New Chelmsford owner ready to review budget for promotion

Chelmsford reached the first round proper of the FA Cup in 2022-23

New owner Spencer Gore is to review Chelmsford City's playing budget for the new season in the hope of ensuring they achieve promotion to the National League after back-to-back near misses.

Businessman Gore bought a 60% majority shareholding from former owner John Holmes last month and has set a target of achieving English Football League status.

That would require two promotions for Robbie Simpson's side, who reached the National League South play-offs in the past two seasons.

"In my businesses, I set a goal and then reverse engineer it. We'll look at the club and say 'What is the absolute potential of this club? Now let's put a plan in place to achieve that', Gore told BBC Essex Sport.

"My remit for the next few months is to go into the club and understand what they're doing and why they're doing it - if they're doing it and it works, let's do more of it; if they're doing it and it doesn't work, let's stop doing that."

The Clarets won 24 of their 46 league games last season and finished second behind champions Yeovil Town, but were beaten 3-2 after extra time by Braintree Town in the play-off semi-finals.

It led to manager Simpson taking to time to reflect on his situation before committing himself to the club for another campaign.

"It really hit him hard at the end of last season, particularly because it was the second year on the trot," said Gore, who will work with Dan Watkins, who continues to hold a minority 40% stake.

"That was a process he went through and he thinks we can achieve promotion this year."

Gore, who first tried to buy the club three years ago after sponsoring their Melbourne Stadium during Covid, believes the city has the capacity to support a football club higher up the pyramid.

"We had a below mid-table budget last year, just below average for the league, and we finished second, so I think we massively over-achieved on the pitch," he added.

"As a club could we be doing more? Without a shadow of a doubt. We're in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country and it's an affluent area, it's not a poor area, so there's so much more we can be doing.

"Because of the timing of the takeover, the budgets had already been set for this season. The budget that had been set for this season was slightly bigger than last season.

"We'll review that and look at what we think we need to do to achieve the goals. But Robbie's more than comfortable with the budget he's got to achieve promotion, which is our goal for this season."

Chelmsford start the new NLS season with an away game against Slough Town on Saturday, before hosting Hampton & Richmond seven days later.