New Aldershot Town owner Deane Wood gives incredibly open and honest first interview on taking over the National League side.
Deane Wood, who has been involved with The Shots since 2018, has now taken full ownership after previous shareholders Shahid Azeem and John Leppard stepped away, forgiving significant debts.
He praised their efforts but criticises past lack of transparency, promising complete openness himself.
He spoke of the financial reality, why he stepped up, what the key priorities include, what he wants to see in the short-term, the aim for next season, to increase revenue, with a plea to fans and the commnuity.
ALDERSHOT STATEMENT:
Aldershot Town Football Club confirms that an agreement has been reached with Director Deane Wood to assume the role of Chair and Owner. The controlling shares of the club are held by Deane, subject to league approval.
To this, Shahid Azeem and John Leppard have written off their entire loans to the club and are in process of transferring their shares to Deane at no cost. Deane’s existing loans are also being converted into shares as part of this transition. With immediate effect Shahid and John will be stepping down as Directors.
This decision follows confidential discussions with an external consortium that had expressed an interest in taking control of the club. As that process was taking longer than expected, it was in the club’s best interests to take the proposal offered by Deane. As Directors with responsibility for the long-term wellbeing of Aldershot Town Football Club Shahid and John accepted this offer in the best interests of the club.
Shahid and John were members of the consortium that took the club out of administration during the summer of 2013. Shahid assumed the role of Chair and is the longest serving Chair in the history of the club. John, who originates from Ash, is a lifelong Aldershot fan. He joined the Board of Directors in 1997 when the club was in the Isthmian League Division 1 and is the longest serving Director in the clubs history. He was also Caretaker Chair in 2009/10 after the passing of John McGinty.
As outgoing Directors, Shahid and John wish Deane every success in his new role and we will remain as friends.
They fully understand the challenges involved in running a football club and are committed to offering Deane their full support wherever their experience and assistance may be required. They believe this transition places the club in a strong position for the future and that the change ensures continuity and stability.
Deane purchased shares in 2018 and loaned the football club substantial amount of money.
So now, as supporters lets get behind the club, Deane and the team.
INTERVIEW WITH WOOD:
Interviewer: So Deane, welcome. A new beginning some would say, but having been here since 2018 you know a lot about the club already.
Deane: Yeah, I’ve been here, but obviously a lot of it I’ve been in the background more. The first time I’m gonna be sitting on the pedal stool let’s say. But no, it’s got to change. Got to be a lot of changes. Got to save money or make more money. We got to have a future. We got to go forward.
Interviewer: So I guess we should start by acknowledging the previous shareholders, Shahid Azeem and John Leppard, as you’ve all been at the helm of this club through a recent roller coaster shall we say.
Deane: Yeah, no, listen I’ve got the utmost respect for Shahid Azeem and John Leppard. Shahid I think took a lot of flack. Some of it is justified he should said more and be more transparent with people, but I think it’s because he’s a pride man or whatever you want to call him. He didn’t open things up and then he took a lot of stick for it where I will be open. Anybody can ask me what they like, the accounts, everything. People, I don’t care. People look at it because this is not a profit-making business and we go forward. They’ve done a brilliant job. I wish them all the best. They’re still my friends. They’re still welcome at this club at any game they want to come as my guests and I hope everybody treats them with the utmost respect.
Interviewer: So how does full ownership look and feel to you, a club with such a huge historical background?
Deane: Being Aldershot Town it’s going to be hard. I’ve lived in the area for years and years and years. I’ve been a scrap man in the area. I know the good people, the bad people and everything else. So it’s going to be hard for me mate because we’ve got to try and succeed, don’t we? We’re Aldershot. We’ve got to succeed. We’ve got a crap town which hopefully the council is going to change and make better. Sometimes we have a crap football team and hopefully we’re going to make that better.
Interviewer: So you yourself, you’re not primarily in football. Your success comes in other areas, motor racing, hugely successful, pretty much monopolising your part of the market. But how can you differentiate both football and your other businesses as football is far different to any other business?
Deane: Football is not really a business. For an owner or a chairman, football is not really a business because the more you earn, the more you spend. Any other business, you do it to make as big a profit as you can. We’ve got to make this a profit and then we’re going to spend it on the first team. So it’s not like any other business that you run football.
Interviewer: What was it like to highlight some positivity of the past? What was it like to be part of Wembley, our FA Cup run, the leagues ups and downs? Why did you get involved in 2018 and why have you now taken this role on moving forward?
Deane: You’ve got to blame Mark Butler for me getting involved. We was at a ladies birthday party, had a few drinks and Mark was going on to me. The club was struggling back then and would I help it out? I did help it out. I got involved. There was a lot more people sat around the table that have all slowly disappeared. But I just went from there really and I got the hook, not Wembley, when we beat Woking to go to Wembley. That was, that put tears in my eyes and I don’t normally get tears in my eyes. I’m not one of these sort of people. The only other time I cried like that was when my boy won the Opera World Final. But when we beat, that meant more to me than winning at Wembley. I know it don’t make sense. Wembley was a brilliant day. But that day to beat Woking and go to Wembley was unbelievable to me. It was a tear in my eye.
