WENDOVER FOOTBALL CLUB

Wendover Football Club –Tearing Up History

A young supporter gazes out at the machinery tearing up a part of his family’s history, creating an uncertain future for Wendover Football Club. The John Colet Academy are in the process of siting an expensive artificial pitch on our home of nearly 50 years.

As we all try to emerge from the wreckage of the COVID-19 pandemic, it saddens us that this development will have a financial and emotional impact on young, local, working families, jeopardising a club that has provided a sports and social network for our residents since 1895.

In relation to this project, WFC has received a proposal to continue using a natural pitch at another area on site, although work to bring that pitch to standard will not be completed for another year. Alongside this relocation, the Academy’s current Leadership Team wish to financially hamstring our club by:

•Removing a long-standing “block booking” discount •Increasing the hourly rate •Introducing charges for preseason friendlies and training sessions •Increasing the length of Saturday hire sessions •Assuming ownership of goals, jointly purchased between WFC and the John Colet, which will be hired out to other parties

The above is designed to QUADRUPLE the annual cost. Our 125 year old Club will be lost to the pressure generated on local families’ finances and the constant fundraising requirement for our volunteers.

The most galling element of the Academy’s position is that they are in receipt of substantial funding (assumed to be hundreds of thousands) from our governing body’s Football Foundation charity to deliver this vanity project. Football’s charitable funds are being used to make football unviable.

WFC has informed the Academy Head that we are now left with no choice but to appeal to our Councillors whilst sharing this with Wendover News. We feel that this attack on our heritage is in direct conflict with their obligations to use our Council’s assets for the betterment of the community. It is a long way removed from the favourable terms that the Council originally gave Wendover FC in order to make football available for all.

WFC’s volunteers will continue to protest, but the fight is long and hard and our resources are minuscule in comparison to the vast Government-backed funds of the John Colet.

We ask the people of Wendover to continue to support Wendover Football Club and to resist any way they can. Wendover Football Club