CLAPTON FOOTBALL CLUB

Mr M. Starbrook
Editor Newham Recorder
Media House
High Road
Ilford IG1 1UD.

12th April 2013

Dear Mr. Starbrook,

Re:Newham Recorder April 3rd April 2013 article Page 43

We read with surprise your article on page 43 of the Newham Recorder dated Wednesday 3rd April 2013 regarding Clapton Football Club and in particular your quotation from Andrew Barr the Secretary of the so called 'Friends of Clapton'. We note disappointingly, that at no stage were we contacted for verification or indeed given the opportunity to furnish you with the complete picture concerning Clapton Football Club. Without regard to normal journalistic accord or practice your article was published with such misleading information.We would like to take this opportunity to present the true picture.

The facts are as follows:

  1. Clapton Football Club is currently undergoing a re-organisation.
  2. Clapton Football Club already has a members club called Tons Members Club, which has been assisting Clapton since their inception more than five years ago. It is unfortunate that this group called the 'Friends of Clapton' have seen fit to take credit for work, which has been ongoing for some time, when they themselves have only been in existence for a season. We have officers dropping leaflets and giving neighbour’s discounts and free tickets to watch matches and young people collecting the balls kicked into neighbour’s gardens.
  3. It is incorrect to state that members of Clapton Football Club are unaware of the club’s position. The true members of Clapton Football Club are fully apprised of our position and attend meetings where matters are discussed and agendas are put in place. How else would we have been able to construct a brand new changing room, put a new drainage system in the pitch and build a new tea bar without Tons members help, coordination and finance?
  4. How can “The Friends of Clapton” make mention of the community? What do they know about this community? Andrew Barr whom you quote, lives in France. His own members have never seen him, and those members he alledges to have are made up of people we at Clapton Football Club have not seen in more than ten years but who have been published as members. Indeed, more disturbingly he has people named on the members list who have informed him that they do not want to be members of the “The Friends of Clapton” nevertheless their names are there.
  1. Clapton Football Club players are made up from this community and currently more than 80% of players are from Newham, which was not previously the case. We are a community club and the majority of our managers, coaches and officers have lived in this borough all their lives and their children have, and are now playing for us and in some instances have gone on to play professional football. This is a true community club and our community just walk in, this is their home and they live here.
  2. When we originally invited the group called the 'friends of Clapton' to the ground to help with preparing the ground for this season, not one member of this group came and helped.
  3. No member of the 'Friends of Clapton' are members of club Clapton Supporters Club, known as the Tons Members Club, yet by using the name “Friend of Clapton” have given themselves a platform to take credit, undermine or destabilise the club by misrepresenting facts or by making statements out of context.Clapton welcome anyone who buys into our vision who truly want to advance the club, we don’t want opportunists or individuals with their own agendas.
  4. The Club makes it a policy to keep in contact with its Life Members and if there are life members out there who we have not contacted, it is because we are not aware of them and they have not contacted us. We have not moved and matches are played almost every week as we have done for nearly 100 years. We do have life members coming to our matches and are not aware of the members that have not been contacted.
  5. Again it is most disturbing that prior to going to print, Clapton Football Club and its management were never given the opportunity to comment on, put into context, or correct the miss-information that provided the basis for this shameful and misleading article. So that the readers of your newspaper get the true picture of Clapton Football Club and its progress, we would like you to republish the article with the correct version of Clapton’s position rather than the views of a group of people who are not involved with the club, and who main agenda appears to denigrate the club its members and all those who have contributed.
  1. We trust that in future you will give us the opportunity to comment on any article relating to Clapton Football Club before they are published.

Finally it is noted that the Newham Recorder has not been to any of our matches of late. Please now accept my invitation to visit our matches and witness firsthand the community spirit evident in the club.

Yours sincerely

Vince McBean
Chief Executive