Scarborough

Following on from the Leek story earlier in the week, looks very likely Scarboro may fold following the councils refusal to grant planning permission for a new stadium, a meting was held with the F.A. this week and now they may fold, start up again as a new club, groundshare, and join the Northern Counties East Leage, At this rate the Unibond Premier may have less clubs than its two regionals

In the High Court today, Scarborough have been given an eight day stay of execution.

The Yorshire club were given more time to try and sell the McCain Stadium to a building company in order to clear debts of £2 million pounds.

£2 million? bloody hell

It’s the UniBond AGM this coming Saturday when the teams for next season, amongst other items, are supposedly finalised :-.

Sense chaos looming then will it be Scarborough or will it be King’s Lynn who are demanding compensation should they be required to switch from the Southern League. ???

Never heard such absolute garbage as Kings Lynn coming into our league. No wonder they are angry. Wouldn’t fancy trips to Gateshead or Kendal etc from down there!

Kings Lynn were in the NPL for three seasons in the early 80’s I remember we drew them in the Presidents Cup and travelled there on a Sunday after playing a league match on the Saturday. Not surprisingly we got beat.

Worksop Town are another club reported not too happy about playing in our league next season and are looking to appeal following Alty’s re-instatement in the aftermath of the Boston United fiasco.

All this uncertainity could well mean the fixture list wont be out for a while yet.

now we see them now we don’t;

King’s Lynn have earned a UniBond League Premier Division reprieve after a dramatic FA U-turn.

Lynn chairman Ken Bobbins confirmed the club is set to remain in the British Gas Business Southern League following crisis club Scarborough’s High Court stay of execution on Tuesday.

Scarborough’s case was adjourned until next week to allow fresh talks between the local council and developers over the sale of their McCain Stadium and proposals for a new purpose-built ground.

Bobbins revealed the unexpected delay will scupper plans to transfer Lynn into the UniBond to replace Scarborough - a move which was due to be rubber-stamped on Wednesday at an FA Alliance committee meeting.

"Pending final ratification FA officials have told me we will stay in the Southern League," said Bobbins. "This latest development has taken the issue out of their hands. Scarborough’s latest delay falls within the time-frame of the scheduled UniBond AGM.

"At that point they will still be a member club and thus take their place in the Premier Division. In line with formal constitutions, once teams and leagues have been set in stone and the process ratified, clubs can not be switched or moved.

"In the event Scarborough fail to solve their on-going problems then it is my understanding the UniBond Premier will run next season with one less team.

"I think there is general consensus now between all the clubs who might have been affected by this. Even Scarborough have been thrown a lifeline - so perhaps everyone will come out of it okay."

Bobbins again expressed his disappointment at the lack of Southern League support for Lynn’s case and confirmed that the club will express their displeasure at the competition’s annual meeting this weekend.

"I think they’ve handled things extremely poorly," he said. "Not to let us know something was on the cards isn’t right. Hopefully we can draw a line under it and move on"

Bobbins insisted Lynn’s Southern League title push can survive the recent farce.

"It’s been an interesting few days," he said. "Keith Webb is obviously delighted. He was very, very concerned. Lee Glover had an issue with going into the UniBond and we had broken off communications with certain playing targets."

Picko, some people might say that was a comprehensive, accurate report, but I thought it was a load of Bobbins!

AH!! Kings Lynn happy memories for me and CHAD and other more senior in age fans!! Remember the trip to Dagenham in 1970’s in the FA trophy replay for a night game. We got beat off a hotlly disputed penaly 2-1 (Phil Gee scored our goal I think). Then we all got on the coach to go home supposedly on the M1. We ended up on the M11 and on the outskirts of Kings Lynn. I spent the rest of the trip up front with the coach driver getting us back home through Camebridge, Leicester, Stoke etc ending up back home at the Central ground at 5am. I would’nt mind but I was starting a new job at Littlewoods in Liverpool the next day. Good old days. I’m glad we are not playing them but road connections are a bit better now than they were then though the traffic volumes aren’t!!

Remember that trip to well Mona, I was at the tail end of the bus freezing my nuts off, dinn’t we end up running into Lowastoft docks, what a wnker that diver was, wasn’t Clarry a usual take the pss out of driver was it? I was late for work that unforgetable morning and was accused of over sleeping, fat chance of that.
Anyway hope Scarboro pull things round, cos there bound to bring a good following with em

It appears that King’s Lynn will not be joining the Unibond Premier Division after all.

The non league website have announced today that should Scarborough fail to solve their difficulties, it is likely that the league will be a club short next season.

