Ground grading

[brighton_rebel]

Doing an article on ground-grading and want to know of any situations where clubs have been penalised for ridiculous rules, or forced into putting in facilities that will never get used (such as Beaconsfield having an extra set of turnstiles at the far end of their ground; have they ever been open?).

[Guest chris-sliski]

hi Warren ..if I remember one of the non league papers a few weeks back were doing a similar thing..they were pressing the authorities to change there way of thinking ... ie its better to have a 3000 capacity stadium with all the modern ammenities for the supporters than have a basic 6000 stadium ...so hopefully some light will come from this ....

 

if i get any other info ..i will pass it on..cheers chris s

[Guest Anonymous]

I guess a couple of the memorable ones in the past would be St Albans being denied suitable grading when they won promotion to the Conference because of the Oak Tree behind the goal which could not be taken down due to a preservation order. Likewise Chesham when the Conference refused grading due to the traffic access to the ground which they were unable to alter. Neither would actually have had any genuinely negative bearing on the progress of the clubs in that League.

[GarySTFC]

BR - talk to any Wealdstone fan about ground grading. You'll have a page on them alone.

[Windsor_Sec]

Or Lewes for grass banks that you weren't allowed to stand on anyway!

 

How about the clubs that have achieved gradings even though they blatantly don't have the required amenities though? Has anybody seen a turnstile at Winchester? Or a fence completely enclosing the ground at Abingdon?

[GarySTFC]

Winchester has a turnstile block. They even used it, briefly, when we went there a few weeks back!

[brighton_rebel]

Did Slough get thrown out of the conference because of the lack of seats, or was it because of the financial mess the club was in?

[Martin]

My understanding is that the issue that the Conference took exception to was the lack of 50 seats. This meant that we fell foul of the Ground Grading Criteria and were therefore demoted. The financial problems behind the scenes and the fact that the Thornes were withdrawing their support were an added bonus.

[Guest Anonymous]

Walton Casuals FC had a visit from ground assessors and were told

that their newly fitted seats did not have numbers on them. Instead of allowing them to number the seats while they were there , they made them wait over two months before coming back and passing the ground with just a couple of weeks before the season started

 

rebels on tour

[Crazy Fool]

I could be wrong martin, but I thought that because it was only 50 seats, it was down to the other clubs to vote to keep us in.

Telford abstained, as they would benefit. Beliwve woking and a few other 'local' voted for us (not farnborough though), and the rest voted us out. Again, i could be wrong

[Barry Scott]

yup, the ground was 51 seats short and the decision to keep us in was put to a vote. We, with a large number of northern clubs not fancying the trip down here, inevitably lost said vote and have been on a slippery slope ever since

[Matt]

I thought it was 49 seats... not that it makes a huge difference!

[Barry Scott]

I can't remember, it was a long time ago!

[Martin]

There was definitely a vote and the Northern clubs voted en masse to demote us but I thought they were ratifying the decision of the Conference board. I did try and Google this but very few sites have any information.

[Guest BBChris]

I remember that season well. Gateshead (with their 10,000 all-seater International Stadium) were deep in the relegation mire and reported a couple of clubs for not having enough seats in their main stand. We built a mini stand extension to the stand extension (if that makes sense, it's the seats at the front of the more modern part of our main stand).

 

I have no idea how we voted at the end of the season although I believe it ended up saving Telford after we survived on the last day with a win at Morecambe. Wasn't it also Slough's best ever Conference finish of about 5th?

 

 

[BFR]

We finished 8th that season. Our 5th place finish came the year W**scum went up

[Bernie Gogan]

Erm, I think the main reason why we were demoted was that the Thornes weren't going to fund the club anymore and there was therefore a probability we wouldn't be able to complete the season.

 

The extra seats were certainly an issue but I seem to remember the council was ready to install them if the owners were prepared to carry on.

[Barry Scott]

The way I read the story was the the council did turn up on the day of the FA inspection with the seats and equipment and manpower to get them installed by the deadline, only to find that Mayfair had locked up the gates to the stadium... which were then re-opened when the inspectors arrived