Interviewer: So you’d argue then that one of the reasons that you sort of took this ball by the horns is for those moments that you get that you won’t get in any other industry. The Woking moment, the Wembley moment, the FA Cup run, all of those things.
Deane: No, I think some of it, if I’m honest, no, because you do get it in other things. You know what I mean? Family gives you things like that. And then we were all on the thing of a new stadium, the order development, but we was in debt. So I thought, well, let’s get rid of the debts and I’ll have my money back later. And that has never come. So I’m already now in too deep just to walk away. And then I could see the last couple of years that it was getting worse. You know what I mean? I don’t want to be a thing. The trouble is with Shahid, he’s too nice. Shahid cannot say no to people. He likes to have everybody happy. And in the end, he made himself unhappy because it’s a strain on him. And he spent a lot of money. I believe he’s mostly the second highest person to lose money at this club. And that’s terrible, mate. And I feel sorry for him.
Interviewer: So we’ll clarify to the fans then. Nobody, not yourself, not Shahid, not John, nobody’s taken money out of the club. Everybody who’s been involved since you’ve been involved have just put money in and the two previous shareholders have essentially walked away from a lot of money.
Deane: Yes, I have walked away from a lot of money. John and his wife have walked away with money and Shahid and his family have walked away, Shahid with a hell of a lot of money. It’s not right for me personally to put what, but I’ve walked away from a lot. But the trouble is what we got to is when it comes to December, we had to pay wages. We haven’t paid bills for about three months. So we was in dire trouble. And I kept saying, I’m not putting in no more unless I’m in charge because I’ve got to be in charge of my own destiny.
Interviewer: So there was talk in the background of other ending results, unlike this one, but as a result of recent times, you are here, you’re the owner, the ownership is you.
Deane: Yeah, the owner is me. There is some shareholders, which in time I would like to take all the shareholders and take all the shares because half the biggest problem is the consortium that wanted to take over. There’s been two or three, yeah, of taking over, but they want all the shares. So what they all wanted to do was, I’m not saying all of them, but the main one that was pushing, wanted to bankrupt the club. And that way we would have been put down in the low division. That I didn’t want. So they would have bankrupt the club, restarted it up again, which I believe you lose faith with the council, with your sponsors, with everybody because you’ve ripped people’s money off. And it ain’t the way I like doing business.
Interviewer: How transparent can you be with the financial side of the club moving forward?
Deane: As open as anybody wants.
Interviewer: Do you think that will help you with the fans, i.e. being as transparent as you are?
Deane: What the fans, and that I’ve got to realise, and the bit that I really want everyone to take on board, and this is very, very serious, and it could be the saviour of the club, the making of the club, or breaking of the club, is, Deane Wood is, if you want him the chairman, the owner, whatever, everybody in Aldershot owns Aldershot Town Football Club, really. Because no fans turn up, there’s nobody. So when your mate or your younger brother’s jumping over the back fence, he’s ripping us all off. Because you all say, we need a better striker. You can’t have a better striker, we ain’t got the money. I think we’re in about £400,000 loss this year. So when someone goes in the shop and nicks a shirt, they’re nicking off all of us. They’re not just nicking off Deane Wood, because in the end, Dean would have walked. And then it just gets worse. We’ve all got to come together now. When we beat up the away fans on the way back to the train station, they don’t come back. That’s another…. the next time they come, we don’t get. When we’re fighting Woking and we lost the Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, I believe that would affect each club £30,000, £35,000. We’ve all got to start pulling together for a while. And let’s make this club what we all want, successful.
Interviewer: And with the current setup, we can’t not talk about how invaluable the current sponsors are to us, can we?
Deane: The first ones I would like to thank is the volunteers. Because to me, I believe they are unreal. And sometimes we need more volunteers to come in, like when we wanted to paint the stadium. Hardly nobody turns up, but it’s our club. And then it’s the sponsors. Because I thank them volunteers that come here, like today, they’re outside freezing cold, sweeping, cleaning. And then we’ve got some of our major sponsors that have been with us. Let’s just say sponsors three years and longer, major. Thank you very much, every one of them. And I hope we can make you proud.
Interviewer: Now, there’s been some confusion with what’s happened. So can you clarify to the fans what your role is and what is in the immediate future for All Shot Town Football Club and yourself?
