On the eve of Wycombe Wanderers’ play-off semi-final against Plymouth, chairman Andrew Howard and manager Gareth Ainsworth sat down at Adams Park for an exclusive interview with the BFP.

The pair gave their perspectives on a successful season for the club on and off the pitch, the challenges presented over the course of the campaign and their vision for the future. 

Read the last of the three part series here...

How hard is the job of engaging with the fans who know about the team but don’t come to Adams Park?

AH: It’s very hard. Football will always bring fans. If we got to Wembley it would be very interesting to see how many Wycombe fans are sitting in our end, in which case we know that there is the support out there. Our job then is to convince some of that support to come on a more regular basis. The majority of that is the football, but it’s also the food, the environment, the stadium, the experience and we put on 23 home shows, excluding cups.

Do you see a day when the club can be attracting attendances which are regularly over 5,000?

AH: Our attendance is up about 12 per cent this year and our attendance this year is actually higher than when we were in League One. The first point I’d say is that the fans are already coming back, we’re seeing that and on the gate it’s absolutely critical. You can’t just put a newspaper article out and say ‘come and watch Wycombe’. You’re asking people to spend hard earned money and we have to make sure they have a reason to do that. Do you know what we need to do? Get outside Wycombe. Let’s go to MK Dons’ territories, let’s go to west London, let’s catch some of those fans. What about if we can have the occasionals, what if we have people that only come six or seven times a year but they come when their teams are somewhere else. We need to be brighter and pull people in. We need to work harder with coach companies and say ‘this is an easy option’. Let’s make coming to a Wycombe an easy and pleasurable option. The more we can get in, the more we can invest in the football, the more we get in.

GA: The product on the pitch is where I come in and I want to give them a good product on the pitch. I want to give them some good, attacking, expansive football. It’s not about how many more we’ll score than them but it gets that way sometimes in games and I know that’s what fans love seeing. They love seeing action whether you win, lose or draw. We’re a club that are restricted to bringing players in that not many other people fancied, that other people rejected or didn’t give them a chance, so Wycombe people can be proud that they’re supporting a team that’s been really up against it. They’ve got to be proud of what they’ve done and they’ve played their part in putting us back on the map – the hardcore fans. It’s the occasionals now that we could do with joining them in getting into this whole Wycombe spirit.

AH: A rough figure for you: for every thousand average we go up on a home gate over the season it will probably give us access to ten per cent more budget for players. It’s massive.

GA: It’s a couple of players. People might say that this year we’ve been a couple of players short of going straight up, so when you put things like that it’s huge.

AH: You’ve got to remember that a season ticket for the 23 games you’re only really paying for 16, 17 games. You could buy a season ticket, only come to 16 or 17 games but think of the investment that you’re putting into the club. The other thing is that we want to build confidence with local commercial companies. We need to increase our commercial offer and make it stronger.

How much potential do you think there is for Wycombe Wanderers to grow in the future?

AH: Commercially, I think this club could be a rarity in the Football League and be a sustainable club. You’re never going to make profit in a football club because as long as we churn out the few quid Gareth, quite rightly, should be grabbing it and putting it into the players. I think we’d have a sustainable club. I personally think we’ve got one of the best defences in League One and League Two, so I’d say to you that it’s sustainable. If we can take the spirit and the capability that we’ve got in our youngsters in this league and we build over a sensible amount of time I think we can carry it forward. How far? Haven’t Bournemouth just got into the Premier League. Maybe we can dream beyond our business plan.

GA: You’ve got to be ambitious. Being involved in much more than just football and being open to the information that Andrew has included me in, I know how hard it is. It’s good for me to know that and I’m not going to be one of those managers who shouts and screams at their chairman because I don’t get enough money. I actually know why there isn’t the budget of a lot of clubs in League Two. There’s little rumblings throughout the divisions at the moment at the amount of money the Premier League are taking off the lower leagues, and I think we’re doing it right at Wycombe Wanderers. We’re trying a new forward thinking approach a couple of years earlier than a lot of clubs and hopefully one day clubs might follow suit if they need to because we were in big trouble. Andrew’s done a fantastic job for a club that was in massive trouble. If there are clubs in massive trouble out there they wouldn’t go too far wrong by looking at how things have gone here. We’re way short of where we want to be.

In the time that you’ve been working together what have you learned from each other?

AH: Mine’s simple. I’ve got a belief that you should be able to take youth, train it, harness it and do well with it. What I’ve learned is that the fundamental things at Wycombe are in Gareth, a lot of the office staff and what’s here is something to really build on. You have to delegate. I’ve sat on benches and watched people off the pitch try and run a football team. I don’t know anything about football; my job isn’t to run the football team, so delegate it to someone who can. Marketing, sales; delegate. I’ve learned that if you delegate to skill you get success.

GA: I’ve learned that there’s much more to a football club than just seeing a game on a Saturday afternoon. A lot of people don’t get as much credit as they deserve for doing those types of jobs. What happens on the Saturday is important but there’s a lot more that goes into it than that. I’ve also learned things about myself that I was not doubting but that I needed to rediscover.

If you had to sum the season up in one word what would it be?

AH: Satisfying. I’m satisfied that we sat down, set a plan and delivered the plan. I would hope that Wycombe is a little bit better off for what we’ve done for and with Wycombe this season.

GA: Optimistic, for me. Win, lose or draw Thursday night, play-off final or not, optimistic because I can feel what’s happening at this club and it fills me with great excitement to stay here and carry this job on.

You can read part two of the interview here and part one here.