Kendal Town chief: Club's future not in doubt (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Kendal Town chief: Club's future not in doubt

7:20am Thursday 12th January 2012 in Sport By Patrick O'Kane, Senior News/Sport Reporter

KENDAL Town chairman Haydon Munslow has moved to quell rumours surrounding the club’s financial future.

During the weekend it was announced that 2010/11 player of the year Kieran Walmsley was joining Blue Square North side Altrincham on loan, while loanee Jordan Connerton returned to Crewe.

Mr Munslow said that had led to speculation among supporters about the club’s reasons for reducing its playing squad, about loan deals and restricting its playing budget.

But Mr Munslow told The Westmorland Gazette there was no threat to the club’s existence.

He did, however, say that income had been affected by an ongoing legal wrangle between the club and Parkside (Kendal) Ltd, the current occupants of the clubhouse at The CosySeal Stadium.

He was unwilling to go into any detail but said that, as a result, the committee had no choice but to reduce its player wage budget.

Mr Munslow said: “At the start of the season a business sets a budget and an expected income.

“We began the season with an understanding and ex-pectation of being able to generate income from the use of the clubhouse. However, we haven’t been able to generate that income.”

Kendal Town currently sit 12th in the Evo-Stik Premier League but have enjoyed an upturn in fortunes of late.

They have reached the semi finals of the Lancashire FA Trophy and moved into the quarter finals of the Doodson Cup by defeating Lancaster City on penalties on Tuesday.

Mr Munslow said the timing of Connerton’s return to Crewe was coincidental and, while Walmsley’s move to Altrincham would ease the wage bill, it was not a result of the legal matter.

He added: “Altrincham came to us and made an offer for Kieran and they were quite persistent in pursuing him. “We are trying to get the most out of the reduced amount available for wages but the manager will use his budget wisely.”

Mr Munslow said there was no need for the club to trim its current squad numbers and the club hoped to resolve the legal issue in the near future.

A club statement added: “The football club’s manage-ment committee on behalf of the club’s members and supporters are committed to resolving this issue and establishing modern facilities at our stadium.

“This will release income to adequately finance our men’s and ladies teams, establish a local youth feeder system and meet all our fans’ ambitions for Kendal Town AFC to progress upwards through the leagues.”

Parkside (Kendal) Ltd declined to comment.

* THE chairman of Kendal Town Independent Supporters Club has called for common sense to prevail as the football club continues legal discussions with Parkside (Kendal) Ltd.

Joe Woods told The Westmorland Gazette he felt the issue could be damaging to the club in the long term and that he hoped it was sorted out soon for the sake of the team on the pitch.

He said: “I think it is very sad that it has got to this stage. The club is trying to generate income and potentially The Park [clubhouse] is a source of income. To not have that income could be damaging to the club.

“It is well known that we are not one of the wealthiest clubs in the league so any money we can bring in will ultimately help.

“We all want the club to push on and to do that we need some sort of financial stability. It is certainly not going to help the team though.”

Mr Woods said he was disappointed to see playmaker Kieran Walmsley leave the club and hoped the situation did not lead to more players exiting.

He added: “Kieran was our player of the year in 2011 and we don’t have the biggest squad in the league and to start having to lose more players because of this situation would be disappointing.

“It is also disappointing to know that while could still get to two cup finals this season we are losing our better players. If we can get to these finals we would get half decent crowds in and generate more funds for the club.”

Mr Woods concluded: “It is a shame that this legal dispute has been going on for a while. I had hoped common sense would prevail but that hasn’t seemed to happen yet. We just hope now that it is sorted before the start of next season.”