Full account From Chestereveningleader
STEPHEN VAUGHAN today admitted administration at Chester City still remained an option.
The Blues club owner is currently working with City boss Mark Wright in preparing a squad of players for the club's campaign in the Blue Square Premier Division next season.
Vaughan watched Chester suffer a 2-1 home defeat at the weekend against managerless Darlington who went into administration last month.
He said: "I'm not going to rule any decision out that's going to secure the future of this club.
"Administration is one prospect, consolidate with the debt is another, and someone coming in and paying me £1,000 per week and me letting them take over is another for the £4 million worth of debentures I have in the club. - didn't David Jones offer twice this amount of £1000 per week in his £100k per year offer?
"I've got unsecured debts and I've got secured debts in the club by way of debentures, so if we were to go down the administration route the consent of Stephen Vaughan would be the only way we could go into administration.
"I don't need to justify to anybody in any world or any industry that I'm a Chester City fan through and through.
"The rumours will fly around and people will speculate in any shape or form they wish. But I will do what is best for this club.
"We will look at the possibility of administration and we will speak to the Conference to make sure there are no problems.
"I'm looking at securing the future and moving forward with this club – whether it's me in office or someone who I'm going to hand this club over to.
"I am going to do the best I can to get a team together, get investors together, and we'll hopefully bounce back at the first attempt from the Conference.
"I know sections of Chester's support are asking for me to move on, but this club has always been up for sale, since December 2008 when I put the club up for sale and resigned.
"There are plenty of talkers, but there is no one out there. Gary Metcalfe is still wanting to do a deal, and there are other people who like to talk on websites where supporters like to throw their oar in.
"The problem I've got is that if I let Chester City go tomorrow we'll go into liquidation.
"We are now looking at getting a team together, getting a management team together, and looking at what we have to do to get into the Conference."
Vaughan admitted he had made 'errors of judgement' during his time at the helm, adding:
"We started this season with a £98,000 monthly wage bill. Mark came in and he groomed that down to £68,000 per month.
"It's still one of the better paid wage bills in the division, but we've seen ourselves going through the trap door.
"It hasn't helped over the last few months having players at the club who weren't good enough. They have been due a lot of money from the previous regime appointing them.
"But as an owner/chairman I granted those deals to go through, so I've taken a good look at myself and I feel as though I've made a lot of errors of judgement by allowing far too many managers to come and go and allowing them to bring in what they wanted.
"We'll have to live and learn from it and we'll have to just get on with it.
"I don't think the end of the season was any different from where we started at the beginning of the campaign.
"Simon Davies lost his job because of the poor results on the park.
It's a performance-related industry and unfortunately we made a change on Simon's part and we thought Mark Wright would come in and turn things round.
"Mark knew the financial restraints before we made his appointment and it looked as though it was working at one stage, but over the last couple of months it's been quite evident that we've struggled in the same way that Mark identified 17 weeks ago – that this side was going to take us down. Unfortunately we've now got to that stage.
"I know what Mark Wright likes – Mark Wright likes big, strong players, and unfortunately he inherited a side that wasn't full of players like that.
"We tried to play a little bit of football this year but, like in Saturday's game, we hit our own self-destruct button.
"We don't lose games, we give them away and we've got to get some big, strong experienced lads into the club who do know Conference football and can get us back into League Two.
"The most important thing for me over the next seven to 10 days is deciding the destiny of this football club.
"I've got no doubt whatsoever that this club will survive and will move on.
"It's had it's problems over the last 20 years, but we've had a little bit of success during that 20-year period, so I don't see why that can't be repeated."
£68K?
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Chester maybe next
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