they have done there business in a friendlily welcoming way and that's what Tooting needs. A massive income for the club must be the 3g pitches, I tried to hire a pitch for training at Goals. Please understand that these pitches are in a really bad state. I wouldn't let my dog walk on them .,but they was charging £65 a hour for a five a side pitch, so how much could you or do we charge for our state of the art pitches? I believe in commercial interprice and we have now got a great groundsman so why not earn more income from renting out the main pitch? As long as it does not affect the first team games.
Now the junior income and football, Carshalton athletic FC have to be applauded as the best commercial set up in non league football for kids. They have just won a national award for doing this. I worked there last season and this really opened my eyes to the amount of money and profit you can make for kids football. If you have say 3 teams a age group as they have, 4 in some cases, and have squads of 12. Charge a sponsor £500 a team to pay for a kit and a jacket, then there is no out lay apart from the hire of pitches which Tooting own for free with the funding. Some clubs charge their parents £200 a player so that's £2400 a team x 3 per age groups = £ 7200 from the ages of 8 to 16 so 8 age groups 8X £7200 = £57600 PROFIT per season that should go into the pot anyone keeping up on how much we have so far? as I have said before this posting would also employ someone like the guy we used to emply Chris the company development officer. Lets get into the schools and get people excited about Tooting. WHY IS CRYSTAL PALACE PROMOTING THEIR FUCKING CLUB AT OUR CLUB,WITH OUR FAN BASE? Lets get our own coaches our own kids and coaching schools and put the profits again into the pot.What would this mean for Steve and Jackie? I am sorry this will mean that you would have to employ people to help you do this. You would have to trust someone or someone's to help you. I think the club needs to be stripped back and start again. This can not be done for 2013. But why not start a realistic goal for 2014. Craig Tanners appointment might be the start of a new generation of Tooting and Mitcham or we can just carry on and the club can keep failing, We as supporters will join the breakaway club and you can have your facilities.
Now the members club. For me they mean well. But unfortunately they are too fair out of date. We do not need a committee in its current format. Steve Adkins treats you all with contempt ,rightly or wrongly and you are not able to make decisions. The members club are hanging on the fact that the club can not be sold unless they say so. Please. This is very delusional. We already have Crystal Palace FC promoting their club at the Carshalton Carnival. I understand they are going to be at the Mitcham Carnival. “Come to Tooting and Mitcham “they say. BUT Tooting will not be there, Come and train with Crystal Palace, and by the way are you a member of Crystal Palace FC? NO OK sign this form and pay £25 and you can watch us in the Premiership. Don't worry Tooting and Mitcham will not mind. There is nobody here to stop us??
Who Employed Craig? Steve Adkins , so what's the point of the members club? We still need volunteers at the club, the stewards, people who will run the Tooting and Mitcham tea bar , not the catering that should be run by full time employees. What do the members club really do? Apart from their own tea and cakes? I am bored with the members club sold our club to Steve Adkins and he fucked us over attitude.Just give him the shares, If he wants to he will not fund the club and run it down anyway. If this is not happening already, This would also make shares available to people or companies that might want to invest in the club, although next time do not let them run it all . The Joe Sealey experience was embarrassing.
What is it going to be? Is this our last season with Craig or is this going to be the start of a new club being born? Keeping its old history but moving Tooting and Mitcham to a level that its facilities deserve. The shares are worth less. We all know that, so do we keep them and make nice tea and cakes and enjoy feeling important, or do we give them to Steve and say OK, now what? The football club needs the mechanics of the Hub or what ever its called now days. The Hub has earned its facility from the name of the football club, So for me they should benefit each other. I said earlier that I feel that people should earn a good living from all their hard work for many years. But if we changed the way we work we could all benefit and profit from it,including the local people, which the funding was aimed at in the first place and including the main directors and investors.
Another thing that needs to happen is unity.
There is is for a fact pockets of them and us at Tooting and Mitcham, There is the I hate Stan Churchillman club, there is the members club, there is the Bogend behind the goal ( we love you chaps) there is the I want to turn up pay my money to get in, not use any other facilities because it seems so unfriendly here gang. There is the customers that use the facility's but never get involved with the football, I used to ask customer if they knew we was a football club 70% said no.
