Re: Arthur

By John Blair10/2/2021 21:51Wed Feb 10 21:51:00 2021In response to Re: Arthur

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Having been a supporter of the club since 1970 - and loyal home and away supporter for over 25 years of that - i don't think that anybody can dispute the level of money that Alan Boon put into the club in terms of the playing budget and pitch maintenance costs.
Alan was a very generous man who had the respect of a lot of people within the football fraternity.
Around the time of the 2007 and 2009 FA Cup runs it is no surprise that the club had one of the highest playing budgets at Step 3 level - a playing budget higher than a lot of Step 2 teams.
Alan thought nothing of dipping deeper into his pocket if he felt that it benefitted the club on the pitch. The joy on his face when we beat Stockport live on TV in November 2007 was a picture to savour and the party afterwards took some beating.
Whilst Alan loved the club the only question I would have is 'Why was the Freehold of the land sold to the Thames Club by Alan' . If this had not happened we would be the landlords rather than the tenants and wouldn't be suffering all the aggro that is currently going on with Downings/The Thames Club.

Matthew Boon became chairman/owner of STFC upon Alan's death but unfortunately didn't have the same level of enthusiasm shown by Alan and began to regard the club more as a business than an expensive hobby.
Personally I don't blame Matthew for this as more and more football clubs are now looked at as businesses rather than expensive hobbies for wealthy businessman.

However what I would like to say is that a lot of the clubs current problems are not down to the current ownership - although some people might choose to disagree !!
Joe Dixon did not sell the freehold of Wheatsheaf Park to the owners of the Thames Club.
This was down to Alan.
He also did not allow the Thames Club to :-
A) Reduce the size of the bar.
B) Take away the separate function room.
C) Remove the upstairs kitchen area and cellar room behind the bar.
D) Change the location of the clubs office and PA room.
These were all things that Matthew allowed to happen even though these were all areas stated in the lease as being for use by STFC rather than by the Thames Club.

People need to be aware of these facts before blaming the current ownership for everything that has gone wrong on or off the pitch.

And on another note 'boost the budget' schemes to assist with the playing budget are not something invented by STFC and the current ownership.
More and more non- league clubs run these and have been for a number of years.
Under the last 2 years of Matthew Boon's ownership the club were running a '12th Man Scheme' with supporters contributing towards the clubs running costs to take some of the financial pressure off of Matthew.
I know this for a fact as I was one of those contributing into it every month.

Edited by John Blair at 21:53:57 on 10th February 2021

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