Winding up petition raises broader Blues question
10:50am Friday 8th March 2013 in Latest Sport By Alan Feldberg
Wanderers fans haven't come out in force this season
WYCOMBE Wanderers’ recent off-field problems raises a question: Do football clubs deserve to be treated differently to other businesses?
Harsh economic conditions are taking their toll in all walks off life and on all industries.
Football clubs have not escaped unscathed and the news this week that Wanderers are facing a winding up petition is further evidence that our own club is feeling the pinch quite acutely.
Blues are already being forced to sell the training ground to pay debts, and now they are asking supporters – for the second time this season – to dig into their own pockets to plug financial holes.
The argument is that football clubs are an intrinsic part of their communities, a beating heart within a town around which the residents can gather and invest their own hopes and dreams.
For that reason they deserve to be spared financial reality and every measure of preservation should be taken.
But is this still a relevant argument?
Wanderers can point to big cup days in their history when tens of thousands of fans got behind them.
But those games were decades ago. It’s certainly true that Wanderers have a core fanbase that is every bit as devoted as in years gone by.
But that is now a tiny percentage of the town and if you walk through the high street today for every one person that lists Wanderers as their first love you will probably get a dozen more naming Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Spurs...
Wanderers might be their second choice, but that hasn’t been enough to get them through the turnstiles.
In recent seasons the club struggled to sell out its ticket allocation for a second leg cup semi-final at Stamford Bridge, they got just over 6,000 fans (2,000-odd were away fans, from memory) for a promotion play-off game against Stockport and this season gates have dwindled to near the 3,000-mark.
Under their previous owner, that could have been explained away as a protest. But that excuse is no longer there.
So are Wanderers still the focal point of the town’s sporting ambitions, or have times changed and interests splintered?
Today’s team isn’t full of local players, under a local manager, with local boys in the now defunct youth team champing at the bit to represent their local club.
Professional sport is now far more transient – just look at Wasps or MK Dons – and it is increasingly business first, sentiment second.
There was a lot of love for HMV until they had to shut their doors, Woolworths was an established and trusted part of the high street until it went out of business.
Many near and dear companies have gone or are going under.
A few football clubs have been pushing the financial boundaries to avoid following suit, and Wanderers appear to be one of them.
I’m sure I will be public enemy number one among the Blues faithful for even asking if trading on goodwill is enough these days.
But if the club really does mean so much to the town, then it’s high time the town proved it on a Saturday afternoon.
Comments(41)
Kidlington Dave
says...
11:19am Fri 8 Mar 13
Stewj
says...
11:23am Fri 8 Mar 13
Kingsley25
says...
12:17pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Yes it is true that the club is having problems attracting fans through the turnstiles (as are many clubs up and down the country) this however is partly a legacy of the previous owner and the huge hike in matchday prices under his regime, along of course with the current economic crisis. I regard myself as a very keen Wycombe fan, but I've only been able to afford to attend a handful of games this season and I suspect many fans are in the same boat. This I'm sure is a situation the Trust are working hard to rectify. In the meantime, the reduced ticket prices for the Accrington game on Good Friday is the perfect chance for the town to get back down to Adams Park and see for themselves what a wonderful job Gareth Ainsworth is doing with his young team.
BP_Wanderer
says...
1:10pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Since when has it been important to have a team of local boys and a local manager? I don't recall many people being put off getting behind the team lead by the Northern Irish talisman Martin O'Neill and Swindon Town recently had their fortunes turned around by an Italian. The current crop of youth team graduates playing week in week out for WW are the finest crop I have witnessed in my 25 years of supporting and many of these are from London. They are hungry to succeed and wear the shirt with pride. How many of the London Wasps team are from High Wycombe Alan?
People care about results and last year they were poor which is contributing to this seasons drop in attendances. However, things are looking up on the pitch and with the right decisions made in the Summer on pricing we could see more fans back at the games.
The efforts of the Trust to attract more fans and families with a reduced ticket offer for the Good Friday fixture have not been mentioned once in your article Alan, why is this?
I applaud you for trying to bring the debate in the pages of BFP, the club deserves improved coverage from your paper, but it seems this subject is way outside of your comfort zone.
hellfirefriar
says...
1:14pm Fri 8 Mar 13
norma stitz
says...
1:15pm Fri 8 Mar 13
From memory!!
Any journalist worth his salary would have the facts to hand, not from memory.
Facts. Back in the so called good days of season 82/83 as we were crowned League champs only twice did we achieve attendances in four figures, the following season not once did we acheve four figures yet within 10 years the club had achieved league status and taken over 30000 to Wembley, twice.