If you have not given up on my posting and you are still with me and I have not pissed you off , in Jimmy Carr Style this one might.
OK here goes, We Tooting and Mitcham needs to swallow our pride, put a commercial hat on and bring the very clever people who have upset us or we have up set back into the club, Stan Churchallman ,Bolty, Bill Hill, Cheezer, We need the talented Gideon Jackson, I would put him in charge of the academy's, Rob Scanterbury, Danny Carroll, Matt Yorke,Jamie Byatt, Collin Hurtburn ,Martin Hazelwood, Jo uefa B coach ex player (female) Jefferson,etc We need these talented people.
I personally have been asked to join three committees at three different clubs, I have always declined because I am Tooting and Mitcham through and through, Not just in the last couple of years,but for 38 years. I am young and ambitious still at 38, I just wish my club was as ambitious.
Thanks for reading this and I will put my tin hat on for all the missiles.
I remember when Derek Fossett and my dad used to travel with me when we would take 4 coaches to Yeovil Town FC, 3 Supporters and 1 team coach, I eat a pastie which Derek heated for me and was sick on the way. My Granddad Joe Walker RIP... was on the committee and used to arrange the entertainment. Bingo and Disco mainly put people used to turn up in their hundreds. He only went to home games because he was preparing the night entertainments. At that time we also used to have a supporters team and my Uncle Ricky RIP... for those who knew him he was a gentle giant used to play as I did. So Tooting and Mitcham United FC has been part of me and my family for all my life. I wanted to put I hope a balanced view on the clubs currant situation and the resignations of Bill Hill has prompted this from me. I would like to make it clear I have not spoke to Bill since about this.
At Sandy lane we reached real lows. Going down from the Isthmian at slough was the start of the decline ( I was there) or was it when Jack Pain was Manager then chairman or Chairman then manager I was a very young boy then, that must have been the 80s, if my memories serves me right we went down to the 2nd division which is about the combine counties level now.
When people say our once great club , I really do think, really? Where was you?
A lot has been wrote about the brewery demanding their money back, Steve Adkins took over and bla bla bla..................2005 the club was sold down the river ….............bla bla bla.......................
Now. I have kept my powder dry about my experience working there and there was in fact allegations regarding myself floating about which I have not defended publicly because I do not want to be banned from the club. Also it was 4 years ago and the people that was around me that I care about know the truth and saw the pain and hard work I went through, starting at 7.30 in the morning and having meetings with the Asian Football Association at 8 o'clock at night. If I charged the minimum wage then I would of earned thousands. Why am I mentioning this now ? Because what I am going to say next is very controversial. Might upset the vibe etc but I feel it needs to be said.
Before I do, I would like to say that I am very pleased our own golden son has returned. I will give him 100% support, if Craig can not keep us up ,with all his mates playing then nobody can.
Now the problem with Tooting and Mitcham United FC since 1938 the way I see it.
This are my views , right or wrong but this is how I feel after supporting the club for 38 years.
For me there is so many political and logistic problems at Tooting and Mitcham United FC.
Where do I start? I guess with the logistic and commercial side of the club.
When I was a kid I can remember and this is not a criticism against these hard working club people. Alan Simpson ,Dave McCann and Roy Simpson telling me all the amazing facilities that was being planned with a move form Sandy Lane. Here we are in 2013 and we have had them now for 8 years but its all wrong. If we take a step back and look at the new 3G or 4G pitches, the amazing and I mean amazing facilities at the back of the main pitch. WOW we are the envy of the whole non league footballing world .not alone the English league. Now I have said before and I will say it again, Steve Adkins did that. In fact Steve Adkins and the very hard working Jackie Watkins also did all of that. Who paid for this? From what I understand Jackie Watkins and Steve Adkins and their solicitors wrote countless proposal to the Surrey FA and other funders to get the funding. But please remember that the money was from the name and was proposed to support the community of Tooting and Mitcham United FC and the local people in the London Borough of Merton. Now they have both upset many many people. But, Every thing you see , the facilities is down to there hard work, Did they earn thousand of pounds out of all this? I bloody hope so. I know these 2 start very early in the morning because I was there with them and finish very late at night. Most of the time 7 days a week. So does anyone that puts in the hours and work hard making big commercial decisions deserve to earn big money? Yes of course they do. How much is not for me to say and I don't know and do not want to know. I just wanted to give a balanced view as I see Steve Adkins and Jackie Watkins.
