Fans’ Q&A: Your questions answered

Fans were recently given the opportunity via the Warrington Town Supporters Group on Facebook to ask any question regarding the football club.

There were no restrictions on the questions asked and could be football related, off the pitch, commercial or club shop related, to help provide insight and transparency over what is happening at the club as we enter 2025.

Club chairman Toby Macormac and media & commercial manager James Gordon have answered the questions below.

Q1) What is the next ground improvement and when will this likely happen?

Our first priority is to put an additional stand at the shed end to meet the criteria of having a minimum of 500 seats in the ground within three years of membership.

It would be prudent to add another stand to future proof the ground against regulation change, and so we hope to add seated stands either side of the current stand.

The stands themselves are not the greatest challenge - it’s the amount of backfill and concrete required to provide the base.

We are hoping to get the planning application in for this in the New Year.

In response to questions about toilets and bars at the shed end, that end of the ground is extremely difficult to build on due an electric shortage at the end (shop trips out occasionally) and the drains/services are the opposite way from the ground. Both would be very expensive when other priorities exist.

Q2) What would be your message to supporters who have been voicing their concerns regarding results recently?

JG: Everyone has their opinion on football and what happens on the pitch, that is fine. I take issue with people calling the club a shambles just because it hasn’t won for a few weeks, when the reality is that the club has never been in a better place than it is now. We have bigger sponsors than we’ve had before, including some who are committed long-term, we have the club shop operating daily, we have made vast improvements to the ground with more planned, we have a women’s team, and a youth and elite junior section. And that’s without the fact we are playing in the National League North, highest level ever, in front of the largest average crowds the club has ever seen (by a distance). There are always ups and downs of being a fan, and we are fortunate that over the past 10 years, there have mainly been ups. Probably the only downs have been losing the super play-off final and losing the play-off final, and so fans have been spoiled in that regard. This season, the post-match reaction has at times been bordering on hysteria, and ultimately it’s us that have to read the comments, and when you’re dedicating much of your life to keeping the club going and driving it forward, is hard, because you don’t get a break from it.

TM: Football brings with it good times and bad times. These are the bad, but only from an on-field perspective because of how well off it we are doing with the different aspects of the club. I spoke publicly at the pre-season event and also in a piece with Matt Turner (Warrington Guardian) that we may require four teams to be worse than us to enable us to stay in the division. In fairness to myself, that’s exactly what’s happened so far, I never promised anymore than that. Our status as a National League club is absolute sacrosanct to us, and it’s important we deliver a plan that keeps that status for us all.

Q3) When is the groundwork required expected to be completed so funds can go back towards on the pitch?

Promotion from the Northern Premier League to the National League brought a change from unregulated football to regulated.

This means that on police instruction we have to segregate, which is a costly exercise. As people will have seen this season, there is a new security company for matchdays who have to be SIA trained as per regulations which amounts to around 450 hours of paid high level matchday stewarding.

We have other added costs that keep increasing, such as the away travel bill. In point, the costs have risen dramatically due to the level, as well as the every day cost of living rises that every household and business is feeling, and we still need to satisfy grading requirements.

Q4) Are there any plans for more covered standing areas of the ground? For example, the canal side?

It’s in the long term plans, but as mentioned above we have to prioritise.

Once the two stands are in, the next priority is replacing the snack bar. The existing snack bar building is some 25 years old and we struggle to keep it open due to the amount of maintenance and problems we have with it.

Q5) What do you think is the next step on and off the pitch in order to stay up this season and to then kick on next season without a relegation battle?

I think it’s obvious to a few that into the start of pre-season, I saw an issue that would make this season very challenging.

That was further compounded around five games in, and I believe we needed to make changes to ensure we could save ourselves.

I feel assured that with our recruitment going forward and into the summer, coupled with a better level of fitness, we can attain a safe position.

I think there have been signs of that, with the new players that Paul has brought in such as Elliot Morris, Jack Hont and Jak McCourt, as well as Hamish Douglas who has been a great loan deal.

It’s also worth noting that Dan Atherton, Evan Gumbs, Jay Harris, Josh Amis and others were brought in by Paul originally, so we have trust in him to re-build the team where required and make it successful.

Q6) Once the groundwork has been completed, what type of budget would the club be looking at for this league?

It’s difficult to put a number on a budget at this stage because players wages are spiralling out of control especially in our area at Step 4 (NPL West Division), for example, where players are earning National League wages without having to travel or even leave the north-west to play games.

Q7) Would the club look into a possible boost the budget fund? Where fans pay a certain amount to help boost the budget for players?

There are some clubs that have a ‘boost the budget’, but it doesn’t appear to have translated to success on the field.

Our position is that we would prefer that dedicated fundraising went towards legacy items, like we saw with the groundfunding last season.