WWFC will survive their current problems, problems not of the supporters making but that of a deluded owner, and emerge stronger for it.
Woud'nt mind betting the club are still around after the BFP have long gone, overtaken by the internet and aided and abetted by appalling jounalism.
roloWWFC
says...
1:31pm Fri 8 Mar 13
TRANTERC
says...
1:55pm Fri 8 Mar 13
roloWWFC
says...
2:03pm Fri 8 Mar 13
snaggle
says...
2:15pm Fri 8 Mar 13
djwyc14
says...
2:16pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Perhaps Alan Feldberg could care to explain how we struggled to sell our 6,000 tickets for the Chelsea game? They sold out rapidly.
Next-the headline is misleading- it is a winding up petition, not a winding up order. I don't suppose Feldberg felt it necessary to include Don Woodward's explanation that it is a procedural measure and that the football club will resolve the problem soon, and do not even intend to attend the hearing.
As for WWFC pushing financial boundaries- this is what Hayes did for 7 years, with no mention. Now the club is trying to run itself sustainably, Feldberg chooses to stick the boot in. Bizarre. He clearly has an agenda which has been backed up with lies. This article is shameful.
With the Accrington Stanley promotion game / cheap tickets I thought for once this paper may help drive the club forwards and properly publish it to the town. However, it seems that the agenda of this particular fool is the prevailing one!
Timmy Pursey
says...
2:49pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Now we have the barely coherent,vindictive and generally hopeless Alan Feldberg.
Hopefully when those sponging egg chasers are run out of town, you will not be far behind them.
And take your chino wearing Puppeteer Steve Cohort along with you.
Wont spend another penny on the Bucks Free Trash !
WycombeMan&Boy
says...
3:27pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Marginalised Chairboy
says...
3:29pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Jock's little helper
says...
3:45pm Fri 8 Mar 13
The principle reason I have brought the BFP for the last 35+ years is for news on the Wanderers, with 3CR I just don’t tune in but if this is the new level of reporting in the local paper then at least I can save 55p per week!
swearmeister
says...
4:17pm Fri 8 Mar 13
Thought not, or you would have known that former YOUTH TEAM PLAYER Anthony Stewart scored the winner.
Is that not "youth team players champing at the bit" enough for you ?
Shocking.
billsheppard
says...
6:57pm Fri 8 Mar 13
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It's telling that whenever Wasps are in trouble there are no pieces laying into the club hierarchy (e.g. when they were threatened with a winding up order of their own due to unpaid tax bills), yet when Wycombe Wanderers run by the Supporters' Trust have a deadline with the HMRC to pay an outstanding tax bill, suddenly the club are prematurely issued a winding up order from a body that isn't able to do so!
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I'm in agreement that clubs should be run sustainably within their means, and that means supporting clubs that have gone down the supporters' trust route to balance the books, not sniping from the sidelines whilst extolling the virtues of heavily-indebted nomadic franchises such as MK and Wasps. Holding MK Franchise in particular as a model to follow is deeply distasteful and shows the sordid level that Feldberg is operating at. He might have no problem with a club that only came into existance preying on the corpse of the deliberately mismanaged Wimbledon FC whose owners were trying to engineer a move to a more 'profitable' locale, but WWFC is a club that has proudly stayed close to its roots, has fairly and squarely earned its place in professional football, and can rightly claim to be the town and district's football club.
Feldberg may be keen to see WWFC disappear so that Wasps have more column inches to occupy, but Wycombe Wanderers FC will be around longer than Feldberg will be writing craven hatchet jobs like this, and, if things continue as they are, the Bucks Free Press itself.
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"Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer...."
drummerjon
says...
7:01pm Fri 8 Mar 13
susie1000
says...
7:27am Sat 9 Mar 13
It reminds me how unpopular a previous visitor to the Town called Alan made himself.
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
12:20pm Sat 9 Mar 13
ChilternsBlue wrote:The inverted commas round 'neutrality' was well-advised there. The BFP was very biassed and implicitly in favour of the ludicrously-misnamed 'Community Stadium and Sports Village' in its assumptions, its terminology, its coverage, its editorials, and in the questionnaire it did at the time.
Football Clubs are NOT businesses. When was the last time you heard someone chanting "Come on Sainsbury's"?
But yes, football clubs need to live within their means and that entails not paying excessive fees to players or their agents and fans not demanding that expensive players are brought in. We tried that with Hayes as a sugar daddy and look where we ended up.
Fan owned clubs are the answer, where fans themselves take responsibility for their football club. At the end of the day they are the only ones who truly care.
