Talking to the official Stevenage website on Friday, Graham Westley had this to say on his recent disputes with Anthony Elding:
"Once again, Anthony has had his head turned by a big money offer from another club. He is being offerred nearly treble his current wages to move within the Conference. We are not in the 'big payer' bracket. We operate to a decent budget but not to the level of many in our league. Although nobody has been given permission to speak to him, one club has. And it has disrupted him as it has done before. He is a young man with big responsibilities.......he has a young daughter and a baby on the way. So his interest in increasing his family security is understandable.
That said, clubs should not be illegally approaching our players. And presumably encouraging him to misbehave to secure his release.
Anthony was fined for his latest misdemeanour, he has spent a week away from the club and he returns to training on Friday. He knows he was wrong but I don't want a verbal apology. We have agreed that the slightest future misdemeanour will result in the most stringent financial penalty and that the only apology worth getting is in his actions. I am sure he will continue to face a dilemma of these financial inducements. But he knows he must learn to be professional and focus on his job.
I think that this talented young man might learn more from this whole experience than from anything in his career to date. What he certainly knows is that he is valued by our club and that I will do everything I can to bring out the best in him".
Although unconfirmed, Crawley are the obvious candidates to be in a position to make such a "treble your money" offer having already brought Daryl Clare back to the Conference. Jon Brady's comments at the pre-season Fans Forum in Legends made it clear Elding wasn't on the reputed four figure wage that the Non League Paper claimed at the time, suggesting at the time that Elding was on less than £600 per week. Few Conference clubs could afford a player on nearly £2,000 per week - or Altrincham's entire budget - with most existing on a week to week basis like Cambridge, Scarboro, and Halifax. In fact there are few financially stable clubs in the Conference, and Stevenage are one of the few.