Tonight we welcome our good friends from Scunthorpe United. May I wish their Directors, Manager, Players and Supporters a pleasant stay with us and a safe journey home.
Well, it’s been a bit of a stop-start opening to our New Year with the York City league game on the third of January postponed, the FA Cup loss with Burton Albion then took our focus and so we did not get to play a league game in 2026 until our away day win at Braintree Town on Saturday.
In that time we have lost a popular loanee in Jeff King, who has returned to York City, but on a more positive note we have quietly strengthened with the loan signing of Junior Robinson from West Ham United and the permanent signings of both Ollie Kensdale from Barnet and Regan Booty from Barrow for undisclosed fees.
In terms of our impressive recent recruitment in regard to recent business and over the last eighteen months, I have both Charlie Hunter and Luke Garrard to thank for that and though I’ve spent a few bob, we knew what we needed to do and have reacted accordingly.
That said, we have for many years been shrewd, strategic, risk averse and sold good players when needed at the right time and importantly for the right price. That meant we held a budget surplus and were ready to invest in future quality if the right players ever became available.
Throughout my tenure here, we’ve always tried to run ourselves in a manner where we have not only competed with the bigger clubs on the pitch, but just as important, also improved our facility off it, and on occasion still had the money to fuel our promotion ambitions and have one eye on the future.
That was shown recently with the incoming transfers of Zak Brunt, Marley Marshall-Miranda, Ollie Kensdale and Regan Booty. Those are players we identified, as we felt they would not only help our promotion challenge this season but if the impossible did happen and we got ourselves promoted, then with their ability they would all be coming with us.
If I may and I know it’s a bit long-winded, I now want to give you a crash course into small football ownership, after receiving a really nice phone call from a relatively new National League owner this week, who shall of course remain anonymous.
This was from someone who now leads a club that I very much respect, a very well supported club but as a newish owner, he was not too proud to pick up the phone and ask for some advice from yours truly. Put simply this club owner is struggling to plug some of the budget deficits he has inherited, and it’s hampering his immediate ambition and wanted an opinion on certain things.
He simply cannot believe his club’s running costs, maintenance costs, staffing levels and the wages needed for ambitious clubs at our level and wanted to understand how we as a smaller club remain competitive at this level with our crowd averages. He also said, unknown to me, that we had apparently beaten his club to one of the recent players we’ve signed.
I genuinely enjoyed our chat which went on for well over an hour, but in truth in today’s world, I’m not sure I could really help even with my experience because our business model began 27-years ago, and it is so different to the one that this owner has inherited. I was though truthful with him and told him that in my opinion his support base would not remain patient enough, in what is now a social media driven world, for him to consider implementing a step-by-step business model or build a club from the bottom up with his fan base, as they want success yesterday.
Most fan bases are of course desperate for success, but for the bigger clubs every defeat or draw is deemed as catastrophic, when in truth it’s just a bump in the road. I did tell him though, that I would not recommend that he remains as Chairman and Owner for too long in this new social media era, as he seemed a very genuine guy, and any sort of longevity might seriously damage his health. I said it with a bit of humour but I meant every word.
So, I thought I’d write these long-winded programme notes for some of our newer supporters, as they might help them understand my tenure a tad better and it might explain my underdog mentality. Our strength when I took over in 1999, was in fact the state the club was in back then, and that our average home support was only around 125/150.
As such the towns and fans expectations of me and the club were pretty low back and in simple terms those home attendances and town disinterest allowed me the time to plan, refinance, make my mistakes and then rebuild a football club that I had once loved but no longer sat at the heart of it’s community.
I of course loved the notion of owning my hometown football club, because as a child growing up it was managed by my late father Mickey, not only once but twice. However, when I took control, it was haemorrhaging money, cost me a fortune and was so different to the club I fell in love with as a child.
In truth it was a soulless place, full of outsiders and for around five years I couldn’t please anybody as it had become a drinking club for a few locals and cab drivers, who hated the idea of change, they were entitled and they very nearly drove me away.
Anyway back to the story… Here I was explaining my initial journey to a new club owner and explaining how some people in my early days were passive aggressive, quite resentful and some even abusive to me, all in the name of them “caring for this club’s football future”, when in truth they wanted their own drinking house and objected to every change I ever made.
