Battle Royalist (cont) and Mansfield of Bad Dreams

As ever there are a number of clubs who find themselves sailing in choppy waters, though few can be in as much peril as Windsor & Eton or Mansfield Town.    Let's begin, though, with a quick look at some others . . .

I can only imagine the reaction of Bishop's Stortford  to seeing themselves due for a High Court appearance in connection with a winding-up petition from HMRC.  The petition had come about because Basingstoke had missed an agreed payment of outstanding tax to HMRC.  Except that they hadn't: all payments had been made and the petition should not have been served.    Stortford's complaint triggered this response from HMRC: 

"I am sorry to learn about the appearance of the advert in the Gazette. I appreciate that your email of 10th November confirmed electronic transfer had been made; to cover the November instalment. Unfortunately, the payment itself doesn’t trigger any reminder here to move on withdrawal of the advert. In the circumstances HMRC will seek dismissal of the petition, rather than the planned adjournment, at the Hearing on 1 December 2010."

Meanwhile Welling Utd managed this week to have a winding-up petition adjourned, for fourteen days.  The club is in negotiations with potential buyers, but nothing has yet materialised - not enough to be made public, anyway.  Presumably they managed to convince the court that something was in the pipeline.  I'm not so sure, and Wings fans don't seem to be too optimistic, either.

On to the two clubs mentioned at the start of this post.  In each case, there's a dispute between past and current owners.

IN the first case, that of Windsor & Eton, the former owner is also a potential new owner.  There's an outline of their case in the Battle Royalist post of November 5th.   Significant developments there in the last few days.

First, this outburst from current chairman Peter Simpson.  From which this bit caught my eye:

“Our income is £60,000 per year but our expenditure is £200,000. So it almost certainly looks like liquidation and you can’t trade if you are insolvent.

 
If income is just 30% of expenditure, expenditure is far too high.  That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but sadly quite a number of non-league clubs operate in much the same way.   What caught the eye of  more people, however, was another passage from that story:

Royalists, with the financial backing of former vice-chairman Kevin Stott, had been working around the clock to form a business plan to satisfy HMRC. However, Stott decided to pull the plug on Wednesday, leaving Royalists with nowhere else to turn.
It certainly excited Keith Stott's interest - he was quick to speak to another local paper, the Maidenhead Advertiser  but the article doesn't make it clear which part of Simpson's statement is "highly inappropriate and factually incorrect"  and I don't think Stott's words can accurately be described as a "refutation," but this evening's public meeting should see Stott put some more flesh on those bones. The  meeting is going on as I type this.  Windsor & Eton played what could have been their last ever game this afternoon, beating Hednesford 3-2.  There were just 197 people there.

Let's move some way north - and a couple of steps up the pyramid - to Mansfield.

The club was taken over a couple of months ago by "mega-rich local businessman" John Radford.   He almost immediately set about trying to recover money paid out by the previous board - either in dividends, to a remarkable £2.4million when the club didn't appear to be making a profit; or in loans to directors, most of which haven't been repaid.  The beneficiary of those dividends and loans - the greater part off them, anyway - was Keith Haslam, the club's former chairman.  He used a large part of the dividend he received to buy Field Mill off the club, and he has rented it to them ever since.

Mr Radford offered to pay the rent due to Mr Haslam's company - Stags Ltd - into an escrow account while the dispute over the dividends and loans was settled.  Mr Haslam declined the offer and, this week, evicted the club from Field Mill.

It looks as though this will take some time to be settled.  In the meantime, Mansfield are likely to play their home games either at Alfreton or, just possibly, at Hucknall.

The demise of Ilkeston Town and the possible or likely demise of Welling Utd and Windsor & Eton will have implications for relegation further down the pyramid.  I'll address that issue in my next post.