Invest in success
MACCLESFIELD Town manager John Askey hopes that his side’s exposure in the FA Trophy final could lead to some financial investment into the club.
The Silkmen will try to clinch silverware this weekend when they take on York City in the final at Wembley. Macclesfield have received good publicity after making it this far in the competition, and Askey wants that to
‘The big hope is that the exposure attracts investment in the club’
have a positive impact.
“The big hope is that the exposure we’ve had as a club from reaching the FA Trophy final attracts investment in the club,” he told the Macclesfield Express. “Hopefully some- one will come in who is prepared to spend money, but that is dependent on the owner being prepared to let the club go.
“We have made a profit this year and when I took over as manager we were £500,000 in debt – we have cleared that debt now.
“We have usual bills coming in for gas and electricity, but other than that we owe nothing, so that is an achievement in itself.
“Hopefully people will see that, identify us as a nice club in Cheshire that, if someone was prepared to get hold of it, has a lot of potential.
“We’re seeing now the likes of Forest Green and Fylde – not as attractive a proposition as Macclesfield – yet people have gone in to those clubs and invested millions.
“So you would hope that, with all the money that is around in Cheshire, there is someone out there who enjoys their football and wants to get hold of a football club.”
Askey has plenty of ideas what he would like to do with better financial backing, and a re-introduction of youth teams is high on his priority list.
“The future for Macclesfield Town used to be the development of our own talent stream – but now we only have the first team,” he said.
“We had a lot of success with our youth team and the number of young players we sold brought in a lot of money for the club. But when we dropped out of the Football League that all went.
“The last player to come through was Paul Lewis, who we sold this year. For any sports club you have got to have kids coming through. Not only in terms of development, but also as the next generation of supporters, even future directors. It’s important at any club to have a youth policy.”