A perfect place?

During the second half of today's game, I got to thinking about something. Where else but Adams Park can you see a flypast of quails at a football match? Where else, when the game is a little dull, can you look up and see the beautiful English countryside, especially on such a fine day as this afternoon?

For me, Adams Park is perfectly located. For me it's not at the end of an industrial estate, a dull back end of a place that is an eternal reminder of the working week. Instead, for me it is on the edge of the countryside with all the positives that brings. Yes parking is problematic, but if you have to stay around for a little longer at the end of the match I can't think of many other car parks I'd rather be stuck in.

Adams Park is the perfect stadium for a club of our size - not small enough to feel crowded but with plenty of room to move around and not too large that you feel dwarfed by the surroundings. I can't think of a stadium in the country where I would rather watch football than in such a picturesque stadium. Adams Park has a personality all of its own. It will never have the atmosphere of some stadia up and down the country, but what it has is unique.

Shame, then, that some want to throw all this away. Shame that some, including Managing Director Steve Hayes, think that the only way we can survive is to move to a new 17-20,000 seater stadium. Today's attendance, by the way, was 4,067...

Standing Update

Today marks the launch of a new report from the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) to highlight the issue of safe standing at football grounds and to call for the current ban on terracing in the top two tiers of English football to be lifted.

Regular readers of this blog will know that this topic is close to my heart. Although I have a seat at Adams Park, I enjoy standing at away games and would not wish to see a further deterioration of a basic right for supporters to choose whether to stand or sit to watch a football match.

With rumours continuing to circulate about Wycombe moving to a new ground in the future, especially now that Wycombe District Council seem to want to pile in and jump on the 2012 Olympics cashcow, Wycombe supporters need to ensure that this issue remains firmly on the agenda.

What value in moving to a new 15,000 all seater stadium which we cannot fill, will lead to a loss of terracing which supporters clearly value (the Valley End was the only area of the ground to increase its ticket sales this past season), and will undoubtedly lead to a sharp increase in prices to pay for it - especially for those supporters at the moment who stand on the terrace?

A copy of the report can be downloaded from the FSF website here: http://www.fsf.org.uk/news/news0041-safestandinglaunch.html

Club in a Spin

New media man Alan Parry certainly knows a good day to bury bad news when he sees it. He’s also apparently been passing on his Labour-esque advice on spin to the current Board.

While all decent upstanding Wycombe fans were commiserating with their ‘plucky’ non-league neighbours Oxford United, who were so close to their dream of achieving league status once again, shareholders at Wycombe (originally just the ones fortunate enough to be able to fork out a minimum of £500 each but later extended to all Founder Shareholders as some sort of extra 'treat') were being spun a line by the new setup at the club. Fear not, though, for PR guru Parry has spun the same story for all supporters to lap up via the official website.

Last year Wycombe managed to sell two players in Roger Johnson and Kevin Betsy for very considerable sums for a club of our size as well as reach the semi-finals of the League Cup. Behind the scenes, the food & beverage unit managed to increase profit by an ‘astonishing’ £250,000. This enabled Wycombe to ‘slash’ the losses to just under one million pounds.

Yes you did indeed read that correctly. The Wycombe Board of Directors are crowing about the fact that we will only have made a loss of one million pounds this year. That comes on top of a £1.9M loss in the previous financial year, an increase on the £1.1M in the year prior to that. That's a four million pound loss in just three years! I’m sure Alan Parry will be able to remind supporters, but I was under the impression that the club went through a deeply unpopular and controversial conversion to a PLC to enable investment into the club?

Spinning out of control?

A Foot in Two Camps

Worrying news circulating today via the Chairboys on the Net newsdesk and messageboards for both Wasps and Wycombe Wanderers that WWFC MD Steve Hayes may be about to purchase some of the 59% shareholding in our tenants London Wasps held by Chris Wright. The news is also accompanied by suggestions of a Joint Venture between the two clubs as to the management of the stadium.

Clearly, supporters of both clubs would be right to be concerned by this news. With a foot in both camps through major shareholdings in both clubs (and presumably a seat on both Boards of Directors), questions must be asked about a conflict of interest for Hayes, especially where the interests of both clubs do not align. Hopefully, should Hayes appropriate part of the Wasps shareholding safeguards will be put in place to ensure that WWFC's best interests are retained throughout. A closer alignment between the two clubs may not be advantageous to Wycombe Wanderers in the longer term and risks talk of a potential merger between the two clubs for no better reason than expediency and further control for Hayes of our clubs future.

In situations such as this, one turns to the Supporters and Founders Trusts to ascertain the truth and to reassure supporters as to the safeguards that have been agreed. Indeed, I have already contacted both Trust Chairmen with a view to finding more out on this issue.

Watch this space...

FFS... FSF (or something like that)

My copy of The Football Supporter, the FSF publication available to members, arrived through the post this morning. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this issue is dominated by the argument for a return to standing areas at football grounds given recent exposure of this issue via national media, early day motions in Parliament and the like.

In particular, Phill Gatenby, long-time exponent of safe standing (and the FSF's spokesman on the issue), writes about the experience in Germany where fans can stand to watch Bundesliga games for the equivalent of £7.70. Now I'm not saying that there is a link between all-seater stadia and the high prices of English football (even as far as the fourth tier) but... The pricing issue itself is also covered, as you might expect given the FSF's current £15 away ticket petition (for comparison BTW, tickets for away supporters to Wycombe matches are £17 on matchday).

