Baird not seeing funny side of season

- By Wendy Gee

IN a week when Paul Sales, Steve Watts and Chris Piper have left the Eastleigh players fold, manager Ian Baird says he is not bothered if any others want to follow them through the Silverlake Stadium exit door.

The Spitfires boss is not a great fan of what he refers to as footballs silly season and has already had his fill of players and their agents trying to squeeze all they can out of the club.

Putting it bluntly, he feels that in missing out on the Blue Square South play-offs, Eastleigh (himself included) underachieved and that, if anything, his players have been overpaid for what was ultimately a season of failure.

"We did throw the kitchen sink at trying to get into the play-offs and we did slightly overpay on certain players and are still overpaying some of our current players”, he said.

“As a group we didn’t achieve what we set out to do, so my message to anyone who feels they want to move on is please do."

While 30-something strikers Sales and Watts were released partly because Baird is looking for a side with a bit more legs next season, defender/midfielder Piper declined the offer of a new contract.

“I desperately wanted to keep Chris Piper, but our financial situation dictated that we offered him a lesser deal which he turned down,” said Baird.

“I’ve asked him to think about it, but he can probably go and get what he was on at Eastleigh somewhere else and I'm afraid thats not in my budget remit.

In Paul Sales' case, he did tremendously well here, showed a great attitude and I can’t praise him highly enough, but I do want a bit more legs up front.

If Steve Watts had been fit, I would have re-signed him, but he's got too many on-going injury problems and I was only prepared to offer him pre-season initially. He said he'd got offers on the table elsewhere, so I advised him to go and take them.”

Eastleigh still have 11 contracted players: Jason Matthews, Andy Harris, Luke Byles, Ashley Vickers, Jamie Brown, Anthony Riviere, Andy Forbes, Mark Marshall, Matt Hann, Karl Murray and Peter Adeniyi. Defenders Warren Goodhind and Chris Collins are both believed to have rejected reduced deals, while Adam Everitt has so far been invited back only for pre-season.

“I've had calls from agents representing my players and Ive told them that if they can find them better deals with other clubs, then go ahead and I'm talking about everyone there,” said Baird.

“I get fed up with this every year.

These players are in Conference South part-time football, but about 90 per cent of them don’t work so they consider themselves to be professional footballers, training twice a week and playing on a Saturday.

In my book, anyone who wants money in life has got to earn it and, unfortunately this season, we underachieved and we didn't earn it.

Now I've got players telling me they want this and that but the question I ask is: Did this group of players really want promotion?”

Baird's old club Havant have made their first big summer signing, capturing former Wycombe and Republic of Ireland under-21 centre back Ian Simpemba on a two-year deal from BSS champions Lewes.

Simpemba's arrival could hasten the exit of Hawks' unsettled defender Tom Jordan, who desperately wanted to follow Baird to Eastleigh last season.

But it is unlikely the Spitfires could afford him now having already signed Ashley Vickers from Weymouth.