Welshpool not dead yet says General Manager

Technogroup Welshpool General Manager Liam Pritchard claims the club is far from dead despite talk of withdrawing from the Huws Gray Cymru Alliance League.

Following the news exclusively revealed today on www.mywelshpool.co.uk that Pritchard had informed former manager Mike Barton to advise players to look for new clubs he now says that is only his recommendation to tomorrow night's emergency meeting in a bid to buy time to secure the club's long term future.

"I would like to stress first and foremost that the content of my conversation with Mike Barton was only my opinion on how best to take the club forward. This opinion is what I will be putting to the Committee on Monday night for their consideration so it is most definitely NOT official policy of Technogroup Welshpool FC," he said.

"Any decision to withdraw from the league is not mine to make unilaterally. I will put it to the committee, if they agree then we'll shift our focus to preparing for next season. If not, I will continue to impliment the decisions of the committee as usual.

"I accept that my opinion probably was not articulated as well as it could have been. It was phrased in an emotive fashion after an extremely stressful day during a very stressful season. It is also very difficult to express yourself fully in the limited space available in a text message.

"However, I DO believe that, on balance, based on a number of issues I'll be informing the committee of on Monday night, if we find ourselves in the position where we cannot fulfil fixtures then, to avoid continued fines, futher points deductions and repeated bad publicity, it would be best to withdraw from the league altogether.

"This would mean having to start from the very bottom again but I don't see that as a bad thing and don't think the club should either.

"We have the infastructure and fundraising in place to be a real force in that league. I know it sounds arrogant but I believe that we will acheive three successive promotions and reach the Spar Division 1 very quickly, which is where we're going to be next season anyway.

"I feel that the three years it will take us to reach Spar Div 1 will be plenty of time to rebuild the club and build financial reserves allowing us to push on stronger than ever.

"The way we are at the moment, our supporters are breaking their backs raising funds and they're just being swallowed up by running costs. There's no room to breathe or forward plan, it's just a case of "get by."

"If we were top of the table playing at a 500 seater stadium it would seem worthwhile. But we're not. We're 19 points from safety (and the gap is getting bigger) and we play on a field that just happens to have a stand next to it. It sometimes feels like setting fire to money to me.

"This is not a new opinion based upon recent events. Much of last season I put it to a number of the committee as I felt that trying to compete in the Alliance would be an expensive distraction from the real task of essentially trying to rebuild the club from scratch.

"At that time the members disagreed with me, as is their right, and they may well do so again Monday night. It's my job to impliment their decisions and I'll continue to do just that.

"However, I strongly deny that the future of the club is in the balance. I feel that taking the hit now and ripping the plaster off will see the club emerge much stronger and better equiped to deal with football at this level. We'll almost certainly never be a Welsh Premier League club again, but I feel in the future we can compete at the right end of the Cymru Alliance.

"When I put my ideas to the various members last season I feel they were rejected more out of pride than anything else. Yes, it would be embarrassing to see the club go from the very top to the very bottom but how much more embarrassing than seeing it slump from one disaster to another and slowly crumble its way down the pyramid?

"We've got to face the facts that we're not a big club. Our promotion to the Premier League in the first place was a footballing fairytale. Our success whilst there was entirely based upon someone throwing a great deal of money at the club. When that ran out it became very apparent that the foundations that held the club up before had eroded.

"A great deal of work has been done over recent years and this year to get the club to run itself, but it is too big a job to try and do while throwing a great deal of hard earned money into a black hole to essentially do little more than save face.

"We need to step back, take the pressure off and allow all that good work to finally shine through. If the committee decides to agree with me tomorrow night, I feel that we're going to have three years where we learn to enjoy our football again.

"Not scrapping to pick up the odd point, but actually stand a real chance of beating everyone we meet. When we get to Spar Division 1 we'll be on a roll and well on our way to becoming a genuinely big club.

"But, at the end of the day, that's just my opinion. I've got to sell this vision to the club and allay their short term fears about the future.

"This club is far from dead,." he added.