‘Mission accomplished’ says Martin O’Connor
BRAY WANDERERS have come out fighting in the wake of the reaction to the release of two statements by the club late last week with club secretary Martin O’Connor saying that it is a case of “mission accomplished”.
The Seagulls representative has no regrets about the releasing of the statements, which likened County Wicklow to North Korea in terms of doing business.
O’Connor, brother of former chairman Denis O’Connor, instead declared that they had achieved exactly what they wanted by enticing Wicklow County Council into discussion.
Both statements were widely ridiculed and mocked as they hit unprecedented viral levels for domestic soccer in the League of Ireland.
The initial statement, issued on Thursday, compared Co. Wicklow to North Korea, spoke of rivalling Barcelona and Manchester United and revealed plans were afoot to purchase a new home for the club. It was signed by chairman Gerry Mulvey.
The following statement, issued on Friday, discussed the 1916 Rising, Kim-Jong Un and Jackie Healy Rae. It was not signed by Mulvey. It was also not published on the club’s social media channels.
Despite Mulvey’s signature being absent from Friday’s release, O’Connor confirms that both were penned by the current chairman.
“Gerry issued and approved it”, confirmed O’Connor. “There were others that worked on it as well but Gerry wrote the first draft. It was the same process on the second one. Gerry wrote it but it came through a few of us, we all checked it. The first one wasn’t properly checked which is a failure but there was a time constraint on the first one. We’d more time on the second one and we were under less pressure. Maybe the first one should have been checked for typos but would we change anything about either statement? No. Emphatically no.”
It was all an ends to a mean claims O’Connor. Should all of their wishes in both statements come to fruition, Bray Wanderers will benefit hugely both on and off the pitch. The answer to all that is to build a proper academy to cater for Wicklow football at all levels.
“Incorporating that, we have to generate significant financial income for the club and it has to be an amount equal to the players’ salaries.
“We need to raise significant money and we’re hoping to generate it through all this.
“We need to cover the players’ salaries and the staff salaries until such time that we have a top three team.
“The target here is to build an academy and create a team that will remain in the top three. We want to solidify ourselves as a top three team.”
O’Connor admits that the club never thought the reaction would be as strong or as widespread as it was but it was borne out of one clear, simple aim brought on by months and months of frustration.
“We wanted to engage Wicklow County Council.
“We’ve been trying to engage the Wicklow County Council since last November. The purpose of these statements was to engage the Wicklow County Council and we’ve done that – mission accomplished”.
Full interview inside.