Exclusive: NCM Users quiz Keri and Steve

D51X - The manager has made it clear that he needs improvement on his current training facilities, have the board got any plans for sanctioning that?

ST - First of all I would just like to say that, as a fan, I think it's a massive shame that the club has been going since 1862 and has never owned it's own facilities. In the last 50 years there has been acres of land in this area that has been up for sale relatively inexpensively, but it's all gone now and now the land in this area is really expensive.

Gudjon: Not happy with training facilities

It's another situation with the history at the club. I've been to the cricket club and there is history absolutely everywhere. Where is it here? (Founded in) 1862, we should have history everywhere. These two things to me are just a symptom of the way the club's been run for years. Long-term, it's just not been run properly.

As for the training facilities, we've got a contract with the Girls High School to use the facilities there. That was organised by the previous management team to their satisfaction.

Gudjon's now come along and wants to train at different hours, at different times on different days, which doesn't quite fit-in with the sports set-up at the Girls High School. So that's why the situation is currently as it is.

There are two things happening at the minute in order to solve this issue, one would be a very long-term project that is actually in its infancy that would require (help off) the County Council, the other would be that we would simply have to move.

What Gudjon wants to do is train twice a day, where as most clubs train once a day but do weight training etc in the afternoon. He (Gudjon) wants physical training twice a day and our current facilities aren't quite geared up for that.

Unfortunately there is simply not the funds in the club at the minute to buy a property at the going rate.

Cookie - Next season, what kind of player are we hoping to attract? Will the wages we're going to pay be good enough to attract quality players?

ST - To put this into perspective the playing budget we're currently running on is £1,050,000. This was £1.8million when we came in. Our current budget is the fourth largest in the league.

The problem we currently have is that when I came into the club it was already agreed that (Gary) Mills would take over and the playing budget for Mills was already agreed. I think, as a club and as a board, we made a collective mistake in allowing the two-year contract system to take place.

Having said that, if we hadn't have done it we'd have been crucified by the fans, sometimes you just can't win. At the time it made sense because you've got some players who, for this League, are on a very good salary and some players who earn a pittance. But that's the pyramid system that we introduced at the time. In hindsight, that was a mistake.

So what you've got now is a group of players at the start of the season for a budget of £1,050,000 which I think would have done only marginally better than last season.

So what we've asked Gudjon to do is to stick to that budget, but we (the board) have asked him to work as a manager and to do what he can to make changes. This has taken a while but what you're seeing now in the last four weeks are the fruits of a lot of pressure, the fact that a lot of players have suddenly left.

And that's allowed (Gudjon) the freedom to bring new players in. Next season what you'll get is a slightly reduced budget because, currently, it is still too much for this league but we should still be in around the top five spenders for this league.

But this also means that you can have players who you're happy with that are currently at the club who you can give two-year contracts to, but also other players coming in who you can have a look at, so I think that gives you more of a balanced side.

But in answer to the question I think you'll get very good quality players for the money that we will have available, which will probably be in the top five for this league.

Cookie - On a personal level, I think it was an excellent decision in the summer to offer most players who came in one-year contracts.

ST - Well this was a board decision, what we said this year is that we weren't going to give any players longer than a year and we may well introduce this as a board policy, that anyone new into the club will only get a year so we can look at them because, with the greatest amount of respect, some of the players who have recently left the club, in hindsight, should perhaps not have been given a two-year contract.

The difficulty of this system is that a lot of players will get offered a slightly lower salary but on a two-year contract.

It's trying to get that balance. If you go back to when we brought-in practically a whole new team in under Mills, a lot of those players looked good on paper but, perhaps with hindsight, we made a huge mistake in giving two-year contracts and having a budget of £1.2million and it has cost us dearly.

Pipe: Hot property

D51X - It's been said that Gudjon hasn't been given his budget for next season yet so hasn't been able to offer any contracts...

ST - Well it's not quite like that. We're not offering specific contracts, but then again we are only just over half-way through the season and if you start offering contracts to some and not to others you can upset the dressing-room.

But by February/March Gudjon will have his budget that is being worked on, but we've still got to see what this season brings.

TMS - Is there a risk though, that, for example, David Pipe gets an offer from someone tomorrow and agrees pre-contract terms?

ST - Yes, but then we have opened up contractual talks with some players who won't sign, they want to wait until the end of the season. Gudjon will know within plenty of time before the end of the season what he's got to work with.

Cookie - In terms of attendances, what are the board budgeting for next season?

ST - This season we were budgeting for an average of around 5,200, which isn't far out when you consider that when we play teams like Mansfield it brings the average right up. Next season we'll be basing our forecasts at 5,000.

KU - And anything on top of that will be a bonus.

ST - Financially it has been as flat as it can be this season. We've had very little money from the cups, the gates are down we've not had any luck with any of the draws for the Bank Holiday fixtures and almost everytime you play there seems to be an England fixture on!

It's been as flat as you can get. We've been very unfortunate.

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For Part Two of the BIG meeting, be sure to check back to NCM in the next couple of days.