MillersMad: Moving onto new players, a pretty emotive subject for everybody. How much extra funding is available for new players at the beginning of the new season? Is it over and above what is available from players leaving?
Peter: This is a very difficult one, if you are comparing with this season then there won’t be any more money available, what we said about players when we took over, we knew we had a problem budget wise, but we wanted to give ourselves the best chance of trying to avoid relegation and keeping the squad together and keeping at least that lid on that amount of expenditure. We always knew however that things would have to change in the summer because we couldn’t sustain those level of wages going into next year, now we have already made quite good inroads in terms of the squad and wages and we have been discussing just this afternoon with Alan Knill and so on, idea’s on the budget and so on, it looks in global terms is we will have a budget of about £1.8 million for wages for players next year. One popular myth about this club is we pay low wages or at least the lowest wages, we don’t I think we are the 4th lowest and I think compared to turnover we are the highest payers, I think this year we are paying something like 110% of our turnover, Plymouth paid £2.2 million in wages this year, our wages for the year are something like £2.7 million, I think as a general proposition wages are generally becoming down, because there isn’t enough football generally.
All we can reassure everybody is we are just like other supporters we want to be able get the best players and as more of as we possibly can. All this exercise is about trying to get to a position where there will be more money for players. I think the bottom line is we will be in about the same position buying wise probably even better next year, because of the competition next year, this is assuming we are going to be relegated, of course if the stand comes on stream and if there is any dealing with players whatever, there may be a little more available. I think the basic answer to that is that we will always be a club that won’t be able to find massive transfer fees, but I think that is going to be a lot of clubs in the future.
I think apart from a few of them who can generate on their numbers or borrow it or whatever, it is going to be more about wages, and less about transfers and how long the contract is going to be, I think the way we are basically are going to keep more or less things together next year is, like lots of clubs the squad will be smaller, not smaller than what we have got at the moment but it will probably be 18 or 19 players plus junior players, because actually although if you have got all the money in the world like Tottenham you might have 40 professionals all on £2million a year, how they are paying for them I’ll never know.
The rest of the clubs they have difficulty keeping their players happy. Yes you have to cater for injuries and you have got to have options to be able to freshen it up, but what most like to do is, to be able to now and again put promising juniors on the bench. That is the way forward so providing you have enough space 18 or 19 players plus your best juniors is the way you run a squad, this is what we are getting back from the research we have done and what our own people are telling us, that is manageable.
MillersMad: Will we be looking at a complete clear out of the squad, whoever is the manager if he decides that is the best course of action will the board back him in such a major change so early in his reign?
Peter: Yes I think we would back him, yes I think if we make a choice of manager and the manager says that’s the way forward, I think that as a general proposition I don’t think most fans are for a complete clear out, I know frustration builds when we lose and people say they are complete rubbish get rid of the lot of them. When you think about it look at the clubs that have had complete clearouts, look at Sheffield Wednesday, I mean they had a complete clearout 2 seasons ago, look at the team they had a few seasons ago compared to now. The best teams all try to make change gradual; I don’t think there will be a complete clearout anyway because of the contractual position; you just can’t do that with squads now, and of course that’s getting onto players, that’s why you can’t change things overnight these players have contracts, they are also human beings who are trying hard actually believe it or not they don’t want to lose but you know it’s a bit impersonal at times I know.
MillersMad:: Is the board likely to support buying some class players to win us instant promotion back? But perhaps I think you have already answered this.
Peter: Well let me tell you another story about that as well, if the board see another opportunity and we feel that we have got a chance of doing it and we are not putting the whole business at risk we will do it. We have been trying to get Alan Lee back to the club; this came up a couple of weeks ago when we saw that Cardiff were getting into difficulties, well I didn’t see this our finance director John Harrison got onto it and he was onto it like a flash, spoke to Alan Knill and said look Cardiff owe us some money maybe we could broker some sort of deal, would you be interested is he a player that interests you, well yes you know I think he is a popular player, he is the sort of player that you know, now as we all know its been well documented as they say that Alan is on a big contract. We don’t have any money at the moment but Cardiff do owe us some money that has to be paid in the future, of that money some of it has to be paid to Burnley because of the sign on and the cut and what have you. 
