NEW chief executive Mark Ashton has asked fans to judge him on what he does and not on what they’ve read about him on internet message boards, The 37-year-old arrived at Wanderers acutely aware that his joint appointment as Blues’ CEO and Wasps board member has not been warmly welcomed by some fans, following his time at Watford.

He said: “Judge me by what I do and how we progress not on other people’s accounts.”

During his four years at Watford the Hornets were promoted to the Premiership and reached the Carling and FA Cup semi-finals.

But it turned sour and a section of Watford fans were delighted when he resigned.

He said: “For most of the time I enjoyed it at Watford. I was disappointed it ended the way it did.

“I wouldn’t want to go down that route of what happened. We can all look at ourselves and say could we have done things differently.

“I’ve learned from Watford and you never stop learning.”

While many fans around Vicarage Road were not lining up to buy him a pint, clubs were queuing to snap him up.

But he opted to work for Steve Hayes – the man he persuaded to come on board as Watford’s shirt sponsors when the Blues MD was running Loans.co.uk.

And Ashton can’t wait to get stuck in at Wycombe.

He has been charged with stopping the club, which has debts of £7.2m, haemoraging money and taking it forward.

He said: “We’re not about cutting, we’re trying to build. I’m about building, progression, development of people and moving things forward.”

He wants to build the fan base, advance the proposed new stadium with Wasps and open up joint commercial ventures with Blues’ rugby-playing tenants.

But he knows he is going to have to do more than talk about it to win over the supporters.

He said: “People are right to be sceptical of any chief executive saying they want to grow the supporter base because, if the board put ten other chief executives in front of them they’d all say the same.

“Where I’m different is that in my head I have a clear vision about how I’m going to do it.

“I’m not arrogant enough to say I’ve got all the answers. It’s not about me, it is about a whole raft of people.”

It’s not going to be easy though.

His first two weeks at the club have coincided with Wanderers twice breaking their ten-year low for league attendances and now the new man is promising a price review.

He said: “We have to accept that football is not recession-proof and we have to look at our pricing structure.

“We can’t be as arrogant as to expect them to come to us. We’ve got to attract those supporters, bring them in and then keep them.

“We need to profile and understand our supporter base.”

And he believes the further development of the community scheme is key – and that is an area where even the most viscous of snipers among Watford’s support can’t attack him.

When he was there the Hornets were the Community Club of the Year – just pipping Wycombe – and he wants to continue that success here.

He said: “It was my baby. I said from day one I’d deliver a good community scheme and when we won the award it was as proud a moment as winning promotion.

“I believe football has a social responsibility and I walk the walk on this, I don’t just talk it.

“We have a responsibility to put things back into our local community.

“Football is the one language people speak and you can use that to address anti-social behaviour, issues of obesity and other issues.

“We want to involve more children add more diversity and, from a selfish point of view, that’s our next generation of supporters.”

And he wants to take those new fans into a new community stadium with Wasps.

He said: “The new stadium comes under the vision of what you want Wycombe to be.

“If you want Wycombe to be a second division club with the gates we’ve got now forever, then you may look at it differently, but if you want the club to progress then there is no way that this stadium would be big enough.

“You look at the numbers that the community scheme touches and that’s evidence the people are there.

“We’ve got to give them the right facilities to come to, that are accessible and priced properly, and make sure that when people come they want to come back.

“It won’t happen in five minutes but I think we can move the club forward.

“Look where Wigan were, look at Watford. They have a population of around 85,000 and they are a club that has punched above its weight.

“Can Wycombe be a club that gets to the Championship? Why not?”

And he reassured Blues fans that merging Wanderers and Wasps is not on the radar.

He said: “No-one has told me that the long term plan is to merge the two – totally the opposite, the heritage and tradition of both clubs has to be respected and I totally agree with that.”

But he does want to see more synergy in the commercial areas with dual advertising and some joint branding.

He said: “We’ve only really scratched the surface on commercial activities between the two.”