BEDFONT Town are back – barely a month after resigning from the Southern League and folding.
The club, which had undergone a rapid rise from park football to step four of non-league football in under a decade, hit financial problems when backer Doug White (pictured) resigned as chairman, and they saw out the season unable to pay their players.
A last throw of the dice by former manager Garry Haylock, to fund the club through a new football academy, hit the buffers when the plan was rejected by their landlords, Bedfont Social Club, who instead merged with Feltham FC.
But Bedfont have now gone back to their roots and applied to join the Surrey Intermediate League, which they were first promoted from eight years ago as Bedfont Green, and were expecting to get the green light at the league's AGM this week.
They will also leave behind The Orchard and go back to playing at Clockhouse Lane, but could be back in Hatton Road before long.
White, who is back as chairman of the phoenix club, said: “We won't be broken. We are re-inventing the club and going back to our roots.
“When I retired, we were hoping Garry Haylock would be able to take the club to another level, but what our landlords at Bedfont wanted was unaffordable, despite us having built up the facilities there.
“We built ourselves up to a step four club in just eight years by being a nomadic club, playing at places like Viking Sports, Yeading and Windsor & Eton, and it all came to an end just at the point when we had come home to Bedfont.
“Now we want to start building again but with a home of our own. I have planning permission to build a ground next to where we were playing at The Orchard, which would allow us to play in step five, and I also still have an option on land at Bedfont Industrial Estate, where we would be able to build a bigger home.”
Tony Hadley, the former reserve team manager at Staines Lammas, has been appointed the new club's first manager, with a brief to get them back in the Combined Counties League within two years.