Now the logistics of the club and the mistakes that for me have been made at the club, or is the club really design to fail so that Jackie and Steve can earn even more money out of a take over deal from another sporting entity.? I am not saying they are , I don't know, but this is on the supporters minds. So lets put it out there. For me if we continue as we are ,well will still be in this position and we Tooting and Mitcham United FC will not be in business for much longer. We will then all be forced to leave the old bastard we all love and follow the new break away club,which might be the only option if the club is designed to fail only time will tell. Now, what needs to change. We need to get rid of all the franchises. When the owner of Newcastle looked at the way his club was run, he very soon got rid of all the franchises, the gym they own the catering the lot. Now football clubs can cost a stupid amounts of money to run. I think I was told that with a reasonable budget it would cost £200,000 a season. to run the first team with the electric bills,wages,transport kits etc. For a normal club this would be a mountain to climb. For Tooting and Mitcham this should be a piece of cake. The more I am learning about football clubs the more I believe that Tooting can if the owners wanted be the best and largest football club in South London. Bigger and better than Crystal Palace one day. Maybe why not? I think there is so many company's that want to advertise at Tooting and Mitcham United FC so that's one income. Then the play centre the profits from that. The club shop,do a deal with Macron , I know Ray their sales director and sell there products to local football teams. With Steve Adkins buying power we could sell a range of football boots on line and to our own teams .The Gym,and the Catering all the profits should be going to the club after all the staff have been paid. Who could help you do this? Speak to my old mate Simon at Simon;s Café Wimbledon Stadium who used to do all the catering at Kingston and AFC Wimbledon before he was had over. I showed him round when I worked there and he was very keen to come on board. I would employ a osteopath in the surgery room at the back of the gym and again put the profits into the pot. The small match day takens would also go into the pot. I would bring back or Copy Sutton United FC's Boom Boom club, I went to the Queens tribute night, It was Rocking I loved it. I would advertise and do special entry prices for Tooting Fans and chance for Tooting fans to have a drink together and really get a community club feeling,
There is so much money that is made through football academy's in general. I don't mean our ones , I honestly don't know anything about ours. But other academy earn so much money if run correctly. Lets call it a figure of £2500 a kids x a squad of 15 makes £37,000 a squad, If you have 3 squads that's £112500 a season, minus the wages of the staff and travel .Plus I have heard that some clubs charge the parents £500 a season. So that's £7500 a squad. Then you get the squad a different shirt and kit sponsor each. Lets be really conservative and call that £2000 a kit, which will pay for 15 kits and tracksuits ,so that self funds itself. Then you get a first team sponsor at say £2000 a kit, the list goes on. Ground sponsorship etc. The club needs to mirror Sutton United FC, they have not got nearly half the facility's that we have,but they have done there business in a friendlily welcoming way and that's what Tooting needs. A massive income for the club must be the 3g pitches, I tried to hire a pitch for training at Goals. Please understand that these pitches are in a really bad state. I wouldn't let my dog walk on them .,but they was charging £65 a hour for a five a side pitch, so how much could you or do we charge for our state of the art pitches? I believe in commercial interprice and we have now got a great groundsman so why not earn more income from renting out the main pitch? As long as it does not affect the first team games.
