Scarborough FC - It's Do Or Die....

I for one couldn't imagine life without the Millers, this is very much the same for Derek Megginson at Scarborough. Derek has been on the supporters club committee at the McCain Stadium for some time and up until pre season was the programme editor. Now the club face the all too common problem of going out of business.

Since entering the Football League in 1987 and enjoying 12 years hovering around the lower divisions, 1998 saw the Seadogs issue an ultimatum and spend for success- it backfired, as Derek reflects: "we dropped out of a promotion place in the last few weeks of the season, then made a total cock-up of the play-offs" he says. "The following year we had big problems with injuries and just couldn't get going, even though we were still paying wages we couldn't afford. It came down to the last day of the season, when Carlisle's on-loan goalkeeper Jimmy Glass famously went upfield for an injury-time corner and scored the goal which kept Carlisle up and meant relegation for us".

'Boro then went through a number of Chairmen and were left to pick up the pieces, with John Russell and a name we all know down at Millmoor, Anton Johnson. Derek continues: "The club is now being run on a realistic and businesslike footing by the current chairman, but there are so many historic debts (nearly £2 million run up in those Football League days) that the club is on danger of going under. We are in a CVA, we have a ten-point deduction from the Nationwide Conference, and we are under a transfer embargo by the F.A. which means we have been unable to sign players (loan, non-contract or even work-experience) since the start of the season.

"Our only hope is this: we sell the ground for housing, and use the money (a) to pay off our debts and (b) to build a small out-of-town stadium. The chairman has been working on this for some time."

Of course the Millers went through a CVA last season, with creditors voting in our favour by the skin of our teeth. The future doesn't look hopeful for Scarborough however. although the football club owns its own ground, the local council placed a "covenant" on it in 1960, stipulating that the site could only be used for sporting purposes (i.e. not a supermarket or a housing estate). In order to move to a new stadium, the football club needs the council to repeal this covenant so that it can sell the ground to a house-building company. In actual fact, it needs the Council to move the covenant from the present site to the new stadium, to ensure that Scarborough Football Club can continue.

Derek continues the story: "At the meeting of our Borough Council's "Cabinet" this week, they received a report from their Head of Planning Services which advised them to agree to the removal of the covenant. For some reason they went against the advice of their own salaried officials and voted to refer the decision to a future meeting. However the football club is currently in a CVA, and there is a creditors' meeting on Friday which had been expecting to hear the news that the Council had approved the lifting of the covenant and therefore that the football club would soon be able to pay all its debts.