Budget cuts will make it tough, warns Hume

Friday 08th May 2009

MAIDSTONE UNITED joint-manager Lloyd Hume has revealed that he will be working with his lowest ever budget next season, writes Stephen McCartney.

But Hume remains upbeat that he will be able to maintain their services of twelve of last season’s first team squad - but says home-grown talent will have to be thrown in at the deep end as the club bid to consolidate their Ryman Premier League status.

“We’ve spoken to all of the players that we want to retain, which is pretty much all of them,” Hume told www.kentishfootball.co.uk this lunchtime.

“We’ve offered them terms and we hope it’s going to be good enough, but the reality is, and the situation we’re in at Maidstone is that we’re probably not going to find out how successful we’ve been until pre-season starts.

“What the chairman’s done is he’s given us a budget that he can guarantee, which has allowed us to go and speak to players and make them offers that we can guarantee and that’s what we’ve done pretty much at the moment.

“We’ve had a lot of commitment from them, but equally the close season is a dangerous time for us.”

When asked if any of his current first team squad will be shown the door, Hume replied, “We’re not looking to release anyone if I’m honest.

“I think at the end of the season we had 12 first team players and we want to go with all 12 again.

“We also want to bring through some of the youngsters that done very well at the end of the season.

“We’ve blooded some young players and whilst our end of season looks horrendous, we lost our last five or six games, I don’t want to say we lost the games on purpose but what we did we tried a lot of different things with a lot of younger people to see what options we’ve got for next year.

“There was some huge positives as a management team that came out of those last six games.”

Speculation has been rife about the club ending their present groundsharing deal with Sittingbourne to move to another club, with fans favouring a move to Ashford Town’s Homelands Stadium.

But keeping key players is what is on Hume’s mind at present.

“I’ve heard all the speculation and heard different locations banded around, but at the end of the day, whilst it is of interest to me, it’s not really my problem or issue,” said Hume.

“My problem is to make sure that I’ve got the best possible squad going into the start of the season and keeping my key players, which hopefully we’ve done.

“I’m an ambitious person so I always want to achieve more than just staying in the division. Whether that’s practical or not, I don’t know.

“It depends if we lose some of our key players, hopefully we won’t as we’ve offered them good terms.

“We could be in a similar position to Ramsgate last year, who lose some of their key players to Dover, and it effected them hugely.

“Equally, if we keep our key players and there’s a few cheaper people around because of the current economic climate at every club, who knows what sort of squad we’ll have.

"If we can add two or three quality players I think we can do very well in this league.”

When asked if he was happy with next season’s playing budget, Hume insisted, “NO! Our budget’s a small budget. It’s the smallest that I’ve ever had at this sort of level at any club at this level and any club I’ve ever been at so it’s going to make life tough.”

Numerous clubs are lowering their budgets next season, Ebbsfleet United (Blue Square Premier) and Tonbridge Angels (Ryman Premier) publicly announcing their budget's are being cut next season.

“But I don’t know what position other people find themselves at other clubs,” said Hume. There’s certain clubs at our level, Tonbridge being one of them, who spent an absolute fortune last season and they’re in the same position again. They’ve invested very heavily to try and ensure promotion, which they never achieved.

“One or two clubs may take advantage of the credit crunch and throw money at it to get promotion.

“Is everyone going to be on an even playing field? I don’t know! Every time I’ve been in this league so far there’s been the (AFC) Wimbledon’s, Chelmsford’s and Dover who have been able to outmuscle people financially to try and get the best players.

“With Staines going up (with Dover Athletic) it leaves only a couple of clubs who have that opportunity to throw money at it.”

Visit Maidstone United’s website: www.maidstoneunited.co.uk