Now the junior income and football, Carshalton athletic FC have to be applauded as the best commercial set up in non league football for kids. They have just won a national award for doing this. I worked there last season and this really opened my eyes to the amount of money and profit you can make for kids football. If you have say 3 teams a age group as they have, 4 in some cases, and have squads of 12. Charge a sponsor £500 a team to pay for a kit and a jacket, then there is no out lay apart from the hire of pitches which Tooting own for free with the funding. Some clubs charge their parents £200 a player so that's £2400 a team x 3 per age groups = £ 7200 from the ages of 8 to 16 so 8 age groups 8X £7200 = £57600 PROFIT per season that should go into the pot anyone keeping up on how much we have so far? as I have said before this posting would also employ someone like the guy we used to emply Chris the company development officer. Lets get into the schools and get people excited about Tooting. WHY IS CRYSTAL PALACE PROMOTING THEIR FUCKING CLUB AT OUR CLUB,WITH OUR FAN BASE? Lets get our own coaches our own kids and coaching schools and put the profits again into the pot.What would this mean for Steve and Jackie? I am sorry this will mean that you would have to employ people to help you do this. You would have to trust someone or someone's to help you. I think the club needs to be stripped back and start again. This can not be done for 2013. But why not start a realistic goal for 2014. Craig Tanners appointment might be the start of a new generation of Tooting and Mitcham or we can just carry on and the club can keep failing, We as supporters will join the breakaway club and you can have your facilities.
Now the members club. For me they mean well. But unfortunately they are too fair out of date. We do not need a committee in its current format. Steve Adkins treats you all with contempt ,rightly or wrongly and you are not able to make decisions. The members club are hanging on the fact that the club can not be sold unless they say so. Please. This is very delusional. We already have Crystal Palace FC promoting their club at the Carshalton Carnival. I understand they are going to be at the Mitcham Carnival. “Come to Tooting and Mitcham “they say. BUT Tooting will not be there, Come and train with Crystal Palace, and by the way are you a member of Crystal Palace FC? NO OK sign this form and pay £25 and you can watch us in the Premiership. Don't worry Tooting and Mitcham will not mind. There is nobody here to stop us??
Who Employed Craig? Steve Adkins , so what's the point of the members club? We still need volunteers at the club, the stewards, people who will run the Tooting and Mitcham tea bar , not the catering that should be run by full time employees. What do the members club really do? Apart from their own tea and cakes? I am bored with the members club sold our club to Steve Adkins and he fucked us over attitude.Just give him the shares, If he wants to he will not fund the club and run it down anyway. If this is not happening already, This would also make shares available to people or companies that might want to invest in the club, although next time do not let them run it all . The Joe Sealey experience was embarrassing.
What is it going to be? Is this our last season with Craig or is this going to be the start of a new club being born? Keeping its old history but moving Tooting and Mitcham to a level that its facilities deserve. The shares are worth less. We all know that, so do we keep them and make nice tea and cakes and enjoy feeling important, or do we give them to Steve and say OK, now what? The football club needs the mechanics of the Hub or what ever its called now days. The Hub has earned its facility from the name of the football club, So for me they should benefit each other. I said earlier that I feel that people should earn a good living from all their hard work for many years. But if we changed the way we work we could all benefit and profit from it,including the local people, which the funding was aimed at in the first place and including the main directors and investors.
Another thing that needs to happen is unity.
There is is for a fact pockets of them and us at Tooting and Mitcham, There is the I hate Stan Churchillman club, there is the members club, there is the Bogend behind the goal ( we love you chaps) there is the I want to turn up pay my money to get in, not use any other facilities because it seems so unfriendly here gang. There is the customers that use the facility's but never get involved with the football, I used to ask customer if they knew we was a football club 70% said no.
If you have not given up on my posting and you are still with me and I have not pissed you off , in Jimmy Carr Style this one might.
OK here goes, We Tooting and Mitcham needs to swallow our pride, put a commercial hat on and bring the very clever people who have upset us or we have up set back into the club, Stan Churchallman ,Bolty, Bill Hill, Cheezer, We need the talented Gideon Jackson, I would put him in charge of the academy's, Rob Scanterbury, Danny Carroll, Matt Yorke,Jamie Byatt, Collin Hurtburn ,Martin Hazelwood, Jo uefa B coach ex player (female) Jefferson,etc We need these talented people.
I personally have been asked to join three committees at three different clubs, I have always declined because I am Tooting and Mitcham through and through, Not just in the last couple of years,but for 38 years. I am young and ambitious still at 38, I just wish my club was as ambitious.
Thanks for reading this and I will put my tin hat on for all the missiles.