Mitchell further muddies South Coast waters?
Posted by John Beech on October 24, 2009
Following my last posting, prompted by Eddie Mitchell’s call for government support, there is an extraordinary report in the Dorest Echo today (1). While on the one hand Mitchell (see postings passim) is calling for government help for clubs like ailing Bournemouth, which he recently bought into following his involvement at Dorchester Town (where he tried to leave his sons in control to ‘avoid’ a conflict of interests by ownership of more than one club), it emerges that he is alleged to have offered Weymouth, where the continuing crisis may well lead to the announcement of going into Administration on Wednesday, £5,000 a month to take son Tom Mitchell on to the playing staff, in a bundle which included Eddie’s manager from Dorchester Town, Shaun Brooks!
He is reported to have sent Weymouth the following in an email, one of three, “My motivation is my football life revolves around my son. He has failed to make the team at DTFC since I left the club. I believe there is a hidden agenda for this and I would be indebted to any club in the BSS league who would consider playing him on merit and there is no doubt Brooks is to me the best manager there could be in the BSS league. I would consider considerable financial and personal support if your board takes up my offer. I have fallen out of love with DTFC. This email is off the record please.”
It is not exactly hard to see why he would want it kept off the record, if he did indeed send it.
Mitchell strenuously denies sending the emails(2), telling the Dorset Echo, “There’s no truth in it whatsoever. Tom’s on a contract at Dorchester. He’s disappointed he hasn’t been featuring as much lately but that’s up to him to get back into the team. Someone’s out to get me and they’ve made up a mock of my email address.“
Why anyone would want to engage in an elaborate series of forgeries and is ‘out to get’ Mitchell is unclear.
It has to be to the credit of Weymouth that, even with club’s back to the wall, they would have no truck with such an offer, whether genuine or forged.
Bournemouth meanwhile have been blocked from paying debts due to HMRC because their bank account is frozen (3).
Focus this week will no doubt be on the two clubs, but the provenance of the alleged emails needs to be clarified urgently.
Nepotism attempts to rear its ugly head again « Football Management said
[...] the author of several emails to Weymouth offering them £5,000 to take on his son Tom as a player (1). Mitchell dismissed the emails as an elaborate forgery. He, of course, had famously tried to [...]