FREE entry is being offered to all Weymouth fans for Tuesday’s Blue Square South match against Braintree Town by way of an apology for Saturday’s Wessex Stadium massacre at the hands of Basingstoke Town.

Terras’ chairman George Rolls spoke of his and vice-chairman Pranas Preidzius’ embarrassment after Mitchell Bryant broke the Conference record to score all six ’Stoke goals in the 6-0 hammering.

And they said they would now put their hands in their pockets to try and make up for it, inviting the whole town of Weymouth to the Wessex Stadium on Tuesday night.

“Saturday’s game was embarrassing to say the least and Pranas and I feel that the fans deserve better than that,” said Rolls. “Our way of an apology is we will cover the cost of the gate revenue we’ll lose out on and, as a gesture of goodwill, invite the whole of Weymouth to the game, free of charge.

“We hope people will get behind us with it and maybe we can get a few new faces coming along next Tuesday and get people back who came to the Dorchester game on New Year’s Day.

“The economic times are tough and if people want to watch the game next Tuesday we want to let them do so for free.

“It’s not just for a lift on the pitch it’s for Weymouth as a whole.

“The club has gone through the mire in the last few years and we looked at it and have come up with different ideas and initiatives and we feel after the performance the lads put in on Saturday people shouldn’t have to pay to watch that.”

One of Rolls’ first acts as chairman was to allow children into Blue Square South matches at the Wessex Stadium for free, and he hopes season- ticket holders will understand his latest ploy to increase support at Weymouth.

“At the end of the day, season ticket holders are the lifeblood of the club, the same as all of the fans, but I would be disappointed if the season-ticket holders were disappointed with us trying to attract new fans.

“This isn’t just about season tickets, it’s about the whole of Weymouth getting behind the club.

“If we only get 400 turn up we know there is a serious problem but we would be disappointed if we didn’t get a much bigger crowd – I’d like to think we could be pushing the 1,000 mark.”

Rolls was personally abused in the stand on Saturday and one fan threw his season ticket away in disgust as discontent grew among the 588 crowd, booing at both the half-time and final whistles.

“I’m not worried about that – I have a thick skin,” he said. “People pay their money and are entitled to their opinions, and having the odd one or two shout abuse is part and parcel of being a chairman at a football club.

“I invited a couple of fans to sit next to me and tell me what their problems are, rather than shout it from the stand, because I was embarrassed by the performance myself.

“I went straight to the bar and stood there after the game where people could come up to me and talk to me about it but no-one did face-to-face.

“It’s easy for fans to shout from 40 yards away but I’m not going to hide and they can come and speak to me face-to-face if they want to.

“All I want is the club to progress and we can’t have that sort of performance again.”

Meanwhile, Weymouth’s former goalkeeping coach Alan Bull said he was surprised and disap- pointed at Ryan Harrison’s de-parture from the Terras.

Bull worked under Matty Hale earlier in the season before leaving as part of cost-cutting measures and helped Harrison with his game.

“Ryan is a talented young keeper but he is a young boy and had more of his game he still needed to work on,” said Bull. “I was enjoying it and looking forward to the club moving forward but at the moment they seem to have taken one step forward and about seven backwards.

“Ryan was a pretty loyal lad, a little bit cocky, but you need that about you.

“They must have seen he had his weaknesses but what they have brought in seems to have been a disaster.”