This is the transcript of part one of the interview conducted by Trust chairman Dave Otter with GTFC Chairman John Fenty and new manager Alan Buckley.

Part Two will appear on this website in the near future.

DO: Right, John, Alan, thanks very much for speaking to us. As you know, these are messages, which have been sent from supporters to us to ask you. But before I start with the questions, just a number of messages of goodwill for Alan.

Pierre Auxerre  - Firstly I would like to welcome the great man back to Town.

Dave Smith (not that one!) - Great to have Alan Buckley back again.

Martin Lister – Welcome back Buckers great to have you back in the fold.

Michael Yarborough - Glad to see you back Alan. Hope you can take us back up to the championship. You’re a top man and your heart is in GTFC. Can I come and play for you and your revolution at Blundell Park :) All the Best.

(AB Laughs)

Ray Stephenson – No Questions at all, just wanted to say, great appointment Mr Fenty and great to see you back Alan.  Now we'll see real football again.   

Koggmaster - Firstly, welcome back to GTFC Alan. I wish you good luck and every success for the seasons ahead. Please, please can we start wearing the famous red socks again in our home strip!

Mark Shephard – Welcome Back Alan, and good luck

Christine Devlin/John Robinson - Mr Buckley, welcome back to Blundell Park.Mike Vickery - May I wish Alan all the very best in his appointment as manager at GTFC. As a Walsall supporter for over 50 years now (how time flies!) I well remember Alan as player and manager in those days at Fellows Park. He was one of the greatest Walsall players in the history of the club and would have been probably the greatest manager too but he was not given the chance.  How things have changed since! However please give my very best regards to Alan – I hope I can say hello to him personally in the New Year at Bescot. Hopefully by then he will have steered GTFC back to safety.

AB: Excellent. Thanks very much to everyone.

DO: So then the questions. Initially they’re about the managerial changes. John - when was Russell Slade first offered a new contract? That relates to a comment about apparent inconsistencies between what has been said previously by yourself and the interview with Russell Slade in the Black And White Corner fanzine.

JF: Ok, I guess the first time we talked about contracts would have been in the November, before the end of the season of course. Russell was quite content that we should leave it until the new year and we picked those pieces up about January and we set about discussing contractual terms and we put a contract together, gave it to Russell, which then he sent to the managers’ federation, whatever you call that. That was probably three, four or five weeks coming back. As ever with somebody that looks at someone else’s contract, they wanted to tinker with one or two points. We adjusted those accordingly and the starting point I think I’ve now told you is November. What else was you asking about the whole situation? 

DO: Well basically that was the question, but it talks about apparent inconsistencies between what you had said in the past I think and what Russell said in the Black and White Corner Fanzine.

JF: Yes. The facts are, that’s the case.

DO: When Russell Slade left the club, was the vacant manager’s position advertised?

JF: Yes it was.

DO: Ok. And when Graham Rodger was appointed manager, how was the decision reached?  Was Graham your choice, with other board members ‘falling in line’ and approving the appointment?

JF: At the end of the day, the Board has to be unanimous in the appointment of the manager. It’s silly to be split on the subject. Quite frankly, the Board was very much behind it. Graham had earned an opportunity to become the manager. He wanted that and we felt he was well suited to the appointment for obvious reasons.  

DO: Thanks John. Alan – Have you applied for the vacant manager’s post at any time since you last worked at the club (specifically when the position was vacant both before and after Russell Slade was appointed)?

AB: I think I wrote the Club a letter. I can’t even think when it was now. Maybe three years ago. Just informing them of my availability, but since then, no, certainly not. I haven’t attended that many games down here for not wanting to be seen perhaps putting unfair pressure on various managers, but certainly not since Russell Slade has had anything to do with the football club.

DO: John – what makes Alan ‘head and shoulders above the rest’ this time?

JF: His record’s phenomenal. He’s one of the few managers that’s done more than a thousand games and within that there’s of course the opportunity to look at how many games he’s had unbeaten. He fairs right up there behind Alex Ferguson and Joe Royle. Alan’s actually third in line, so that’s a real achievement and we consider that to be head and shoulders above any other potential appointment. 

DO: Thank you. And John again. Could you tell me how many people applied for the managerial post this time around?  Did the board talk to any other candidates?

JF: In actual fact we didn’t talk to any but by the Tuesday we’d probably had about thirty applicants and predominantly, they were sent through via agents. That always leaves you very concerned, in that if somebody’s not going to pick the phone up and want to speak to me directly, are they really interested? On top of which, do they know that their names have actually been put forward when it’s come through an agent? So for obvious reasons, things moved on and, no, we didn’t speak to anybody else.

DO: Which leads us nicely onto the next question. Had Alan been lined up to take over before Graham Rodger was relieved of his managerial duties?

JF: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

DO: John – Graham Rodger was ‘relieved of his current managerial duties’ last Monday?  Will he be remaining at GTFC in some capacity?

I think it’s hard to say at this stage. At the end of the day, Graham has been a very loyal servant of the football club and naturally it’s not worked for him at the managerial level. But at the end of the day, it would be foolish of the club to not think that Graham still had some attributes that  could serve this football club well. I think we just have to watch this space and who knows? It’ll be a two-sided situation. It won’t just be whether we decide. It’ll be about whether Graham wants to do that as well, if there is actually a vacant opportunity.

