In a full and open interview at the weekend, Andrew Landesberg spoke of the circumstances surrounding the departure of Frank Murphy, along with other changes and departures from around the club.

Andrew met with Frank last Tuesday afternoon to talk about the ground, pitch and the budget for the future, and it became clear that the club and Frank were looking in different directions. The club have made a projected loss for last season that may reach as much as £100,000, and consequently cutbacks had to be made.

he consequence of this was that the club needed to cut back on the budget, and this led to Frank parting company with the club by mutual consent. The parting was made very amicably and both parties wished each other all the best for the future.

n addition, Jennie Cairns, who was the marketing manager is leaving the club, and Sportsturf, our pitch contractors, have been replaced by a new company who commenced work on the pitch late last week. Interestingly, another club who came in for a lot of criticism over their pitch, Sutton United, also employ Sportsturf.

Moving on to the pitch, Andrew admitted that hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we got caught out badly. He confirmed that despite the cutbacks money will be spent on the pitch, something in the region of £15,000 this summer, and he is confident of a better pitch next season.

Huge losses were made during last season, much of it due to loss of revenue on matchdays. Average attendances fell by 33% on the previous season (and one league game was never even played), meaning reduced gate receipts, programme sales, raffle sales, tea bar takings and bar takings were all well down. On a positive note, however, the Banqueting Suite is doing well, and with further activity on this front, it should help to close the gap between profit and loss

With regard to the stadium developments, due to the cutbacks, the new stand is currently taking a "back seat". However, the grants and plans are still firmly in place, but the directors would like to see some solidity in the financial performance of the club before development continues. Andrew also mentioned that the repairs to the covered terracing cost the club in the region of £12,000.

With regard to the management situation, Andrew said that he had spoken to both Dave Anderson and Curtis Warmington and although he didn't say it in as many words, it appears that the club would like to maybe promote one or the other to replace Frank. The club are hoping to make an announcement on this in the next week or two.

When asked whether the cutbacks meant that the directors were looking to sell the club, the response from Andrew was "Absolutely not". They never got involved with the club to make money out of it, they were well aware the it is very hard to make money out of football at this level. Although the directors have plenty of people approaching them with "interesting" ideas, when they start discussing the fine details they get frightened away by the commitment.

The Arbiter Group have put in the region of £2,000,000 into the club since they took over in 1994, this equates to £250,000 per season plus £500,000 into the banqueting suite, so losses have been cut since taking over. However, there is now no more money to invest, and the club must now build up from the current position so that the club can start breaking even and paying its own way.

The main aim for the short term is to make the club financially stable so that we can continue to build for the future.