Boreham Wood Football Club are pleased to inform our supporters that the wrongful reports that emanated from the Carlisle Utd media department about the so called poor conduct of our players in the changing room area directly after our recent FA Cup replay, has not been upheld in any way by the FA.
The FA have informed us by letter that after carefully considering all the evidence, there is absolutely no case for us as a club to answer. We have always strenuously denied any wrong doing but the embarrassment, humiliation and the lies in regards to this issue continues and in truth it has tarnished what was a fantastic FA Cup run and team performance on the night in Cumbria.
We stated at the time that we were completely innocent. We stated we were dumbfounded when Carlisle Utd media man Andy Hall, invited the local Carlisle newspaper reporter into the dressing room area to make conclusions but only after ten or more of Carlisle YTS boys had been in the dressing room prior. The conclusions were instant and through their local paper, through Andy Halls twitter account and through the Carlisle Utd fans forums, they accused our players of urinating on the floor, putting a teapot in a urinal bowl and then damaging a door.
The fact our Players supposedly did all this before we departed for our hotel, did this in front of manager Ian Allinson, did this in front our two female medical staff, did not seem to raise any doubt to the logic of the accusations.
The club was even more bemused that having not received a single complaint from Carlisle Utd on the night. We arrived back from Cumbria the next day and a letter was waiting for us from Carlisle Utd that had been copied to the FA. That letter stated that they had reported our conduct to the FA , and that letter was sent before ever speaking to ourselves and only after they had gone public everywhere with their allegations.
Talk about judge and jury…..
Our legal team were as we stated, instructed immediately on our return and we have carefully and diligently spoken to each player and every member of staff who were in the changing area that night during our investigations.
We have now put together a very detailed case and have written to Carlisle Utd Managing Director John Nixon for a response. When that has been received, we hope we will be in a position to put that response on our website and on every other social media site and newspaper that carried this ridiculous story.
The Carlisle News and Star newspaper reported this story in detail and continues to do so, as has the national papers, the metro newspaper and many fans forums and social media sites. In the main in our opinion the reports are from Carlisle’s Utd’s perspective and we accept that.
However we would like to place on record how upset we have been with our very own local newspaper the Borehamwood and Elstree Times who have never looked to redress or balance these one sided reports even though there was never a shred of evidence of wrong doing on our part.
They have never sought to give our community and supporters our perspective or an intelligent right of reply or sought to interview one person from BWFC who was there on the night.
In truth they have in our opinion been economical with the truth in every way. Their reporting has as we can prove, been done by simply cut and pasting the Carlisle News and Star articles and then putting a slight twist on them.
We Believe that is lazy journalism at it’s worst and by not giving their local club a right to reply, they have given the impression to local people that there was no smoke without fire. For that reason we will now stop working with the paper until we receive an apology and they give a detailed factual story to our supporters and local people and it will show we have been proven completely innocent of all accusations, which is a far cry to what has been written to date.
As our community newspaper the Borehamwood and Elstree Times is an important part of local community life, they have the ear of our local people and with that comes responsibility. A free press is of course the essence of any democracy but as they also have access to our media and communication manager Grant Morris and to other decision makers within our club, why they have chosen not to use that resource is anybody’s guess??
However to give our local community either an untrue or misleading story without checking their facts and base the truth or cut and paste journalism from the Carlisle News and Star, is we say ridiculous, sensationalist and lazy on their part.
We have made the point to the paper and received a very rude response to this challenging them. We will now await a response to this article from their editor Martin Buhagiar, who will no doubt put this nonsense on his front page and denigrate our concern regarding his reporters doing their job professionally and justifying their methods. As a club we have been in this town for 65 years, we have history and we have no doubt we’ll certainly outlast the present editor incumbent and we’ll still be here long after he and his reporters have gone..