DO: Could you explain the reason for giving Alan a two and a half year rolling contract?

JF: Yes, clearly what we like to do is understand costs going forward and the terms you’re going to engage with the manager. But at the end of the day, the contract is only going to last that long subject to various achievements. It’s triggered based on various achievements, so at the end of the day he could fall short of that but of course we hope he goes many years beyond.

DO: Ok, thank you. Question now about prospective players at the start of the season. Was there any truth in the recent rumours about Georges Santos and Alan Pouton returning to the club? 

JF: Yes there was. To take Georges first. Georges is pretty keen to get the best deal he can for himself. We spoke at length. We really tried to make it happen and we went as far as we could as a football club in terms of what we were prepared to offer Georges. At the end of the day, he really wanted to play at a higher level as well and there’s no question that came into it. Obviously he chose Brighton at the end of it. It wasn’t ultimately just about money. We think we were there or thereabouts and as far as Alan’s concerned, we’d actually agreed terms with Alan. He couldn’t agree terms at the other end. So that’s the reason why that one broke down. 

DO: Moving onto money matters then. The tax debt hasn’t been mentioned much recently.  How much of the debt has been cleared?  Have we been able to use any of the extra revenue from last season (televised matches, fee for Rob Jones) to make extra payments and get ‘ahead of ourselves’?

JF: Any extra revenue we received from last year we will quite frankly post as profit for last year. If we actually look at the cash income against the cash outgoing, we will still have a negative deficit there, to the extent where the Board have had to put more money into the football club, only of late, in order to keep us going. In terms of the tax debt, we’ve only paid off nineteen months of a forty-eight month commitment. So it still goes on and the reason we don’t talk about it is because it’s old news and I’m sure unless we can’t pay it full stop, or decide that we’re not going to continue to support the finances of the football club, that’s the only time when arguably you would raise it again.

DO: Would there ever be a time where you pay off the tax payments early, or would you just carry on with the schedule?

JF: Yes. Without going into too much depth about the agreement we reached with the tax office, if we paid it off early there’s no financial advantage in doing so. So I think you can probably read between the lines there. It’s better to leave it as it is and concentrate our efforts elsewhere on the football club.

DO:  Are the reduced attendances affecting our ability to meet payments to the Inland Revenue? Well, I think you’ve answered that one to a certain extent.

JF: If you want to have a look at my cheque stubs, that’ll probably tell you the answer.

DO: What would the financial implications be for the club if we are not able to improve our league position or if we are relegated to the Conference?

JF: Well naturally, we’ll have a shortfall of income as a result of bums on seats. If we stay where we are, that would not be good enough. But clearly if we went into the Conference, it would be devastating for the football club. I don’t think it would be the end. I think it’s silly to say that. But it’s of paramount importance that we do everything in our power to ensure that doesn’t happen.

DO: Alan – how have you been keeping yourself busy since your last managerial job?

AB: I’ve been watching loads and loads of football matches, just keeping in touch with the game generally as well, speaking to people and that’s basically what I’ve been doing.

DO: Have you been scouting?

AB: Oh yeah, well I mean that’s going to watch football matches, isn’t it, whether it’s for people connected with the game that’s asked me to go watch players or games or whatever for them and I’ve also taken in a lot of games myself, that I just felt I needed to see, at all levels. So it’s not like I’ve gone to the Premiership all the time or the non-league all the time, it’s been the whole spectrum of games. I’ve just kept in touch with the game generally. That’s all I’ve known from the age of fifteen and it’s difficult to let go of that, whether you’re directly involved or not.

DO: The next question, you’ve answered that one as well I think, but have you been keeping yourself up to date with League Two (the teams, the players etc)?  Have you watched GTFC in the last couple of years?

AB: Yeah. I would say that I’ve kept myself more in touch with the league in general and obviously Grimsby Town’s been a part of that anyway. But as I’ve said earlier, actually coming down here to be seen watching a football match, I’ve never gone along with that sort of thing. I’ll give you an example. I came to the Plymouth game a couple of years ago, just after Christmas and one of my neighbours said, oh I saw you were at the Town game the other day. So I said, well how would you know about that? He said, your photo’s on the back page of the paper. Well I’m not aware of that. And it’s strange that wherever I’ve tended to go, particularly around to do with the football club, there’s always somebody finds out or whatever. I just came down socially to watch a football match at that time. Also I came down to watch the Lincoln semi final play off game last year. You can hardly say there was much pressure on the manager, can you, when they were in the play-offs? So, you know, to be here and around the place all the time I felt it would be…I’m just not that sort of person, to be sort of hanging about as if to say, look here I am. Why don’t you give me a job? So I sort of tried to steer clear of that one.

DO: Do you think this league has changed since you last managed at Grimsby, and if so how?

AB: It has as far as we’re concerned because we’ve got a different load of players, you know. At that time, there wasn’t too many teams trying to play the game what I would term the right way. We were certainly an outstanding team at that level with the quality football we produced. And I think, you know, keeping in touch with the league, the better footballing teams at the moment are at the top anyway and that’s certainly the way that we’re going to go about it. So hopefully the ideas are still ok.

END OF PART ONE