Interview ~ Keith Allen

On Tuesday 1st February 2000 Ian Blacklidge and myself interviewed our new club secretary, Keith Allen.

WWISC: Keith you're the new boy in town, how did you come to join Wycombe Wanderers? 

Keith: I'd served a twenty-six-year apprenticeship in non-league football in the Conference and the Southern League with Atherstone Town and Nuneaton Borough. Quite simply I'd reached a stage in my life where I no longer needed to earn a lot of money to live, so I decided to look towards doing my hobby as a full-time job. I wrote to Wycombe to ask if they needed anybody on the administrative side. They immediately wrote back and invited me to come down for a chat with Ivor Beeks and John Goldsworthy, which was followed up the next morning by a phone call from them inviting my wife and myself down to see the Reading game on that Saturday. On the Monday after that they offer me the job. We thought about it for quite a long time as I did have my own business and I was earning a lot more money that I was offered to come here. But at the age of fifty-one and the kids grown up and gone we decided that I could spend the last fourteen years of my working life doing something that I wanted to do. Anybody who makes a living out of his hobby and looks forward to getting here in the morning is very, very lucky.

WWISC: What were you doing before you joined us?

Keith: I was a director of a firm in the construction industry. We were glorified merchants really, we brought sand and gravel from the quarries and ran it on our own lorries direct to the building sites. So when I took the job here I sold a few shares in that which helped with the move, I took a downward step in salary and was pleased to do so and I'm delighted to be here. 

WWISC: Is this something that you like doing?

Keith: Oh! Yes, but as you get older believe it or not, you don't need quite as much money to live as you did when you had three kids to put through universities. They have now all gone and there are just the two of us to look after. All three of my boys were at university at the same time so that was a very expensive period of time for us. I've not really recovered from it yet; I've still got holes in my shoes.
If the opportunity to come here had come up two years ago, I wouldn't have been able to come; I'd have had to turn it down as I wouldn't have been able to afford to come. I was delighted to accept the position here and I've been here since November 1st. 

WWISC: You said that you were at Atherstone and Nuneaton, any experiences from there?

Keith: Well, I was at Nuneaton the year that the Chairman and Vice Chairman fell out and they ended up in High Court. At one stage we had three chairmen and at another stage I was the only person at the club with any authority. Both of them were then suspended by the FA, so the interim chairman who had taken over just to get us through didn't have any standing and I had gone away on holiday to Majorca and there were some papers that needed to be signed so they had to fly out and I met them at Palma Airport, signed the papers and they flew back again. They were difficult times but most of my twenty-six years have been great.

WWISC: They seem to be on their way back now after all of the things that have happened to them?

Keith: Nuneaton Borough is a big club, it's a big town, a football town, it's also my home town. I loved being secretary of my home town club but I was the right man in the right job at the wrong time. Atherstone went out of business 1979 two years after I had left them, they have since started again and have worked their way back up to the premier division and when I'd eventually had enough of Nuneaton as it drove me potty 'I'm really only 35, I just look 62'. I went back to Atherstone and had ten great years there. We were in the premier division of the Southern League all of the while, funnily since I left they haven't won a game and they're in the bottom three and look as if they could go down. Nuneaton Borough is a big club, as I said it's a big town a real football town and they're well supported. It was inevitable that they would get back into the Conference, it was just a matter of time and you can't keep a good club down. Whether they will ever make it into the Football League, I don't know, but the town should have a Football League club. I was also on the management committee of the Southern League for thirteen years and I've been vice-chairman for nine years. During that time I've done all the ground grading which was a big job in its self. I still hold those positions but I will stand down at the AGM in the summer. Wycombe knows about this, I've had a word with Ivor and he's quite happy for me to carry on until the AGM and then I'll stand down.

WWISC: Have you always been involved in or followed football?

Keith: Yes, when I was eleven I used to catch a coach in Nuneaton and go and watch Aston Villa and I became a season ticket holder after that. In fact my house is called Holte End and my new house that I've just bought in Aylesbury will also be called Holte End.

WWISC: Funny enough my next question was, Apart from Wycombe Wanderers, which is 'your' team?

Keith: You very quickly become a supporter of the team you're with. I spent the 70's wanting Atherstone to win and cheering for them. I spent the 80's wanting Nuneaton Borough to win and cheering for them. I again spent the 90's cheering for Atherstone and now I jump up in the air every time Wycombe score a goal. Everybody has got a club and Aston Villa is mine. From the age of eleven until I was twenty-five, I'd play football on a Sunday and I'd watch The Villa on a Saturday.

WWISC: Did you know much about Wycombe Wanderers before you applied for the position?

