As many people know, Martyn Harrison, who owns Lyme Bay Holiday Village (part of Hollybush Hotels) is also chairman of Weymouth Football Club.  They have hit the headlines recently because Harrison was supposed to have “given” the club a lot of money (via Hollybush Hotels) but then decided it was really a loan, saying he wanted the money back because Hollybush needed it.  Result:  all players put on transfer list.

 Mr Harrison bought into the football club at a time when Asda had an option to buy their ground.  Eventually Asda walked away from the deal because the local authority didn’t include the stadium in their ten year plan.  Once the Asda deal was off Mr Harrison started asking for his money back.

 The former Chairman of Weymouth Football Club has written a history of the club.  For those interested the book is called “Floodlit Dreams: How to Save a Football Club” by Ian Ridley.  Here are some extracts from the book (which is available from Seaton Library).

 We take up the story just as Mr Harrison has bought into the club “on a whim”:

 “I was surprised to find that the boardroom was being completely redecorated, with a new carpet and a sideboard installed.  The materials were clearly remnants from one of Martyn’s hotels, the sideboard even having a plaque saying “minibar”.  I kept waiting for a trouser press to appear ….. What upset me most was the disappearance of the magnificent boardroom table that seated twelve.  It was a lovely old piece of oak, donated to the club by HMS Ark Royal in 1955 ……. I asked where the table was.  He said it was safe somewhere. …. Eventually I located it myself behind a skip.  It was in pieces.  I asked [Harrison’s clerk of works) to restore it but he never did.  Then it conveniently disappeared one day from the corridor outside the boardroom.”

 There is more redecorating which the author had not wanted and did not ask for but which Mr Harrison says he enjoyed doing.  Three times he asks Mr Harrison to reassure him that the club will not be footing the bill.

 “I calmed down.  He was saving us money in other areas, by allocating staff from his hotel to bar and clearning work, rather than us footing the complete bill for full-time people.  Or so I thought.  Another letter from the stocktakers warned of a “grave situation” with a six-month deficit on the bars of more than £13,000”. …….

I had been expecting a cheque [from Mr Harrison] for £300,000 to have been lodged in our bank by now.  That seemed to be the deal.  Martyn …. seemed horrified to be questioned when I asked why it had not. … In effect, he told me it was no longer any of my business.”

 ….. “Martyn also announced that, for tax purposes, he needed to own 80 per cent of the club so that he could claim back losses ….. .”

 He goes on holiday and finds that fans know Harrison has sacked someone whilst he was away and had told fans before he has been told.

 A concert is to be held in the club’s ground, with top names.   Mr Harrison takes over the event. 

 In the meantime Mr Harrison goes on the fans’ website saying “I am a very relaxed sort of person, many people will tell you this is fact.  However, you are getting right up my nose.  I have paid the fill costs of this concert out of my own pocked and I decide who I do business with.  Did I ask you to either pay or give an opinion.  It is none of your business – AND I have told you that before.  PLEASE keep your nose out of this before it gets burst.  You are making me very angry … Go away – you are causing me personal greef (sic) – STOP IT.  It’s folks like you who cause a war and walk away to leave people to die.  Get off my back”.

 In the meantime the pop concert goes on and Harrison takes responsibility for everything.  The council insists that the banner to promote the event is taken down from outside a hotel he owns and they refuse to let him distribute leaflets on the promenade.  Ticket sales do not go well – it needs a crowd of 6,000 to break even but prices of tickets are very high.

 “When I asked [the accountant] for the budget for the season, none was forthcoming … They were all part of Martyn’s private world”.

 “My own position was becoming all but impossible to sustain.  I did not agree with Martyn’s autocratic style, his way of dealing curtly with people, his hiring and firing mentality.  Above all, the secrecy about the money that was supposed to be coming into the club and what was going out”.

 The pop concert takes place – Girls Aloud come by helicopter and the last act is Peter Andre and Jordan.  Only 4,000 people turn up for it.  Ridley thinks that they lost about £60,000 - £90,000 but is not able to see the figures.  He has had enough and decides to resign, but on three conditions:  seeing Harrison’s money for the shares he said he would buy, ensuring that the Asda deal goes through and wanting £15,000 back that he has loaned the club.  Harrison agrees.  The £15,000 eventually comes from club funds and not from Mr Harrison.  No money appears to be going into the club as originally promised.  Ridley is given a document to sign but the three conditions are not satisfied so he refuses to sign it.

