Mossley in the mire

MOSSLEY Football Club is in danger of dying after local undertaker and benefactor Steve Astley quit as chairman.

The Lilywhites, who are heavily in debt, are involved in a desperate battle for survival after the resignations of Mr Astley, vice-chairman Les Fitton and commercial director Phil Beckwith.

Mr Astley, who has ploughed £70,000 into the football side during his 18 months in the chair, predicts a bleak future.

He said: “The truth is that I cannot see any future for Mossley Football Club under its current leadership. And I am not prepared to put money into a limited company which is failing.”

Mr Astley stresses that, though he was chairman of the football club, he was not a director and has never been involved with the limited company which runs the club as a whole.

The limited company has debts of around £20,000 and there are fears that it might be forced into receivership or liquidation.

In that event the only way to save the football club would be to form a committee and petition Tameside Council to take over the lease of the Seel Park ground which is currently held by the limited company.

Mr Astley added that the club cannot afford to keep relying on a benefactor such as the Rigby family - who were in charge for 10 years - or himself.

He said: “The last thing the club needs is a Sugar Daddy because the problems would still be there when that person walks away in the future.

“The way forward is to have a positive, structured plan, and one in which the club does not have to rely on one individual.”

Mossley enjoyed 10 years of stability and success between 1997 and 2007 when the Rigby family took charge of a club which was heavily in debt and teetering on the edge of going out of business.

When they stood down for health reasons, five supporters took over the club but within six months the Lilywhites were back in financial trouble.

That is when Mr Astley stepped in to become chairman, though he never became a director of the limited company.

Of the five original directors only Mark Griffin and Mike Chamley remain, neither of them being available for comment.