Keith: I knew Wycombe as a non-league club and I knew that they are a friendly well-run club. Its not all clubs at this level that want somebody doing the same sort of secretary job as I do here. Which is a full time secretary who deals with virtually all of the administration on the football side, a lot of clubs at this level just has office girls doing the paperwork and a chief executive, this isn't that type of club and that appealed to me.
I travelled down on the Wednesday 2nd October to see the Chairman. I pulled up in the car park and I went into the boardroom, which was very impressive and halfway through the meeting he said "have you seen the ground?". As I hadn't seen it we went down the corridor and up the steps into the directors box and the first sight I had of Adams Park took my breath away because I'd no idea that the ground is as good as it is. I'd never been before and anybody talking about Scunthorpe or Wycombe and you tend to think that it's just a little backwater. This is a beautiful ground and the facilities are magnificent.

WWISC: We'd heard that you'd looked at the Internet pages before you came for the interview.

Keith: This fellow is nothing if not thorough. When they invited me down, I had about a fortnight to kill, so I logged into 'Ch@irboys on the Net' which is an excellent site, it really is first class and it tells you everything about the club. So I printed it all off and by the time I'd read that I knew all about the club. I knew all about the constitution. I knew all about the club without having been here or seen it. I owe a lot to ‘Ch@irboys on the Net’ because I was able to answer questions at the interview that I knew nobody else would as I'd read it there.
One of the things I've told the chairman, and this might come back to haunt me, is that I haven't come here looking for my next job. If you employ somebody who is thirty-five and ambitious, the first thing he does when he starts is to look for his next job. If I'm spared fourteen years, I keep my nose clean and I don't get the sack then I'm quite happy to see my time out here. It's not that I'm not ambitious, it's just that I know that I'm too old and I'm very lucky to have got such a good job with such a good club.

WWISC: What are your initial impressions of the club since you started?

Keith: It's exactly what I've done for the last twenty-two years but on a bigger scale, and I've got more time in which to do it. I now have eight hours to do what I used to have to do in two hours in the evening. You then have the opportunity to perhaps not do it better, but do it more thoroughly and in a more relaxed manner. I was coping but as you get older it becomes difficult to work from eight in the morning until six at night and then after dinner go out to a game in the evening or a board meeting or doing the paperwork, you just can't do that every night. So what I've now got to do when we eventually move down which is in early June because I've now bought a house, I've got to find another hobby. There are a lot of things I love doing, I love the theatre, I love playing bridge, my wife loves line dancing and so do I because she goes and it leaves me the house to myself. I'll also be able to catch on a bit of reading which I also enjoy. You know Nuneaton Borough and Wycombe Wanderers are identical as clubs, except Nuneaton had that terrible cloud over them in the 1980's and Wycombe built Adams Park. That's the real difference otherwise their crowd's, leagues they played in and club records were all very similar. Wycombe moved on when they sold Loakes Park that was the key to Wycombe's success. The foresight shown by the directors at the timing of the sale and the building of this place is the key to the success that has been enjoyed here and turned Wycombe Wanderers into a good Football League club. At the same time that Wycombe built Adams Park, Dorchester built their new ground and I upset them even though they are very good friends of mine as I told them that their ground was built by an architect who wasn't a football fan. It's a stately home, and it's totally useless for football. It's got a poky little stand, their leisure facilities are about as big as my office, they haven't any banqueting facilities, there are no sponsor's boxes, nothing therefore their only income is from their lotteries and their football. What I'm driving at is the foresight that was shown when this ground was built is what has made Wycombe Wanderers what they are today. That's together with the supporters who've got behind them but without the food and beverage this club would not be doing what its doing now.

WWISC: We see that you're a bit of a cricket fan.

Keith: Cricket is my number one sport. Football takes my life up because football lasts from June until May almost the full twelve months whereas cricket is being squeezed but that's my game. 'Chess on Grass' that's cricket, it's all about tactics. A philistine like you might wonder why a man has been moved ten yards after one ball but everything is done for a purpose. I've been a Warwickshire member since I was fourteen since my dad could afford to pay my subscription fees and I will continue to be a Warwickshire member, I just won't be able to go any more, or at least not very often.

WWISC: Where do you call home?

