HOWARD Krais issued a rallying cry to Wealdstone fans this week insisting it’s not time to panic but the mourning must stop.
Stones fans still grieving the loss of a second successive playoff semi-final to Concord have been rocked by several high profile departures from The Vale in recent weeks with Alex Dyer the latest to jump ship in favour of a move to Conference national new boys Welling.
The former Northampton Town midfielder joined exiting former skipper Lee Chappell, midfield enforcer Chris O’Leary and centre-back Darren Locke, leaving fans worried about a lack of traffic in the opposite direction.
However, Chairman Krais insists the picture is not one of gloom and doom and he moved to quash rumours of a cut in the playing budget.
He said: “The play-off semi-final defeat broke our hearts, but this week marks the end of May and I feel it is the right time to draw a line under things and move on.
“I’m not surprised at the departures because I am a believer in teams having a life-cycle and the season just gone was the one for that particular group to be mature, but it didn’t happen for us.
“The management team too were hurt, but their vision is to want to finish what they have started and rebuild.
“And I want to make clear there has been a lot of hard work behind the scenes which means there will be no budget cut this year.”
On Dyer’s departure Krais made clear everything possible was done to keep the midfield talisman, but the lure of the step back towards full-time football was too much.
