Waels open letter Feb 22

Owner marks six-year tenure with open letter to fans

Dear Gasheads,

It has been some time since my previous letter and a lot has changed at the club.

However, I have no doubt that we are making progress when it comes to putting in place the required pieces to the puzzle to drive high standards and the required improvements that we want to see across the board.

I have recently celebrated six years of ownership of this great club. During this time, there have been lots of highs and lows, but that’s football! It has been a long road to this point but I have no doubt that, despite a similar league position, we are in a much stronger position than we were at the point we took over.

The foundations that have been placed, particularly over the course of this season, have given us a strong footing to move up the leagues and to continue to allow the club to grow to reach our potential.

Part of these changes has seen Chris Hargreaves move on from the football club and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chris for all of his efforts in the various roles he undertook during his time and the club. We wish him all of the best for the future.

Our strategy has remained clear for some time now, where we look to follow these six pillars;

1. Infrastructure improvements - as mentioned previously, the stadium project remains our priority. In the meantime, we are delighted with the progress that has been made at The Quarters. This site is a home for our first team and we have seen over the course of the season how having this facility has helped them to continually improve. There is still a huge amount of potential on this site and we are continuing to review what is the best means of utilising the remaining space to meet our football and commercial requirements.

2. Sustainability - as a club, we have been working hard to become as efficient and sustainable as possible. There have been a number of changes to personnel recently and these are with a view to driving standards and becoming more efficient as a business. Some great people with new ideas and energy have joined the club and I am sure that they will all only help us grow as we look to try and reduce cost and increase our revenue.

3. Youth - We have always had a desire to bring through young players into the first team and we are delighted with the mix of the current squad. In recent weeks, I am sure you all have been pleased to see the likes of Luca, Connor, James and Elliot featuring regularly in the first team and performing at such a high level. I was particularly pleased to see Luca sign a new contract with us. When I first took over the club I’ve watched him play games for the academy from the age of 13 onwards and, each time I saw him play throughout the years, he was the main man who stood out in matches. I knew he would have a strong chance of making the first-team squad, so I’m delighted he’s now achieved that.

4. Develop the fanbase - we continue to look for ways to increase the size of the fanbase. The improvements in the Fanzone with the live music and increased food offerings on a matchday. In addition, as you may have noticed, there has been an increase in the numbers of mascots and flag-wavers for each game this season, as well as the return of Captain Gas! We are continuing to look at ways that we can improve the matchday experience for supporters of all ages, which includes trying to re-locate and introduce the large flag on the North Terrace on match days.

5. Community - our links with the Community Trust are stronger than ever and these links are vital in doing our bit to help all those in need across the City. Being a community club runs through everything that we do and working with, and supporting, the great work of the Trust is vital.

6. Continual Improvement - as a club, we want to strive to drive standards in every area. To make continual improvements to make the club better. The recent changes have all been designed with the purpose of increasing the professionalism and standards in every aspect of the football club. Everyone in the building now is working to unleash our potential and get the club where it needs to be, in every single area. Operating in this way has allowed us to create some momentum in all aspects of the club and I am delighted that we are now seeing it come to fruition on the pitch.

All of these strategic objectives will continue to remain in place to give everyone at the club focus and structure to what we are trying to achieve.

On the pitch, the ambition remains to get promoted as soon as is possible. Over recent weeks, we have made great strides forward towards this goal and, with your backing, I have no doubt that we can continue to build.

In January, we continued to strengthen the squad; the additions of Lofty, Billy, Beefy and Jon Nolan have added additional depth and quality to the squad, which I know that we will benefit from over the remaining 15 games.

There is still a lot to play for this season but, with your support, there are no limits to what we can achieve.

Fifteen games to go; 45 points to play for, and you can all play your part in the run-in.

Whether you have been to every game so far this season or you haven’t yet been able to support us, by getting to the stadiums and supporting the team you can do your bit to help us achieve our dreams this season.

Saturday's game at The Mem could well be a sell-out, so buy your tickets as early as you can, take up your place and sing loud and proud.

Thanks for all of your support.

The Gas are coming!

Wael

UTG

Loved this. The club is releasing potential across all areas. Exciting times.

Gotta love this man. Deserves success.

Who is Beefy... have we signed Botham ?

Who is Billy ,,,have we signed Carl Saunders again?

Gra-Nola!... I'll see myself out.

So we’ve got 6 pillars …… pretty sure that lot down the road only had 5 pillars .


1-0 Wael.

First of all thank you Wael for writing off our debt and helping the club survive the last two years. Lots of positives obviously and the regular ‘Open Letters’ are welcome. Lots of good news in it but having read it a couple of times and thought about it some observations:

1. In the infrastructure section “the stadium project remains our priority.” Yet only six words about it. I’m sure there may be difficulties in talking about what is only a rumour.(?) But nonetheless to say nothing else about what is a priority seems very strange, even worrying. We were assured 6 years ago in one of his first interviews after the takeover that finance for the new stadium was not a problem. After 6 years I’m not sure that was the case and after 6 years we are still light years away from where we were in 2016. I agree with what he said about The Quarters.

2. Great ideas about sustainability but again we were drip fed from 2016-2018 that we needed a new stadium as a matter of urgency to be able to achieve sustainability. Yet since the proposed stadium went wrong in August 18 nothing much in terms of stadium development at all. If it was a priority we’d have heard, wouldn’t we?

3. Regarding youth, yes it’s always great to see young players coming through. But of the 4 players he mentioned only 1 of them is ours. The others belong to someone else, not us. I’m delighted we have them and am happy to talk positively about them but let’s be very honest, they aren’t ours and we will gain no long term benefit from them. Get promotion this year then it all becomes valuable but if we don’t it will become pretty meaningless. That’s not to say it isn’t great news about Luca Hoole, well done to him, he has done well and I hope he will now kick on and develop further. By the way did we know Chris H had moved on? I certainly didn’t and considering how important he’s been over the time he’s been here I think it’s poor that we went told. Or has it just happened?

4. About the fan base, yes it sounds great news about the fan zone and lots of good things happening. Let’s hope it continues. But it will be hard to develop the fan base with a ground that has a capacity about 2000 or thereabouts lower than it has been. Whatever, it’s all about developing a new ground, again.

5. Regarding work in the community. Total agreement with what’s been said and well done to everyone engaged in that area.

6. About the continual improvement, again totally agree but if we are to “unleash our potential” then we need the stadium.

It’s always great to have communication from the top and to hear about the positives mentioned is fantastic but I’m sure more could have been said about the importance and progress regarding the stadium. Or if not, just be honest with us. And that is not insinuating that’s he’s not being honest with us!! It’s almost as if so long as lots of other things are talked about then the ground can remain in the long grass.

This will probably come across as negative but it isn’t meant to be but after 6 years I feel we should be knowing far more about the ground given that he was talking about it continually in his first 6 months. My hard hat is on!

Win tomorrow and perhaps I’ll forget about this but we all know how crucial that bit of infrastructure is.

UTG! Wherever we are!

Pretty much agree Wareham with most of that . Talk is cheap.

Great post WG Totally agree with everything you have mentioned UTG !