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Clive Hayward – @Byehorse

Clive discusses the latest Chairmen Chat

WESTCOTT & MBC

A 40 minute session today recorded by Mike Westcott and Mark Bowes-Cavanagh, interviewed by Dom Mee. You can watch the whole thing here – https://youtu.be/pJoPe1ob2gI

If you can watch it, do.

I think there are always going to be some things that a club’s leaders can’t share with the fanbase, but the lengthy interview today represents a fairly transparent explanation about where we are as a club a few months into the new era.

If you can’t watch it all (let’s face it, some of us have got a life!), here are some bullet points. Some of them are direct quotes, some are paraphrases:

· Paul Wotton is working within a budget. We want to achieve a sustainable model. Sometimes that will include sending players out on loan. This is for their good as well as the club’s

· There’s no lack of ambition here, but we want to be responsible

· This club lost £1 million per year over the last 5-6 years, but made no investment in the stadium or facilities

· We’d hoped we could break even in our first year but due to the investments we have made we might not achieve that. But we are delighted with the strides we have been able to make.

· We’re making investments to fire up our revenue channels. Examples are the launching of the “Flight Club” with local businesses, and new screens in Boots & Laces (installed this week) and new furniture (coming soon)

· There is a lot of “cap ex” (capital expenditure) needed on things like floodlights, the big screen and the tannoy system. The Safety Advisory Group has also insisted that we upgrade several things, and we are having to deal with leaks and a corrosion problem

· The Community Share Issue funds have given us working capital. That allowed us to pay a fee for Jordan Young and to bring in Jordan Thomas. Some of the money can also go into the playing budget.

· We had a Board Meeting on Monday night and a long meeting with Chief Exec Joe Lovell on Tuesday morning. We are having to plan for either National League or NLS next season.

· There’s a tonne of stuff we want to implement during the summer which will be transformative for our commercial operation.

· We want a club we can be proud of within the local community. We want to get into schools, have our players in there putting on sessions and get youngsters to come to Plainmoor.

· We would love the Council to incorporate the green space next to the swimming pool within our lease. We will look after it. We want to use it for fan zones and events. We don’t want to move away from Plainmoor. We want to be able to invest in it and create a “halo effect” that will spread good things throughout our community.

· We want to move on from the current “landlord/tenant” relationship. Ideally we would like the Council to waive the rent on Plainmoor on the proviso that we instead invest that money into the facilities.

· Danni Wyatt (the new Supporters Trust Representative on the club board) is a highly impressive individual. We’re really happy to have her on board.

· We want to look at ways of getting 2-4 Women’s games at Plainmoor each season.

· The Supporters Trust have been a breath of fresh air. Without their support we would not have been able to do the commercial activity we have so far. They are on a journey from being a protest group with a siege mentality to an organisation with new responsibilities. As a businessman I cannot believe how the previous regime did not involve them more.

· In terms of youth development Rome wasn’t built in a day and we’re acutely aware of where the deficiencies are. If we’re going to be financially sustainable climbing the pyramid we need to be able to trade in (sell) players- some from our own recruitment and some that we have developed. Without the Premier League Funding that is available to Football League clubs like Exeter it is difficult. Our relationship with South Devon College is good- we sat down with them this week to review where we are and both sides are very happy. At the moment there is no protection for us in terms of being able to get money for talented players. We would like to explore some sort of hybrid apprenticeship scheme that might allow us to get transfer fees if we do develop saleable players.