In advance of Saturday’s match against AFC Hornchurch at the Ray Mac, the club are publishing the Chairman’s comments from the Matchday Programme online, so fans can get a sneak peek of what has been going on behind the scenes at the club over the summer.

Chairman’s Notes – William Harrison-Allan

The Chairman and the Board of Directors welcome you to the first league game of the season and also welcome our visitors AFC Hornchurch and congratulate them on their promotion to the Blue Square South.

As most of you are aware, the football club was losing in the region of £500,000 a year before the current board of directors were appointed and in the first full financial year to the 31/05/ 2010 the loss had been reduced to £371,000 followed by a further reduction to the 31/05/2011 of a loss of £306,000. We are very pleased to announce that we have just completed the audit to the financial year ending 31/05/2012 and we have dramatically reduced the loss to £117,000.

Our original 5 year target of getting the club to a break even position now looks achievable, and we may even make this within the fourth full year whilst at the same time increasing Darrell’s players budget in order for the club to be even more competitive this year and Darrell and the board have agreed that their joint target is at least to make the play offs if not an automatic promotion place.

You will see that there have been some improvements to the ground with new fencing, painting and a new electronic scoreboard behind the away goal end. We have other plans for improvements inside the ground with the joining of Anya’s Lounge to the board room and new offices and an enlarged shop for the merchandise etc. We also are looking to tidy up some areas on the outside of the ground and inside the ground’s perimeter fence itself, which should take place over the first six months of the season.

The board would like to thank Michael Cooper for all his work on the Salisbury City FC Youth Development area as well as Football in the Community and of course bringing back the reserve side, which will undoubtedly help Darrell and Mikey in bringing through younger players from our development side and also loan and trialists as and when they become available.

I am pleased to announce that Persimmon Homes have agreed to extend the lease on the training grounds for another season but this is probably likely to be the last and therefore we are currently looking at buying some land in the near vicinity to provide proper training facilities and a 3G pitch and 5-a-side pitches, which will be available not only to Salisbury City FC affiliated clubs but the community of Old Sarum as well and further announcements will be made on this in the coming months.

The Chairman and Geoff Hooper would also like to pay special thanks to Geoff Cain our Co-director, who has worked very hard with Karen and Peter Matthiae to increase the turnover and commercial activity of the club and you will see when the accounts are published that we have managed to put £100,000 on the turnover of the club in the past 12 months, which is approximately a 25% increase and this is no mean feat in the current economic climate.

The board would like to thank its loyal supporters for last season, which although we know it was difficult at times the team recovered its position to finish a very creditable 10^th and get through to the 3^rd round of the FA Cup for the first time in its history and the board believe that Darrell and Mikey have put SCFC in a great place to push on this season coming with their new squad.

There is also a great vote of thanks to the season ticket holders who have renewed and this has now been increased by 25% this year so welcome all you new season ticket holders or those who are returning to the fold.

The board recognise that it has been difficult for the fans over the past couple of years but hopefully they can now start to see the improvements being made in the financial position of the football club, which has lead to the extra budget being made available to Darrell and his squad, which hopefully should lead us to promotion in to the Blue Square Premier in the very near future. We would like to wish fans, players and their management all the best for the coming season and look forward to some exciting times ahead.

WHA