Deane: I don’t want to go on, I’m the owner, I’m the chairman. Because like I said, we’re meant to be a team. Stop the leaks in the watering can. When I come here once, I said, you’ve got a watering can with a tap going flat out with loads of holes in it. And the water’s running out quicker when it comes out the tap. So we’ve got to start blocking holes, stopping people fiddling their ages, stopping people that are coming in for nothing, stopping people that are meant to be carers, but they’re not carers. Things like that I’m going to be looking at. Who get complimentary tickets and who don’t? Why should they get a complimentary ticket? Just things like that and then we start going forward then.
Interviewer: So would you say that’s part of your short-term goal for this football club or is there anything else that you want to display to the fans?
Deane: No, we want the fans to realise if Deane has to put a pound on the gate, say, it’s not a pound going in Deane’s pocket. As we stand at the moment, I would say today we’re around a million pound in debt still. Plus, I’ve bailed you out for a million pound. So we were two million pound in debt. It can’t carry on like that. So we’ve all got to work together of bringing a friend. When you come to football, bring a friend. If we could double our crowd, that’s a dream world I know. But if we could, with problems solved, if Mark could double the sponsorship, problem solved. We’ve got to try and work with more companies to mount the companies in Aldershot. If you don’t want to put a five grand board up on the pitch, put a 500 pound board on the back wall. It helps the club and every penny is going in the club. And I didn’t answer earlier what you said, Michael, about directors taking money out. When gone off down to Devon or up north, we pay for the fuel. We get a free ticket and a free meal off the club. We pay our own fuel, everything to go. I’ve never took, and as far as I know, they’ve never took 10 pound out of this club. And if they did, I always said, if ever I found out anybody’s fiddling this club, I will grass them up.
Interviewer: What does success look like for you this season in particular?
Deane: Our success for this season is to keep us in this league. That is it. That’s all I’m worried about. Keeping us in this league, because if we didn’t keep them in this league, then you might as well let the other people took you over and bankrupt the club. And we’ve got to stay in this league. Next year, different game, all pulled together. Let’s try and get in them playoffs.
Interviewer: So I suppose in recent form, that’s helped us. But as we know, things can change in an instant. Having been a part of this rollercoaster already, how do you plan to move forward knowing what you know about the club?
Deane: I’ve got faith, to be honest with you, with Terry Brown and John. I’ve got faith in them. We had a meeting the other day. John is a lot like me. If he’s got the hump, he’ll tell you he’s got the hump. And if he wants to walk, he’ll walk. So I like that. And he ain’t a man for money, money, money. I’ve been here with three or four managers now. And two out of the three was all about money and complaining about this, complaining about that. John is not that type. So I’m pretty confident we got the right man.
Interviewer: How do you then moving forward want to be perceived? Forget the job title, forget your role at the club. How do you as a person, Deane, want to be seen by the fans?
Deane: No different to what I am now. Sit in the background, checking what’s going on. Give us some help sometimes. Like, I’m not being funny. You’ve got painters out there, tree surgeons out there, plumbers out there. We’re paying companies to fix this, where you could come in, maybe a plumber, comes in and says, I’ll fix your toilets. Puts a sign up in all the toilets. John’s plumbers, a tree surgeon. I’d like to chop down a load of these trees at the front, ready for development. Plus it let the sun get on the pitch more because the trees shade it, you all know. The leaves all drop off. They cause us grief. At the moment, we ain’t got the money to pay for it. But if somebody out there wants to come in and help us take them down and chop them up for firewood, we need help.
Interviewer: So I think based on this interview and people that know you already, they know what to sort of expect from you. But what from your own mouth, what can fans expect from you as a person?
Deane: I don’t really know how to answer that. Listen, if I have to get on my hands and knees and do some work, I’ll get on my hands and knees and do it. Like I say, when the sprinklers were all broke last year, I paid for them out of my own pocket. I got on my hands and knees and changed them. Never had a clue how to do them. Put them in, done it wrong, then got told how to do it, dug them out, had to do it again. That’s what I’m like. When I’ve done the bit at the car park some people moaned about it. It’s a way of bringing revenue into the club. And if I have to pick up a shovel or a broom or a paintbrush, it doesn’t bother me.
Interviewer: How can the fans and people involved with the club get behind us moving forward?
Deane: The biggest thing is stop us with aggravation and people jumping the fences and stuff like that. That’s the biggest thing. We don’t want to see people getting beat up and people throwing bricks at people on both sides, not just all the shop, woken and all. I’m even going to have a meeting with the woken director and say, let’s work together, keep the rivalry because we want it. We want to beat woken. They want to beat us. But let’s work with the police, the FA and everything and give us our Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. We need it. It’s a part of us.
Interviewer: And finally, what’s your message to the fans? An uncertain time ahead. What do we expect from you with full transparency?
Deane: Openness and honesty. That’s all I can say to you. All I can say, there’s nothing else I can say. I’m not going to promise you the world. I’m not going to say we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. If I do it, we do it. And when we don’t, we don’t. But I will be open and I will not be hiding things. More openness with the fans, I think, is what we need.
