DORCHESTER Town chairman Neal Butterworth yesterday confirmed an offer of investment in the club has been turned down.

With the backing of three major investors, the interested party, fronted by Weymouth-based businessman Chris Steadman, had plans to install a new commercial manager and director of football.

Instead, the club have opted to appoint Richard Coole as their new man in charge of commercial activities, a role previously held by joint majority shareholder Shaun Hearn.

Former Terras’ secretary Steadman, who has forged links with a number of people at the Magpies over the years, feels it is a chance missed by the Skrill South outfit.

“I don’t think people in Dorchester are interested in the Community Trust operation,” he said. “They are fed up with reading about a sustainable business plan.

“Last season the club was successful and brought into the public eye, and it was being spoken about for all the right reasons.

“All of a sudden the trust comes in and what they don’t realise is that you need to two important ingredients for a successful club – a football team doing well and a professional person who can look after the commercial activities.

“Our plan was to bring in Pete Conning as director of football and a top level commercial manager who could take the club forward.

“People are not supporting Dorchester commercially because of what has gone on in the past.

“Some people are naive in thinking the commercial side of football is all about advertising at the ground and the patrons’ draw, but it’s much more than that.”

He added: “It was a takeover bid. Pete would be able to bring players in and then sell them for a good price and my commercial guy would use his skills to work on that side of things.

“Nobody is steering the ship at the moment and there has to be a clean sweep.

“I just don’t think the people there now understand football.”

Steadman’s plans also involved the relocation of the club away from its current base.

Butterworth, meanwhile, is delighted with the arrival of Coole and is happy with the job current football director Matt Lucas is doing.

And he insisted that, contrary to Steadman’s claims, the latter’s offer was not a takeover bid, saying: “We listened very seriously to what Chris proposed, like we would do with any offer of help.

“What he offered was perfectly sound but at the time it wasn’t appropriate for us.

“It was an offer for commercial assistance and for bringing in and selling players through an agent.

“But with us taking on a new commercial director we felt very positive about what he was able to offer us given his experience.

“And we have a football director already and Phil Simkin has got a good record of searching out new talent as well.

“We’ve got the football side covered and we’ve got someone on board who has got great commercial experience.

He went on to add: “It wasn’t a proposed takeover. Nobody wanted to come in and take over the club, it was about a couple of positions on the board.

“It was a reasonable offer but we just decided to go down a different route.”

The chairman added that along with Steadman’s proposal and Coole’s interest there was another offer of help on the table but he couldn’t disclose the identity of that party.

Butterworth was, however, quick to point out that the club is always willing to listen to offers of assistance.

The board previously turned down investment from a local businessman in June because the terms attached to the offer would have taken the club away from the sustainable model the trust is aiming for.