Meeting

[cornishteddyboy]

I'm surprised no-one has posted about the recent meeting between Truro and it's supporters.

From the Western Morning News 8th November

"Truro City supporters who turned up for a public meeting called last week to discuss the club's future may not have been entirely reassured by what they heard.

On the field of play this term, under the management of former Plymouth Argyle stalwart Lee Hodges, Truro have made a decent start to their first campaign in Blue Square Bet South, the second-highest level of non-League football.

Off the pitch, the Cornish club's remorseless rise has been threatened by the financial problems which lie behind the club's trip to London's High Court last month to attend a winding-up order initiated by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

The tax authorities were held at bay – until January, 16, at least, by which date City must settle their Inland Revenue debt – but there are more pressing problems at Treyew Road. The club's players are not being paid on time, and chairman Kevin Heaney has admitted that outside help is urgently needed.

Heaney, who addressed last week's public meeting's, subsequently told BBC Radio Cornwall: "Because of the winding-up petition, our bank account was frozen. We can only un-freeze it when we've got an agreement with HMRC, and that gives us the ability to collect money in that we're owed and pay money out that we owe."

Heaney has also conceded that Truro's ascent up the football "pyramid" – they were playing South Western League football as recently as 2006 – has progressed faster than their infrastructure and governance has grown.

"The trouble we've had is that in just seven years we've got five promotions, so we've kind of outgrown the set-up," Heaney added. "It's a bit like a young man growing so fast and his mum saying: 'Blimey, your trousers are around your ankles because you've grown so quickly'. The trouble is our trousers are around our knees."

Heaney, who spent the summer engaged in a fruitless quest to front up a takeover bid for Plymouth Argyle, revealed to Truro's supporters that the Football Conference had warned Truro about the need to increase their commercial income and to improve relations with their fans.

At the public meeting, Heaney also pleaded for tangible support from the Cornish business community – and claimed that a successful outcome to the proposal to build a new stadium and share it with Cornish Pirates rugby club is essential to City's hopes of survival in their current guise. "Without the stadium, this club is finished," Heaney stressed. "This club cannot go forward." Hard times lie ahead, it seems."