The successor club to Salisbury City, Salisbury FC, are facing big problems in their effort to revive non-league football in the cathedral city. It doesn’t look as if they can start playing again next August.
The successor club to Salisbury City, Salisbury FC, are facing big problems in their effort to revive non-league football in the cathedral city. It doesn’t look as if they can start playing again next August.
They have been locked out of the Raymond McEnhill stadium where the original club played from 1997. The stadium’s trustees, who own the site, say that it could take some time before they decide whether to grant a lease. Moreover, any future lease would be based on market rents, rather than the generous terms the Whites enjoyed in the past.
Meanwhile, they have been told that they cannot enter the ground, although they paid the administrator to purchase the stands, floodlights and electronic scoreboard. It’s not quite clear what other use could be made of the ground as planning permission on the site is for football use.
There are not many ground share possibilities in the immediate vicinity, perhaps Andover Town or Amesbury. Smaller, more traditional cathedral cities do not generally sustain clubs as high up the pyramid as Salisbury City were (first tier), e.g., Canterbury, Ely, Southwell, Wells. The attempt to create a higher level club at Truro ended in disaster.