Welcome Scarborough Athletic

[Che's Left Foot]

Town's fans get new football club

Scarborough Football Club, which went bust last week, is to be reborn under the name Scarborough Athletic.

The Seadog Trust, a supporters' group which will run the club, was meeting Northern Counties East League officials to finalise the arrangement on Monday.

They were meeting at Bridlington Town's Queensgate ground, which the new club hopes to share in the 2007/2008 season.

Trust chairman Simon Cope said: "This is the start of the next chapter in the history of football in Scarborough."

The former Football League club was wound up at Leeds High Court last Wednesday in the face of mounting debts which included £820,000 owed to the Inland Revenue.

'Heart of community'

Mr Cope said: "It is time now to put the past behind us.

"All of us at Seadog Trust would like to express their thanks to Ian Scobbie [club chairman] for his efforts to save Scarborough FC...but we feel that a new club owned by fans is the best, if not only way forward.

"Now more than ever we would urge football supporters in Scarborough to join the trust and have their say in the development of Scarborough Athletic.

"We, the football fans of Scarborough, are in a position to create a football club which stands at the heart of the town's community."

He said the trust was now focusing on creating a team for the 2007/2008 season and had drawn up a shortlist of managerial candidates who would be contacted "over the coming days".

Mr Cope said: "Although nothing concrete has yet been confirmed we hope to be holding trials at some stage to give the football players of the community every chance to be part of a true community club."

The trust is to host an open forum for fans at the St Nicholas Hotel in Scarborough at 2000 BST on Thursday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/6237112.stm

 

[RobM]

Did they do a Ken Bates and write the debts off for 1p in the £1 ?

 

[Cricko2]

Did they do a Ken Bates and write the debts off for 1p in the £1 ?

No, they went bust and there assets, which I believe is there ground is being sold to help any creditors. This is quite ironic actually, because it will probaly end up being built on which is what the "Old" club wanted to do with it anyway, to survive.

This is a completely new Football Club and good luck to them.

 

[Mr. Benedict]

Good luck to them, hopefully they can get back on their feet and find a new home in Scarborough before long.

 

[Jonny_Stokes]

Superb news. Some clubs just aren't allowed to 'do a Leeds' (presumably because they're not 'big' enough). I wsh them all the luck.

 

[Mr. Benedict]

I heard on the grapevine that the next non-league club to fall will be Margate, rumour has it that they have not been honouring their CVA and the Inland Revenue has issued a winding up order... over a matter of hundreds (not thousands) of pounds...

 

[Firestorm]

Superb news. Some clubs just aren't allowed to 'do a Leeds' (presumably because they're not 'big' enough). I wsh them all the luck.

In fairness, Scarbro' could have "done a leeds" had they been able to secure a buyer whilst in administration. basically they were screwed once plans to develop the mcCain (surely the shortest lived stadium in football history) for housing and move out of town were scuppered.

Its always going to be hard coming up out of Non League football. The costs escalate yet unless there is not a lot of existing league football in the area (yeovil for example) the gats just do not increase enough. Look at Macclesfield, I reckon anyone who wanted to watch league football in Macclesfield was already going to one of the many clubs in that area before they went up, and their gates are poor.

It will be interesting to see what Daggers gates will be like, I feel that as all the main local club is selling out most weeks they will be a viable alternative, I wonder if they will take any "floating football fans" from Orient