'Clock is ticking' - Gateshead fans fear for future

Fans of troubled National League Gateshead fear for its very existence as they wait to see if fresh investment comes forward to save the club.

The Tynside club desperately need new owners to step in after director Mark Nellist resigned and withdrew his funding support in September.

It appeared American private investment company, Flacks Group, would buy the club but their takeover was delayed and players and staff have not been paid this month.

Against this backdrop, the football team is bottom of the league with four points from 15 games, without a permanent manager and they have lost their past nine league matches.

"It's very worrying," David Geddess of the Heed Army podcast told BBC Look North (North East and Cumbria). "I seriously think it could be the end of the club.

"Financial issues are all over football but at the minute Gateshead play in a rented stadium and we have no assets. If anyone wants to take anything out of the club, it means winding up the club."

Gateshead are the smallest club in the National League, operating on average attendances this season of just 643 at their rented home, the Gateshead International Stadium.

Off-the-field issues are nothing new but they have come to a head in the past few months.

Under Rob Elliot, they recovered from a dreadful winter of 16 successive losses in all competitions to collect 31 points from 15 matches to produce an incredible survival act.

With that achieved, American-based businessman Stephen Paylor agreed a deal to become the club's co-owner alongside Nellist.

Elliot left for Carlisle United in the close season with ex-Middlesbrough and Sunderland midfielder Lee Cattermole appointed in his first job as a number one.

'It's such a mess'

Results on the pitch were already spiralling downwards when Nellist withdrew his financial support for the club at the end of September.

Without that, wages for players and staff were delayed as they waited for fresh investment which looked to have arrived in the shape of Flacks Group.

They provided initial funds to pay wages, but last week the American group said in an open letter that the proposed takeover was on the brink of collapse.

They said another group, Shoreline Limited, had tried to buy the club in March and then filed court documentation four months later to confirm that its agreement was null and void, and therefore proceeded to enter negotiations with the current ownership.

With Shoreline not responding to requests to state that they were not interested in purchasing Gateshead, Flacks Group said that they could not carry on with their intended acquisition.

"We find ourselves bottom of the league and the club isn't the most attractive asset in the world to anybody," added Geddess.

"We then find ourselves with billionaire investors round the corner and you can't get it because of a legal issue with someone else that tried to buy the football club.

"It's such a mess. Then add HMRC in, it's really going to hit the fan."

Cattermole was dismissed on 4 October with Ben Clark in interim charge since then.

He finally claimed a win in his seventh game in charge on Tuesday as they beat Stoke City Under-21s in the National League Cup.

But they have lost all three league games and were thrashed 5-0 in an FA Cup replay by eighth-tier Stafford Rangers to dash any hopes of a decent cup run and even more important, a lucrative pay-day.

As such, they have not had a home league game since 3 October to boost deprived coffers while they are believed to owe more than £200,000 to HMRC.

The club's very existence is under threat and Mark Ferguson, MP for Gateshead Central and Whickham, spoke to the Independent Football Regulator on Wednesday.

"Right now, the future of the club is up in the air and we shouldn't be blind to that," said Mr Ferguson MP.

"The clock is ticking and whatever action people can take, if they want to get a resolution, that work needed to start yesterday."

Their predicament in the National League is bad enough, 13 points from safety, but for fans it goes far beyond those current struggles.

"On the pitch doesn't really matter at the minute," said Geddess.

"We want infrastructure, we want to be in a place where this doesn't happen again the future or the near future because it's happened too many times."