Meanwhile, Amanda Matthews, Co-ordinator of the Stand-Up-Sit-Down campaign, also has a say, looking at the new "Matchday Experience" pervading football grounds across the UK; an experience where you can be searched for offensive bottletops pre-game by an overbearing steward (most of whom in my experience would have found themselves at home in the personal guard of any dictator you might care to mention), while during the game the same individuals will delight in removing you from the stadium for chanting any number of inoffensive chants. Amusingly, Amanda cites the example of the Leyton Orient supporters who were accused of being racist when they chanted to Newcastle supporters that they were "a small team from Scotland". Again, I'm sure that there's no link intended between the removal of standing areas and declining atmospheres at football grounds!

Lighthearted relief is provided by 'Feverbitch' who provides a summary of some of the more amusing chants heard in recent games. "Let's talk about Cesc, Baby" to the tune of Salt'n'Pepa, being the clear winner in my view. Perhaps the much derided Valley End 'faithful' can find some inspiration to come up with something other than "There's only one ___________"?

Okay, that might be stretching it...

Ivor Beeks: Does this man represent you?

You may laugh at Brian Mawhinney's ridiculous plan to do away with draws, replacing them with penalty shoot-outs and say that it will never happen. You might even be forgiven for assuming that such a ridiculous suggestion would never get past first base. Who, then, voted in favour of further discussion at the Football League's meeting last Thursday?

According to a report yesterday, four out of the Football League's eight Board Members voted in favour of further discussions sadly including, according to the report, Wycombe's own Chairman (and League Two Board representative) Ivor Beeks.

Not content to run our own football club's history into the ground through stadium sponsorship, not to mention 'leadership' of the good ship Wanderers as it sails deeper into a financial black hole, Mr Beeks is, it appears, now in favour of doing away with a basic tenet of the 'beautiful game'.

We do not need every game to have a winner; the league structure is valuable and meaningful as it is (or at least as it was before Mr Beeks and his colleagues decided that it would be a 'champion' idea to rename the leagues - as if that would make some difference to the traditional football pyramid). By backing this plan, Mr Beeks has shown how out of touch he is with fans and the game itself and he, and all those in favour of Mawhinney's grand plan, should immediately resign.

Somebody save us from these people...

UPDATE:
Further to the suggestion by the Daily Mail column that Ivor Beeks was one of four League Board Members backing Mawhinney's plan to some degree or other, I took this up with both Trust Chairmen (and both Trust Directors).

Responses I have received this evening have indicated that Ivor Beeks has gone on record at this afternoon's Board Meeting to state that he is not in favour of the penalty shoot out proposal suggested by Board Chairman Brian Mawhinney; further that he has been misrepresented by the paper on this issue.

What is not clear, however, is how he can be misrepresented, or misunderstood on this aspect. On such a black and white issue, is there really room for 'shades of grey' that might have led to a misunderstanding? Moreover, given the public interest of this issue what steps is Mr Beeks taking to ensure that he is not further misrepresented on this issue. I assume, at the very least, that he will now be demanding a retraction by the paper and even an apology?

In the meantime, of course, there is still the fact that the League Board clearly did vote to pass discussion of this issue to the next stage. A majority of that Board must have voted to continue discussions. Unless, of course, they are all now going to come out and claim they have been misrepresented?

Adamson Out?

Two updates in one day? Remarkable.

However, I note that the club have just announced the departure of General Manager, Garry Adamson "within coming months".

The report notes that Adamson is set for a change and is off to pastures new with Southend United, but one is left with a number of other unanswered questions. Firstly, of course, is the timing of the move. It isn't long after all since Managing Director Steve Hayes announced his decision to play a more hands-on day-to-day role at the football club, while the departure also follows quickly on the tail of another high profile departure of Head of Business Development, Karen Ellis.

This blog has, of course, been critical of the employment of so many staff at Wycombe Wanderers and the growth of its enormous debts, which seem to continue apace. With that in mind, then, any reduction in numbers behind the scenes for whatever reason (provided they are not accompanied by large 'golden handshakes') should be met with a huge sigh of relief.

I cannot, however, avoid the suspicion that such high profile departures, coming so close together, give the suggestion that there are problems behind the scenes at the club, and that this might inevitably follow from the Managing Director taking a more involved role.

In the meantime, however, and given the more involved role of the Managing Director, it will be interesting to see whether the club deem it necessary to advertise for Adamson's replacement. With Hayes now involved on a daily basis do we actually need another 'suit'? It is not, after all, that long ago that Wycombe managed to survive quite well (and in a higher division to boot) without a highly paid executive behind the scenes. Rumours are that we were even quite successful with the finances as well.

Oh for such halcyon days...

Standing Up-date

A survey produced by the Football Fans Census and widely reported is claiming that of the 2100 supporters surveyed over 92% want to see clubs bring back standing areas in football.

Some clubs like Wycombe Wanderers are still lucky enough to have a traditional terrace and to enable fans to have the freedom as to whether they wish to choose to stand or sit to watch football. The irony is, though, that if Wycombe achieves its (albeit unlikely) ambition of Championship fooball within five years (or is that four it keeps changing) then that choice will be removed; current regulations dictate that any club which achieves promotion to the second tier of English football must convert to an all seater stadium within four years.

Meanwhile, of course, should the club wish to move to a newer stadium, as has been much touted in recent weeks and months, then should they have any chance of getting funding from organisations such as the Football Foundation, it is almost certain that all seater accommodation would be required. Removal of choice via the back door if you will.

The campaign for a return to terracing accommodation is growing. This most recent survey comes on the back of an Early Day Motion in Parliament previously reported on this blog - and signatories for which now number 135 - as well as comments by the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, who has promised to reopen the debate.

Let us hope that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport start listening rather than continue to parrot the same arguments that all-seater stadia represent the safest options. They are not. Fans are voting with their feet and standing in seated accommodation which must, surely, be more inherently unsafe? In any case, they remain ignorant of the central question:

Whose game is it anyway?