Letter to the Chairman

Dear Ron Martin, Have you heard this one? A guy walks into a bar and asks the barmaid for a pint of bitter. ‘Sure’ she replies. ‘With every pint of bitter we are giving away a free bottle of champagne and a full steak meal!’ ‘Wow’ replies the startled man ‘..and how much is that?’ ‘That’ll be 50p’ replies the barmaid. ‘I need to come here more often, so are you the landlady?’  asks the man ‘No, I’m the land lords wife. The landlord is upstairs doing to the barmaid what I’m doing to his business’

The question is Ron, who is upstairs with your wife?

This can be the only reason why you are dealing with our finances in such a nonchalantly inept way. Our club is haemorrhaging money. The current figure is a staggering £100k a month. A £100k A MONTH LOSS? To run a league 2 football team? It sounds like a task that even Richard Prior in Brewster’s Millions would turn down. Yet you manage it on a monthly basis. Impressive!

Here are a few starters for you to perhaps plug the holes in this sinking ship. You’ve managed to sell off the programme vendors for what I can only assume is a quick short-term financial gain. Why would any 3rd party want to take up this venture unless they’d worked out that in the long run there’s money to be made? While we are on the subject of a quick buck the brewery-run bars in the ground should also be run in-house. With a bit of imagination, I’m sure we could work out a way of monetising a bar in a football ground. Currently to ensure you receive a pint before the end of the season you have to head to the bar 15 minutes before the end of the 1st half. If you are unlucky you may get the sweet but slightly senile barmaid. Who even with the aid of the calculator and an epoch of time, will try to fleece you out of change. Here’s an idea, tills and more bar staff! Speculate to accumulate Ronald.

Hospitality: Cordial and generous reception of or disposition toward guests.

Maybe you should explain this definition to the staff in ‘hospitality’. David Crown does a fantastic job comparing the day but is let down by the rude and obnoxious staff that surrounds him. On the LAST occasion in ‘hospitality’, my friend asked the woman carving the meat if he could have a bit more. He didn’t ask if he could shove his fist in her arse which the look she gave him would suggest. She proceeded to turn the meat around so she could trim the arsehole off and put it on his plate. This with the constant bickering of the bar staff took the gloss, the undercoat and the wood off an otherwise lovely day. Repeat custom unlikely.

This is the big one Ron so listen and listen hard. Don’t let people in for FREE for months. I know, pretty drastic huh! It turns out some season card holders’ Direct Debits haven’t gone through. Surely some kind of clerical error? OK, so you’d think the best way to sort this would be to ring the cardholders immediately to get this resolved?  Apparently not. I’ll tell you what we’ll do instead, we’ll wait until midway through the season and then demand £300 by confiscating their season card! I can only assume that the meat carving lady is also in charge of customer relations.

Ron, treat people in this way and they won’t be coming back and more importantly, they won’t be paying the £300 we so desperately need. The Direct Debit debacle happened to my mate although they actually tried to charge him £305 as there was a £5 admin fee. A fee they were willing to waver if he settled up there and then. How preposterous is this! Just when I think nothing could surprise me anymore the club manages to pull another outrageous stunt. It’s almost a test to see ‘how much they’ll put up with’. Not much more I’m afraid Ron. Until you buck up your ideas you’re going to be a very lonely man sitting in an empty new stadium staring out at fields where the main stand should be.

Kindest regards,

Len

P.S. please please please stop!