Winter facing challenging summer on return to Blades

LAST summer was a difficult one at Sheffield United.

Defeat to Huddersfield Town in the 2012 League One play-off 
final meant tough decisions had to be made.

Jobs were lost, budgets slashed and star names departed in an effort to turn the Blades into a leaner business.

Progress was made but, following this week’s play-off exit to Yeovil Town, it is clear that another challenging summer – albeit not on the scale of a year ago – awaits Bramall Lane.

No one is more aware of that than Julian Winter, who yesterday returned to United as chief executive just nine months after leaving the South Yorkshire club in the wake of implementing the cuts of last year.

“I was surprised to get the call (to come back)”, admitted the 47-year-old former professional footballer, who numbers Huddersfield Town and the Blades among his former clubs. “Though, in another sense, the job I left in September felt like it was only half done.

“We did some significant work during my time here. But the club will still make a big loss (in the current financial year to June 30) when it reports the figures.

“When I came here the first time (in September 2011), I was asked about the two key objectives. They were sustainability and getting promoted. People replied, ‘You can’t do both’. But my attitude is we can.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive. We have seen it done before. There are lots of clubs. Pick Charlton, for instance. They had a new manager (Chris Powell) who entered the building and goodness knows how many players left that club and came in.

“But they got momentum very, very quickly. Lo and behold, they got promoted very, very quickly. Norwich also came down and reconfigured. So did Southampton.

“We are going to be that type of club, where we act differently.”

Central to the path Winter wants to take is making United sustainable. At a third tier club that lost £13m in 2011-12 and £13.6m the previous year, that is not going to be an easy process.

Despite that, the Blades chief executive says: “The benefactor model – bar at the very top level – is broken. The game at League One level is a challenge.

“There are lots of other clubs in a similar situation. I notice Swindon (who also lost in the play-off semi-finals) have just gone public to say the wage bill will be cut by half.

“This summer the club has a real opportunity to become sustainable. To get its act in order.

“The club needs to think differently. It needs to think outside of the comfort blanket of a benefactor.”

The streamlining of the management team running the football club will see Winter joined on a three-man board by Scott McCabe and David Green.

Asked if the new set-up was the precursor to owner Kevin McCabe stepping aside, Winter said: “Not to my knowledge. Kevin has just had his 65th birthday and, personally, has taken the view that this board reorganisation helps him to be more distant.

“We have always had the issue that he has of living abroad, and all those issues to confront. This is a moment when he says, ‘I will genuinely step back -– not only in geographical terms but also in operational terms, and allow the board to function as a close-knit group’.

“I am a firm believer in less being more. The more people you have, the more difficult it can be.

“The less you have in terms of decision making, you get on with them and then live or die by them.”

As for the future, Winter is adamant that there are many pluses for United among the many challenges the club will face in the coming months and years.

He said: “The Academy is doing good things. That is a real positive.

“The stadium and the fan base are big positives, too. We have to build on those.

“I appreciate that people are unhappy right now. It is never easy when a club fails to achieve what it set out to achieve, but the game moves on.

“We all get excited about a new season and a new manager coming into the building.

“To the fans and the staff, I say, the club has been through some difficult times over the last couple of years but there is so much potential here.”