Keith: Home, will always be Nuneaton. I've lived fifty-one years there and I've told the kids that even though we've moved down here I want burying in Nuneaton. I don't want to be buried in High Wycombe because I'll always be a Warwickshire man. The people in the frozen North don't believe that the midlands exist, and I've been called a 'northern b@st@rd' in the south and a 'southern b@st@rd' in the north. I'm just waiting for someone to call me a 'midland b@st@rd', but that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy living here or make new friends down here. I've told the chairman that we'll always play on grass and we'll always drink out of a glass.
At the moment I'm spending four nights a week in Wycombe, I've been taken under the wing of one of the supporters. I go home on a Friday night so I spent the weekend at home and then travel back down again on the Monday morning. If we're at home on the Saturday my wife comes down with me and then goes off shopping. It takes about two hours to drive down. I've now sold my house in Nuneaton and we've got to be out by March 1st and we've bought one in Stoke Mandeville which won't be ready until June 1st, so we've got three months in limbo, I'll be homeless because I don't think anybody will rent me somewhere for just three months. So home is a bit like where you hang your hat at the moment. 

WWISC: Do you have any family?

Keith: I have three boys, the twins are twenty-two and Neil's the eldest he's twenty-four and is a journalist. He lives in Birmingham and is a sports reporter that covers Aston Villa and he works for a weekly Sunday newspaper owned by the Aston Villa chairman. Which is a dream job for him. By pure coincidence all three of them are Villa fanatics, which is nothing to do with me of course. The next is Andrew who is an actor waiting to be discovered in London, but while he's waiting to be discovered he has a good job in marketing with a wholesale book warehouse. The last one Mark works in Disney World in Nuneaton. 
My wife who I have never called by her Christian name in twenty-eight years is Daisy and she hates the name 

WWISC: Is there anything in particular that has impressed you, or disappointed you since your arrival at Wycombe Wanderers?

Keith: Nothing has disappointed me; it is exactly what I expected it to be. I'm very impressed by the facilities which are first class. I even have a roof that doesn't leak for the very first time and the ground has impressed me. I've also been very impressed by the people I work with who are all very good and very professional in their various ways. The marketing department is excellent, the food and beverage are top class and they are all run by top quality people who know their job. Which means of course that for the first time in my life I can do my job without having to worry that everything else is running ok.

WWISC: Being the first club official to travel on a WWISC organized coach, how did you enjoy your journey to Newcastle?

Keith: It was an experience; it took me back to the days when I was a Villa supporter going on the coaches to The Villa. Having spent the last twenty-six years travelling on team coaches it was different to what I'm used to, but I did enjoy it and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again if the circumstances arose. I must say that it was very well organized. 

WWISC: Can you assure supporters that games will not be moved away from Saturday afternoons to Fridays or midweek evenings as it disrupts and it's difficult for people to get time off to travel then?

Keith: All of this was done before I arrived but as I understand it a great deal of thought was given to the Bank Holiday fixtures by the manager, the directors and the previous secretary to give the optimum time to the team to recover. Apparently last year we played Gillingham on the Easter Monday having played on the Saturday and Gillingham hadn't played since the Thursday which meant that they had four days recovery time against our two days. I've been told that in the second half Gillingham ran us off our feet because we were knackered and they were fresh. So when the time came this season to think when we were going to play these games we wanted to play the Good Friday fixture on the Thursday, but the FA wouldn't let us so we are playing it on Good Friday so that it gives us one extra day's recovery. The original game against Colchester was agreed by both clubs for the same purpose. Notts County was happy to come on the Thursday, it was the league who said "no". The league didn't object last season but this season they have. What is now happening is that they say that you can play your bank holiday games at Easter on Good Friday or Saturday and Monday. We were the only club that decided to play on Good Friday only to give us the extra day to recover. The Cardiff City one has been done at Cardiff's request as there is a big international in Cardiff on the Saturday. We are trying to give ourselves as much advantage as possible by giving the players as big a recovery time as possible. At the end of the day it is the manager, supported by the directors who decides when he wants his team to play. I can only put your ideas about consultation with the supporters groups next season when I'm involved at the preseason stage. Where I come from, nobody has Good Friday off; everyone goes to work and then has Monday and Tuesday off. If you play a game on a Good Friday afternoon in the midlands, the attendance would be nil. I've never in my life worked Easter Tuesday and I've never had Good Friday off.

WWISC: Do you think that the single road and the parking problems here at Wycombe will possibly hold us back in the future?

Keith: I think that because it's the year 2000 and football has changed, the parking does come into it. There are a lot of clubs playing at a lot higher level then us that have a lot worse parking problem's us, that's not being complacent and I know that we have got to solve the parking problems although I've no idea how we can do anything about the access. I had a letter yesterday from somebody complaining about exactly the same things. I know that you're going to say that it was in the centre of the town but the car parking here is far better then at Loakes Park, it's just that people like to travel in cars. But for people who have travelled in from out lying towns and villages parking at Loakes Park was very, very limited. Every effort is being made and that's why we have the top field, which is all right for most matches except in very wet conditions. 

