The Chairman Speaks - From the Boardroom v Brightlingsea Regent

Chairman Liam Hickey's article in the Match Day Programmes vs Brightlingsea Regent

Good afternoon everybody and thank you for taking time away from Christmas shopping to be here at Champion Hill this afternoon.
I would firstly like to extend a very warm welcome to our visitors from Brightlingsea Regent and hope that everybody associated with them has an enjoyable time at Champion Hill. We pride ourselves on our warm welcome so let’s not disappoint.
I would also like to welcome all our guests that have taken advantage of our community ticket offers and the various mascots and player escorts here today. You and your families are most welcome.
Additionally, I would like to welcome our large number of ex players joining us today. It is great to have so many fondly remembered players with us today.
It’s also our Christmas Party tonight in the bar after the game so please hang around. As usual, the Supporters’ Trust have done us proud in running this.
It would be nice for me to be able to write something about football on the pitch, but my life is dominated by the off the pitch issues at present. First, the good news. The players were all paid on time in November from the club’s cashflow the PAYE was all brought up to date. The VAT bill has been paid as well and so have our suppliers.
We were handed back a bank account to run without the good practice of having set this money aside and, whilst we run the club, this will not happen again once we have all the finances sorted out.
It is certainly a struggle to stay self-sufficient especially when you find bills that were outstanding that the funders forgot to mention. We still have a way to go before we are fully stable so if you can continue to spare some change for the 12th Man.
However, I am writing this having received an ultimatum from our ex funders, and now landlords, that unless the club signs a new licence to use the stadium by Thursday just gone then we will not be allowed to use the stadium: so if you are reading this in the programme then this proved an idle threat.
This seems a particularly strange stance as in the last meeting with Meadow Residential they advised that they wanted our support to bring the council back to the table to talk about the development. Issuing threats seems a strange way to get people onside.
On top of that, we have now been invoiced for three years back rent and costs associated with the stadium upkeep. Apparently, this will not be enforced but “had” to be issued. It’s to the tune of around £120000 and I can’t see why it “had” to be issued if it is not to be enforced.
Frankly, the feeling I have is of a club being held as a hostage to try to elicit a ransom, in the form of an agreement to the development, from the council. This is not the way to bring a local authority, especially one that has unanimously expressed its support for the club, back to the table to talk.
Anyway, on the pitch things are still going well despite the unlucky defeat to Enfield Town last week. It would be fair to say that I’m not expecting too many goals to be given this season where the ball is so clearly knocked from the keeper’s grasp by an aerial challenge, or penalties to be denied for blatant handball to prevent a goal. Well, in fact, I hope that’s the only game where those decisions are given against us.
I would like to close by thanking the Football Committee as a whole, and Tom Cullen & Rav Anand in particular, for their support in these troubled times. It is also great to have such a supportive Football Management Team so a big thank you to Gavin & Junior.
Finally, to you our passionate and generous fans, thank you for your continued support. The club will always belong to the fans. Whoever may own it should respect that it is fans that are the stakeholders in clubs and act in their best interests at all times.
Enjoy the game and I hope to see all of you back for one last pre Christmas get together on the 23rd.

Liam