In the recent Gillingham matchday programme, new Bees United board member Mike Rice reflected on his first 100 days in the job. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.
Maybe it was poverty of imagination on my part, but nothing about being a Bees United board member has been as I had imagined it. Right from the start I was wrong-footed. I was told that monthly board meetings took place in the Griffin Park Learning Zone. I thought I knew where that was, but realised too late that I didn’t. When I eventually found the room (behind E block), I was confronted by a lot of people. Bees United chairman David Merritt was sat farthest from the door, flanked on either side by a sea of faces – outgoing board members, incoming board members, continuing board members, Lionel Road representatives, supporter-director Jon Gosling (now an associate director of the Club) and Alan Bird, the Club’s finance director and one of Bees United’s four nominees on the Club board (with Club chairman Greg Dyke, David Merritt and Bees United board member Donald Kerr). Numbers have slimmed for subsequent board meetings as Matt Dolman and David Hawes were attending for the last time. Trevor Inns, the third retiring board member, had resigned some weeks earlier and was absent, believed to be in Hong Kong.
What struck me immediately was how professionally the meeting was organised and the high, not to say arcane, level of the debate. People spoke in turn, usually through the chair, and offered considered views, often on intricate matters of tax law or jurisprudence. Nobody interrupted or talked over anybody else. David Merritt made a point of ensuring everyone had their say before moving on, keeping closely to the agenda, although he could not prevent the odd quip or cynical remark resulting in bursts of laughter. GPG-lite If pressed, I suppose I’d been expecting a ‘live’ version of the online messageboard, the Griffin Park Grapevine (GPG), given the bad press Bees United had been receiving from some quarters.
Yet these guys knew their stuff, knew how to conduct themselves at a board meeting and clearly had the best interests of the club at heart. Sitting to David Merritt’s left was newly-elected Bees United board member Stephen Dando. A full-time vicar with a parish in Eastcote as well as a lifelong Bees supporter, Stephen was feeling his way like me. It was obvious though that with his involvement in all types of community projects over many years, Stephen would prove an invaluable asset to the Bees United board during his three-year term. Opposite me was Alan Bird. Acerbic when referring to the financial controls he inherited at the Club in December 2007, and voluble in discussing the club’s accounts in great detail, Alan clearly had the total confidence of the Bees United board. It was while Alan was speaking that I realised I was not nearly as well informed as I had imagined. Reading my ‘election statement’ and ‘online hustings’ answers today, I can’t help squirming at the naivety of some of my statements. When I said “the Club has some significant short- and medium-term financial problems that cannot be ignored”, it might have sounded authoritative, but I had no real idea of the breadth and depth of those problems.
Shear stupidity
What Alan had to say shook me out of my complacency. It wasn’t the accumulated debt or the losses for this season, although they are both cause for concern. It was the shear trivial stupidity of some of the ways the Club had been losing money. Before he and David Heath became involved, the Club had either been spending too much or losing money on numerous deals it had struck with third parties. In fact, it had been making a loss on activities where the only point of doing them was to make money, not lose it. Many of these deals made no commercial sense. The only charitable excuse was that they had been entered into on the assumption that Brentford FC would imminently be playing in the Championship. Fortunately, many of the contracts have been renegotiated over the past 12 months, and the Club is once again either making money, or not spending it unnecessarily.
But just like signing a player in haste on a three-year contract, but regretting the move for the next 36 months, these deals have proved costly and sometimes difficult to escape. One of the decisions taken during this part of the meeting was to appoint newly-elected board member Andre Sawyer onto the financial oversight team, which also comprises David Merritt and Bees United’s company secretary Chris Gammon, with enthusiastic support from Alan Bird. Sitting to my left, Andre Sawyer was elected with a mandate to bring bring Lifeline, of which he is also a board member, and Bees United closer together. With his strong background in corporate finance, Andre has already made some telling contributions to Bees United’s decisions.
Huge commitment
Which leads me to the main reason why I’ve been surprised since becoming a Bees United board member. And that’s with the huge amount of commitment and effort all of the Bees United board – elected members Stephen Callen, Mark Chapman, Natasha Judge and Donald Kerr, loan-note holders’ representative Paul Stedman, membership secretary Bruce Powell, as well as those already mentioned – are putting into their voluntary roles in pursuit of a successful and sustainable Brentford Football Club.
Everybody I’ve met on the Bees United team is an ordinary supporter with something to offer who’s ‘doing a bit extra’. I really cannot understand how any Brentford fan can decide NOT to be a member of Bees United. Given Bees United’s objectives, what’s not to like? For my own part, I’ve taken on the ‘poisoned chalice’, namely responsibility for Bees United’s internal and external communications. If you’re a member and you’ve got any complaints about how Bees United is communicating with you, contact me at mike.rice@beesunited.org.uk .
Mike Rice
A big thank you
On behalf of all Brentford fans, Bees United would like to send a big thank you to all the backroom staff of Brentford Football Club for making the recent visit of Wycombe Wanderers so memorable and successful. More than 2,000 extra spectators than expected – and at least 5,000 more than the usual attendance – were accommodated with aplomb, making the match a hugely enjoyable experience for everyone.