NEW chairman Ian Ridley predicts the Terras will be playing Nationwide League football in five years time.

The resortborn journalist, who yesterday replaced Terry Bennett in the Wessex Stadium hot seat, is confident Weymouth can follow the likes of Wycombe Wanderers, Rushden and Diamonds and Yeovil Town into the professional ranks.

He told Echosport: "The plan is for Weymouth to be in the Nationwide Conference in two seasons and then be playing League football within five years.

"I envy Yeovil Town and the success they've had. For too long we have been talked about in the same breath as Dorchester, Salisbury, WestonsuperMare and Bashley and that's got to stop.

"We have the wherewithal to settle neatly into Division Two in the same way as say Wycombe Wanderers and Rushden and Diamonds. After all, these are clubs who were once smaller than Weymouth."

Ridley, whose fiveman consortium includes former Terras Steve Claridge with exEngland captain Tony Adams becoming the club's unpaid football adviser, revealed that £100,000 of new money would be invested into the cashstrapped Dr Martens Premier Division outfit over the next three months.

He explained: "I am working on a consortium of five people, I have three in place at the moment and two who I hope to get on board in the next week. I am hoping that these five people, including myself and Steve Claridge, each will put in £10,000 in new share capital within the next 10 days.

"There will then be a further collective investment of £50,000 from the same five people over the next three months."

"Initially there is a debt to pay, the overdraft and creditors are such that that money is needed, along with the payment of £70,000 from developers Trent which is due next week, to satisfy the bank manager."

Ridley is now embarking on a review of all key personnel at the Wessex Stadium, including manager Geoff Butler.

"I've met with Geoff and we've had a full and frank exchange," Ridley said. "What I've said to him is that he has a contract and in the short term I simply want to evaluate everything in the club from top to bottom. He will take the team to Crawley on Saturday and we'll meet again after that."

One change already confirmed is that Peter Shaw is now the Terras vicechairman. He takes over from Dave Higson and Mick Archer who held the position jointly.

Higson said: "Mick and I have always said that we want less responsibility in the future and this is the first step towards that goal.

"But we welcome Ian as the club's new chairman and wish him every success. He has our full support and I hope he achieves his five year plan."

After rejecting your orginal rescue plan in January, the board have now accepted it and installed you as chairman. What made them change their minds?

The one thing I knew was my plan could and would work, and that once the directors had spoken to everyone supposedly wanting to put money into the club, they would know that those investors would want returns for their money.

I'm sure from the outside people think there's money to be made out of Weymouth. Players come here thinking that Weymouth pay well, it has a newish ground, owns its own freehold, has a good fan base and think there is money to be made there - especially with the potential development of the stadium.

I've never looked at it like that. I genuinely know this is going to cost me money. There's no money to be made at Weymouth football Club.

The only profit I'm looking to turn is so that we can build a better team, and move up.

After the package was rejected in January, and this one is not radically different, I felt very let down, by the board particularly. I had certain promises made to me about the value of this plan, that it might be adopted and I might become chairman. None of it came to fruition.

I thought for about a month maybe it wasn't meant to be, but I kept coming to the club as a fan.

I'm not like an investor or

property developer who wants to get on a football board. I'm a fan, and great supporter of the team.

When I spoke to Dave Higson a while later to find out what was happening, the club's situation had worsened rather than got better.

The directors had explored several avenues. Others were interested by they all wanted returns on their investments.

So we decided to look again at my plan and worked upon the common ground between us. I negotiated long and hard with Dave and his Park Engineering partner, Mick Archer, and that's how we got where we are today.