Lewes supporter
New member
- May 6, 2004
- 1
I know that many of you have supported Lewes FC from time to time over the past few years, and I believe that you don’t really think that we support the antagonistic attitude of our council with regard to Falmer. In fact I have yet to find a Lewes supporter not in favour of the stadium, and many of us have e-mailed Mr Prescott urging him to approve the plans. Now we need your help with something relatively minor by comparison but which is nevertheless a grave injustice. The people who run the Ryman league are determined that we should not progress to the Conference south division, and they are making it as difficult as possible for us to do so, which has involved changing the rules overnight this week to ensure that we have the hardest task imaginable in the play-offs in which we are currently engaged. We have contacted the FA but the signs are not promising in that they believe that we have been wronged but it seems unlikely that they will use their power to effect immediate change (the last play-off match is on Saturday) All that is left for us to do is to e-mail Theo Paphitis, chairman of league sponsors Ryman, in order to heighten awareness of our plight. Please cut and paste what is below into an e-mail, put Attn Theo Paphitis in the subject line and send it to:
queries@lasenza.co.uk
webmaster@millwallplc.com
queries@ryman.co.uk
We really need your support on this one, so please take a couple of minutes to do this for us.
Dear Mr Paphitis
I am a supporter of Lewes Football Club in the Ryman Division 1 South. I would like you to be aware of the scandalous and disgraceful way my club has been treated by the Board of the Ryman League. I cannot believe that you would want your company to be associated with the appalling injustice that they have visited on my club overnight.
The winner of our division (Lewes) has been entered into a play-off system to allow us to enter the new Conference South next season. The original plan meant that we would be required to win 3 games to win promotion:
1st match v. our sister division 1 North champions (Yeading) venue to be decided on the toss of a coin
2nd match v. the best placed Premier league team (Basingstoke Town) away
3rd match Basingstoke or Lewes at home against either Kingstonian (17th) or Harrow B (18th).
This schedule was sent to every club by the Ryman League (I have a copy if you require) and it also appeared on the official Ryman League website until this morning.
There was no coin toss for our Yeading match and we were forced to play away, but we won 1-0 on Monday, anyway. Yesterday we beat Basingstoke away 4-1. Today we were informed that because of our success, they had decided to change the play-off schedule, and we would now have to play the best team remaining in the play-offs (Bedford Town) also away on Saturday, rather than the scheduled opponents, Kingstonian at home.
We have protested to the FA over this abrupt rule change and although they agree that the Ryman Board have run roughshod over the rulebook, being the FA, they are unlikely to do anything about it.
Let's face it - we are a small and unfashionable club who have gate-crashed their party and they are doing all they can to bully us out of the competition. How would you feel if in the FA Cup you had been forced to play away to the strongest team remaining in the competition at every round ? That is exactly what the Ryman League has done to us. We are going to Bedford Town Saturday for our 4th match in 7 days and we await the next obstacle to be thrown in our path should we come out on top.
Fair Play ? As a football supporter I hope you can sympathise with the blatant injustice of our plight and why we feel so desperately victimised by these people who should be working on our behalf. As a businessman you should seriously consider whether you would want the Ryman brand associated with this bunch of self-serving spivs and cheats when this matter is covered in the Press.
Yours in Disgust,
queries@lasenza.co.uk
webmaster@millwallplc.com
queries@ryman.co.uk
We really need your support on this one, so please take a couple of minutes to do this for us.
Dear Mr Paphitis
I am a supporter of Lewes Football Club in the Ryman Division 1 South. I would like you to be aware of the scandalous and disgraceful way my club has been treated by the Board of the Ryman League. I cannot believe that you would want your company to be associated with the appalling injustice that they have visited on my club overnight.
The winner of our division (Lewes) has been entered into a play-off system to allow us to enter the new Conference South next season. The original plan meant that we would be required to win 3 games to win promotion:
1st match v. our sister division 1 North champions (Yeading) venue to be decided on the toss of a coin
2nd match v. the best placed Premier league team (Basingstoke Town) away
3rd match Basingstoke or Lewes at home against either Kingstonian (17th) or Harrow B (18th).
This schedule was sent to every club by the Ryman League (I have a copy if you require) and it also appeared on the official Ryman League website until this morning.
There was no coin toss for our Yeading match and we were forced to play away, but we won 1-0 on Monday, anyway. Yesterday we beat Basingstoke away 4-1. Today we were informed that because of our success, they had decided to change the play-off schedule, and we would now have to play the best team remaining in the play-offs (Bedford Town) also away on Saturday, rather than the scheduled opponents, Kingstonian at home.
We have protested to the FA over this abrupt rule change and although they agree that the Ryman Board have run roughshod over the rulebook, being the FA, they are unlikely to do anything about it.
Let's face it - we are a small and unfashionable club who have gate-crashed their party and they are doing all they can to bully us out of the competition. How would you feel if in the FA Cup you had been forced to play away to the strongest team remaining in the competition at every round ? That is exactly what the Ryman League has done to us. We are going to Bedford Town Saturday for our 4th match in 7 days and we await the next obstacle to be thrown in our path should we come out on top.
Fair Play ? As a football supporter I hope you can sympathise with the blatant injustice of our plight and why we feel so desperately victimised by these people who should be working on our behalf. As a businessman you should seriously consider whether you would want the Ryman brand associated with this bunch of self-serving spivs and cheats when this matter is covered in the Press.
Yours in Disgust,
