Pitchero Non League

....High Court to secure its place in Division One of the STL Northern League.

In those proceedings, the club primarily seek a declaration that Billingham Town Football Club (the unincorporated association) is the proper entity of the club.

At 7.17 am this morning chairman Richard Bloomfield received an e-mail from the chairman of the Northern League.

The important part of that e-mail states: “After exhaustive research, and after seeking advice, we have concluded, on the evidence currently available to us, that the member club is Billingham Town FC, an unincorporated association. No evidence exists to show that the league has approved a change to that status.”

In the light of that concession, the club will invite the league to agree to the declaration that the Club seeks and to pay the costs of the legal proceedings.

Club chairman Richard Bloomfield said: “This is good news for the club but not quite the end of the road.

“I have had a policy of keeping the chairman of the league informed of what has been going on. Through the chairman, the league has known about this issue since February and I raised this directly the FA on 20th February.

“On 12th March the FA’s League & Clubs Manager Mike Appleby wrote to me saying `As far as I am concerned I would have to agree with your views in that, if Billingham Town FC is the entity name registered with the Northern League and there has been no change approved then clearly they remain the member.`

“The chairman informed me that he personally had read all the relevant documents from 1996 to date and that the League Secretary went to County Records Office and read those for 1994-1996. Neither could find anything to support the proposition that a change of status from the unincorporated association to the limited company had ever been approved.

“That information was known as long ago as 5th April and before we attended before the management committee.

“Despite there being no evidence at all to suggest that the limited company was rightly registered as the proper entity of the club, the management committee prevaricated.

“I have previously been informed that – wrongly – the limited company had been registered by the league as the playing entity.

“I still await the explanation that I have repeatedly asked for as to how the playing entity came to be changed by the League. Sadly, I do not expect ever to receive this explanation.”

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