"Trouble at T'erras"

Contact with members of the Weymouth Trust suggests that the club is in absolute turmoil (again). Even the official website www.theterras.co.uk gives some background to the events. In addition to John Hollins being sacked their goalkeeper has also left the Club. The Trust are afraid that plans for the Owner of Dorchester Town to take over the Club and amalgamate them, with all future games being played at Dorchester's ground will come to fruition unless the consortium interested in taking the Club over (the cynic in me asks "Why"?) can come to a satisfactory arrangement with the present owner. They don't seem to have resolved any of the problems that Ian Ridley identified in his book "Floodlit Dreams" and its evident that he is also lurking in the background....waiting.

Wasn't there talk of a new stadium in Weymouth David or was that just deflecting things from the truth?

Yeah, talk of a new stadium - even though the Wessex isn't exactly old.

Weymouth has for some time been something of a joke - clearly there is potential there to support a decent Conference side, but they have gone about it very badly over the years.

DB9 said:

Wasn't there talk of a new stadium in Weymouth David or was that just deflecting things from the truth?

Click to expand...

Again, just looking in from the outside it would seem that each of the two people who have run the Club-and 'owned' it, saw it not as a Football Club but as a cash cow- with the sale of the present stadium a priority. However it would appear that Weymouth and Portland Council will not allow redevelopment and the present owner has lost interest.
It's very sad, as when Neil Le Milliere and I went up for the setting up of their Trust it was clear from the number attending that there is a genuine group of supporters who care about the Club- but have been jerked about by this redevelopment issue.
Merging Wymouth with Dorchester seems to me like suggesting to people in Moretonhamstead and Chagford that the Civil War has ended!

Dave out there the civil war never ended

heathy1 said:

Dave out there the civil war never ended

Click to expand...

Nor, it appears has it at Weymouth and/or Dorchester. John Hollins has announced his intentions to appeal against his dismissal and the present Chair gets in his retaliation first by listing reasons why he was removed from his post on the official website. Looking in from the outside some of them seem pretty spurious- and it's difficult not to believe that the bottom line is M-O-N-E-Y. Anyway the situation is evidently ongoing and it will be interesting to see how it develops.
Heathy- with regard to your observation you are, of course, completely correct!!

But will the Weymouth fans want Ian Ridley back?

rebecca said:

But will the Weymouth fans want Ian Ridley back?

Click to expand...

Probably not. However it has to be said that during his tenure at the Club he did try (and I don't say that he always succeeded) to bring some financial realism to the Club which had been (and then subsequently continued to) spend money it didn't have. What most of the Trust Members appear to want is a period of stability where, once again, football became the main focus, not a piece of potential real estate.
Incidentally, I've known some heavy smokers in my time, but Ian Ridley was, at the time that he was Chair, literally a chain smoker.Perhaps it was the onus of the job that made him that way.

Weymouth need to get realistic. A fan base of around 1,000 in the BSP does not support a professional club, but it could support an amateur side at that level. They seem to be lurching from one crisis to another over the last few years. Ridley's excellent book spells out all the local feuds very well and everything seems to hinge on whoever owns the ground selling it - and then probably disapperaing with the cash.

They really need a Trust takeover of the club, otherwise it seems to me that the club won't be around much longer. This stupid idea of a merger would kill it sooner than anything else and would surely lead to relegation to the BS South as well. Of course that would leave an unused football ground for someone to sell...

Gozzer said:

Weymouth need to get realistic. A fan base of around 1,000 in the BSP does not support a professional club, but it could support an amateur side at that level. They seem to be lurching from one crisis to another over the last few years. Ridley's excellent book spells out all the local feuds very well and everything seems to hinge on whoever owns the ground selling it - and then probably disapperaing with the cash.

They really need a Trust takeover of the club, otherwise it seems to me that the club won't be around much longer. This stupid idea of a merger would kill it sooner than anything else and would surely lead to relegation to the BS South as well. Of course that would leave an unused football ground for someone to sell...

Click to expand...

But with such poor support a Trust seems unlikely to be able to raise the funds needed.