Board Restructure
A restructure of the Wycombe Wanderers board of directors will see Trevor Stroud take over as club chairman from the 1st of August.
Current club chairman Andrew Howard, who has held the post for three years, will remain on the board and move into a new position as Sporting Director, overseeing the performance and development of all football matters.
Stroud, a club director and also chairman of Wycombe Wanderers Trust, will now take overall responsibility for the running of the club as it moves into the fourth year of a five-year plan to achieve sustainability on and off the field in League 1.
Howard explains: “I have been immensely proud to be chairman of Wycombe Wanderers and found it to be a challenging but extremely rewarding three years. Together I feel we have developed a really professional organisation and are moving towards an infrastructure which will be capable of operating at a higher level.
“However, the time has come for me to focus my efforts on the football side of the business, working in a new role which Gareth and his staff, with the support of the board, have devised in order to give us all the best possible chance of continuing the excellent progress on the pitch.
“We put the five-year plan in place to provide a real focus for everyone involved with the club, and I have done all I can in the past three years to develop the club as a whole with a particular focus on the commercial side. I’m excited to now help evolve the playing side and giving all the help I can to our outstanding young manager and his talented, dedicated and hungry staff.
“Trevor is the right person to succeed me as chairman; he represents the fanbase superbly and is backed by two strong boards – the club and the Trust – who are working extremely hard to maximise this club’s potential, with the support of the staff, fans and volunteers.”
Comments
Surely it begs the question, what does a racing team/ice cream man know about footballing matters? How much influence would he have over Gareth? I can see then benefit of having him as a chairman (from a business perspective), but cant see how this will work?
@StrongestTeam Why not? Surely that's the best way to ensure that the fans' voice is strongly represented at the Club level?
If he's backing up Gaz to do the deals he needs to get the players he wants, I'm all for it. And he'll still be there if they need his advice higher up.
I know it is not fashionable to recognise administrators, but IMHO we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mr Howard. Club now comes across as very professionally and decently run. While GA gets much of the credit for the success of the last few seasons, Mr Howard should also get his share of the credit.
Hard to quite understand responsibilities in the new order, but quite a challenge for Mr Stroud to keep it running so professionally.
I had similar thoughts to @Tom on reading the announcement, with regard to what a businessman can bring to the football aspects of the club.
I doubt he'll be donning the tracksuit but it will be one to watch carefully. Pretty sure Gaz would step down if it wasn't right for him or the club.
Howard probably finds it difficult to carry on running his company and being the figurehead at Wycombe after three years.
I can see no reason why he would not be suitable for the probably lesser time consuming role of Sporting Director. Surely this post will involve negotiating contracts with players and with his wide experience of finance and employment issues at his company he should be ideal.
Is the role of Sporting Director an unpaid one, does anyone know?
Feels like a good move to have the Trust chairman also be the football club chairman. I've always felt like we have a wealth of untapped knowledge in our fan base, and hopefully Trevor Stroud will be able to utilize this.
No idea what sporting director means. Hopefully AH feels like he'll be able to transfer some of his knowledge from motor racing to professional football. I can't imagine he'll be picking the team and taking training. I hope not anyway.
I am surprised to see there's no mention of the appointment of Peter Mandelson as spin doctor.
"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution."
The same thought crossed my mind Mr Taylor. I suspect something is going on behind the scenes. Time will Tell !!
A curious turn of events, I'm not sure many (if any) saw this turnaround coming.
With regards to Howard's new gig, I would imagine it will be similar to David Roberton's brief during his stint on the football club board. If I remember correctly, under his watch we signed Pierre, Jacobson, Paul Hayes and Jombati in one our most successful pre-seasons in terms of quality of signing made.
Maybe Andrew Howard could ask him for some tips?
@floyd "I can't imagine he'll be picking the team and taking training. I hope not anyway."
Quite right too. It the job of us lot on here to decide the best team
Concentrating on the football side? Very intriguing comment!
@Malone must admit it's what I do.
@bookertease ha! If only Gareth would listen we'd be champions.
MD guy, whose name I have forgotten, runs the club day to day I understand. Howard sets strategic direction and presumably gets involved in major decisions. Looks like he is reducing his involvement now and Stroud is taking over some of that load.
