Green Lions won’t be seeking fans' help

While the likes of Herne Bay, Burgess Hill Town and Sittingbourne have announced crowdfunding schemes in a bid to keep their clubs alive amid the Covid-19 crisis, GFC – already boosted by the news of Hand Picked Hotels extending their sponsorship agreement for a further three years – won’t be asking anyone for help.

‘We are in a financial position that we don’t need to do that,’ said Le Tissier responding to news that other Isthmian South East clubs were in trouble.

‘Although we are not flush we feel we have enough to see us through. We don’t feel it is right to go applying for money that other people need more.’

Le Tissier said that with minimal overheads in effect between seasons, little money is going out of the club at present.,

‘We’ve got some employees but it is not a significant amount. At the moment we will be OK. We are in a position that we can sustain the club without too much burden.’

Le Tissier suspects that more Isthmian clubs and some above are having financial troubles, but he has no idea to what extent.

‘It’s difficult to say [how many] because people don’t want to go public in how much trouble they are in.’

Further down the pandemic lockdown road, Le Tissier and his GFC colleagues are hopeful that travel restrictions do not handicap them going into the 2020-21 season, whenever that starts. But it is a fear, he acknowledged.

‘It is something we did discuss at our recent board meeting. But at this time it is impossible to know what the consequences would be [of restrictions in and out of the island]. I am rather hoping that the UK will get it all sorted before any football starts. But at this time everything is still up in the air.’

As for a worse-case scenario of being unable to fly in and out for games, or teams come here, Le Tissier said: ‘We recognise it is a possibility, but other than that we haven’t taken any further action because there is nothing we can do about it.’