As I understand it, the arrear was due to the club being unhappy with the terms of the rent, ie paying more for less usage (terms which were agreed when AFCHT found itself playing in the Park Lane High Monday Night 6-a-side league, when they could only overcharge their faithful following by so much, and so there was an obvious need to cut their cloth in all areas). That was certainly the way it was portrayed by Fax, or perhaps that was a ruse to ward away rumours of financial struggles.

Either way, the partnership is imbalanced. 17 years on, and I as a Fax fan feel no more welcome at The New Shay today as I did in 1998. We are still there as the Football club's invite...or sufferance. I can't see this changing. Not whilst the Football club is followed by the degenerates that follow it, partisan as they are. Bubba, you can pretend to be the intelligent facade of that following all you want, and you accuse others as being deluded and unintelligent. Well your parochial undercurrent is obviously clouding your own rational thought...you can't see the muddy pitch for the trees. Flo's Boots has you nailed, Shaun the Wolf!

Im sure as part of the offer it means only one team playing on the pitch..........

This could be seen as a deliberated pre meditated discriminatory action against one of the current tenants concerning a community asset.

If the Rugby club had suggested such a thing there's no need to go over the response from Town supporters and us for that matter.

Even the suggestion shows the intent, I wonder if the proposer will be subjected to any short of backlash as members of the Rugby club have been?

I'm not sure that would solve the problem in any case, the pitch was in a mess before Fax set foot on it.

Fax have played just 2 home games and if the water had been drained away properly shouldn't have made that much difference.

Of course it's a seasonal and drainage problem as much as a usage problem.

As soon as the dryer weather comes along there is no problem, the pitch is fine when Fax have finished playing on it but not when they start playing on it and that is not down to them.

Back to the cash problem, can the funds be raised from JOINT sponsorship and voluntary contributions or is it too much because the Council will not be paying for it so if not it will stay as it is.

The problem with the New Shay is that the council will not spend a lot of cash simply to keep the 3000 or so people that go there on a regular basis happy. Hell they cant even run the place at a profit which in itself is simply amazing given the potential that is there. It either needs the right person to come in and do it for them or for the council to get their act together, neither which looks likely in the near future.

As an ex Chairman of a local rugby club my main priority was always to look after the main asset of the club which was the pitch! This was the reason for being there and with no games there was no revenue for the club from playing subs, the bar, use of the clubhouse etc. Annual spend always had pitch maintenance top of the list and that was usually around £10k p.a. ironically my hardest decision, from a personal point of view, was turning Fax down from training on the pitches whilst this work was going on etc. My successor carried on with this philosophy and now Fax do train on there-so it can be done with the right amount of money, dedicated groundstaff, and planned approach. In my eyes the council will not prioritise an asset that draws in only 3k spectators out of a population of 150kpeople? The onus to me is to set up a joint scheme between the two town teams to get the pitch sorted to the standard required for BOTH clubs.(You can see the proof of the pudding next time you drive past Heath RUFC pitches at West Vale.)If the club(s) or council wanted any help to get this off the ground I would be more than happy to volunteer to get this initiative up and running.