Home Page Haverhill News

Lincolnshire businessman John King wants to take Jewson League strugglers Haverhill Rovers into the Nationwide Conference. Cambridge Evening News' ALAN SCOTT spoke to him about his £1m investment in the club.
SOCCER-mad businessman and part-time DJ John King is aiming to go from spinning records to turning around the fortunes of Haverhill Rovers.
The Lincolnshire-based entrepreneur will officially take over as managing director and chairman of the Jewson League club next month.
The first step of his 10-year plan to take Rovers into the Nationwide Conference is to sell off the Hamlet Croft ground for housing.
The club will then launch a bid for National Lottery grant cash as well as funding from the Football Foundation in order to move to a new purpose-built Conference-graded stadium at nearby Puddlebrook.
Relocation should happen within the next five years and could include trying to obtain a greenfield lease from St Edmundsbury Council, and King has already met council officials to discuss his plans.
"Within the next five years the club will be relocating," said King. "The initial thing is to put forward a plan for investment into the football club."
King has pledged to spend up £1m on his dream of taking Rovers to the highest level in non-League.
"We will be looking to progress through to the Conference," King said. "We have got to be looking at a 10-year plan. In 10 years' time I will still be young enough to join the Conference and see where we can go from there."
Club chairman Terry McGerty will step down in four weeks' time and will help form the Haverhill Rovers Supporters' Club, which will own 40 per cent of the shares in the newly-formed Haverhill Rovers FC Ltd company. The other 60 per cent will be owned by King.
King, 40, who is a disc-jockey at Lincoln-based Gravity FM, has family in Haverhill and is looking to buy a second home there. His grandfather was actually born in the Suffolk border town.
His immediate aim is to equip the team on the pitch and ensure promotion to the Premier Division next season before following Histon into the Dr Martens League, Eastern Division.
King, who owns a property and marketing business, will underwrite all the club's debts, believed to be in the region of £20,000.
"It would have been very sad if the club had folded. As it happens they (the committee) have done a good job in keeping the club ticking over."
King lives in Scredington, near Sleaford, in Lincolnshire. He advertised in the Non-League Paper to acquire a non-League club and Rovers assistant manager John Stevens replied to set the ball rolling.
The businessman played non-League football in Kent when he was younger, before enjoying a career in journalism and marketing.
King was involved with the takeover of Dr Martens League side Grantham Town. He became a director at the Lincolnshire club and it was his experience and enjoyment behind the scenes there that developed his enthusiasm for owning a club.
"I enjoyed it," King said. "And I thought of taking a club on myself. One thing has led to another and we have a very successful conclusion."

On the pitch, Haverhill, who have not paid their management team or players for five years since they almost went bust in 1994, are still struggling in the bottom three of the Jewson League's first division.
King's first task was to appoint Stevens as the club's new director of football and he will start searching for new players to take the side up next season. This will allow manager Paul Goodman to concentrate on first-team matters.
"I have met Paul and he impressed me as a person," said King. "He could do a good job for us. I will give him the tools to do that job.
"The manager's job is safe as along as he wants it to be, as long as he can tell me he can get the results and he does that.
"For the rest of the season financial structures will be put in place to build the team for next season.
"Next season we will gain promotion, I have no doubt about that. We will firmly put in place a team that is well above the Division One standard of play. That has got to be our first step.
"The assistant manager is looking at players from other clubs and tempting them to join us.
"The rest of the season is for the players to say 'I can play at a higher level, I am at the club, look at me, Mr Chairman, I am worth the money'."
He added: "Hopefully, there is a great future for the club ahead."
Many have come into clubs pledging Conference football in the future, but rarely is it achieved.
It is a dream for Haverhill, as for many clubs, that a millionaire will take over their club and take them onwards and upwards.
One can only hope that King's vision will not be a false dawn which will end in checkmate.