Gosport’s rivals ask to withdraw for a year
Gosport Borough’s Southern Premier League South rivals Merthyr Town have asked for their season to be suspended with immediate effect.
They are currently the only one out of 88 clubs at step 3 level that are banned from welcoming supporters into their own ground due to local restrictions.
A club statement said: ‘We anticipate that the restrictions regarding the blanket ban on allowing supporters into grounds in Wales are unlikely to be relaxed in the near future and that the next step taken will possibly be to actually increase the restrictions on gatherings which may not be lifted for a number of weeks, even possibly months.
‘The National Game Board has consistently stated that it would not be possible to start the season at step 3 and below playing behind closed doors, but that’s exactly the position that we now find ourselves facing for an indefinite period.
‘To mitigate against all of the above, the coard considered the following options:
‘Option One - We take our games across the border to play in England. Costs increase due to ground sharing and we lose significant match-day revenue including bar, catering, hospitality boxes, match and ball sponsor, sale of club merchandise and car parking income.
‘Option Two - We start the season playing behind closed doors. There is no match-day income generated that our business model needs, our anticipated and current financial reserves that we have already ‘ringfenced’ to pay the playing budget would run out in late November with no fans in the ground.
‘This would put the club in a position where we would inevitably be eventually trading insolvently.
‘Option Three – We request that our season is ‘suspended’ subject to an agreement that we retain our place in the Southern League Premier Division.
‘There is already precedent for this course of action with Guernsey and the Isle of Man being allowed to ‘hibernate’ for a season.
‘We have been advised that the National Game Board will not penalise any clubs due to the pandemic and we would also be able to retain our place in next season’s FA Cup, due to the unprecedented circumstances we currently face.’
Merthyr didn’t play at the weekend when other Southern
League clubs began their season due to an odd number of teams in the division, they had the opening bye.
They have forfeited tonight’s FA Cup tie against Poole Town.
Gosport were due to host Merthyr at Privett Park on October 24 and travel to Wales on SMarch 6.
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