Can anyone advise me as to the progress of the Town Ground Improvements? ie. The Lights - last comment from Sec 28th Jan and also the - New Changing Rooms the latter a topic which, to my knowledge, has not been brought up before on this site.

Steve

In answer to your question about the lights situation, I think I am right in saying that it is all in the lap of the Phone company to make any repairs to the top pylon. This unfortunately does not seem to be being done after several promises.

As for the changing room situation, we dont seem any closer now than we did 5 years ago.

Probably the Department at the Council dealing with it are the same as the one making decisions to call off football matches a day too early.


One day we may learn the TRUTH !!!!!!

Don't put your wages on it Mick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is there anyone from the club, (Sec) perhaps or even The Chairman who can answer my question which, apart from the post from Mick, appears to be of little interest to the suppoprters and looks to have fallen by the wayside ranking well below the topic of clean banter!!!!

it is of interest to the supporters but is there any point writing about the lights when we do not know what is happening, and are just making haphazard guesses? hopefully they will be fixed soon after reading mr. wilton's report but who knows?? its light at 5pm now anyway so we could ko at 3pm.

With regard to the improvements, the Borough Council are not without blame here. If 'Dragging Your Feet' was an Olympic sport, it would be Gold for AVBC. Various plans have been submitted and re-submitted. There has seemed to me to be a lack of desire at the Council in the past to help push this through. I don't, however, know the situation at the moment.

The other problem is the Northern Counties East League and their rediculous grading requirements. The last time I heard, they were insisting that the cricket side of the pitch be totally closed off with a temporary fence, a covered walkway onto the pitch from the changing rooms and other expensive rubbish.

Other leagues at the same level, i.e. one or two leagues up from us, do not have such stringent requirements. The NCEL is a joke. The vast majority of clubs a in their Division 1 have around 30 people watching them every week and yet they insist on thousands upon thousands of pounds being spent to cater for non-existant supporters.

You might also speculate that the club is holding fire until the CMFL is regraded upwards to level 6 (the equivalent of NCEL 1) in the coming restructure, which is quite possible. The likelyhood would be that the expensive ground improvements insited on by the NCEL wouldn't be enforced to the same degree by our current league. The club would be allowed to participate in the FA Cup again and the serious money wouldn't have to be spent until promotion to either the NCEL Prem or a new Midland Division was a possibility.

This isn't a definitive statement on what's happening, just a personal opinion.

permission was granted for the development late summer 2004. i think you will find its probably down to the club.

I'm convinced that the reason Heanor Town has never gone anyway is down to the chairman and the board being content with the level the club is playing at. even if Heanor were to win the league as they did when Bill Fossey was at the helm I doubt they would be promoted because the club do not want the expense of going up a league. Proof is in the pudding as other teams who were once at Heanor's level have now left Heanor in the shadows. Because the clubs lacks ambition some of the great players who have left Heanor have moved because the club have not shared their ambition. SOMEONE TELL ME IF I AM WRONG??

correcto my fellow in-named friend.

never a more true and 100% message posted than the above! right on pal!

Not disagreeing that there may be an element of truth in what you're saying, but I think you'll find it genuinely is the council who keep moving the goalposts. (pardon the pun) I know for certain that last season the chairman had to produce around 6 sets of drawing for the changing room complex and after each submission the council have asked for ammendments. The club have been told on numerous occasions that the work was going to start but it never does. The council own the ground (well actually the people of Heanor own the ground) and want to be in control of everything on it, without putting any effort or money in.

be different if it was for the cricket club right kipster?

Anonymous wrote:

Not disagreeing that there may be an element of truth in what you're saying, but I think you'll find it genuinely is the council who keep moving the goalposts. (pardon the pun) I know for certain that last season the chairman had to produce around 6 sets of drawing for the changing room complex and after each submission the council have asked for ammendments. The club have been told on numerous occasions that the work was going to start but it never does. The council own the ground (well actually the people of Heanor own the ground) and want to be in control of everything on it, without putting any effort or money in.

As I understand it planning permission was granted for the new changing rooms on 9th August 2004 Planning application No AVA 2004/0791 and the plans attached were from a firm by the name of Terrapin so why more plans or is this a red herring? Have a look yourself on AVBC website

Can we have clarification from the "horses mouth" or at least a "jockey"

There's no doubt that moving up a league would be expensive for us.

We'd end up paying for officials from a much wider area than we do at present, most teams visiting us would only bring a handful of supporters so there would be a loss of income on the gate from the level we have now and travelling to Pontefract, Tadcaster, etc might involve hiring a coach.

We are in the comfort zone in this league but my personal opinion is that a club of our pedigree and tradition should be playing at least two leagues higher than we are.

Our old local rivals from the Midland League days have maintained themselves at a good level of football and it does frustrate me to see us muddling along at the level we are at. Unfortunately, local people and companies are hardly queuing up to put money into the club which might enable us to mount a couple of promotion bids. We'd have to completely overhaul the team - we'd get kicked to death and muscled out of it in the NCEL - and that would cost money.

this is our level and always will be , we could never get the following that alfreton, hucknall and ilkeston get, moving up leagues would not bring the fans back, fact is the old fans have passed away and the younger ones are not interested with local footy, moving up without the gates or funds would ruin us, heanor town died years ago as did the market and the shops, if it werent for tesco it would be a ghost town. unless we found a wealthy local business man or company then forget it , people have tried for years without success, just enjoy what we've got , i gave up after the fossey era , hurts but its true.