However, once I got the courage, my business sense back and gained the necessary confidence that you need to implement change, we as a club have never looked back, though we did get ourselves relegated just 20 months ago. That said, we bounced back quite beautifully and as I told this new owner that was only because of the changes I made almost 25-years ago.
I think being a new owner of a football club in today’s social media world is almost impossible. As they will only get a season, perhaps two at best, to be successful before their honeymoon period ends. They will then be judged, often vilified, asked to justify their overall spend, their first team budget, every signing both in and out, and asked to explain every structural change.
Trust me, two-years as a honeymoon period in football is absolutely no time for any new owner to bring about any sort of lasting improvements or give the fans the sustained success they crave. Yes, you could get lucky like the Hartlepool United Chairman did a few years back, but as we all saw, he could not sustain it, he then struggled and has since sold the club…
In truth, some fans at bigger clubs expect far too much from new owners and turn far too quickly if instant success is not delivered. Especially if the new owner or owners do not look to invest large sums of money from the get-go. For me as an old school Chairman, simply chucking money at something that you don’t fully understand at the start of your tenure is a recipe for disaster.
All new owners should firstly reevaluate their staff, decide who they can trust, understand the community they serve, understand their fan base, and then and only then, when they have all the facts in front of them, should they look to create their business model based on what best suits the club’s income and expenditure, what best suits their bank balance, what best suits their cash flow and what best suits their vision for their club.
Trust me, in football there are a lot of talentless and disingenuous people out there who would love to spend other people’s money , but in truth many of these are poor businessmen and women who are very quick to tell you where you’re going wrong, but have no real money themselves to ever solve a problem or underwrite any losses, so you must be very careful on who you can trust and that’s what I told the new owner.
I’m not sure he quite agreed with all I had to say, which is absolutely fine by me, as he’s a self-made man but perhaps I gave him food for thought and he now knows that he can ring me for a chat and an honest opinion anytime, if he ever feels the need. What I did double down on though, was that in my opinion any owner should not involve themselves too much in social media if possible and be a safe and patient pair of hands at all times.
I know being a safe and patient owner is not seen as desirable anymore but in my opinion it certainly should be. In today’s world, even the most loyal fans at some bigger clubs, do not necessarily care if a new owner comes in and wants to walk before they run and balance the books. They just want instant success and the chance to dream big again.
I told the new owner it was my opinion, that he should concentrate on finding loyal staff as they are worth their weight in gold, concentrate on creating a good working relationship with his Manager and advised him that he should also get himself a Sporting Director or Director of Football who could work with and assist his Gaffer, as implementing a recruitment policy would be key for his club going forward.
In hindsight when I look back, I possibly only survived the first five-years here because I was young, naive and obsessed with proving my doubters wrong and being a success in regard to my father’s memory. Though after that time I slowly managed to start building my vision for the club and that brought us the PASE Academy, the astro pitches, study suites and the extra dressing rooms that we needed back then.
I also underwrote all club losses and that nearly killed me. From there on in, the Wood Army then gave me the time to do things my way. I’ve since perhaps learned my trade and understood how disingenuous the football industry can be, but I’ll say it again, throughout my tenure I have always invested in good staff, good people and good partnerships.
I felt my relationships back then would last and that’s been the key to our success and sustainability. By building those lasting relationships with local partners, local councillors, local sponsors and loyal staff, it led to our small community football club, thinking nothing was impossible and we even think the EFL is no longer just a pipe dream.
My staff, gaffer, dressing room and fans now think EFL ambition is real and even I sometimes share that quiet ambition. For me, I still love being called a “tinpot” club, often straight after a game when we’ve beaten one of the bigger ex-Football League clubs and I’m sure that will not change any time soon.
When I explained all of this to the new owner, I also explained how we created our Academy from scratch, how we created new partnerships with local institutions and local colleges, again from scratch, and how we created a robust sports education programme. In truth, so many clubs locally, Potters Bar Town being the latest, have since copied our sports education programme model, but ours was created bespoke to best suite our location, best suit a club of our size back then, best suit our catchment area and that created great young players, another income stream and that helped support my ambitions for our club.
For the record, and I direct this only to our supporters, when you hear we are a “tinpot” club please embrace it, as it means we must be doing something right. Just know that we are now a sustainable entity in our own right and never believe that we rely on any third party to survive and we are certainly not underwritten by Arsenal or anyone else.
