Rolls offers a free for all
By Derek Bish
Wednesday 17th February 2010
FREE entry is being offered to all Weymouth fans for Tuesday’s
Blue Square South match against Braintree Town by way of an
apology for Saturday’s Wessex Stadium massacre at the
hands of Basingstoke Town.
Terras’ chairman George Rolls spoke of his and vice-chairman
Pranas Preidzius’ embarrassment after Mitchell Bryant
broke the Conference record to score all six ’Stoke goals
in the 6-0 hammering.
And they said they would now put their hands in their pockets
to try and make up for it, inviting the whole town of Weymouth
to the Wessex Stadium on Tuesday night.
“Saturday’s game was embarrassing to say the least
and Pranas and I feel that the fans deserve better than that,”
said Rolls. “Our way of an apology is we will cover the
cost of the gate revenue we’ll lose out on and, as a
gesture of goodwill, invite the whole of Weymouth to the game,
free of charge.
“We hope people will get behind us with it and maybe
we can get a few new faces coming along next Tuesday and get
people back who came to the Dorchester game on New Year’s
Day.
“The economic times are tough and if people want to
watch the game next Tuesday we want to let them do so for
free.
“It’s not just for a lift on the pitch it’s
for Weymouth as a whole.
“The club has gone through the mire in the last few
years and we looked at it and have come up with different
ideas and initiatives and we feel after the performance the
lads put in on Saturday people shouldn’t have to pay
to watch that.”
One of Rolls’ first acts as chairman was to allow children
into Blue Square South matches at the Wessex Stadium for free,
and he hopes season- ticket holders will understand his latest
ploy to increase support at Weymouth.
“At the end of the day, season ticket holders are the
lifeblood of the club, the same as all of the fans, but I
would be disappointed if the season-ticket holders were disappointed
with us trying to attract new fans.
“This isn’t just about season tickets, it’s
about the whole of Weymouth getting behind the club.
“If we only get 400 turn up we know there is a serious
problem but we would be disappointed if we didn’t get
a much bigger crowd – I’d like to think we could
be pushing the 1,000 mark.”
Rolls was personally abused in the stand on Saturday and
one fan threw his season ticket away in disgust as discontent
grew among the 588 crowd, booing at both the half-time and
final whistles.
“I’m not worried about that – I have a thick
skin,” he said. “People pay their money and are
entitled to their opinions, and having the odd one or two
shout abuse is part and parcel of being a chairman at a football
club.
“I invited a couple of fans to sit next to me and tell
me what their problems are, rather than shout it from the
stand, because I was embarrassed by the performance myself.
“I went straight to the bar and stood there after the
game where people could come up to me and talk to me about
it but no-one did face-to-face.
“It’s easy for fans to shout from 40 yards away
but I’m not going to hide and they can come and speak
to me face-to-face if they want to.
“All I want is the club to progress and we can’t
have that sort of performance again.”
Meanwhile, Weymouth’s former goalkeeping coach Alan
Bull said he was surprised and disap- pointed at Ryan Harrison’s
de-parture from the Terras.
Bull worked under Matty Hale earlier in the season before
leaving as part of cost-cutting measures and helped Harrison
with his game.
“Ryan is a talented young keeper but he is a young boy
and had more of his game he still needed to work on,”
said Bull. “I was enjoying it and looking forward to
the club moving forward but at the moment they seem to have
taken one step forward and about seven backwards.
“Ryan was a pretty loyal lad, a little bit cocky, but
you need that about you.
“They must have seen he had his weaknesses but what
they have brought in seems to have been a disaster.
