Thursday, September 09, 2010

Ilkeston Town Wound Up

... at lunchtime today in London's High Court - check out this excellent article for more details ...

Ilson Town wound up

... and yes it's strange isn't it that the "rich" (in this case Sheffield Wednesday) can STILL get away with it, while the lesser lights are forced out of business. OK, people will say that if you pay your bills whether you're a football club - or just Joe Public - you'll be fine ... but when the sums involve equate to little more than 40 trips to see a "high class lady" in a "high class hotel" (allegedly), you can see the damage that companies such as Sky TV have done to football in this country, helping to concentrate the cash at the top and causing untold damage to attendances countrywide in their own greedy pursuit of the "football pound". You get the FA wobbling on about "grass roots football" - yet you still end up with 95% of the money going to 5% of the football clubs in this country (those figures aren't official - but I bet thery're not far off the mark).

In the same way that Hyde United stayed afloat recently - I hope Ilkeston Town do as well - I've some good mates down Ilson way, and I've always enjoyed my trips down to the New Manor Ground. I suppose it's now up to the real fans to organise - whilst it might only be half-a-weeks wages to many Premiership players, £50k IS a lot for mere mortals to raise - and they've only seven days to do it. An appeal has gone in as far as I'm aware - a Facebook page has been set up - it would be nice to think there is a knight in shining armour out there (Robert Lindsay - "Citizen Smith", "My Family" etc is an Ilson boy, and I believe Spurs' Jermaine Jenas has connections as well - I may be wrong) ... but the problem sometimes with a lot of these these KISA type people is that they walk away - maybe the way forward is to regroup at a lower level and work your way back up - I believe the local Erewash Council own the ground and are fully supportive of football continuing one way or another.

Good luck to all at Ilkeston Town - my fingers are firmly crossed for a positive outcome to this whole sorry affair.
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