As for fans proving their 'loyalty', this is beyond rich from the Bucks Free Press who increasingly move WWFC away from their own back page, relegating them in favour of Wasps who have no historic connection with the town. In the meantime, when the town truly needed the paper to stand up for its club, vis a vis the stadium fiasco, the BFP played the 'neutrality' card and sat on the fence until it was clear that the plan was going to fail. Why not lead by example?
Here's one for you Mr Feldberg. Perhaps you could demonstrate your loyalty to the town and its football club by standing up to Steve Cohen next time he moves our match reports off the back page? Actions speak louder than words.
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
12:26pm Sat 9 Mar 13
billsheppard wrote:Well put Bill.
Feldberg, Cohen and the BFP should be ashamed of this emotionalised, impressionistic hatchet job.
-
It's telling that whenever Wasps are in trouble there are no pieces laying into the club hierarchy (e.g. when they were threatened with a winding up order of their own due to unpaid tax bills), yet when Wycombe Wanderers run by the Supporters' Trust have a deadline with the HMRC to pay an outstanding tax bill, suddenly the club are prematurely issued a winding up order from a body that isn't able to do so!
-
I'm in agreement that clubs should be run sustainably within their means, and that means supporting clubs that have gone down the supporters' trust route to balance the books, not sniping from the sidelines whilst extolling the virtues of heavily-indebted nomadic franchises such as MK and Wasps. Holding MK Franchise in particular as a model to follow is deeply distasteful and shows the sordid level that Feldberg is operating at. He might have no problem with a club that only came into existance preying on the corpse of the deliberately mismanaged Wimbledon FC whose owners were trying to engineer a move to a more 'profitable' locale, but WWFC is a club that has proudly stayed close to its roots, has fairly and squarely earned its place in professional football, and can rightly claim to be the town and district's football club.
Feldberg may be keen to see WWFC disappear so that Wasps have more column inches to occupy, but Wycombe Wanderers FC will be around longer than Feldberg will be writing craven hatchet jobs like this, and, if things continue as they are, the Bucks Free Press itself.
-
"Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer...."
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
12:35pm Sat 9 Mar 13
Do football clubs deserve to be treated differently to other businesses?
(I thought WWFC had become something like a mutual society once again so it is no longer like a business but otherwise - I’m sure a lot of sports journalists would say ‘God yes of course they deserve different treatment Alan!’)
And:
The argument is that football clubs are an intrinsic part of their communities, a beating heart within a town around which the residents can gather and invest their own hopes and dreams.
For that reason they deserve to be spared financial reality and every measure of preservation should be taken.
But is this still a relevant argument?
That’s not an argument at all - if it ever was – it’s an emotional feeling or wish not very many sensible people have considered.
Only a not very bright sports journalist could write this stuff. Do you remember Feldberg’s impassioned appeal about London Wasps after the Hayes Stadium fiasco in which he imagined current grammar school boys returning as ‘bona fide heroes’ to the corridors they once walked as pupils?
But if the club really does mean so much to the town, then it’s high time the town proved it on a Saturday afternoon.
I felt such shame and embarrassment when I read that –it was as if Alan Feldberg were talking to me personally (such a powerful writer!) and I felt personally guilty of a lack of local patriotism in not proving my Blues support on a Saturday afternoon. I must go there this afternoon and 'invest my own hopes and dreams' there.
Good luck to WWFC and don’t anyone be put off or distracted in any way at all by this earnest guff.
buser
says...
6:03pm Sat 9 Mar 13
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
6:13pm Sat 9 Mar 13
Some posters on here have suggested they may simply be having to take their time about paying the tax bill.
buser
says...
6:46pm Sat 9 Mar 13
J B Blackett
says...
10:06pm Sat 9 Mar 13
.
Especially as the current situation has been exacerbated through dodgy local politicians supporting the (thankfully departed) ex-owner and fellow speculators and who are still under investigation (allegedly)
.
I am also not sure that local taxes should be used to finance this organization.
.
And if local people do not like football , they cannot be chastised for not going to watch something they don't see as not of interest to them or they consider not good value.
bennyfromtheblock
says...
9:09am Sun 10 Mar 13
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
12:14pm Sun 10 Mar 13
bennyfromtheblock wrote:.
I, like many others in this town support a team in the Premier League. (hint: It's in West London) However, I do go to watch Wycombe at least three or four times a year and feel proud to have a team in the Football League on my doorstep. When I was younger and not able to afford to attend my 'first' team's games regularly, I was a season ticket holder at WWFC. Although I regard the blues as my second team, I still find this article highly offensive and I can't even begin to imagine how offended those of you are who hold Wycombe so close to your hearts. I find it such a shame that the local paper does not seem willing to get behind the local club at such a crucial time. Surely in the best interests of the paper they should be more willing to report on the team in a positive light as many who buy the paper are fans of the team. I'll be there on Good Friday as my team isn't playing until the Sunday. I hope many others will join me.
