Chairman’s Statement :- Firstly , I had no real intention of publicly elaborating on the merits of my decision taken in the best interests of Clitheroe fc over the weekend but given the utter nonsense being banded about that I’m now aware of I feel I have no choice but to make a public announcement. Protecting not only our great football clubs integrity, but the great people that work hard day in day out to look after it. All of them for not a penny and some of them that have dedicated huge parts of their lives to our club and with full respect have managed to keep our club at a level, already that most of our friends and fellow clubs around Lancashire have not been able to sustain. To do so, let alone give us a platform to seek NPL football, not to mention those that look after our lovely ground and those that are rarely seen, but so vital to the life of this great club .

As the head of our club and acting in the best long term interests of Clitheroe FC on Saturday immediately after the game I informed David Dempsey that his services as manager of Clitheroe FC were no longer required . I have seen and heard many opinions over the weekend some that care about CFC and support us but many from people who never see our turnstiles and appear to have their own agendas and felt that I need to make a few things clearer publicly without going into real detail which will be left in private for only the board of directors to know as I have no wish to publicly condemn anybody but can see there is a need to share some background explanation to my decision.

This season the board have facilitated the clubs biggest ever playing budget significantly higher than even last seasons and certainly up there with the strongest anywhere in the whole country at our level , plus several transfer and signing on fees not to mention supporting loan players from professional ranks all to help bring together the squad that the manager wanted here in order to compete for the promotion that we feel our facilities our sponsors and most of all our supporters deserve .

Recently, despite several conversations and pleas initially informally from our football lead then after no visible effort to address the over spend ultimately formally from both myself and the finance lead asking that the budget be managed better and brought back to the already generous level granted after continuous consistent and significant overspend unfortunately it has not happened in a satisfactory manner including it being put to some of our football group as club imposed pay cuts ? The club has not asked for any sort of a pay cut or a budget reduction it simply and regularly asked that the already generous budget be respected and worked within as some of the weekly amounts being spent were frankly unsustainable and would have put the club at risk !

So it was felt that also given a recent regrettable F.A charge brought against our club through our managers actions immediately after our game with them by a fellow club in our division, plus several disappointing results against with all due respect, clubs with far less invested and our modest points total of 12 from our opening 8 games and with almost a quarter of the season gone and our relatively early exit in both FA competitions, let alone the totally illogical fact of several players arriving at the club recently, including in the managers words his first and big summer signing, and then left in a short period of time without our supporters ever seeing them start a game in our colours. It was clear to me there was no plan in place, and certainly no visual improvement in performances lately, or any signs that what we had in place would reflect the support it had been given.

I had felt a change was needed and I was ready to action this last week after our dismal exit from the cup at Brighouse, but our football lead and certain directors pleaded with me to give it more time which I did, and I'm experienced in life to know there is never an ideal time or place to deliver these things, but after another, let’s be honest, dissapointing result and baffling performance I had made my mind up a change was needed and needed now.

Therefore, my action was taken in order to give the next management team a realistic opportunity to achieve our target for the season, and reflect on the significant investment and support to the football that has been granted .

I would like to thank David for his efforts here at Clitheroe, especially last season when he took over in January and steered us into our first ever play off semi final and we wish him well for the future .

An announcement will be made asap regards the direction in which the club will go next, but I would just like to assure our supporters that promotion to the NPL is still very much an ambition and a target we will continue to aim for at our club and we will seek to make an appointment that will ignite our season.

Thanks David Frost
(Chairman Clitheroe FC)