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Wick with the club and to give a bit of time. Generating finance can also be difficult as it is not easy to find sponsors and people to advertise which helps finance the club. Trying to attract people through the gate is challenging, and we are working on different ways to get more people in.” Atmosphere “Club wise there is lots happening with events such as a Ladies Night, we have several functions booked in the Club House, a local promotion inviting Children to bring their Mums and Dads to the ground with a free entry with the flyer we are putting out in the area, plus we are regularly advertising the club and our home matches on the Facebook pages and Twitter and that is bringing in a few functions.” This Season “The season has not been too brilliant, we have a great bunch of players who have stuck with the club all season and after what we have gone through this season, I am astounded that they are still with us. Not through any fault of the club or players, but we have had four Managers, so it has been very inconsistent season.” Youth “Youth football is extremely important to us at the Club; we run an U18 side and we also hire out to another U18 side, we also have a connection to our local youth setup and the Wick Dynamos have been ball boys and mascots at our games, and we are hoping to develop this relationship further. It is a difficult to help players make the transition into the senior game, and we are discussing running an U23 team next season, but it is difficult because the Club needs to find the resources to run the team, Kit, etc. The team play on a Thursday so floodlights need to be on, extra cost, finding willing hands to get the pitch ready, and so on makes it very difficult, but we have in the past used one or two of the youngsters as subs to give them a taste of First team experience, didn’t do me any harm.” Community Challenges/Ambitions “We are very much a Community Club; we are primarily a Football Club first, functions help pay for the football, so it is all about getting people into the Club either through the gate or at functions. We work with the local council and this year we are holding a Charity Match for the Chairman of the Arun District Council who is raising funds for Shop mobility. We also work with the Wick Information Centre who hold events in the Wick area and sometimes use our facilities, we have the local Theatre Group using our facilities for their rehearsals, and so on.” “The biggest challenge I think will be dictated to us by the league; there are rumours going around about the league structure and about teams moving in various directions, all talk at present but there is no smoke without fire. Other than that, it will be keeping an eye on the finances as that will also dictate on what we can do and afford to do, but things are looking OK at present. As I said our plans could be out of our hands, until we know for certain what is happening, we can’t do much. Short term we are looking to return to the Premier league, so we have hopes of that happening in the next season or two, and maybe a good Cup run and maybe even win a cup competition.” www.footballfocusmag.com 17