I alone run this football club financially from top to bottom and I’m so proud that our partnerships are still strong, that our sponsors are loyal and our club is still growing and full of good people. In truth, your football club is in safe hands, it has no historical debt and I couldn’t have said that back in 1999.
Our strength has come from not ever trying to buy a promotion or take a chance with the club’s overall budget. My vision was perhaps legacy, but always step-by-step and it was led by local instincts regarding what I felt our town wanted, what our club needed and on common sense economics.
I knew from my film industry Prop Master background and from Dad being Manager here in the sixties and seventies, that we had to be competitive, but business wise we needed to create diversified income streams with sustainable income 365-days of the year and not just rely on match day and bar income.
Together we have now built a sustainable business model to assist with my obsession of one day playing in the EFL. As such, we have now grown our PASE Academy, built our new astro pitches, created multi-functional events spaces, built the new pitch, upgraded the floodlights and car park, we’ve refurbed the East Stand and built both the West Stand and North Bank.
So, I did advise the new owner to assess his facility and stadium needs and know what type of costs might be involved in upgrading the facility to the levels he expects and advised him to go after some slow burner partnerships if they become available. They might not be available now but so what, get on the phone and let people know that you’re open for business.
I did that with two bigger local football clubs in our area, namely Arsenal and Watford. Trust me at the time those deals were not financially great for our club but they did have potential and I felt we needed to create some long-term partnerships that raised our profile and were seen. Back then I needed some high-profile partnerships to create a bit of local interest and possibly bring in some extra local sponsorships which might benefit both ourselves and the high street, which I feel we succeeded in.
Another success story that began 25-years ago was creating our Academy, as that went on to produce both EFL and Premier League stars including Pelly Ruddock, Sorba Thomas and Iliman Ndiaye to name but three. Their sales, sell-ons and add-ons over the years have again helped sustain us, and on top of that we have continued to invest in good young players.
Players like Abdul Abdulmalik, Zak Brunt, Matt Rush, Charles Clayden, Lewis Richardson, Charlie O’Connell, Joe Netwon, Ollie Kensdale and Marley Marshall-Miranda, and in young coaches, analysts and managers and that has been incredibly rewarding. Luke Garrard is a perfect example, save for a few months, as he has stood proudly by my side for almost two decades and he’s grown beyond all recognition.
Many of my incredible staff have also been by my side for more than twenty years and trust me they are still as focused, motivated and loyal to this football club as they were when they first walked through the door, only they are wiser and much better at their jobs.
So, I can now say on a personal note to all ages of the ‘Wood Army’, we now have a new generation of supporters falling in love with our community-based football club and that is to be both nurtured and encouraged. In truth, it’s been a true labour of love building this football club for so many of us, and I’m so proud that many of you have played such a part in it’s amazing journey throughout my tenure.
Our business model was built firmly within the lower leagues, it gathered pace in and around 2005, but that was a long time before social media ever took hold. I now shudder to think of the abuse I would have received from our supporters when I relegated us back in my very first season here – I suspect I might of walked away within my first year?
As I said, since 2010 we’ve continued to build both on and off the field of play and have completed the pitch, floodlights, East Stand, West Stand, North Bank, Glass House, broadcast compound, hospitality suites, changing rooms, offices, toilets, classrooms, new entrance and car park. We’ve now just got the South Stand project to go and we’ll then be EFL compliant!
In all honesty, after 27 seasons here I’ve never felt more excited, ambitious and confident in our club, myself, my Manager, our dressing room, my partners, sponsors and supporters, than I feel today as most of the things I dreamt of achieving, of course not all, are now in place.
So, I would say to all would be owners looking to purchase a football club at National League level, if you get it right it will bring you moments of pure joy, magic and memories that are simply indescribable and you will take them to the grave.
That said, if you are an owner not in it for the long haul, then your supporters will find you out, and if you then get it wrong and shortchange them, then it’s a very lonely place to be and it could seriously damage your health. I do though salute all new owners and their optimism, their bravery and even their madness, as only a few can handle owning a football club at our level but even fewer will stand the test of time.
Anyway, back to tonight and the visit of another big ex-Football League club in Scunthorpe United. They have my great friend Mr. Will Evans within their ranks and also have an incredibly loyal and large fan base. Scunthorpe, like us, are enjoying a fantastic league campaign after last season’s play-off success, and so, we know how difficult this evenings game will be.
Finally, whoever you support this evening, let’s hope for an open, attacking game and may the best team win.
Take care,
Danny.
