PURPS’ EVICTION STILL A MYSTERY

CITY of Liverpool’s eviction from Bootle has been confirmed but the mystery over why continues to fuel speculation.

The Purps cited “completely unforeseen circumstances” when postponing their home league match against Widnes less than 24 hours before it was scheduled to take place on Saturday, January 19.

Social media posts suggested that City of Liverpool had been kicked out over a rent dispute, something that chairman Paul Manning and Bootle trustee Joe Doran declined to take the opportunity to confirm or deny.

By Thursday last week, it had been announced that City of Liverpool would host Prescot Cables at Widnes on the Saturday, albeit without further public explanation.

Bootle finally confirmed the eviction of their Norther Premier League West division rivals in a statement released on Monday, citing “a material breach of the ground-share agreement” and that the call had been made “despite opportunities to rectify other identified breaches”. It offered no further detail.

City of Liverpool hit back with their own statement, describing that as a “ludicrous allegation”, claiming rent payments of £13,500 plus VAT had been made with the club billed an additional £65.42 under “a technically unclear clause”.

It did not state why the charge had been issued or whether it related to any reasons given for the eviction.

In a message exchange with The NLP, Manning described the £65.42 as “interest payments, which we paid on demand” but declined to comment further.

We received no response when we asked what reasons he had been given for the eviction.

The public statement went on to say City of Liverpool had “repeatedly made ourselves available to take part in the mediation process offered by the NPL (Northern Premier League)” and referred to an “absence of such commitment from anyone at Bootle”.

It continued: “We have now begun to incur significant costs in seeing out this season, in which Bootle FC are contractually committed to hosting our home fixtures, and we will be seeking redress by whatever means appropriate.”

The NPL’s statement confirmed it had attempted to act as mediator and was “disappointed that this offer was not taken up”, vowing to work with City of Liverpool to ensure they see out the season but noting a new groundshare must be in place by March 31 to maintain a place at Step 4.

Doran fielded questions from The NLP but said he was unable to comment.