Interesting Times.....
Saturday, 10th May 2003 00:00

A Week Is A Long Time In Football

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Certainly judging by the web-sites this week there has been plenty under discussion this week from whether Flynn should stay through to whether the players that have been released were the right ones, or indeed whether we should have released some more. Is there ever a simple moment at Planet Vetch?

Let's start with the manager. We had plenty of discussion around last weekend on the merits of Brian Flynn. The majority were in the 'he deserves a chance' brigade and luckily for Mr Flynn so were the board of directors. Flynn and Reeves are in charge for two years and whispers are afoot that they are to be joined by Joey Jones. This one in itself could be a good move as I have heard many a Wrexham fan saying that Jones was the one that made people work at Wrexham and could be what we are desperately crying out for. The nasty bloke to run alongside the nice guys! Time will tell on that front.

The biggest clue that Flynn was about to sign was with the issuing of the released list the day after Roger's testimonial. Out of the Vetch head Steve Watkin, John Williams, Jamie Wood, Gareth Phillips, Terry Evans, Neil Sharp and Matt Murphy. A further ten players are to be offered contracts with Andrew Mumford made available for free transfer. Comment has been made about whether the cull was strong enough.

This is a difficult one. Nationwide clubs have a cap on their wages next season of 65% of the turnover giving Swansea a figure of around £650,000. I am unsure whether this needs to include signing on fees - I suspect not - but it leaves the club struggling on wage demands. Of course it makes sense for this to be imposed to keep clubs financially afloat but at the same time this is playing into the hands of those with the bigger support. Of course, we gain some from that but we now have to ensure that the fans come through the gate. It is a slight Catch 22 on the basis that more will come with the better quality of player but without the fans we will not be able to attract these players. Of course the 65% ceiling is not set on next season but at the same time, we need them next season for wages in future years. Football is never simple.

The average attendance in Division Three last season was 4,456, up more than 15% on the previous season but not many clubs are sustaining more than that figure. Indeed only 7 clubs managed an average of over that - the good news being we were one of them. Hull were far and away the best with an average attendance of 12846 but Bristol Rovers (6934), Oxford (5862), Bournemouth (5829), Us (5160), Hartlepool (4943) and Carlisle (4776) all managed to surpass the league average. Looking at the sides coming into the Division, Huddersfield (9506), Northampton (5211), Mansfield (4887) and Cheltenham (4655) all managed higher but you have to wonder if their crowds will drop with relegation. The two teams from the Conference - Yeovil (4741) and Doncaster (3540) and you wonder if these will increase.

In short you could look at that and suggest that Hull should be looking clear favourites for promotion because of their wage bill being considerably higher. But on the same foot, Lincoln reached the play offs this season with a new player budget of just 3,000.

But we are veering from the point. If we have 10 players at the moment, add in a couple of youth players and maybe two more that we manage to keep we are looking at at least 6 new faces into the Vetch this summer. We understand that Flynn has two of these at least lined up and they could be signed within the course of the next week - we wait with anticipation on who they could be.

It should prove to be an interesting summer at the Vetch again with more new players coming in. For those of you that cannot wait you have just under 6 weeks until you can see the fixtures for next season (June 19) and the new season starts 13 weeks today.

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