WEYMOUTH chairman Ian White was thrilled to have been able to hold the Terras’ hall of fame and to be able to address injustice dealt to past legends.
Some of those inducted had their season tickets taken away, something that is no longer an issue with all of those inducted receiving lifetime season tickets for Weymouth.
White said: “I was really pleased, I so wanted to do it. There had been a little bit of injustice in places, some of our older hall of famers that were inducted had lost season tickets.
“They had had them taken away and it was one of the things I decided I was going to do was to bring them their lifetime season tickets.
“John Clarke, for example, had played over 700 games for us. Why shouldn’t he be able to come and watch the team he played 700 games for?
“So we have done that, they’ve got a nice award, we have got a nice board that will go up on the wall somewhere and I was really pleased.”
White admitted to some unexpected inspiration for the event, with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)’s Wrestlemania events inspiring the evening.
White’s passion for the club oozed out of every sentence he said while addressing the crowd at the event, at the Riviera Hotel in Weymouth.
White explained: “It is a bit strange really but we had the legends game in the summer, and we had quite a few of the guys (who were at the hall of fame evening) that were there and me and Paul Maitland, the director of football, sat down and we said how could we move this forward.
“And I, sadly, watch a lot of wrestling and always before Wrestlemania they have a hall of fame event and I just thought ‘that is not a bad idea’ so we talked a bit more and we decided that we would induct 11 to start with.
“We formed ourselves a little committee and away we went.
“A hell of a lot of work went into it, the committee were incredible, they worked so hard.”
Attendees were treated to a three-course meal at the Riviera Hotel and a big raffle with numerous prizes on offer, before an auction was held for a Weymouth shirt signed by those that were inducted.
The full list of inductees was: Bob Lucas, Matthew Bound, John Clarke, Willie Gibson, Martyn Harrison, Tony Hobson, Ian Hutchinson, Aniello Iannone, David Laws, Jason Matthews and Graham Roberts.
