Managing director gives inside track on St James' Park change as Newcastle United provide major cash injection

Newcastle’s Carabao Cup match at Wimbledon was initially called off due to flooding in and around Plough Lane that quickly deemed the pitch unplayable. The Wombles have since postponed a further two home matches with the aim of returning against Carlisle United on October 12.

In the meantime, over £120,000 has been raised to help Wimbledon with repairs, including a £15,000 donation from Newcastle. In addition, Wimbledon will be boosted by receiving 45% of the gate receipts from the rearranged match at St James’ Park.

While Newcastle progressed with a 1-0 win on Tuesday evening, the overriding message from Wimbledon was one of gratitude and solidarity with the club and the wider footballing family.

Going back to last Monday, the originally scheduled cup tie was called off following a phone call made by Wimbledon managing director Woodroof to Newcastle.

“It was an extraordinary set of circumstances that led to the images that you've seen,” he said.

“Essentially we had record levels of rainwater, the River Wandle reached its highest level for 60-odd years and multiple things happened. Our stadium's drainage system couldn't cope with that amount of water and there was nowhere for the water to escape.

“Ultimately that led to an eruption on our pitch because our water tank is beneath the pitch which is slightly unusual.

“A bizarre set of circumstances, unprecedented, a freak incident and we are working through that the best we can. We're really hopeful we can return to football a week on Saturday for our League Two game [against Carlisle].

“It's been a mad week. Thankfully Newcastle were outstanding when we broke the news to them on Monday morning and quickly offered to reverse the fixture which was a fantastic gesture and offer.

“That was a very quick conversation with our football department - Johnnie Jackson our manager and Craig Cope our director of football - and we said 'yes, we'd love to take you up on your offer'. By lunchtime Monday, that was sort of done and dusted.

“They've been first class ever since, making a significant donation to the club and hundreds of Newcastle supporters have thrown their arm around us.

“Newcastle to a person have been outstanding with us and I can't thank them enough. We had 1500 fans here at St James’ Park and I think there's now a special bond between the clubs.”

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A near-sell-out crowd of 51,739 packed into St James’ Park for the match, giving fan-owned Wimbledon another bumper financial boost. EFL rules state clubs must split gate receipts 45% each with the remaining 10% being shared across all EFL and Premier League clubs.

"I haven't done the maths on it but it will be a significant injection,” Woodroof added. “The reality is we're going to face increased costs because of the situation we've had, there is a significant insurance excess and there is inevitably going to be some business change that we need to cover.

“We're expecting an increase in insurance premium next year for these reasons so I think tonight's occasion will have a really positive impact on our financial situation but we are facing relatively uncertain times on the costs ahead so it is welcomed that we are here tonight."

Wimbledon have had to excavate a 10-metre squared patch of the pitch at Plough Lane and inspect the drainage tank underneath. The first step for the club is to get the pitch playable before taking steps to ensure a similar incident doesn’t happen again.

“It's something we're wrestling with every day,” Woodroof told The Gazette. “Our first priority is getting ourselves back because we can't have not playing football - that would be a disaster so we desperately need to fix the situation.

“Then it's about how do we make our stadium more resilient. We'll be working with the local authorities that are involved and all of our various consultants to try and formulate a plan to de-risk our stadium and de-risk this incident happening again in the future.

“But we all know that winters are getting wetter and this type of occurrence is becoming more frequent.

“We can't bury our heads in the sand, we need to formulate a proper plan to mitigate our risk as much as possible. Ultimately we're on a floodplain but I'm hopeful we'll have a much more resilient stadium off the back of this incident.”

While it has been a difficult week or so for Wimbledon, the rearranged fixture and significant cash boosts in addition to the new-found connection with Newcastle have been silver linings. And Woodroof is hopeful Newcastle will still get to visit Plough Lane in the near future.

“The really sad thing is we were looking forward to hosting Newcastle and had sold every seat and after knocking Ipswich out, we were really looking forward to that,” the Wimbledon managing director continued.

“Unfortunately, that was taken away from us but one good thing that has come out of it is tonight. But it's a bittersweet moment really.

"There is an open invitation to Newcastle to come for a pre-season friendly with us. Whatever it would look like.

"We would love to continue this relationship, we wanted to be ambitious and turn Newcastle over to face Chelsea, but we have a very strong team. We'd love to host Newcastle in years to come. It is a great question we will put that to Eddie Howe."