Shame because he appears to have done a very good job.
Interesting choice of the word Sport when we are a football club. If he's not Director of Football what does this tell us about his role. Can't see what he can add in this new role and it seems to take away the skills he has used to good success so far.
Is this just a bridge for him to leave the business and keep Ainsworth during the close season?
Director of Football has a generally accepted executive meaning. Howard role appears to be largely non-executive.
I suspect you may be right re timing. Very possible that after six months or so handover, Howard may choose to move on. He would be sadly missed.
I suspect GA is bright enough to make his own decisions and will not be influenced by a title. Coming you would have thought to a time when GA will either have to move on or decide to mentally commit to WWFC for a very long stint. Bit like Tisdale at Exeter.
Sporting director is normally linked to player recruitment and contracts elsewhere in the football world and I reckon this is going to be a strength of AH. He is very good at selling the club and the future he wants for the club. I also reckon contract negotiations with agents and players would be more professionally handled under his stewardship. I don't think, as has been eluded to above, he will be anything to do with bibs and cones.
Does anyone know if we have scouts or any kind of scouting network set up? Just wondered who would identify potential targets for AH to negotiate with.
Could one part of AH's brief be to establish a new youth set up? I believe I'm right in thinking he's brought some young drivers through in his racing team.
Gareth Ainsworth would identify potential targets and be hugely involved in selling the club to that player, Andy.
The announcement of the changes to the Board of WWFC appears to have been made not by the Supporters Trust, but by Andrew Howard. Whilst understanding his reasons for calling it a day after three years, in which time he has done a excellent task getting the Football Club to a very effective operational status. Helped by the funds arising from the Ibe transfer, the Club has a very good chance of reaching a satisfactory finance situation within 5 years of the Trust taken over from the PLC.
There does not appear to have been a Board meeting of the Trust to discuss this change, the announce to Trust members is no different from the Statement made by Andrew Howard. Are the members voting for a board which appears not to be in control of events?. I understand that the appointment of the Chairman of the Football was in the hands of the Supporters Trust Board. Did they discuss this move, or were they advised of the change?
There's some pretty impressive speculation going on in this thread, the consequences of a very vaguely worded press release from @DJWYC14. Perhaps he, or someone on the board, might care to describe the responsibilities of the sporting director, and how that relates to those of the commercial director and the general manager, both recently created roles, I do believe.
My only comment is it's a shame that, having created a five-year plan, Mr Howard couldn't have stayed as chairman for the final two years to see it through. Maybe though as the club failed to meet the objective of year three - namely achieving a place in the play-offs - the chairman decided to nobly fall on his sword?
I can't really see how it can be construed that "he has fallen on his sword". Mr Howard is still on the Board and effectively has merely delegated some of his responsibilities. It can be argued that he is actually now concentrating his limited time on the most important part of the club's activities.
Reaching the play offs was only one of the objectives. Clearing most of the debt was a more important target which hss been achieved, albeit with the help of an unexpected windfall.
One thing I forgot to say in an earlier post was good luck to Trevor Stroud. I've always found him a decent man with a good relaxed communication style. Very happy to have him as Chairman.
Who's to it wasn't part of the plan to step aside as chairman at the end of year three?
The first three years the plan was to steady the ship and get it in a more commercial sound footprint.
Year 4 is the promotion push, for which he can focus on a more specialised area of the club- getting the right people, at the right price on the right wages to push for that promotion. That's what a sport director would do in my eyes anyway, and he has expirence of in running a racing team.
Year 5 - (assuming year 4 is successful) is to do the same but for players that will ensure our league one survival.
Wise words @TheDancingYak.
Good to see common sense prevailing in this thread, agreed best use of Howard will be to negotiate terms for player contracts, let someone else worry about the mundane stuff like who supplies the bog paper.
Five year plans are essentially meaningless - always were always will be.
Howard has done a good job on stabilizing the club and professionalising it. The contrast to the last couple of years of Hayes and, for all his good intentions, Don Woodward has been stark. Sadly it has been evident for a while he wants to devote less time to it and this is another step down the road. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see him go altogether over the next 12 months. If so, he should leave with gratitude from the supporters.