Northern Premier League side Matlock Town have launched a JustGiving Appeal to help them through the Covid-19 pandemic, raising over half their target so far.

Credit: Matlock Town Football Club

After almost half a century at Matlock Town, Tom Wright has seen almost everything during his time in Derbyshire. The club chairman was there for the club’s finest hour, lifting the FA Trophy aloft at Wembley Stadium courtesy of a crushing victory over Scarborough. Two years later he saw the club make history, reaching the third round of the FA Cup for the first time with a 5–2 win over eventual Third Division champions Mansfield Town. Incidentally it was also their first win against league opposition. Even Wright though, couldn’t have envisaged what 2020 would bring. The tragic death of on-loan defender Jordan Sinnott rocked the club and the football world to it’s core. Now with the Covid-19 pandemic wiping out football for the foreseeable future, they like many of their non-league counterparts have fallen on challenging financial times.

Credit: Matlock Town Football Club

They’ve lost income from their six remaining home games, been forced to shut down the social club and have been unable to sell items at the club shop. The Gladiators have set up a JustGiving page to help ‘plug the gap’ in finances at the football club. Of the £15,000 target, they’ve raised over £8,000 so far and the chairman has been ‘amazed’ by the response. “I’ve been really pleased with how well its gone,” he said. “The money will go towards the running of the club, we’ve got contracted players who we’ve been unable to pay up until now, but we will now be able to give them up to 80% of their wages thanks to the government’s furlough scheme. “Obviously we have other people to pay, like companies who supply catering, electricians and the guys who make the matchday programme. “I’ve done a deal with most of them where we can pay them in stages, most people have been really understanding about the situation.” Mr Wright has insisted that the club is not in any danger of going out of business and says the page was set up merely to help them through these unprecedented times. “We’re getting the money in just to keep us going, we’re not in danger of folding or anything like that,” he said. “We’re up to date with paying rent on the ground, so we’re not behind on any payments. Obviously, we have been granted a little more time with HMRC payments being delayed. “The problem we’ve got is that we rely on sponsorship and advertising. We don’t really know where we’re going to be with that because some our amazing sponsors could go bust during this pandemic.

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Whilst the club chairman accepts the FA had ‘no choice’ but to void the 2019–20 Northern Premier League campaign, he says it has made planning for next season virtually impossible. “I don’t think they (The FA) had a choice, said Wright. “You don’t know when the season is going to start again and if we had to pay players past their contracts in April it could have been even more of a disaster. “We can’t really work a budget out for next season because we don’t know how much money we’re going to get, it’s really difficult. “The other problem we’ve got is we don’t know when the professional season is going to start, usually we have two or three lucrative pre-season matches against the likes of Chesterfield, Mansfield Town and Sheffield United but now I have no idea if we’ll be playing them or not. “It’s just impossible to plan at the moment,” he added. Following Jordan Sinnott’s untimely passing, the kind-hearted footballer has now saved at least seven lives after donating his organs. His last football club are now looking to follow suit. The message on their social media page is clear. The name of their Twitter account now simply reads, ‘STAY AT HOME’, the government’s message to help slow the spread of the coronavirus and save lives. The Gladiators have not stopped there and revealed last week they’ll be offering NHS workers free season tickets when the football season eventually resumes. “We can’t give any money, but we can offer NHS workers the chance to come down to a nice little club, see a decent game and a good atmosphere. That’s our little contribution to help out.

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