BEDFONT Town could be finished as a football club by the time you read this.
The survival of the club, who finished their Southern League campaign with a 5-1 defeat at Uxbridge on Saturday, could depend on a committee meeting last night of Bedfont Social Club, owners of their ground, The Orchard.
Town boss Garry Haylock (pictured) is hoping to get the green light from the committee to establish his football academy at the venue, which he plans to use to help fund the club next season.
The club has been skint since former chairman and backer Doug White pulled the plug back in March, not long after Haylock had taken over as manager, and the players have seen out the season playing for free.
Haylock has been pretty much running the club himself since then, but if the social club turn down his academy idea he will walk – which would probably mean the end of the football team.
Former Hayes & Yeading boss Haylock said: “We will have to see what the outcome of the meeting is, but I'm more positive than I was at the start of the week.
“For all that, we had some talks on Tuesday in which I was told it would take six weeks to make a decision, which is no good to me as the club has to be registered with the league by the end of May.
“I'm not prepared to shell out £3,500 of my own money in registration fees if the academy gets turned down. I could sell my house to fund it, but I'm not prepared to do that.
“I will walk away if it gets turned down. I've had offers before to be a manager elsewhere, but my heart is with the academy project at Bedfont if we can get it off the ground.”
The social club has to have at least one football club playing there, and Combined Counties Division One side Feltham are already tenants.
However, Haylock pointed out that guaranteed football every weekend, including bigger Southern League crowds, plus kids and parents from his academy using the facilities would bring the social club a far bigger income than if Bedfont folded.
He said: “I may have to cancel everything, which would be a shame at this stage as it's the ideal venue for the academy, and I know it would be a success.
“We have already got schools in the area involved, and I have had talks with the likes of QPR, Brentford and Wycombe about taking on their academy players who have been released.
“The social club have to have a football club there, and they are quite happy with Feltham, but I'm not sure how long it would survive with just them there.”
If it is curtains for Bedfont, Tommy Brewer will go down as scoring the club's last ever goal with his 64th-minute consolation strike against Uxbridge.