I find it such a shame that the local paper does not seem willing to get behind the local club at such a crucial time.
Yes indeed and it was completely willing to get behind Hayes and his irrational dead-end ideas.
evenflo
says...
3:50pm Sun 10 Mar 13
bob500
says...
7:15pm Sun 10 Mar 13
Edgar Brooks
says...
10:01pm Sun 10 Mar 13
everestman
says...
4:01pm Wed 13 Mar 13
roloWWFC
says...
4:24pm Wed 13 Mar 13
I'm not sure if you care about having a league football club in High Wycombe, but if you do, get down and watch them on Good Friday. We need the town to get behind a team we can be proud of. The team is there in the latter part of this season, stuffed full of products of the youth system giving it a right good go. Now we just need the town to follow suit and get down to Adams Park.
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
8:35pm Wed 13 Mar 13
everestman wrote:The choice of the name ‘everest man’ – a name redolent of double-glazing - to write in support of a former double-glazing salesman’s discredited plan makes me suspect a wind-up.
WWFC wouldn't be in this situation if they got the go ahead to relocate with Wasps to the proposed sports village in Booker Airfield. They'll be in a worse situation when Wasps go elsewhere.
gpn01
says...
9:02pm Wed 13 Mar 13
everestman wrote:At around the time of the stadium proposal (2010), WWFC's average gate was around 5,000-5,500. Now it's droppd to around 3,800. Are you seriously suggesting that they've decreased attendance by 1,700 per match simply because WDC didn't spend £40M+ of ratepayers money on a nice shiny 17,500 seater stadium???
WWFC wouldn't be in this situation if they got the go ahead to relocate with Wasps to the proposed sports village in Booker Airfield. They'll be in a worse situation when Wasps go elsewhere.
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
9:41pm Wed 13 Mar 13
(Lawrence looks alert and intelligent a bit like Tonto or the Lone Ranger when a Sioux war party is nearby.)
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
9:42pm Wed 13 Mar 13
gpn01
says...
10:41pm Wed 13 Mar 13
ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:Am aware that this could simply be a stirring-things-up exercise to generate a bit of controvery. That's why I always keep to facts and not emotions or emoticons ;)
‘Careful “roloWWFC” and ”gpn01” I suspect a trap – possibly 'everstperson' is a BFP plant designed to get us all slagging Steve Hayes and the ludicrously-misnamed development plane for Booker all over again although it is a dead issue now.’
(Lawrence looks alert and intelligent a bit like Tonto or the Lone Ranger when a Sioux war party is nearby.)
ImpeturbableLawrence
says...
11:11pm Wed 13 Mar 13
J B Blackett
says...
2:30pm Thu 14 Mar 13
ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:That wasn't 'double-dealing' by any chance ?
everestman wrote:The choice of the name ‘everest man’ – a name redolent of double-glazing - to write in support of a former double-glazing salesman’s discredited plan makes me suspect a wind-up.
WWFC wouldn't be in this situation if they got the go ahead to relocate with Wasps to the proposed sports village in Booker Airfield. They'll be in a worse situation when Wasps go elsewhere.
.
Some people's backgrounds can be quite opaque (ljust like poor quality double-glazing)
.
The ex-owner was a (sub-) prime example of someone who eventually misjudged the Window of Opportunity - to jump through , that is
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It is said that some local politicians nearly got dragged into / through it.
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Would you believe it ? Some people become so self-obsessed as to be virtually clueless. And ultimately useless - even to themselves


ChilternsBlue says...
11:09am Fri 8 Mar 13
But yes, football clubs need to live within their means and that entails not paying excessive fees to players or their agents and fans not demanding that expensive players are brought in. We tried that with Hayes as a sugar daddy and look where we ended up.
Fan owned clubs are the answer, where fans themselves take responsibility for their football club. At the end of the day they are the only ones who truly care.
As for fans proving their 'loyalty', this is beyond rich from the Bucks Free Press who increasingly move WWFC away from their own back page, relegating them in favour of Wasps who have no historic connection with the town. In the meantime, when the town truly needed the paper to stand up for its club, vis a vis the stadium fiasco, the BFP played the 'neutrality' card and sat on the fence until it was clear that the plan was going to fail. Why not lead by example?
Here's one for you Mr Feldberg. Perhaps you could demonstrate your loyalty to the town and its football club by standing up to Steve Cohen next time he moves our match reports off the back page? Actions speak louder than words.