Andrew Howard was involved in a feisty exchange with a supporter on Tuesday night – for which he later apologised – after fielding a question about Ivor Beeks at the Wycombe Wanderers Trust fans’ forum at Adams Park.

The Blues chairman was incensed after a Trust member asked for confirmation that Beeks was one of the owners of the club’s training ground, launching into an impassioned defence of the man who was himself chairman of Wanderers for 26 years.

It was announced earlier in the meeting that Beeks had been selected to sit on the football club board once again by Howard, amid a backdrop of scepticism from a section of supporters who remain suspicious of a man who, alongside others, stepped in to buy the club’s Booker training ground when they were in need of cash to stave off the threat of administration.

A consortium, who wished to remain anonymous at the time, purchased the training ground in April 2013 for £350,000 – funds which Trust chairman Trevor Stroud said on Tuesday night had saved the club from “oblivion”.

During Howard’s response to the supporter at the event the Blues chairman admitted that “Ivor and a group of people bought the training ground” to stop the club going into "liquidiation", although his reasons for wanting to remain anonymous when purchasing the training ground are a subject of intrigue for some of the club's fans. 

The transcript of the exchange is below:

Trust member: Is he (Beeks) one of the owners of the training ground? And if so could he explain his reasons for not wanting...

Andrew Howard: What relevance is it?

TM: I think it’s quite interesting because...

AH: What relevance is it?

TM: Well, it’s played a big part in the history of the football club in recent years...

AH: Ok, Ivor and a group of people bought the training ground when the club had no money. He then wasn’t paid by the previous regime for 20 months, rent. The deal that was done – it’s a ridiculous question. If he hadn’t of done it you wouldn’t have a football club, so can we have questions that are answerable or relevant or whatever. You’re just out for trouble.

The training ground was bought because the club was going to go into liquidation if the money from the training ground hadn’t been put in. The deal on the training ground is such that we’re currently renegotiating. At the end of the day this club shouldn’t own the training ground, not when it owes £2.2-2.4million. Have you got any idea what it is to run a business with that much debt? Have you got any idea what it is to run a business with that much debt?

TM: I’m not a business man, I’m a football fan.

AH: Right, well you watch the football and you let us run the football club, ok? When you don’t like the football, ok, I’ll listen to anything you want to say. When we produce accounts like that and we take your club from liquidation into profit in ten months then I think the team that we’re working with are doing a pretty good job. It’s nonsense. It’s nonsense and if he hadn’t of done it you wouldn’t have had a football club.

TM: Well, how did we get into that situation in the first place?

AH: Because you had **** management at the time that didn’t do a bloody thing. What do you want me to say? Ok, your cash flow was shocking, you had no money, you were going to run out, you were going to be in liquidation and you weren’t going to be a football club. What else do you want me to say?

When the sale was confirmed two years ago it was agreed that the training ground would be leased back to the club for a period of ten years at an annual rent of £30,000, and that the club would have a five year buy-back period beginning in 2018.

The buy-back price would be the original £350,000 purchase price, which would be adjusted depending on inflation, plus £50,000 in the first year of the buy-back period – a figure which increases in £10,000 increments during each year of the buy-back period.

After Howard’s riposte to the fan, chairman of the Trust Stroud intervened to try and clarify how important the money from the sale had been to the club.

He said: “I would like to point out in terms of the training ground deal that the money came in to pay a payroll within about two and a half hours.

“So, just to put that into perspective, without that it would have been oblivion and we’ve faced that a number of times in the last three years.”