CHAIRMAN Lee Harding says he expects relegation from the Vanarama National League to cost Braintree Town about £150,000.

The Iron chief said the club’s relegation, which was confirmed by a 2-0 defeat at Aldershot last weekend was financially “disastrous” for them and there would have to be lessons learned from the experience.

Harding also said that he was prepared to stand down as chairman if his fellow board members felt another hand on the tiller was the best way for the club to move forward and would be offering his resignation at a special meeting in June.

He said: “It was sad and disappointing to see it slip away at Aldershot, but my experience tells me that you don’t win leagues or get relegated by the last day of the season.

“It’s a marathon and there have been times when points have been dropped when we didn’t deserve to, but the truth of it is that we have not been consistent enough and have lost too many at home.

“One more win and it may have been different, but it is character building and I’m the type of person who will take it on the chest.

“But financially it is disastrous.

“It is a real blow to us and to our ambitions.

“My mantra has always been for us to be playing at the highest sustainable level and this year we have not been able to achieve that at National League level.

“It sets us back and we now need to take stock and review to learn the lessons.

“We need to review our procedures of financial management as that’s one thing that has caused us a problem.

“It is no-one’s fault, but we have had a big hole in our income as crowds have dropped this year.

“That has hurt us and people may say ‘where did the Simeon Akinola money go?’ but we had to pay a chunk to Harrow Borough as a sell-on clause and the remainder had to be used to fill the gap between income and expenditure.

“We have to go away and look at everything now.

“There are changes ahead for us as a club as we need to be realistic and know that relegation will hurt us.

“It will cost us about £150,000 and we have to be sensible.”

Harding said that the position of manager Hakan Hayrettin was something that had been looked at this week as board members discussed the future direction they wanted to take.

“After the game on Saturday, Hakan was understandably very down and disappointed,” added Harding.

“It’s not just my decision as we are a board of seven.

“For us to be happy for him to continue we will have to be certain that he is up for it and is really able to put this season firmly behind him.

“If we feel he cannot do that then we will have to look elsewhere.

“I think Hakan gave it everything and he had a good go at turning our fortunes around as when Jamie Day left, we were in real trouble.

“He made progress and we got ourselves out of the bottom four, but it was losing seven of the last eight that really hurt us in the end.”