Gainsborough Trinity secretary fears club could go to the wall if lockdown drags on

Trinity face no league action until 5th December at the earliest with Boles admitting he is concerned over how to pay the bills.

“The biggest issue is paying the players and bills,” he said. “If we can't pay them then a decision has to be made over the future. Do we wind up the club and start up again further down the pyramid?

“No-one wants to do it but that's the harsh reality of football now, it is not just Trinity.

“I talk to people from clubs most days and they are in the same position. We are not going to get support, but unless we get support it is not sustainable.

“We are trying to pay the players, but how long will we have to subsidise that for?

“There are clubs that are struggling and ones that will go to the wall in the next month.

“If it is just four weeks then you can probably just get through it and the directors will support the club like they always do.

“It is going to be a struggle the longer it goes on and I don't think we will be allowed to play football straightaway.”

And Boles admits the club’s financial options are running out with the whole community feeling the pinch.

“We will have to look at fundraising and see what we can do,” he added. We have to find a way to pay players that are on contracts.

“There are a lot of conversations to have. If we go out to the fans (for help), they are also struggling.

“The sponsors' boards are missing and the income has gone down 66 per cent from sponsors.

“Businesses that are not sponsoring us now are not doing it because they don't want to support Trinity, they are doing it because they are struggling as well.

“If lockdown goes on it will get worse and worse. Everyone knows we struggled in the summer and raised £15,000 from the fans which paid the bills from last year.

“We are part of the community and the whole community is struggling. We can't keep going to the same people asking for money all the time.”

Boles also feels Trinity should have been allowed to play on.

"We would like to have continued playing” he said. “I feel a lot safer walking around the ground than the supermarket and I think sport should have carried on.

“It is not just about the first team, we do a lot of stuff in the community and it’s the lifeblood of a lot of people.

“A lockdown hits alot of people hard. They can go to school, but kids can’t then meet the same kids to play football.

“There’s a lot of inconsistencies and nonsense and it adds more to the worry to clubs like us up and down the country.”