Boosting the budget this season is meaningless next season, whereas providing funds for, say, a new stand, a new bar, new road-side signage at the club shop etc, would then help generate further revenue for future seasons.

The more funds that are raised for those things, then frees up funds from the revenue generated by the club to put towards the playing budget in a sustainable way.

Q8) Realistically, where would you like to see the club being on and off the pitch in the next 5 years?

The nature of football these days means it is very difficult to create five year plans, because things change so quickly - whether that be the ground grading criteria, financial rules or otherwise.

We want to continue to develop the ground to provide the best matchday experience possible, and to ensure the ground is future-proofed for promotion to National League.

Training facilities remain a significant challenge for the club.

We are currently forced to train out of town, because of the lack of available facilities. This has an impact on us recruiting players.

Although the council did promise us in 2023 following our promotion to help find us a resolution to this problem, nothing has been forthcoming.

Victoria Park would seem an obvious location for us to be able to use, but we are told this is for rugby only.

Going hybrid or full-time would only become a consideration if we gained promotion to National League, because doing so would add significant cost that the club simply does not have.

We would also need to look at where we would be based and where we would train. There are also examples of clubs in our league who have done this too early at great expense, and ended up leaving their club in a hole of debt.

There’s no guaranteeing that being full-time or even hybrid makes you a better or stronger proposition - we finished above a full-time team last season.

One thing we do need to move towards is being a 52-week part-time club - whereas currently our playing budget only covers 44-weeks of the year. Even that is a 20% uplift on current spend just to maintain the current weekly budget.

The women’s team are having a tricky season this campaign but our aim for them is to get them in to the National Divisions (tier 4), where they currently play at tier 6, although the one-up promotion system clearly makes that a difficult nut to crack.

We are already doing work on the pathway so that we can get the best girls in the town feeding in to the Warrington Town women’s first team.

We hope next season to run a development side underneath the first team, which will comprise of Under 18s players and a sprinkling of more experienced players to help bring them on and get them ready for promotion to the first team.

We now have junior elite development teams at U13s and U16s, which is part of the pathway to the youth section. We will continue to look at how we can tweak and develop the youth system (for instance, we are already reviewing the U21s set-up for next season to see if there is an alternative that provides better opportunities to prepare players for the first team).

The idea is that we want to identify the best players that we can at these age groups to play semi-professional football for the club.

Obviously a lot of local players get picked up by academies, so we just need to make sure we have the appropriate systems in place so that when players do drop out of academies or scholarships, if they are from Warrington, they feel like playing for us is a viable option.

Q9) Can we have the return of the outside San Miguel bar that was outside last season?

The club has recently purchased two portable bars that we are hoping to have up and running at the next home fixture.

These are, of course, staff dependent each match.

Q10) Who have been your favourite players at the club to watch and work with?

JG: My favourite would probably have to be Craig Robinson, not just for the obvious, but because he played like he would run through a brick wall for the club, and that’s the sort of passion and raw material that is the beauty of non-league football. In recent years, I’d have to say you rarely come across any players who don’t want to help out, but the likes of Josh Amis, Evan Gumbs and Matty McDonald have all been great to work with and have helped with various things away from the football pitch to help the club. People will remember that may be 10 or so years ago, there was a lot of player turnover, and it was hard to build the sort of rapport that fans have with players now. But the likes of Josh and Evan have helped that become possible because of their contribution and loyalty to the club.

TM: For me it would be Ciaran Kilheeney. He was the first player I ever paid a fee for because I wanted to prove that to attain promotion from the then NPL First Division North, we needed a striker that would give us a goal return and he certainly did that with a return of 84 goals in 129 games. He, of course, took us up, in a season where all he needed was the ball in the 18 yard box and he’d likely score. His leadership off the field and relationship with the staff was great and to this day he’s helping the club out, an example being the away kit launch in the summer.

Q11) What can we do as fans do to support and assist the club?

Keep coming to matches, join the lottery, buy from the club shop.

We still have sponsorship packages available for the current season, so maybe there are some business owners out there who want to support, or maybe you can persuade the company you work for to sponsor.

I still believe a Supporters’ Club of some sort should be organising away travel, as well as helping with other fundraising events. The away travel especially is a labour intensive process for the club, in which the man hours are desperately required elsewhere.

Q12) Would it be possible to organise an official Supporters' Player of the Year where fans fund the trophy and have a little presentation at the last home game of the season?

We have had a Supporters’ Player of the Year in recent seasons (Dan Atherton won it last year, Evan Gumbs the year before), which was decided by an online poll.

They were presented with a small memento which was club funded alongside the other awards. We are always happy to discuss how best the fans want to organise this.

Q13) Can we paint the concrete fence panels around the ground blue?

They are currently green to blend in with the surrounding foliage, so repainting them isn’t required as frequently as we normally would.

