FENMEN MUST PAY THE PRICE
WISBECH TOWN say they have been humbled by donations from the football fraternity after Storm Ciara reduced their stand to a mass of buckled and mangled metal.
Strong winds on Sunday morning tore through the North Stand at the 100-yearold club’s Fenland Stadium, causing around £10,000 worth of damage.
As a result, fan Steve Campion has set up an online fundraising page to help foot the bill and also to help safeguard an identical stand at the other end of the ground from suffering a similar fate. That has raised more than £2,000 in the space of six days.
The £13,000 cantilevered stand was built in 2010 and included 54 seats.
Yesterday’s visit of Frickley Athletic in BetVictor Northern Premier League Division One South East was postponed on the advice of safety inspectors as engineers moved in to dismantle what’s left of the wreckage.
Club secretary Spenny Larham told The NLP: “It’s been ten years since the stadium was built and has survived stronger winds than this, but it was the direction which did the damage. The wrong wind, in the wrong direction at the wrong time
“Fortunately, there are some parts of the stand that can be salvaged as the main metal beams are largely still in place. Safety, though, is paramount, which is why we couldn’t play the game on Saturday.
“We feel bad really as our problems pale into significance with Tadcaster’s. This is not going to stop us existing, it’s just problem we didn’t need, but we are so very grateful to everyone who has donated and feel very humbled by the generosity of some people we don’t even know.”
Elsewhere, Ciara left a trail of destruction up and down the country with a number of other clubs suffering flood damage.
BetVictor Northern League North West Division leaders Ramsbottom United found themselves deluged with a pitch at the Harry Williams Riverside Stadium resembling a lake after the adjacent River Irwell burst its banks.
It’s the third time in the past decade that Rammy have been flooded, including the horrendous floods that sank the ground on Boxing Day 2015.