Compare the following with the ex league clubs like Wrexahm who owe £200k to the taxman, so much for support for grass roots football:
From the Eastwood Town site:
""Following on from the dismissal of the appeal on Tuesday 19/04/2011 and consequently Eastwood Town Football Club (ETFC) not being allowed to compete in the play offs, the directors Rob Yong and Tony Minnis announce their intention to resign from the club as soon as new owners are found to take the club forward.
It is with great regret that we have come to this decision, Rob and I have hardly missed a single match over the last 4 years and there are a number of other individuals in our businesses that have also given up a huge amount of their personal time to help with the running of ETFC. However, we have come to the point of no return, we feel we have been put in an untenable position by the Football Conference and Broxtowe Borough Council and there are irreconcilable differences between ourselves and these official bodies. Due to theses differences we do not believe our continued ownership is within the best interests of ETFC.
Therefore, we will actively seek to pass on the ownership of ETFC as a going concern. The club will be offered to any interested parties with Zero debt and at a nominal amount of £1. As well as any interested individuals, we are happy to explore the option of a local business consortium or supporters trust with some ongoing support from ourselves. I will be personally managing and handling the handover process to new owners so interested parties should contact me at the address below.
When ETFC were promoted to the Conference North, we worked very closely with the Football Conference and Broxtowe Borough Council not only to achieve our B grading in April 2010 but also wanting to invest in the club for the good of the local community. Over £1m has been invested without even applying for a single grant. Even though our pitch slope was legal, we still invested heavily in flattening the pitch at the end of last season as recommended. Effectively, we felt we left no stone unturned in ensuring we met every requirement and guideline from both the Football Conference and the Council. This season we have invested a further £300k in the playing squad to make a genuine challenge for the play-offs, that was our clear target at the beginning of the season and we are in absolutely no doubt that this opportunity has been unfairly and unjustly taken away by the Football Conference.
Without going into a full detailed list of all of the issues that have brought us to this point, we feel it right to highlight some obstacles that have been put in our way:-
The Football Conference
The sole reason given by the Football Conference to disqualify ETFC from playing in this season's play-offs is that they have decided that our 500 seats under cover are in more than two locations instead of one or two.
The Conference informed us that they did not consider our seating suitable to participate in the play-offs in a letter dated 29th of March 2011; in this letter they informed us that we had until April 1st 2011 to get planning permission and build a new stand, therefore giving us 48 hours to execute this. This came as a total shock as we had received our B grading certificate last year with no mention that we would need to make changes to our seating.
The wording of the Conference rules for seating is extremely ambiguous and misleading. Having taken legal advice our lawyer confirmed we would have a very strong case in a court of law, and we are even Conference Premier compliant per the rules on this issue.
Despite our views, we offered to pay for any changes at any cost before the play-off date, however, the Conference flatly refused our offer as they said it would be unfair on other play-off challenging clubs. Ironically the Conference have handed another Conference North club dispensation to stay in the league and consequently dispensation to participate in the play-offs despite them not achieving the B ground grading requirements, which ETFC had already achieved last year. So a play-off place could be taken by a club who does not even meet the requirements yet to stay in the league.
At the FA Appeal, we presented our case for 2 hours and provided the FA and Conference with conclusive legal documentation that would in our opinion, prove our case in any genuinely independent appeal, in fact, the Conference even admitted that they would have acted differently if they could turn back the clock, however, after both sides had been heard, we were just told 'the appeal by ETFC has been dismissed', without a single reason being given.
Broxtowe Borough Council
Over the last few years we have invested a lot of time, money and effort into agreeing a plan with Broxtowe Borough Council to develop ETFC into a community club by investing in the infrastructure of the ground and surrounding park. Rob outlined the vision for the club at the end of the 2008/2009 season including the ground developments, building 3G training facilities, extra car parking and community football pitches;
We agreed a deal with key individuals at the Council to purchase the ground. To protect the future of ETFC from property developers, we also offered full legal assurances in the form of a legal covenant, which guaranteed that the ground would categorically only be ever used for the football club and the good of the local community. We spent a significant amount of money on legal fees and producing detailed plans for these ground improvements, only for the Council to subsequently reject what had originally been agreed.
As part of the above deal, we also agreed to invest another £250,000 to develop other facilities around the ground that would benefit the local community, specifically getting young people in the local area involved in sport, along with the original deal this was subsequently rejected.
After years of the Council providing the grounds maintenance free of charge as part of their service to the local community, they levied a significant annual ground maintenance fee upon the club, we feel that the Council have sought to take advantage of the fact that ETFC is now funded privately.
As part of the ground improvements we were required to build more toilet blocks; we worked with the Council to agree the location of these facilities and received planning permission but after we had built the new toilet block, the Council levied a ransom charge of £50,000 on ETFC in order to connect the sewerage to the nearest drainage on the park.
Rob and I would like to thank all the support we have received from the club's fans during our time at the club and would like to stress that we will support the club as far as we are able during the transition period to new owners.
Tony Minnis
Chairman"
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Non Alty but sad none the less.....
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Topic: Non Alty but sad none the less..... (Read 1975 times)