It’s a huge amount of paint that would be required and would really require a sponsor to cover the cost, that’s before the amount of man hours not only to paint it once, but to keep it maintained in the new colour over time considering the above.

Q14) Are there any plans to bring a third kit out?

There are no plans to bring a third kit out.

Our plan moving forward is to release a new home and away kit in alternate years. So this summer, we will be releasing a new away kit, which has already been designed and signed off, subject to approval from the National League. Then there will be a new home kit in the summer of 2026.

We feel that this approach is better, as it gives kits a longer shelf life, and also lessens the pressure on fans to buy both each year - instead, they can buy one each year.

There are also logistical challenges - for the first time this year, we had bespoke kits (ie. they were designed and created specifically for us), which meant we had to place a minimum order of 300 of each shirt.

Clearly, the more kits you release, the more pressure this places on order numbers and cash flow.

The pink goalkeeper shirt (especially short sleeved) has proved very popular this season, and so we are planning to stock more of this in the new year, so this can be a de facto third kit for this season!

Q15) Could next season prove to potentially be much more challenging than this season to stay up?

I believe with good summer recruitment, finding a few gems, and a tough pre-season, we can achieve a safe position.

If we can complete that and the first stage of the groundwork it’ll be a successful season.

Q16) Do you see the club getting any further than NLN or is this roughly going to be the maximum level we get to?

You can never rule progress out at any time - look at Boston United who went up from sixth position last season and are unfortunately struggling a little this season.

Chorley also had a foray into the National League but only won four matches the season after and so came straight back down.

To ensure you survive, you have to have everything off the field at a point that is ready to accept a promotion.

The wage budget would of course be required to be higher but we would also require a Grade One ground certificate which again is further spend, and if we didn’t have that in place by promotion we would then find ourselves in the same position as last season where we have the stressful process of getting the ground up to standard by March to avoid automatic relegation.

A good cup run can fund a promotion or cut a swath through ground works, and so that has been a failure in recent seasons that has hindered us.

There is certainly the potential for the club to be in the National League, and in fact above that, and I’m sure the people of the Town would get behind it which would help plug some of those gaps.

Q17) Would is be possible for a return of the Vice President’s club?

One of the challenges we have is that the boardroom is at full capacity every game, and we could quite easily sell more.

However, we can only carry 32 in there, and once away directors, match sponsors, ball sponsors, stadium sponsor and main sponsor tickets are allocated, there simply isn’t any further room.

For those unaware, the Vice Presidents package 10 years or so ago, meant people could pay £50 a month, and would get access to the boardroom on matchday.

The setup on a matchday is now very different, as we provide a sit down meal prior to each game, whereas a decade ago there was a lot more space and it was more casual in the room.

The revenue the club generates from match sponsorships currently far exceeds what we could generate through Vice President’s packages, even if we charged £1,000 per season.

If we could find a way of creating additional hospitality space, then I am sure we could accommodate more things like this - it’s just the challenge (both logistical and cost) of doing this.

Q18) What is our aim for the rest of the season? Will we be signing anymore players or developing what we have?

We are on the look out for players, for certain, but it’s a difficult proposition given the position we are in within the league table.

We need to improve certain positions and that has to be balanced off by departures, which isn’t always possible.

We also need to be clever in the market and look to sign players who can do a job next season also so we are building early.

Q19) Is there any long term strategy to make the club a full-time operation?

There is a long-term plan to try and establish it, but the points mentioned in Q8 are important to this also.

Once you embark on full-time, you would require a full-time physio which is circa £25-30k, a full-time manager, assistant, goalkeeping coach, analysts etc, which would be a further £90k ish, and then you require a training venue to be available four days a week with a classroom facility.

And that’s before the significant increase required in the budget for players.

So, there is a lot to factor in before taking that step, and it’s likely we would have to embark on a hybrid model for a few seasons before making a full-time step.

Hybrid can be any model that suits the playing squad such as three nights a week from two or add one morning a week in.

Q20) Are there any plans to increase the link with the rugby team?

There is no link at present, although we do have some good individual relationships with people who work for the rugby league club.

I’m not sure doing a joint ticket would be practical for either club (other than saving money for fans going to both!), but hopefully in the future there will be initiatives we can look at.

I recently made a suggestion about the possibility of having a joint merchandise range (Warrington, two loves, etc), though understandably clubs are protective of their branding and what they use it for, and we cannot force Wolves or anybody to do anything.

As for other links, we would love to have access to even some of the facilities the Wolves have around town, as we are currently forced to look outside of Warrington!

Q21) Would the club consider creating replica tops from years gone by?

We have a ‘retro’ rail of old Warrington Town shirts in the shop (not to buy, unfortunately!), but I am sure in the future we will look to use one of these as inspiration for a future shirt, especially the FA Vase final shirt.

