Elliott Update: 8 February 2008

I said last week that I would give an update as to how the Elliott Buchanan transfer happened. As everyone was aware, Elliott’s performances for us this season were causing a lot of interest in the football world and we were aware of the clubs who had shown this interest. Elliott’s record spoke for itself and quickly we identified him as a player whom we wanted on a contract. Colin initially told Elliott of our intentions but Elliott said that he had been advised not to sign one. At this stage, I had a meeting with Elliott and made him aware of what we wanted to do as well as making an offer to him financially. He reiterated that he had been advised not to sign a contract and agreed to have a further meeting shortly afterwards with his advisors.

A week or two went by and then myself and Colin then had a meeting with Elliott on his own and made it clear that we saw him not only as a player who could clearly go places, but as one that could also give us a real chance of challenging for a play-off position at the end of the season. Again, Elliott stated that he had been advised not to sign a contract, but he did agree to arrange have a further meeting with us accompanied by his advisors after the Edgware game on Boxing Day. This never happened due to Elliott having family commitments and we did not get to speak again until well into the New Year.

In the meantime, of course, Elliott continued to progress on the field and that is a reflection on his persona; an 18 year old who is aware of many clubs' interest in his services as well as how own club making every effort to get him to sign a contract, yet he still continued to produce fantastic performances on the field and his goal scoring never ceased. It was only a matter of time before we had an ‘official’ approach for him, we knew that and one final effort was made to see if he would sign a contract with us, with myself, Colin, Alan, Elliott and his advisor present. Whilst the conversations were open and honest on both sides, his advisor made it clear that Elliott would not be signing a contract as he had never wished to do so, nor had money been instrumental in his thoughts; this is true as he has never caused us any problems on that front.

Personally, I had a decision to make, as my mind was telling me to make Elliott an offer he could not refuse, but on the other hand, my heart was saying that if he didn’t sign a contract, then that money he was paid would not be a prudent investment by the club as if he moved away, we would not get a return on it. I guess that it did prove to be right decision as Stevenage Borough had sent their scout, Junior Lewis, to see Elliott on at least 3 occasions and the final time they saw him play for us at Edgware Town, they made their move almost immediately after that game with an official 7 day approach arriving the following morning.

In turn, this then meant that Stevenage could not officially speak to Elliott until the following Wednesday, however, with us having no game on the Tuesday, we decided that it would be in the best interests of all concerned to allow Elliott to speak to Stevenage after our game on the Saturday against Witham and also allow him to train with them on the Monday and Tuesday. This he did. As I understand it, Stevenage sat down with Elliott after he completed the 2 days and were impressed enough to offer him a 2-year contract. Elliott duly accepted the offer and advised us of this. In the meantime, I had many conversations with Elliott’s advisor to keep them abreast of all the news as we knew it to be. On the Wednesday morning, I received a phone call from them confirming the fact that Elliott had decided to join Stevenage and to thank myself and the club for all they done for Elliott and to say he will miss us.

Whilst this may have seemed the end of the matter, taking into account that Stevenage had no obligations to recompense us for Elliott in any way, I contacted the Chief Executive at Stevenage and put our case to him for some of financial return on Elliott, taking into account the fact that he has come through our Youth System and we have paid him since he made his way into the firt team squad. Further, we showed a goodwill gesture in allowing him to train with them earlier than we were obliged to. I understand that Mr Makin spoke to his Chairman and Peter Taylor, Team Manager, and after some negotiation, we agreed that after an amount that they considered to be their initial investment in Elliott, they would pay us a small percentage of any transfer fee from themselves to another club. It was also agreed that they would have a first team friendly match with us before the upcoming season. Documents have been signed to that effect.

I am confident that as a club we have done the right thing for all concerned in this transaction and we now need to move on. I was touched by a couple of our supporters who offered to put up some financial offer to Elliott for him to stay here but it was clear from the outset that financial gain was not very high on Elliott’s list and credit to him for that. At no stage did he make any signs that he wanted to leave right up until he was offered the contract by Stevenage.

We wish Elliott all the very best for the future and we all look forward to checking the progress he makes. Of course, to take a player out of our side with the strike rate of Elliott is going to have an impact, but we have scored 2 in each of our 2 games since he left us and we hope this will continue.

Tomorrow, we pitch our wits against Waltham Abbey at home and we need to pick up from where left Potters Bar from on Tuesday and add a further 3 points to our tally so far to help us get out of a very clogged mid-table position. There is a clear gap to the top 5 or 6 teams now and each game is a must-win.

I hope that this gives some insight as to what happened and when. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Up the Woods!

Ian