ACCRINGTON Stanley Chairman Eric Whalley has admitted that keeping Accrington’s financial books balanced is almost as hard of a task as John Coleman has to keep the club in the Football League.
The club has been owned by Chairman Whalley since the mid 1990’s and since then Stanley have spung up the league’s heading to the Football League from the lowly Unibond Premier, and it has all happened on a limited managerial budget.
“Holding our own on our wage bill compared with other clubs has been a miracle really and the big thing is that hopefully we can push on.” he said speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph.
“To be quite honest, I don`t think there`ll be too many clubs in League Two that are making a profit. I think the big thing as far as we`re concerned is that we`ve got the cover on the Clayton end which cost us £180,000 with help from the Football Foundation money.”
In order to keep inside the Football League’s rulings, Stanley have to add a further 800 seats to the Fraser Eagle Stadium by the beginning of the 2009/10 season, thus ‘stealing’ funds from gaffer Coleman’s transfer kitty.
“There are one or two players that John`s been after signing and unfortunately they`ve wanted too much and we`ve just refused to pay that kind of money.
“Those players have moved on, two of them I know for quite big fees, but at the end of the day it`s no use spending two quid if you`ve only got a quid in the kitty.”
Managers will always ask for funds from their chairmen, and quite frequently get turned down, but Whalley knows how it feels after spending two spells in charge of the club whilst John Alty was the Chairman of the club.
“I`ve been there. When I was manager and John (Alty) was chairman, I remember I bought Pete Smith from Barrow. And I was the manager! I was determined to sign him, so unfortunately it cost me a few quid?”
“Whoever he`s after I do try to make it possible, but when you`ve signed as many bad players as I did when I was a manager it`s difficult to say to the current manager that you don`t think a player`s any good!”
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You should look at this as a season to be able to play with a bit of an adventure although you do still need to get the points on the board.