EXPELLED CLUB HITS BACK

As reported in the Express before Easter, the club's two teams were expelled from the Robert Gray & Co sponsored league on March 31.

The club is upset proposals, which could have allowed Chailey to remain in the league, were ignored.

First team manager, Sean Coleman, offered to resign immediately if it would save the club.

Other options included disbanding the whole of the first team and officials wanted to ask whether the Mid Sussex League committee wanted them to make any changes to club committee members.

League secretary, Lawrie Parsons said: 'This was a small part of the equation. It was the discipline that was a major issue. For want of a better expression, the club was on a 36-month suspended sentence for previous incidents. They should have been monitoring their players, seeing what was going on and picked up on it.'

Chailey FC received the same standard notification letter sent to all clubs in the league inviting them to the special general meeting where the decision was made to expel the club. But officials say they were unaware of the reasons such action was being taken against them.

The club received minutes of a meeting held by the Mid Sussex League on March 6 - just one day before the special general meeting.

Club secretary, Lyn Hodges said: 'They state they had received an unprecedented volume of correspondence from clubs and officials regarding Chailey's officials, players and supporters, some of which had to be passed to the county association for consideration.'

Chailey officials said they had no notification of these and if they had been aware of these matters, would have dealt with them immediately.

Mrs Hodges added: 'The Chailey players who have never had any form of caution are innocent players.

'Surely for the percentage of players who have never been booked, this is an infringement of their human rights.'

Mr Parsons said: 'You don't know where to draw the line. From what I have read the whole club has been penalised for the actions of a few players. But you can't split a club in two and say one half is OK and the other is not. It had to be the whole club.'