Atherstone Town FC hopes for swift return with maintenance plan close to completion

Vice-chair Maria Beale is hopeful Atherstone Town will soon be back home with officials close to completing maintenance work requested by North Warwickshire Borough Council.

The club, which plays in the ninth tier of English football, got kicked out of its council-owned Sheepy Road headquarters on January 5, less than 24 hours before a home fixture, after the entity that held the lease – ATCFC Management Committee Limited – was dissolved.

The day-to-day running of the club goes through Atherstone Town CFC Limited, which was passed over to the current committee by exiting chair Nick Corbett at the back end of November. The timing of the closure of the firm with the lease was described as an “admin error” by the club.

Since then, officials have been trying to tick all the boxes to satisfy the council to sign off a new deal.

It has emerged this week that included an action plan in relation to maintenance, something the club was responsible for under the old lease.

Ms Beale was unable to offer a definitive timescale over when the Midland Football League Premier Division outfit could get back to normal but Wednesday’s League Cup tie at Lichfield City and upcoming league matches against Stourport Swifts (Saturday, January 20) and Highgate United (Saturday, January 27) have been reversed.

“The council is working with us but we have a few actions to see through before they will issue the lease,” said Ms Beale.

“We had already been working on a lot of it and are working through the rest of the action plan, we have got a fair way through it. Now it is a matter of time, it is looking promising that we will be back in shortly but we just don’t know when.

“We are very optimistic that it will be resolved soon. We are having regular meetings with the council, pretty much daily.

“There is support from our local councillors and our MP, that is still there. We have managed to reverse the fixtures and once we are back in, we know we will still have those home games.

“We hadn’t played away games against the teams that we were due to host this month so that has gone in our favour as well.”

She added that there was no immediate threat to the existence of the club despite the financial pressures caused by the situation, particularly welcome news in the week that homeless neighbours Nuneaton Borough withdrew from the Southern League, although a Crowdfunder page is being planned “in case we need a back up”.

“We have been hit financially without the home games, that is how we generate our money, but we know we will get those back once we are in,” said Ms Beale, who reflected on a “really positive” open meeting and question-and-answer session with fans on Sunday.

She also insisted the club had no qualms with the council.

“We are working really well with the council,” she added. “They are doing what they need to do and we totally understand that these things need to be addressed and done.”

Atherstone’s next scheduled home match is against Highgate on Saturday, February 3, a straight swap of two fixtures in eight days against each other.

The home fixture originally took place in August but was abandoned at half-time with Highgate refusing to play on after goalkeeper Reece Francis was subjected to a racist remark from a member of the crowd.

The incident was acknowledged and dealt with by Adders officials but resulted in playing two matches behind closed doors.