We made an enquiry and basically got rebuffed and I think that’s why when Phil Henson said he’s not coming here, and frankly there is no point getting people’s hopes up, we made an enquiry, we could have said we made an enquiry, but we thought well he’s not coming so you know. Well we had another think about it and we looked at the figures and everything, and John Harrison came up with another proposal, so John Harrison then got onto Lennie Lawrence and put to him a proposition that we felt could have worked for everybody concerned. All this has been said without speaking to Alan Lee because Alan Lee you know is on a big contract and would he want to come to a club that is going down anyway, you know he’s a nice lad and I think he had his best time here, it hasn’t gone brilliantly at Cardiff you know, I think we put alternative propositions like going on loan and what have you, but I think the trouble is that he is suspended at the moment anyway, and it would have been nice for us to have got him to come in a couple of weeks ago had he not been suspended, but we lost a couple of games since then. But none the less we still put to them something. Cardiff have since come back and said we probably do need to sell for financial reasons but to avoid relegation they want to keep Lee, basically they have rebuffed us again and said that’s the way it is but it may change and we said well we will leave it with you, I think that what that illustrates to you that even though that would be a big cost to us we put it to the manager and said look if you think that will make a difference, and he said well it probably would the old Alan Lee, these things are big gambles.
What I am saying to you is whatever is available at any time it’s there to work. We may not have a lot of money but we are hoping we are going to be smarter than some people and be ahead of the game, and all this process we are going through is trying to give us that opportunity to try and do something.
MillersMad: Moving onto the manager, what is the timescale regarding the new management appointment?
Peter: The manager’s job will be advertised on Monday in the national press and other places, the timescale is probably the 2nd week in April to resolve everything. The position is exactly as we said when we introduced Alan and Mark as caretaker’s that they will be strong candidates, but we are advertising and will be interviewing other people, and we will decide it from that
MillersMad: Do you have a potential list of available candidates you would like to speak to?
Peter: No we don’t, we are advertising we want people, we are not going to go to chasing people, they have to come to this club, they are going to have to want to manage this club and we will see who makes the case and we will take it from there.
MillersMad:: When are the board going to come clean and announce the permanent employment of Knill and Robins?
Peter: Oh this is the conspiracy theory one isn’t it, this is where we are keeping things from you, and well there is nothing to come clean on because the position is exactly as I have said it. We believe they have got the right qualities, we believe they are good for the job you know they can take us, they are new school, we will be looking for candidates who can do that sort of thing, because there is no point going on as we did before, you know which results have shown has not worked for us.
We have got to have a strategy knowing where we are going long term at this club, Alan and Mark are in the frame, but it’s no more than that and they are aware of that and we repeated that to them just this afternoon. 
MillersMad: Would you prefer a household name manager?
Peter: I don’t make that preference, we want to see who comes before us and we want them to make the case and we want to see if they convince us they are going to give us the best chance from the available field of taking us forward in the way we all want it to be taken forward.
MillersMad: Moving onto the Tivoli end, as we all know the atmosphere has been extremely poor.
Peter: It’s awful I know
MillersMad: Is there a chance of ripping the seats out?
Peter: No in a word, can’t do it because of the legislation, if we attempted to do it and the legislation permitted, we would suffer clawback on the money that has been spent to get the grant towards it. The atmosphere is poor and it’s not the old Tivoli, but there isn’t much we can do about that. It’s a problem when you bolt seats onto terracing, I’m not saying it’s as good as standing even with modern stadia but that’s part of the issue with the Tivoli I am afraid.
MillersMad: Is there any chance of allocating tickets differently, having an unreserved seating area and a reserved seating area, because that is probably putting people off coming as they can’t come with their mates who have a season ticket, and it might be splitting up singers?
Peter: It is difficult to please all people, all the time, I have passed that on. All I can say in general terms is I haven’t been directly involved in it, because David Veal has been in charge of that and Chris Dobbs and Margaret in the ticket office and also the marketing people we have got in. A lot of work has been done looking at all those various options, if we could please everybody all of the time, we would do it I assure you, there is no unwillingness to respond to that, I have forwarded that query as well. 
Of course we have got the problem next season, what’s going to happen with the new stand, anticipating where the seats are going to be, people are going to want to move, is there going to be a migration.
MillersMad:: You can look at it two ways because personally I have enjoyed rolling out of the Tivoli at 2.59 and getting to my seat on time with it being a reserved seat. There are two groups and it’s tough to suit both.
Peter: Well there is that issue, its one of the considerations; you know it’s right though that people should raise it, because it will be considered, I will pass that on again and underline that, if there is another way of allocating things to get more satisfaction to more people.
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