Irvine Meadow vow to shake off cash blow

Oct 30 2009

JUNIOR big spenders Irvine Meadow have vowed to battle on despite losing thousands of sponsorship cash from their Ayr backer.

Main sponsor 3D Golf pulled out after losing £800,000 in an abortive merger with fellow golf tour operator INTA.

Kerr Dickson, 3D director and Meadow chairman, revealed: “INTA have ceased trading and that money has been lost. We’re now focusing on a financial recovery plan and have been forced to suspend financial support for Meadow.

“But I would stress that Meadow has no debt, no bank borrowings, overdraft or unpaid loans. 3D Golf cleared all the outstanding debt owed by Meadow to the bank from the closure of the social club under the main stand.

“This debt was a substantial sum but the charge the bank had over the ground has been removed.”

Now Meadow, who have spent megabucks on big-money signings – with several players reputed to be on lengthy contacts worth hundreds of pounds a week – will be forced to take drastic action to keep the club afloat.

3D golf’s latest accounts – published in October 2007 – showed that in that year alone as well as providing free accounting and payroll support to the club, they also sponsored Meadow to the tune of £66,358 as well as giving them ‘loan advances’ of £175,000.

But Meadow general manager Iain McQueen said the loan was written off as sponsorship and was not money which has to be repaid.

“Obviously we have lost a substantial amount of sponsorship money but Meadow have no debt at all and we’d already started to cut things back before this broke.

“We’ve been paying the players ourselves since the start of the season and we will now also be looking at downsizing the playing pool and ways of reducing the wage bill.

“I imagine we’ll be looking at operating with a squad of good quality professional players with a sprinkling of up and coming youngsters.”

The players have already been made aware of the financial crisis but the club have still to hold concrete talks with them over the terms of their contracts.

A glimmer of light is that the club is still involved in the Active Nations Scottish Cup after beating Selkirk 3-0. That put them into the third round draw which was being made on Wednesday.

lHurlford have sacked manager John Crawford, only two days after a shock 1-0 defeat away to Darvel. Assistant Ossie Findlay has also left.