King's Lynn owner on manager, Josh Barrett and AFC Wimbledon

As a club we need to unite behind Adam Lakeland - he works extremely hard and I have no doubt that given time he will turn the club around; we won’t find a better manager and once we get a few points on the table, life will change for us, so let’s give him and the team our support in what has been a very difficult season.

Josh Barrett - good player, wrong time (Image: Ian Burt)

We said goodbye to Josh Barrett this week with his move to our new B team at Aldershot, which provoked much discussion on all sides. 

This is how I see it:  Josh is a special player, he has oodles of ability and can produce a goal or a move that are almost of World Cup quality. In a winning team full of confidence and momentum, most managers would find a way to put him onto the pitch. 

Whilst Josh loves his football, he is not as fit as he should be and given our situation at the wrong end of the table, we almost cannot afford to have him in our team. We know he can produce something from nothing, but equally the game can pass him by and every one of our lads is going to have to give 110pc for the cause between now and the end of the season so it is just a case of, great player but wrong time.

Some fans were surprised that we let him go on a free transfer, but whilst there were one or two clubs looking at him, their offers did not really suit Josh with a young family. Aldershot tried at first to make us cover some of his wages and once they realised that was never going to happen, we agreed a free transfer, but with bonus payments based on how they and Josh perform as well as protecting ourselves as usual with a future sell-on.

I like Josh as a person and to give him his credit, he sent me a text thanking me and the club for everything and wishing us all the best for the future. I think there is a large part of him that wishes he could have stayed, but he knew that at least for now he needed to move on. We exchanged a few further messages, and it meant a lot to me, as not all players say thanks before leaving and it is nice when they do.

Josh leaves the club with his head held high, which cannot be said for Quaine Bartley and the fan-owned pin up poster club AFC Wimbledon that employ him.

Quaine was signed by Mark Hughes on loan from AFC Wimbledon at the start of the season, never really seemed match fit and then just before a crucial game away at Darlington in October, contacted Adam Lakeland to explain that he was sick and not available to play. He was not sick at all and was seen on social media in Dubai enjoying the sun and parties. Wimbledon took some legal advice to see if he could be sacked but they were not able to, so although they fined him, they still insisted that we pay his wages until January 1, when he would be recalled.  Indeed, his notice of loan cancellation only came through on Thursday with Wimbledon seemingly trying to grab another month’s wages from King’s Lynn.

All our players sign a code of conduct which allows the club to stop paying them if they do not arrive for training. It is never something we have had to enforce until now, but we do it to cover this kind of eventuality. After a few weeks had passed we invited Quaine back for training, but he did not attend – we therefore told Wimbledon that we were not paying any more of his wages as he had broken our code of conduct.

AFC Wimbledon, who are keen to have a football regulator, refused to compromise, they wanted full payment other than a reduction for the weeks when they fined him. I have never come across this stance before - a rich club owned by supporters with a brand-new stadium and huge recent transfer income insisting that a grassroots club pay for a player that they know is not and does not want to be at our club. 

In a letter last week, they explained that they had spoken to the National League, who they believed by the tone of their letter to be supportive of their position. I spoke to a senior member of the National League who told me that was not the case at all. I can understand (although I have never seen it happen) some of the more mercurial clubs in the top leagues behaving in this way, but for a club that is promoting that football needs to change, being fan owned and championing new regulatory powers, I find their position paradoxical at best and pretty cold-hearted.

They have now reported us to the National League, and we will see how it plays out. This is my problem with the concept of new regulation - are clubs genuinely trying to do the right thing or are they just looking out for themselves in AFC Wimbledon fashion?