Our new Managing Director has been getting his teeth into everything that encompasses the Dons - and now he’s keen for our supporters to understand his vision for the future.
Speaking for the first time since taking on this important role, Danny outlines what he has learnt so far, why our club was right for him, and his plans to maximize its potential.
It’s an interview that goes a long way towards answering a lot of the burning questions and offers everyone involved a detailed rundown of where we’re at and where we’d like to go as an organisation.
The full Q&A with Danny is below.
You’re two weeks into the job. What have your first impressions been so far?
It’s been all encompassing. That’s deliberately how myself and Mick (Buckley) have designed it. I’ve been looking to meet as many stakeholders as possible. On my first day I went to meet the Dons Local Action Group and the Foundation. For now, it’s about holding one-to-one meetings with each staff member and getting truly into the nuts and bolts that make AFC Wimbledon what it is.
There were a lot of applicants for the post of Managing Director. What would you say are your main strengths and what do you bring to the table?
I think it’s experience and drive. I’ve tried an awful lot of things which have worked, whilst there’s many things that haven’t, down my years in football and cricket. My understanding of the world of sport and football is another one of my biggest strong points. I also realise the commercial value of a stadium, of a club, and truly bringing that to life in the medium and long-term.
What attracted you to the club in the first place?
One of my first childhood memories was the FA Cup final in 1988. I’ve always had an affinity towards the club because of everything that’s happened in the past – it’s an affinity that comes quite naturally. My mum and two brothers lived next door to John and Justin (Fashanu), so we’ve always looked out for the results of Wimbledon within our family.
Returning to Plough Lane was a key mission for the club. We’re back here now and it’s a fantastic facility. How do you think we can best monetize it?
The facilities are amazing. This is a Championship ground. What we need to do now is make sure that the facilities are finalized and where they need to be. We will review what we are going to do with the third floor in time. The facilities that we have got must be pristine and they must be as workable and flexible as they can possibly be for matchday and non-matchday revenue growth.
What’s your main target?
Ultimately, we need to grow our revenues across every platform of the Club, that’s existing revenues as well as new revenues that may be completely new to the Club. We are driving to get to a sustainable position. It’s not going to be easy. Obviously, AFC Wimbledon does carry manageable debt, but we want to invest in all of our squads and doing that for the first-team squad is paramount. We want to raise revenues as much as we can so that it can be invested straight into the playing budget and facilities.
What have you done at your previous clubs that you’d like to implement here?
Not all projects and tasks, or all ideas and suggestions, can be easily transferred, or should be transferred. There’s those that belong in their rightful place in history, or are still used by those clubs. It’s about looking at things from every single angle, I’m not going to leave a stone unturned.
Whether that’s growing attendances from lapsed fans, from new fans or local residents, or growing non-matchday revenue, or streaming. If there’s a way that we can increase that revenue stream, we will do it collectively as a team, in collaboration with other departments.
There are ideas that I want to bring across from experience. Not necessarily from experiences I’ve got, but also stuff I’ve seen that works within football, within sport and within business.
How do you think we can maximize the corporate and entertainment facilities that we have on the second floor?
Football can’t sustain itself on 23 to 30 odd home games a season. No business in the world would start up operating for that many days. We have to truly become a 365 days a year business. That’s not going to happen overnight but we’re making inroads in terms of our non-matchday use.
We need to reach out to the community, and I don’t just mean people. I mean businesses as well – we want them to use the Cherry Red Records Stadium as their first port of call for an event. Whether it’s a life celebration, a conference or a wedding, we want to make sure that they come here. We have to get that message across every single medium possible, so that it’s at the forefront of peoples’ minds when those events come around.
You spoke about how important the Wimbledon story is. What parts really resonate with you?
I’ve got a real admiration for the Club that just grew and grew during the interview process. My mum reminded me that I had toy Womble characters as a child, apparently I had a good half a dozen! So it’s amazing how things work out.
I was shown around the museum and I came away with a wow factor. I thought I knew a lot about the history and the headline stuff, but it taught me so much more. I’ve known fans and characters around the Club for a number of years and as soon as they knew I was in the interview process, they said that it would be a perfect fit.
This club is on an upward trajectory, we’re back at Plough Lane and we’ve now got to make sure we monetize it. We need to communicate a lot more to all stakeholders of the Club – whether you’re a Dons Trust member or not a Dons Trust member, whether you’re 10-years-old or 110-years-old - we’ve got to make sure we bring everyone on this journey. We need to understand what they want to see within their club.
Volunteers play a massive role at our club. How can we maximize their uses and what sort of role do you see for them moving forwards?
I think we’re admired for what we do with volunteers across the football pyramid. I’ve met with a large number of our volunteers and the work that they do individually and especially collectively is simply astronomical. Within my first day of having a club e-mail I had 30 or 40 volunteers reach out and ask if there’s anything more they could do and outline their skillsets – it was eye-watering in a really good way.
To me it’s about recognizing and coordinating that passion and that desire in order to ensure that we are using them in a really considered and concentrated way. Whatever that is, we want to expand our community reach. I think that’s where our volunteers can play a key part in that. I want to make sure we are a 365-day a year community asset and hub. We’ve got a long way to go to get there but I think we’ve got the ingredients to make that happen.
When we took you on in the role, one of your key responsibilities was to manage the staff. How’s that been going so far?
I’m working my way through, for want of a better phrase, in terms of meeting with each member of staff on a one-to-one basis. I want to understand everyone’s roles and where they fit within the cogs on the wheel. It’s clear to me that there’s some real talent within the staff, both individually and collectively.
I want to make sure that everything I do is in collaboration with our Head of Football and with Johnnie (Jackson) and his team. It’s a cliché, but I want to make sure we are one team, we are communicating with each other and that we have the right culture across the club. If we can get those platforms built, we can achieve our aims and objectives.
PICS: Ian Stephen (Pro Sports Images) and Lucy Dixon