 The club manager is sacked but he has a 5 year contract.  He is planning to say he will go quietly for £100,000 but is offered £200,000 plus £38,000 owed in expenses.  He is told that the money will come out of “money in the future” which he interprets as the Asda deal which is still on the cards.

 Asda meet with Ridley and tell him that Harrison has changed the deal he wants from Asda:  not a stadium with capacity of 8,000 and community facilities – he now wants a stadium of 4,000 with a hotel on it.  Although Harrison had signed a paper saying he would not benefit from the sale of the stadium it does not stop him from getting what he says he is owed – including the £238,000 paid to the ex-manager, the losses on the pop concert, etc.

 Ridley hires an investigator to look into Harrison.  “There were other areas, such as a timeshare business in Florida but they did not seem – yet, anyway – to be relevant to the club … From the last published accounts – the more recent ones were now two months late and counting, incurring an Inland Revenue fine – Hollybush were deeply in debt: £3.54m owing to banks, £2.09m to creditors and, intriguingly, £1.53m to Harrison himself.  This total of more than £7m was against assets valued at £5.4m. … Hollybush’s trading loss for the year was £354,000.”

 It turns out that Weymouth was in a better position than Hollybush when Hollybush bought into it supposedly to help it out financially.  The ground alone was worth £2.2m and could be used as security for loans.  It also meant that if Hollybush went into receivership the club could be seized and used to pay off debts.  Then Harrison would be allowed to benefit from the Asda deal.  The accounts showed that Harrison was owed £338,000 by the club when he had been claiming to be a benefactor.

 Harrison lashes out at Ridley in a local paper.  Ridley asks awkward questions at the club’s AGM which are not answered.  Just before he leaves he says that he has seen it as his job “to keep Martyn Harrison honest”.  By this time about 7 directors have been sacked in 2 years along with many other employees of the club.

 In the meantime Harrison employs people at vastly increased salaries.  Ridley’s sister is sacked as commercial director but she does not mind as Harrison had, for example, stopped her holding children’s birthday parties at the ground as they made too much noise near the director’s box and he also wanted to end the community partners as he felt they were getting to cheap a deal.

 Two more concerts are held at the ground but they do not seem to make money and Harrison says “Never again” after them.  Harrison’s daughter is made a director of the club on her 18^th birthday, Ridley wonders if this is a way of changing ownership if anything goes wrong.  By this time Harrison says that the club owes Hollybush Hotels £808,000.

 Then the blow.  A government planning inspector decides that the Asda deal should not go ahead.  The club now has no way of paying off its enormous debts to Harrison – now coming up to about £2m.

Culling and cutting begins at Weymouth Football Club.  This is the latest information on them:

WEYMOUTH were rocked by four departures on transfer deadline day, taking the total number of players who have left the club to 11 and leaving player-manager Jason Tindall with a threadbare squad ahead of Saturday's match at home to Burton Albion.

Forwards Dean Howell, Chukki Eribenne and Richard Logan have left the club for undisclosed sums.  Howell and Eribenne secured moves to Grays Athletic, Logan has moved to Exeter City and goalkeeper Arran Lee-Barrett's loan move to Coventry has been made permanent.

Tindall will be forced to field a number of inexperienced players on Saturday, with the equivalent of an entire team having left in January.  The latest players to leave the Wessex Stadium made it clear to Tindall they did not want to stay with the Terras, and the player-manager was left with no alternative.  "They stated they didn't want to be here anymore," said Tindall, "they made that clear.  "If players don't want to be here they are not going to perform. They won't be any use on the training field, in the dressing room or on a Saturday."

Howell and Eribenne join up with two former team-mates at Grays; Abdou El Kholti and Simon Downer signed for the club earlier this month.  Logan had been strongly linked with the Grecians since Weymouth chairman Martyn Harrison opted to review the financial structure of the club on Wednesday, January 10, and completed his move yesterday, joining Lee Elam and Steve Tully at the Devon club.