Striker to again be supported by 1931 Fund
Striker Elliott Chamberlain will stay at Exeter City, with his wages being met for the second season by the Supporters’ Trust’s 1931 Fund.
Around 60 members of the 1931 Fund pay £19 each month to finance City’s number 31. The fund takes its name and ‘lucky’ shirt number from Exeter’s giant-killing 1931 FA Cup run.
This will be the fifth season that the 1931 Fund has paid for an Exeter City player, and the latest commitment by the fund’s members will take their investment to at least £60,000.
Chamberlain joined Exeter City from Leicester City last summer and made five appearances for the Grecians, as well as scoring four goals in 12 games on loan at Bath City. He has represented Wales at under-17, under-19 and under-21 level.
Exeter City chief executive Julian Tagg said: “Exeter City should be all about bringing through young players and, for the fifth season, the 1931 Fund is helping us do that. In the world of football finance £60,000 doesn’t sound like a huge sum, but for us it’s massive. I can’t thank those fans enough.”
Manager Paul Tisdale said: “When finances are so tight, being able to have ‘an extra player’ in the squad whom I couldn’t have afforded without the 1931 Fund shows how important the fans are to us. I’m enormously grateful to everyone who pays into the fund.
“Our Supporters' Trust model gives us stability, and that’s one of the reasons I like being here. We’re all in it together and we all have our jobs to do, so being fan-owned means we truly need the support of our followers both as passionate, positive fans and as committed, generous owners. This is a fine example of just that.”
Tisdale is urging other fans to shrug off an injury-plagued and ultimately disappointing end to the season, which cost the Grecians a play-off place that had seemed all but guaranteed before Easter.
Tisdale said: “We’ve had success at Exeter City in recent years and I know that meant the world to our supporters after all they did to rescue the club from a really dreadful position. Ten years since the Trust took over, we’re not facing non-league football with huge debts as they were back in 2003, but the same effort is needed now to drive the club forward again.
“Young players like Elliott will have their chance next season and, although that opportunity has come through necessity, it will be a team with great potential. With support like this from the 1931 Fund, I’m looking forward to the challenge, and I’d urge every City fan to be positive, to get their season ticket bought and if they possibly can to think how else they can make a contribution to our club.”
Alan Crockford of the 1931 Fund said: “The fund is a way of helping the Exeter City Supporters’ Trust to provide a little bit of extra investment into the club. There’ll be rich chairmen chucking money around again this summer and crazy decisions made about players’ salaries that owe more to the logic of a drunken desperado at 5am in a casino than the sound principles we must stick to at Exeter City. Our club isn’t perfect, but we fans have to keep trying to improve things and striving to make a difference.
“We’re determined to meet our 1931 Fund target of at least £15,000 this season, but we need a dozen or so new members and a little bit of fundraising to make that happen. Anyone who’s interested can email us via the Exeter Exiles at exiles@sky.com and we’d be delighted to hear from them and to assault them with the sort of eager sales pitch that they normally only experience in unsolicited phone calls from distant call centres.”