The Championship League 2007-2008.

In my New Year's Message I said I was confident we could achieve the near impossible and thanks to Nigel, Andy, Ian, Tony and Guy and a monumental effort from all our players, we did just that. Last Saturday at Charlton was a most amazing day and made us all realise and appreciate how far we have progressed in the last few years. You, the fans have played an enormous part in our success and with your help we can establish ourselves as a worthy Championship League club.

Everyone will be disappointed that we let Billy Sharp return to his old club a year before his contract expired, but I hope our fans will appreciate that Billy played a huge part in our success and I, for one, would not wish to deny him the opportunity of a lifetime.

We have many exciting new league fixtures to look forward to and if the performance against Charlton is anything to go by, we will give a good account of ourselves and prove all the bookies wrong!

We have recently had a meeting with the North Lincolnshire Council Planning department and they can see no problems with our proposed development for the Study United Stand. We are now preparing more detailed plans and will very soon be submitting a planning application. We are however, at the same time, giving very serious consideration to a new stadium within the possible Lakes project, as this may be supported by our Local Authority and would be a wonderful opportunity to play a part in a very ambitious and progressive scheme. A major development such as this would mean no large amounts of money being spent on the existing stadium and it could take some years for the new stadium to become a reality, if at all. What we must do now is proceed with a planning application to develop the Study United Stand whilst still exploring all possibilities for a new stadium. There will then come a time, possibly before the end of this year, when a decision will have to be made on which way we are to proceed. Whilst I am sure we would all dearly like a new stadium I would not support any move which saddled the club with unmanageable debt and I would be reluctant to become tenants of a council owned property even if they were generous enough to build one for us!

That is for the future. Let us enjoy our first season back in the second tier of English football after an absence of 43 years and myself and my fellow directors will do all we can to support Nigel and his team to remain in this league for many more years to come.

"UP THE IRON"

Steve Wharton
Chairman