By Peegs
May 27 2003

The sacking of Graham Allner in many eyes was a good decision. There was those of us however who continued to make the point that could we afford to sack him? Now it seems we have the answer, no. In an attempt to stay in the 2nd Division many decisions had to be made. In the summer beforehand the board of Directors decided to appoint Graham Allner as are manager and offer him a 2 year deal.

Things didn't go to plan, and when we weren't beating the likes of Cardiff, Wigan, Crewe etc many fans thought this was unacceptable and a new manager would fix this. Message Board threads, protests at games all suggested that a new manager would solve are problems and we would stay in Divison 2.

So Allner was sacked but this involved a pay off most likely approaching the £100k mark. But of course this new manager would see us stay up. So the board appointed someone who was deemed not appropriate in the summer, Gould himself has said he applied in the summer.

Reports say Allner was on more than Gould is at present but this surely cannot be kosher. The board chose the cheap option in Allner but ultimately ended up being costly. However I have noticed the same people calling for Allner's head are now shocked with the current financial news. We were doomed because of the playing staff not the manager.

I was an Allner backer as I did not feel we could afford to sack him, money was needed to bring in Division 2 quality players not paying off managers or producing leaflets about swearing.

We spent more money paying off the manager, making anti swearing leaflets and paying off players like Simpkins and McAwful then we did on fresh players.

Where were the advertising board infront of the in2print stand? More revenue just chucked away. Regardless of the latest news I shall be heading down to Whaddon Road to get my season ticket, I hope you do the same.

One last thing, remind the 16000 or so who went to the Play off final a year back that we still play each Saturday, with them coming we may not have this cash flow problem.