Colwyn Bay Given Stand Ultimatum By League

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From the Colwyn website:

COLWYN BAY FC have had to act quickly after receiving notification that they must build a new stand at Llanelian Road or face relegation from the Conference North. A meeting of club supporters and shareholders on Sunday was told by club chairman Bob Paton that new league regulations require a minimum of four rows of seating in stands, and currently Llanelian Road has only three.

The club has been informed they must have work on a new stand underway by March 31st next year or be relegated. The league can’t guarantee where relegation would be to. That would be up to the FA - although Mr Paton warned it could even be back to the Evo-Stik Division One North or South, or even the North West Counties. The chairman is calling on supporters and the town to help make sure that doesn’t happen.

He has already had plans drawn up for a cantilever stand on the Triact terracing, incorporating up to 500 seats with covered standing areas on either side. The cost of the project, however, is a daunting £71,500.

The club are hopeful of sourcing £30,000 to £40,000 of funding but need to raise a further £30,000 themselves. Efforts are already being made by fans following Sunday’s meeting to try and form a Colwyn Bay Supporters Association to help organise fundraising events.

A meeting has been arranged at the club for this Thursday (November 3rd, 7.30pm) when the bar will be open and any fans interested in becoming a member of a CBFC supporters club will be very welcome. In another move, Commercial manager Carol Beard has been appointed social club manager to try and attract more private functions and other events to the social club to bring in extra revenue.

The football club also have 13,000 £1 shares on sale to the general public and anyone interested can email club secretary Grant McIndoe at egmcindoe@yahoo.co.uk.

The directors have been working very hard to source the funding needed to upgrade the floodlights to the required 180 lux minimum, and Mr Paton said that plans for other ground upgrade requirements, including extending and upgrading the dressing rooms, are in hand.

“But we can’t do it all, we need the people of Colwyn Bay to support us in any way they can if they want to preserve Conference level football, which helps bring publicity, visitors and business to the town,” he said.

Mr Paton added: “Funding the football side of the club has been sorted, and the manager and players are doing a great job in consolidating the team’s place in the Conference North - but all their efforts will be in vain if we can’t get the ground right.”

One of the reasons Challinor jumped ship, perhaps?

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Makes you sick that with so much money floating around football, a club can face a relegation for the lack of £30k. Willie McKay got £800k for “facilitating” Joey Barton’s FREE TRANSFER to QPR!!

Saying that, it seems a bit petty to say 3 rows is insufficient but 4 is ok. What’s the justification for that?

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Firstly, i very much doubt this has come as a shock. I would expect they have known the rules for some time and hoped to find a way around it.

But yes it does seem a petty rule. What does it matter how many rows there are? You could have more seats in 2 rows than in 5 so it makes no sense to me.

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They should be in the Welsh League anyway !

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I disagree with some of the comments made so far. It annoys me deeply to see so many teams fork out stupid amounts of money buying and paying players, to the detriment of the infrustructure of the club.

Last night was a prime example. The changing rooms were not even half the size of ours, and the toilets were situated inside the showers! The players food after the game was presented to the players inside the dressing room. Somehow they have managed to build a league team, with a great new stand without spending a penny in the last 20 years on player facilities. If the FA or the league performed an inspection of the ground, then it would be condemned.

Witton, thanks to the amazing fund raising by the Deveopment Team make sure our ground and facilities are upto scratch. It would be very easy for us to spend the £2000 to £3000 (if not more) raised each year on the team, but we don’t. As such, we are not playing on an even basis with teams that ignore their facilities and spend all their money on players.

Sorry…rant over!

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Spot on TT!

In days of yore, there was a criteria you had to have in place BEFORE you were allowed to be promoted! Thereby spending money on your infrastructure in proportion with your playing budget.

I remember how nerve racking it was at the Central Ground before we got graded for the NPL. Then when we saw what long standing clubs in the NPL had as facilities you just shook your head in disbelief.

Boom and bust appears to be rewarded these days - look at Ilkeston, Telford, Boston, et al!

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Which is the point i was making in regards to it not being a shock, they surely knew the criteria.

But i still think that how many rows of seats you have seems very silly! If there was a criteria of minimum number of seats which they are failing then thats different. BUT again, who comes up with these numbers? How often in an average league game would all of their seats be taken?

Some of these rules are ridiculous.

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Most non league grounds are far too big for the clubs, our neighbours situation being a prime example. Why insist on seats that will never hold anyone’s backside unless they draw Liverpool in the FA Cup!!
WHS.