WE’RE READY TO ROCKS ‘N’ ROLL
Thurrock looking to beat the Best
BUSINESSMAN Alfie Best is determined to build East Thurrock United a new stadium and provide the club with the platform to reach the Football League.
Best, owner of Wyldecrest Parks – Europe’s biggest static home parks company – bought a 50 per cent stake in the club last month and has big plans to take the Rocks forward.
The proud Isthmian Premier side are used to battling against the odds, but even by their standards life at Rookery Hill has been difficult in recent years.
The passing of saviour and former chairman Ben Bennett last December made things even tougher and then long-standing manager John Coventry stepped down at the end of the season.
Covid-19 didn’t help matters either but Best – ranked 382nd in the latest Sunday Times Rich List with a wealth of £341m – has arrived at just the right time.
“Our offices are based in Thurrock, we used to be based in Havering,” he told The NLP, while working in Barbados. “We’re a national company and we deal with 36 different councils across the country and Havering are the worst council above any to deal with, we’ve found as a company.
“So much so, we moved all 450 employees and our head office out of Havering Borough and into Thurrock. I can’t sing the praises of the local council high enough. Lynn Carpenter, who’s the chief executive, is really forward-thinking and she’s trying to put Thurrock on the map and that’s not an easy task.
“Anything we can do as a company to invest in the area whether it be via the community or by building further office blocks, which we are going to be doing, we will do.”
Best has already invested around £30,000 on signage around the ground to improve the image of the club which has helped attract other sponsors.
The clubhouse has also been spruced up but the multi-millionaire’s big project is to build a new stadium on a different site which can be used primarily for football but also for other sports and events.
“We’re actively looking to find new land so we can build a stateof-the-art stadium,” he said. “I’m not talking Wembley but for a Non-League football club which has a chameleon concept about it.
“We want to build a sports stadium that caters 100 per cent for the football but has add-ons so we can hold concerts, boxing events and make it into a community hub. That will help bring in further revenue and allow the club to grow, preferably into a League club.
“We have appointed one agent already to look out for some land we could use.”
Best admits he’s not an expert on football although understands investment will also be needed in the squad if they are to move through the leagues.
Community spirit
That is a conversation he will have with the committee and management at a board meeting later this month when he returns from Barbados.
Best’s involvement with the club will be balanced alongside the 17 other companies he manages but he is committed to following through with his promises.
“I genuinely will do everything I’ve said,” he added. “You don’t want a club to be charity, you want it to be an enterprise that’s thriving, not fighting to survive.
“What you’ve got to do is make the club more a community spirit feel and get people more involved.
“If we get the model right here we will do more of this up and down the country because it is a fantastic community effort and you bring so many people together doing it.
“We’ve got to do more to get people and kids out of their doors and into sport.”