For the 2024/25 season, we took inspiration from the club’s first ever shirt to release the claret and blue squared design to commemorate the 75 year anniversary, following the response to the special edition release we did for 70 years.

Q22) Are there any players from the U21s/U18s that you think could go on to make an impact in the first team in the future?

The 18/21s section is in its infancy taking part now in only its second full season.

Both age groups won promotion last season alongside a district cup win, and players from both teams have trained with the first team and also featured in the Senior Cup competitions.

One of the things I have noticed about the National League North is young players don’t feature in large numbers because of the physicality of the league.

We will continue to blood new young players into the teams and also the first team training and hopefully we can produce some of our own.

The step up is a big one and some could say it’s a six division step but some players to note and keep an eye on are Tom Ledward, James McSweeney, Will Adams and Ben Charlesworth.

Q23) What is being done by the club to actively seek new fans to attend games?

Average attendances have more than doubled since before COVID and have increased five-fold compared to this time 10 years ago.

This has been, in part, down to building a database of fans, off the back of online ticketing, shop sales and social media, which enables us to communicate with fans far more regularly and efficiently than in the past. The club has a far larger profile around town, and beyond, than it ever has before.

We have various community initiatives, particularly the mascots for each game, which in turn lead to new young people and their parents coming to games not only once, but often coming back as fans for future matches.

For various games we have welcomed different groups, including from the Hong Kong community in the town and donated tickets to various charity and fundraising events for local causes.

Some of our sponsors are now using their ticket allocations to distribute to their workforces, introducing new people.

And our stadium title partner, Cal Delivery, recently donated 25 pairs of tickets for the Chester game which were used by Warrington Town Juniors players and parents.

Q24) What does the club ‘need’ to do next in terms of ground improvements and what is the timeline?

A) A further 100 seat stand at the shed end, preferably two, by March 31, 2026
B) New snack bar facility to replace the ageing current one for season 2025/26, ideally before
C) Design and build a better disabled viewing area in both home and away ends
D) Complete the outdoor bar area - we put in the two serving windows that you can see in the side of the social club earlier this year, but the project was pushed down the order due to the other requirements. The idea would be to be able to serve directly through these windows.

Q25) Can a supporters' club away travel be organised by a dedicated appointed person to organise and run?

I have tried, at times unsuccessfully, to explain this point over the past few years when we have received criticism for not putting on away travel for certain games.

There have been numerous occasions where we have booked away travel, and then had to cancel because there are not enough fans signing up.

There have been occasions where the away travel has ran, but it has had to be subsidised by the club as not enough people have attended.

We have tried to provide the best price possible, and I think already we are seeing that when other people arrange, they aren’t getting prices better than what the club were charging.

While it is great to see fans at away games, organising away travel is a task that takes away from the many others to be done at the club.

If it was organised by a supporters’ club or by a dedicated fan, they would know better what fans may or may not sign up, and it would remove the administrative headache of organising it for the club.

I believe someone has arranged travel for some of the upcoming games, that has been shared on the fans’ Facebook page.

Q26) The club shop was a great idea, so I wanted to ask how successful it’s been? Also, the lottery seems to be going well and wondered if this could be expanded to scratch cards? 20p extra on a pint?

The club shop has done very well since opening in August.

Obviously, the idea is to help generate additional revenue for the club, but it has also been important in terms of providing a point of engagement for fans.

We have a steady stream of people daily coming in to the shop, that otherwise would only be able to engage with the club on a matchday.

They can come in and see what we’re doing, ask about how things are going and discuss all things WTFC.

It has also been good for capturing new fans - we had a group of youngsters who go to Sir Thomas Boteler school opposite who were unaware that Warrington had its own football team, until they saw the shop (and came in to play a bit of table football!).

They then ended up going to a game, had a positive experience there, and came back to the shop to buy replica shirts, and now attend games regularly.

We’ve also had people coming in buying Warrington football shirts for foreign exchange students.

The Yellows Lottery has been driven by Neil Pearson and has done well so far. We are looking to support by providing an easier sign up process for online payments, as well as offering cash payments via the club shop.

The continuing growth of the lottery can be an important and sustainable part of the club’s growth - you can buy as many entries as you like (at a fiver a month), knowing that 50% of the funds generated goes in to the club and that the rest is an incentive for you and other fans to win throughout the year.

Regarding the price of pints, while raising 20p on a matchday could help generate more revenue, we are a local community social club, and so ensuring that prices are as affordable as possible for our regular customers is our primary consideration.

On behalf of the supporters, I would just like to say a massive thank you to Toby and James for taking the time to listen to the fans’ questions and answer them. It is such an important time to get behind the lads behind Cards and hopefully turn things around.

(Elliot and Adam - Warrington Town Supporters Group admins)