Board Meeting (3/5/06)

I attended a further board meeting on 3rd May to welcome the new members and discuss footballing matters. New Chairman Stewart Till is fairly knowledgeable about football and has hit the ground running. He is taking the lead in the managerial search and luckily work has been going ahead in the background since Dave Tuttle's departure, Stewart has committed to get the managerial post filled as soon as possible. We all agreed it is key to have someone in place before the Iceland trip. Executive Deputy Chairman Heather Rabbatts, strong and confident, controlled the meeting when it got "loud". I think she will lead from the front and be the hands on person we need on a daily basis.

Getting a manager in place is not as easy as it seems. The club needs to act in a professional manner and not break any FA rules. Consequently any manager who is contracted to a club cannot be spoken to unless there is agreement from his current club's board. If the club refuse Millwall the right to speak to the manager, it's game over. As I have stated before, the managers being approached are high quality. New players were discussed, but it was agreed that it would be best to await the new managerial appointment. Otherwise, if the style of player didn't suit, it would be a waste.

We discussed "teamwork" and it was agreed the board need to work as a team. This was echoed with regard to the whole club. Every member of staff needed to pull together as one for Millwall to succeed. Time will tell on this, but my feeling is that once the new "regime" get settled in, it will be put up or ship out. Personally I hope that is the case, as the club doesn't have a lot of resources and what we have, we need to use smartly.

The board meeting at times was "passionate" with very open views being aired. Believe me things are moving.

Some people have wanted clarification of Ken Brown's role. After now meeting Ken a good few times, I am coming to understand his role. Ken is responsible for the contractual aspects of the football side, knowing who to engage when buying and selling players, who to engage when looking for a new manager, ensuring no FA rules are breached etc. The relationships and experience he has would be hard to replace. I am setting up meetings with Ken to meet fans, so if you want to meet him and air your views please email me.

I have been asked to find out who is responsible for paying the police inside the ground. The responsibility lies with Millwall to pay for the police and the policing levels are governed by the police. Meeting with Ken Chapman and being shown all correspondence relating to policing levels, I am confident Ken tries his best to keep levels down within the ground. The police make their call using "intelligence" gathered prior to the match. I see and hear people saying 'let's invade the pitch or the directors' box.' If I see it, the police do too. They will then call in extra police. Personally, I know when it's a joke as I have "been there". The police will not, so let's not give them the ammunition they need to fill the ground with police.

I did the "boardroom" thing at Crewe, it was all very nice. I felt a bit of a traitor sitting in the directors' bit while all my pals were in the stands. I will do it again but not sure how often. The Crewe board were amazed at the amount of fans we took and commented on us being diehards, considering it was a "nothing" game. I felt so proud!

I was invited to the Women's Cup Final as a guest of the club. I decided to go to see how it all worked. I did the "boardroom" thing, before and after the game. This is where a lot of information can be collected and friendships formed. I spent a fair bit of time with Jeff Burnige and his knowledge of the club, the FA and protocol was second to none. He introduced me to all and sundry, ensured that all the FA representatives were welcomed and so on. The main aim of the day was to show the FA that Millwall could host high profile FA sponsored games. The FA were impressed with the ground and facilities. Jeff was trying to get a commitment from the FA regarding the possibility of an Under 21 game at the Den. I learned a lot, mainly the fact that Jeff being the most active of the directors, is always trying to improve our standing, which in turn can only help, not only our image, but hopefully the incoming revenue. I am spending as much time on this as I can, 20 plus hours a week on Millwall matters. If you need to ask a question please do so via my email.

Well there you go, all the above is on the whole factual and not my opinion.