Bill’s bulletin: recruiting for the new season

In the second of a series of updates this summer, chief exec Bill Williams on recruitment for the new season… A few weeks have passed since my last update and to say that we have been experiencing a hectic time would be an understatement. Everyone at the club is flat out and all the various...

In the second of a series of updates this summer, chief exec Bill Williams on recruitment for the new season…

A few weeks have passed since my last update and to say that we have been experiencing a hectic time would be an understatement.

Everyone at the club is flat out and all the various departments are striving to make sure that their particular task is well in place for the start of this coming season.

We could spend a lot of time discussing many aspects of the club, from the huge stadium maintenance programme that is now taking place to the fine artwork that eventually goes into producing all the match day passes! Or maybe how do we all go about finding the £1.7 million pounds that needs to be found each year to make this business viable!

Of course, all very interesting, but never questions that we ever get asked at this time of the year!

All that any supporters want to hear with ten weeks remaining before the season kicks off is what players have we got signed up and what the team is looking like.

John, Hakan and I, along with their five-man scouting party, started a new recruitment programme about three months ago and they had identified over 40 players they felt could help improve the team.

To date both John and Hakan have spoken to over 30 of those on their hit list and slowly the recruitment programme has begun to kick in, with the addition of Lewis Knight, Ibrahim Olutade, Clovis Kamdjo and Jake Cole added to Jake Embery and Justin Amaluzor, so the squad is starting to take shape.

There will be a lot a movement over the weeks ahead, with two full-backs, a centre-half, a midfield player and a replacement for Blair Turgott high on the priority list.

When I finished playing football and first went into football management in South Africa I met a very successful Argentinian manager, called Helenio Herrera and he told me, “Mister, give me the best ingredients and I will always make you the best cake.” This statement stayed with me throughout my lifetime in football and has and should always be the most important aspect of any modern management team.

Recruitment is king and yet in non-league football there is still, in my opinion, little emphasis put on it.

We have always relied on our managers to identify every player that we signed. But once he has done all his training, and taken the team on a Saturday, where does he find the time?

In the Premier League there are a range of titles that are responsible for recruitment. It might be director of football, head of recruitment, sporting director, technical director or a good old-fashioned chief scout that is responsible, but every Premier League club now has someone heading up a department dedicated to recruitment.

So, we gave it a great deal of thought and have employed two individuals who also see it as vital and have started the process here at our club.

Personally, I am very excited at the way everything is going and time will tell how successful this introduction will prove. Next time I will give everyone more insight into how it all actually works and how much is involved.