Best Of

Well done for finding this excellent summary of the problems the club faced, they were even worse than I remembered. I particularly liked the bit about how a successful football club can enhance the image and reputation of a town that otherwise would mean nothing to most people outside High Wycombe.

Blimey. We owe Brian Lee an enormous debt of gratitude, and the council really didn't like the football club!

https://wellingunited.com/2025/02/wings-sign-striker-scott-kashket/

Ballses up the sponsorship...but obviously wish him all the best for his move!

'Top of the League and we're only getting 8,000...what is going on?'

Agreed. Game by game, tick off the wins, and see if we can make an even more glorious ascent to the 2nd tier.

Last time was brilliant, but very few got to experience anything in the flesh and whilst Wembley is a glorious way to go up - again none of us were there (apart from a few hangers on).

To go up automatically, and be at the grounds is mouth watering.

Then we can worry about how massively chaotic 8-9,000 every week is going to be.

It'll need more than one bus in and those 80 spaces at a school a mile away!

Some snippets from the Official History, showing the contempt with which the council treated the club

Original idea replacing a supermarket with a a football stadium. I like it.

The Council was composed of a bunch of Tories who hated football in general and football fans in particular.

You may decry this as excessively political, but witness the counter example of how they fell over themselves to accommodate Wasps.

I still don't think location is the key issue. When we were getting consistently higher attendances at AP it was a totally different society. There was less competition for people's time, the price of football was less at the turnstile, the price of the day out was less and there was less access to football on TV.

A family day out at AP might cost £100 all in. That's a chunk of change.

And although the Premier League might appear to be flying in terms of attendances ask core fans their opinion. The rise in football tourism across the board has masked the decline in 'real' fans attending. I have friends from all London clubs who say the same. And they have all gone from wouldn't miss a game to pick and choose and using the club re-sell services to retain their season ticket.

I would say a significant issue with our oasis is the lack of engagement within schools and the local community. In the MoN era every chip shop would have a fixture list and you could see that Kidderminster (H) was coming up soon. School receptions would have a poster of fixtures etc.

As for the 'product' I often take my friend's son along and he LOVES it. In the same way that I LOVED it when I was a lad. There is nothing wrong with the matchday experience and the football, and football still being a thing to fall in love with. We just need to let more people know.

This is absolutely right. If there are security issues at the Hillbottom road businesses, then the Management group can offer to help solve them. It must be physically possible to separate access to a car park from access to the buildings for match days, even if it means some infrastructure.

That and a decent bus service to and from the railway station, if Reading can manage it with local council / bus company / lack of billions - I am sure we can.

The chairlift will just be icing on the cake.