Date: 18-10-19It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day

18-10-19 - News - It's a new dawn. It's a new day

After months and months of waiting the announcement of new owners for Kidderminster Harriers Football Club was made yesterday afternoon. The new owner, Richard Lane, finally put his head above the parapet and allowed the statement to be published even though it had been known about for some time now.

It was way back in April, around the time that Mark Yates was relieved of his position as the manager, that talk started to grow of an imminent takeover after it was plain for all to see that the ‘vision’ that came to Colin Gordon in a dream was going to be just that. A vision and an unworkable one at that.

The pie in the sky of a new stadium to be built along the Stourport Road, combined with a world class University of Football, was going to remain as a faded glossy brochure given to the press and as a poorly drawn poster behind Colins desk for all the world to see as he delivered yet again another bile filled State of the Nation video.

It was Richard Lane who was to come along on his white charger to help CG with the financial mess, that he had gotten the club into, by playing the players wages as the vision slowly became forgotten. Since then work has been going on behind the scenes to remove Colins G5 Sports Consulting Ltd from the club to be replaced with Richards EBC Group along with, one presumes, one of the Gemini group of companies.

Now that we have seen the statement there are a couple of issues with it. One of those is the failure to mention where KHIST fit into all of this seeing as it is they that will be speaking up for the Harriers fans. The division created by CG was one of the many disastrous events contrived under his ownership and we now need to put an end to this stand-off between the club and the fans.

There is also no ‘real meat’ contained within the statement. There is talk of developing Aggborough with generated income from local businesses but does that mean new facilities for supporters or does it mean selling parts of the ground off for development?

There is very little talk of the educational side of things although it does say they ‘want to strengthen KHFC’s position as one of the biggest exponents of football provision, education and employment opportunities in the Wyre Forest’. It doesn’t specifically mention the Academy or the Stourport Road site so will that be disposed of to create the funding for an enhanced Aggborough.

There is also a lot of talk about the community and the part that Richard Lanes Harriers will play in it. To be honest it’s the Harriers community that needs to be dealt with first and to get the disenchanted, dis-enfranchised and despondent fans back on board first by giving the manager, John Pemberton, the wherewithal and confidence to get our team back to winning ways and on the road to real recovery.

We have to give it all time though and that will mean giving our full support for what he hopes to achieve for the club and sometimes decision may be made that are hard to swallow. Just as long as we can have a glimpse of the good times please.

The full statement is below:

KIDDERMINSTER Harriers FC can today announce that the Club is under new ownership following its successful sale to a Consortium of local business people, headed up by Kidderminster-born businessman Richard Lane.

Richard is the owner of a 30-year-old leading technology firm EBC Group which specialises in office Cloud technology encompassing multiple data centres across the UK.

The new owners are committed to keeping the football club at Aggborough for the foreseeable future.

The plans are to further develop Aggborough by generating additional income from local businesses with the intentions of making the Club self-sustainable and achieving long-term success both on and off the field.

They also want to strengthen KHFC’s position as one of the biggest exponents of football provision, education and employment opportunities in the Wyre Forest.

The strength of that work across the club and its Community Trust saw Harriers named Community Club of the Year in 2019, and it is this platform the club is looking to build on.

Richard Lane said today: “I grew up less than a mile from Aggborough, and started watching the club when I was two with my father, ‘Rocky’ Lane. His years of enthusiasm for the club concluded with him becoming a Director a few years later, to which I am very proud, especially when I reflect on what the Football Club achieved in his tenure.

We can see the enormous potential here for the club to do something very special in the community.

There are some immediate challenges ahead of us, namely ensuring that the club is stable and self-sufficient, not just for now, but for the future, so that the club’s supporters have a team to watch and a club to support for many more years to come, that is our only immediate priority.

I know this is a tight-knit community, and we’ll need that togetherness. The manager and team will need it on the pitch as we drive success off the pitch to keep the club moving forward and thriving.

Winning Community Club of the Year was a fantastic achievement for everyone here, but it is important we continue and build on that work with local children, businesses and charities.

I know this is a tight-knit community, and we’ll need that togetherness. A successful, sustainable football club can help bring together a community and that’s what we want to create. Before the year is out, we will bring together a new Board of Directors at the club; it will be made up of like-minded local business people with passion for football and the community.”

The club wishes to place on record its thanks to previous owner, Colin Gordon. While Colin will no longer have a role at the football club, he will work as a consultant to the new owners.

Today’s announcement comes as the club continues to finalise the last of the formalities surrounding the takeover which includes dialogue with the National League.

We are excited to say that considerable progress has been made towards making some important signings for the team, which we hope to be able to confirm shortly.