WWISC: Coming from a Non-League background what do you think of the proposals about having two-up and two-down between the Conference and the Football League?

Keith: Using the theory that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, I am not convinced that there will be two-up two-down between the Conference and the Football League. I'm not totally in favour of it either. There are a lot of quality clubs in the Conference. It's to easy for a quality club to have a bad season and get relegated from the Football League if there is two-up two-down. I wouldn't like to see for example York City who are having a bad season and although they won't be relegated but lets say their season crumbles about their ears and they finish second from bottom. I don't think anybody would like to see York relegated. I am a non-league man, I sit on the National Joint Liaison Committee for the Pyramid of Football, in fact I have a meeting coming up and there are things like this on the agenda. You can say two / three or four up and down and then you may create the problem of someone going down and then never being able to get back up again. Lincoln and Darlington came back at the first attempt, Colchester took two seasons and now Halifax have all managed to climb back up. I am a great believer that quality will always come through and one day hopefully in not to distance a future Hereford will get back up. Hereford went down in total disarray with severe financial difficulties and Doncaster was in a terrible state. The people who run the Conference are very good friends of mine and I've sat on their committees for years and years. What they have told in meetings to the FSA is their opinion of what they would like, but I'm not convinced that they will get two-up two-down. I don't think that anyone in the third division or even the second division would vote for that. With a different hat on I fought tooth and nail to stop the second division of The Conference that's because it would have destroyed football beneath it totally and we will continue to fight the second division.

WWISC: As a man who watches football, what do you think about the current standard of refereeing in the Football League?

Keith: I think that refereeing at all levels has been rubbish for years but it's the best we've got. If anybody can come up with an alternative, we'll have them. I think, unfortunately, as with an umpire who makes a wrong decision there's no better system than an arbiter, there on the day on the spot. Both football and cricket throughout time have had its history written in bad decisions and I'm afraid we have to accept them. I don't think it's any worse now than it's ever been, I think it's highlighted more now then it's ever been because of video.

WWISC: Do you think that the replaying of decisions will be allowed?

Keith: I think that it'll be allowed because it's what is wanted. Ten years ago we'd have gone to Wigan, been knocked out of the FA cup, we're have been most upset because we thought the referee had made a bad decision. Now because of video we know that the referee made a bad decision. Therefore we complained to the FA, we complained to everybody, all and sundry and sent videos all over the country, which was a complete and utter waste of time. All it does is make us more upset when we see the video and I think that perhaps we tend to analyse things just a bit too much. It's known in golf as 'the rub of the green' and I think that in football we sometimes have to treat decisions as 'the rub of the green'. I think that referees, being the type of people they are will always not be particularly 'user friendly' and perhaps we should accept their decisions with a little bit more 'good grace' than we tend to. I think some of the people here think I'm a referees man, but if you saw the two page report I wrote on the referee at Newcastle or the two page report I wrote on the referee at Colchester they will know I'm not a referee's man.

WWISC: What do you think about the idea of referee's becoming professional and trying to attract ex-players back into the game in that capacity?

Keith: I don't think professional referees would make a scrap of difference; it wouldn't make their decisions any better or any worse. They are virtually professional now anyway, they need to spend a lot of time away from work. If the word 'professional means they do nothing else, then perhaps they could sleep in, in the mornings and perhaps relax a little bit more but their decisions would be no different. As for ex-players becoming referee's, if they're prepared to climb through the pyramid of refereeing then fine. There is no shortcut to the premiership and just because someone was a good player, it doesn't mean that they will become a good referee just the same as it doesn't mean that they will become a good manager.

WWISC: Once again Wycombe is near the top of the bad boy list this season. How much danger are we in of losing the £20.000?

Keith: Actually we're not near the top; we're actually half way. If you read the Sunday sporting papers we're near the top but then they make it up as the go along and their score rating of one point for a booking and five points for a sending off are completely wrong. You get four points for a booking, ten points for a red card (i.e.: two bookings) and twelve points for an instant red (i.e.: violent conduct). At the moment we have a 20% improvement over the same time last season. Now we accept that our record is not very good, but a 20% improvement is no mean feat but we know that we must improve on it.

Ted's Comment:
Ian and I were in the office talking to Keith for over two hours and unless the person you're talking to isn't interesting, you'll struggle to do fifteen minutes let alone two hours. He has a wealth of knowledge about the game and is also very approachable. He spoke about many things and some that we cannot put into print because of legal reasons (nothing to do with Wycombe). Hopefully we will be able to arrange a forum in the near future and Keith will definitely be on the panel to answer questions. So I'd like to finish by thanking Keith for sparing the time to talk to us.