BF: You mentioned on Jonny Howson the time the club have put into him and the fact he was captain. Do you understand the fans’ disappointment that the man they thought had been here so long has moved on?
KB: Well of course I can understand the fans’ disappointment! They can understand my disappointment! But this is a free country. Under the Bosman rule you can’t hold him down and make him sign a contract. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be much good on the pitch would he, getting his own back by not playing properly. Of course I understand it but that’s part of the game and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I mentioned earlier about Beckford. I thought I’d go back to that. Two years ago, Newcastle came and offered us £1.8milllion for Beckford and like Howson, he was out of contract and over 24 at the end of the season. We discussed it again with the manager and we thought that Beckford would be instrumental in getting us promotion and so it prove. But of course, at a loss of £1.8million on Beckford. For those interested, he was offered back to us last month.
But in the end we kept him and he scored the winning goal against Bristol Rovers and we got promotion, which was far more valuable to the club than the £1.8million from Newcastle. So, there, we justified our decision. Here, I think, we’ve justified our decision again. Jonny is out for most of the rest of the season so wasn’t going to help us do much to get promotion this year and we trousered the money and moved on.
(BF = Ben Fry, KB = Ken Bates)
