A mystery benefactor has thrown Shifnal’s football club a lifeline by agreeing to buy its ground for £30,000.
Shifnal Town will now lease its Phoenix Park home back from the buyer at a peppercorn rent and plough the proceeds of the sale back into the cash-strapped club.
Club officials are remaining tightlipped about the identity of the buyer, describing him only as “a Shropshire businesman”.
The sale of the ground brings to an end another chapter in the troubled history of Shifnal Town which lost its former ground Admirals Park in the mid-’80s.
The then Bridgnorth District Council sold off the ground for housing and the club faced the prospect of being homeless.
Shifnal played its last match in the Banks’s West Midlands League in May 1986 but eventually found its new Phoenix Park home, the ground’s name marking the club’s rise from the ashes of near collapse.
It relaunched as a County League side but the troubles did not end there as in March 2005 then chairman and now president Glyn Davies said Shifnal Town faced a battle to survive.
He said cash flow problems had made the day-to-day running of the club increasingly difficult.
Ron Finney, match secretary, said last November that the sale of the ground was a good way of getting finance into the club.
He added: “We could do with aninjection of capital to help us go forward.”
Club secretary Derek Groucott confirmed today that a buyer had been found.
He said: “We have found a buyer and they have agreed to lease it back for a peppercorn rent.
“The lease is for 50 years and will be on-going after that.
“We have sold it for £30,000 to someone who wants to remain anonymous. It is a Shropshire businessman.” The club had tried to sell Phoenix Park to the town council and rent it back in a similar deal but councillors rejected the idea.
Councillor Tom Jones, from Shifnal Town Council, had voted against buying the land for £30,000.
He said: “We were asked to watch every item of money that we were going to pay out and I believe it’s too much to pay out under the conditions that they set out.”
