The latest from Chairman Ben Clasper, from the programme of our Home game against Slough Town on Saturday, March 19th.

Well, we made it. This past week saw us complete 75% of the league fixtures and in doing so reach the threshold set by the league last summer for the season to be deemed complete in the event of the ongoing pandemic bringing games to a halt again. And looking at the latest numbers it may be just in time. With the Government removing all covid restrictions it is highly unlikely that it will be a lockdown that stops matches going ahead in future but it is more likely that infections could trigger an increase in postponements with outbreaks leaving clubs short of players. I think even that is low risk though due to a shift with the lifting of restrictions to the point that testing, reporting and isolating for infected individuals and their close contacts is now so discretionary that we have truly crossed over into the Government’s preferred approach of treating this like flu or other similar infections.

As we approach the end of the season we have a run of games coming up that will determine whether we can get back into the play-off positions as there is no hiding from the fact that our recent form is the reason we have dropped out of those spots in the last week and we will need to see an upturn in performances to reverse that. We won the corresponding fixtures earlier in the season against each of the next three opponents starting with our visitors today from Slough Town after which we visit Concord Rangers and Bath City so we won’t have a better opportunity than this to start the fight back.

Off the pitch we have some important notices on events that have happened and are coming up.

You may recall from an earlier programme that the club had finally secured the legal agreement to deliver the new stadium by executing the section 106 agreement with Southwark Council and you may also recall that it came with a warning that we were aware that one or more individuals who were happy to participate in the open and fair debate during the planning process were not happy to accept the outcome (unless of course it favoured them, in which case I have no doubt their conclusion was that the process had been perfectly fair). We have been issued this week with a letter before action against Southwark Council in advance of a judicial review to contest the decision. It is not clear to what extent this letter before action is endorsed by the group named in the claimant section and so I will revisit the facts in the next programme once they have been established.

But please, be in no doubt, this action is an attempt to prevent a new stadium from going ahead and so once again places at immediate threat the future of our entire football club, the ability of our men’s team to play on, the ability of our women’s teams to continue in their current form and the new youth teams we had planned for next season. This was a month in which we hoped to secure an agreement to play in and renovate our current stadium to ensure it can limp over the line but will instead be a month in which we have to assess the level of risk and so sadly ask you all to be ready to fight for your club.

Those of you that know me and have spoken to me I hope have seen that I have always tried to run a fair, ethical and transparent football club to the benefit of its local community and encouraged that same approach to the stadium planning process ready to accept a decision made independently and objectively by those appointed on behalf of our borough. I expected others to treat the process, their community and their local representatives with the same respect and so will take some time out before commenting further on their behaviour and avoid writing something I will later regret.

Quite frankly we all deserve better than this. I love what this club is and stands for and I firmly believe it is something that should be loved and cared for so that it can serve and entertain the community for generations to come. We had been on the brink for years and it was only you, in your thousands, making your voices heard that brought us back from that brink but sadly we live in a world where one individual with an expensive lawyer thinks it is their right to try to silence those voices.

We go again.