We don’t know the identity of the person who wrote this statement on behalf of Boreham Wood FC but if we ever met them, we’d sure like to buy them a drink.
PR at the very top level in football and all sport is very well managed and very professional but it can be downright boring too as official club statements are nearly always tailored to be as inoffensive as possible.
That’s fair enough, but if club statements were more like the one just released by Boreham Wood FC in response to accusations of mild dressing room destruction by Carlisle United (now managed by former Irish international Graham Kavanagh), then football would be far more entertaining indeed.
Boreham Wood, a Conference South side, recently travelled to Carlisle for an FA Cup tie, where despite a brave performance, they were defeated by the League One outfit who are situated over 70 places above them if you go through the various league tables across the water.
The game was a feisty affair by all accounts and tension still lingered after the game, following which Carlisle made a number of accusations about damage the visitors had allegedly caused to the away dressing room at Brunton Park.
Amongst the accusations made by Carlisle (accompanied by pictorial evidence) were that the Boreham Wood players had urinated on the floor, caused damage to a dressing room door and, most bizarrely, placed a teapot in one of the urinals in the toilet.
Fairly grave accusations we think you’ll agree, but if Carlisle thought that Boreham Wood were going to take them lying down, they had another thing coming.
What followed in response is arguably the greatest statement ever released by a football club and while it’s too lengthy to repeat in full (you simply must read the whole thing here), we have included some of our favourite snippets.
“Boreham Wood Football Club having completed a thorough internal investigation and spoken with Carlisle Utd wish to make a final statement regarding the laughable accusation of our players urinating in the dressing room after the recent FA Cup tie at the Carlisle game.
“With this perhaps being the biggest non story of all time and something that detracts from a wonderful performance from a non-league club 74 places below Carlisle in the football pyramid. It seems that it is now accepted by the Carlisle Chairman John Nixon that the wrong conclusions were made on their behalf.”
“Mark Jones our left back, still angry at that treatment at the end of the game, entered our changing room and immediately kicked out at our Juice (plastic urn) container that sat on the floor. The plastic urn was sent flying across the dressing room and the content remains of orange juice was sent across the floor.
“That is the complete non story, it is the simple boring truth and to suggest our players have stood and urinated in front of our manager Ian Allinson (over 500 football league games) and in front of our two female medical team is beyond belief.”
“Finally an old tea pot they say was put in a urinal by ourselves.. Our observations are again simple, that on our arrival back to the changing room at the end of the game. A tea pot full of hot tea had been put by a Carlisle official on a very narrow beveled ledged wall exactly at the point of entry into our shower area.. Why it was put there is anyone’s guess but we can show the pictorial evidence of the beveled ledge of little more than 4″ wide and put simply it is no place to balance a hot tea pot..
“Our medical department told the club during our investigations, that they thought it was an accident waiting to happen. After checking if anybody wanted a cup of tea. Our kit managers were simply asked to empty the tea pot contents down the shower drain before the boys showered and they then placed the tea pot by the adjacent sink next to the urinals.
“That is where it remained until after we left the changing area. After we exited the changing area that evening, not one Carlisle club official made any complaint what so ever to any BWFC club official, not to our Chairman, not to our staff, not to our players and not to our manager, who then all proceeded onto our team coach, very proud of the performance we had put in..
“The Carlisle Utd, YTS boys were at this point in our dressing room and shower areas cleaning up, which is apparently all part of their normal duties. It appears by the letter that we have subsequently received from Carlisle Utd the next day, that the local press were then called into this area, the allegations were then made and the subsequent witch hunt orchestrated by Carlisle Utd media team began…
“The tea pot was suddenly not by the sink and the fact it was subsequently photographed in a urinal looks like mischief making, it is certainly a contrived photo and it was very convenient for a local press photo opportunity.”
As is mentioned in the statement, Carlisle chairman John Nixon has accepted that they were wrong to make the allegations, but Boreham Wood found the initial allegations so serious that they will be taking the matter to the High Court.
Whether it will be a case of the urinal teapot calling the kettle black when it comes to the High Court remains to be seen, but the lesson to be taken from all of this is surely: Don’t f**k with Boreham Wood FC.
