END OF AN ERA AS DERYK HEYWOOD STANDS DOWN AS MOUSEHOLE CHAIRMAN
After six years of relentless hard work and unprecedented success, Deryk Heywood has decided to stand down as Chairman of Mousehole AFC’s Committee.
In 2018, with Mousehole’s First team then playing in the South West Peninsula League Division One West (Step 7), Deryk joined the Club as General Manager, having previously served as Chairman of Porthleven AFC.
It’s one of the measures of the Club’s success during Deryk’s tenure that Mousehole now ply their trade in the Southern League at Step 4 – and in reaching that level they became only the second-ever team in Cornwall to do so.
After Tim Richardson ended his five-year stint as Chairman, Deryk was voted in as his successor, and his work for the Club since then has in effect combined the role of Chairman and General Manager, always as an unpaid volunteer.
With his unceasingly busy, ambitious and determined attitude, Deryk has overseen dramatic changes at the Club, while at the same time managing a successful restaurant business – almost adding up to two full-time jobs at the same time!
He will be remembered for his drive in setting up the many stadium improvements at Trungle Parc that would have seemed no more than a pipedream all those years ago, and which provide a lasting legacy for future generations of members, supporters and players.
Liverpudlian Deryk first came to Cornwall very nearly 50 years ago, and indeed had a spell at Mousehole as a goalkeeper from 1977 before moving on to play for Penzance.
He is a well-known, popular and affable character on the Cornwall football scene, with a seemingly endless list of personal contacts – as well as memories and anecdotes! – always ready to shake hands and stop for a chat.
While still having a great deal to offer to the game, his overall Committee responsibility has now passed on to Billy Jacka, Mousehole’s award-winning groundsman, who was voted in as Chairman at the Club’s recent AGM.
Deryk’s ‘Personal Statement’ follows.
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A PERSONAL STATEMENT FROM OUTGOING MOUSEHOLE CHAIRMAN DERYK HEYWOOD
“It has been a great privilege and honour to have served as Chairman of Mousehole Football Club for the past six years.
On reflection, it’s now time for someone else to take the helm and help drive the club towards further success. So, with my best wishes, over to Billy Jacka and his team to maintain and take forward what we have all done exceptionally well to achieve.
Mousehole has always had a well-regarded reputation, and with a huge amount of togetherness we have developed it into a leading Cornish football club, in many ways ‘against the odds’.
Everyone who attends our recently developed stadium, whether a regular or a visitor, agrees it’s a friendly and welcoming place to be, with a good matchday vibe. We can all be proud of that.
Our major achievements include:
- sourcing major sponsorships for First Team campaigns in three different Leagues – Peninsula, Western and Southern – as well as advertising boards that fill every inch of pitch-side space;
- improving the matchday experience with our hospitality offer, a supporters’ ‘terrazzo’, a tea hut selling genuine Cornish pasties, club merchandise shop, and bar offering a great range of beers;
- upgrading the stadium facilities with the Solomon Browne Stand at the car park end, a new 100-seater stand opposite the clubhouse, turnstile access, and a dedicated media section; and
- much-acclaimed media coverage which has captured attention far and wide
The Club-owned campsite has provided the mainstay of income. It’s enabled us to do two things: invest in club facilities: and in the campsite itself, which now has its own separate entrance from the football club, electric hookups, hard standing pads for all-year round motor homes and caravans, a recreation meadow, and improved water and ‘elsan’ points.
On the playing side, the First Team has progressed from Step 7 of the non-league system to Step 4, the Development Team is pushing for promotion from Step 7, the Women’s Team has a constant inflow of eager newcomers, and the Youth section spans the whole age-range.
All these developments have, of course, come with a price tag – some of them quite hefty – including the overall cost of operating at Step 4. The club’s collective ambition has now seen it reach a stage where both expenditure and income require a serious and diligent business-like approach to consolidate the gains made and to improve its financial basis sustainably. That’s the challenge from now on.
One of the Club’s greatest assets is its freehold ownership of over six acres of land at its Trungle Parc HQ, held in trust, very importantly, under a ‘community’ rather than ‘ownership’ model of governance.
Currently, an unused parcel of land on the perimeter is subject to the Club’s planning application for constructing five affordable homes, the intention being to sell the plot for the benefit of local younger people and provide an essential boost to the Club’s future financial health. A lot of work and preliminary expenditure has already gone into this project. Some of the net proceeds are earmarked for a much-needed new access road.
Planning permission has already been granted to the Club to construct a new access route running directly from the Newlyn to Lands End road, thereby relieving the village of Paul from all traffic to the football club and to the campsite. This will make the current (and notorious!) rutted entrance driveway a thing of the past, while also making it feasible to develop the clubhouse for non-football activities and commercial income.
I extend a huge ‘thank you’ to all Committee Members, Officers and Directors, volunteers, supporters, sponsors, advertisers, and each of the football teams and support staff – who have in their different ways, and over a prolonged period, played their part in making Mousehole the great club that it is today – a true collective example of The Seagulls “Flying All Together’.
And my sincere best wishes for its deserving future.
Deryk
