THE DECISION to exclude Chester City from the Football Conference and to expunge their points has left Grays Athletic rooted at the bottom of the table.
With just eleven games to go, Grays are on a measly eighteen points, nine points behind second from bottom Forest Green Rovers and fourteen points from safety.
Boss Julian Dicks has indicated that the team are preparing for life in the Conference South and will be going part time next season.
Problems are further compounded by the goalposts shifting somewhat regarding where the team will be playing next season.
Later last year the club announced that they had reached an agreement to stay at the New Rec for two more years but last week announced that they were in emergency discussions as to where they can play next year.
Relationships with the local community hit another low when the Chairman of the Supporters Trust, John Taylor resigned after, according to sources, being subjected to a barrage of foul mouthed abuse by the new owner of the club, Andy Swallow.
The club were also forced to take down a statement on their new website that threatened under-performing players with physical violence.
Who was threatening under-performing players – was it a poster on the forum or the club itself? A very serious allegation.
Dont worry our lawyers are watching and this will be dealt with
The Doove, the statement was a peice on the main website under the new Sponsors page which stated that Old friends from the ICF would invade the pitch and give the players a slap if they did not perform, I beleive that it was meant to be a tongue in cheek remark but probably with hindsight should never have appeared in the public domain.
Unfortunatley it would now appear that GAFC have lost one of the revenue streams with RIS now pulling the sponsorship deal due to alleged calls to their office regarding the ICF comment, the club are leveliing this withdrawal firmly on YourThurrock for reporting on the ICF comment, personally the comment should never have appeared on the Grays website and whilst to some it may have been a throw away comment it was certainly in bad taste especially when we are supposed to be bringing football back to the community and eliminating the hooligan elements from the sport.
Hopefully this can all be resolved and both GAFC and YourThurrock can get back to developing the community spirit within Thurrock and get GAFC back to winning ways.
Totally disagree, another witch hunt but this time they wont win,
The Board, don’t get me wrong, I am not stating what is right or wrong with this press release and I am only commenting on the ICF bit, I personaly feel that the comment made on a public site, whilst may have been a lighthearted remark, was open to criticism from within the press and the football community especialy from the negative press that has always followed the ICF.
I just hope that GAFC can move on from this and start to build for the future.