Like my great mate Baggie , I hope Scarboro pull it round. It would be a really nice venue for a weekend away and you can still get a pint for £1-40 in certain pubs up there for those who enjoy that sort of thing. So fingers crossed lets hope it works out for them.
As for you sitting on the back seat in the coach Baggie you were right you looked starved to death! They were good days though lets hope we have some more this season that we can all share!! A nice trip to the new Wembley would be nice but outright promotion would be even nicer!!

Scarborough Football Club has gone out of busines with debts of £2.5m.
The former Football League club was wound up at Leeds High Court at a hearing on Wednesday morning.

Boro hoped the local council would lift a covenant on their McCain Stadium so it could be sold for residential use to cover debts and finance a new ground.

But the judge hearing the case felt a rescue package was unlikely in the face of mounting debts which include a sum of £820,000 owed to the Inland Revenue.

"Despite the support of Scarborough Borough Council and the company’s creditors, the club simply ran out of time"
Statement from Scarborough FC

A statement from Scarborough read: "While it is sad to see the demise of a club with a proud history of 128 years, the club’s finances have for a number of years been in a very poor state and the company has been in and out of various insolvency proceedings.

"Recently the club has been trying to sell the McCain Stadium for development to fund a move to an out of town purpose built stadium. However, this move has been fraught with difficulties.

"Despite the support of Scarborough Borough Council and the company’s creditors, the club simply ran out of time. The company’s total debt amounts to £2.5m.

"Rob Sadler and Mike Saville of Begbies Traynor have been appointed joint liquidators of the company and will now be liaising with Council to agree the disposal of the stadium in order to achieve the best return to the creditors.

"Whilst it is disappointing to see any club go out of business, the making of the winding-up order at this time allows the newly constituted supporters’ trust an opportunity to reform and apply for membership of the North East Counties League.

"Hopefully this will ensure football for Scarborough in the coming season."

The Seasiders, a League club until 1999, had been accepted into the UniBond League for the 2007/08 campaign after suffering a second successive relegation last season.

That will no longer happen but supporters may now look to form a new club, playing at a lower level and ground-sharing with another local team.

Another club living beyond its means like our dearly beloved neighbours goes into liquidation and a load of innocents (the supporters and creditors) get stiffed in the process.

It will hopefully serve as a lesson to us, whilst upping the football budget for next season, it has to be sustainable and unless the commercial and social side of the business are functioning much better than in recent times then we could end up with a sell or fold situation ourselves.

Sad indeed - it should however be a warning indeed of what can happen.

A bad day as well as thats a good day out gone and 1 less home gate (presumably) so 1 less shop/tea bar/bar/gate receipts etc which we are down.

Oh well I’m sure maybe we could play a league cup game that day to compensate?

What’s that saying - "there by the grace of god…"

Seems strange to look back and remember Scarborough of yesterday being held in high regard and in awe by so many other non league teams and supporters because of their sound financial position and now its come to this undignified end.

I was also quite looking forward to a couple of trips to the east coast - now its just Whitby.

Bu**er! Another "home" game gone.

Scarborough Football Club, which went bust last week, is to be reborn under the name Scarborough Athletic.
The Seadog Trust, a supporters’ group which will run the club, was meeting Northern Counties East League officials to finalise the arrangement on Monday.

They were meeting at Bridlington Town’s Queensgate ground, which the new club hopes to share in the 2007/2008 season.

Trust chairman Simon Cope said: "This is the start of the next chapter in the history of football in Scarborough."

The former Football League club was wound up at Leeds High Court last Wednesday in the face of mounting debts which included £820,000 owed to the Inland Revenue.

Mr Cope said: "It is time now to put the past behind us.

"All of us at Seadog Trust would like to express their thanks to Ian Scobbie [club chairman] for his efforts to save Scarborough FC…but we feel that a new club owned by fans is the best, if not only way forward.

"Now more than ever we would urge football supporters in Scarborough to join the trust and have their say in the development of Scarborough Athletic.

"We, the football fans of Scarborough, are in a position to create a football club which stands at the heart of the town’s community."

He said the trust was now focusing on creating a team for the 2007/2008 season and had drawn up a shortlist of managerial candidates who would be contacted "over the coming days".

Mr Cope said: "Although nothing concrete has yet been confirmed we hope to be holding trials at some stage to give the football players of the community every chance to be part of a true community club."

The trust is to host an open forum for fans at the St Nicholas Hotel in Scarborough at 2000 BST on Thursday.

Just like Telford/Vics etc live beyond your means, bask in the unaffordable glory that it brings, balls to the creditors, wind it up and carry on as if nothing else happens.

For the record we paid 100 pence in the pound to our creditors

Makes you wonder who the mugs are!