|
DiggerDagger asked for a clarification from Dave Bennett regarding the events surrounding an issue that we had thought had gone quietly into the long grass during what has been a decent season on the pitch so far.
"Following the previous discussion of the flags Glyn and I had a meeting with representatives from the Supporters Club and the owners of the Trump and North Korea flags to try to resolve our differences. Glyn asked that the offending flags no longer be displayed at away games, and stated that they were banned at home matches by him."
"The email that had been allegedly sent by Steve to our future opponents came up once again at this meeting, and despite assurances from Glyn and myself that we had looked into this matter and no such email was sent, the Supporters Club representatives made clear that they did not believe this."
Dave repeated what he told me previously, that an email was sent to AFC Fylde, which was the away trip following Eastleigh, where there was trouble involving our away support, which was copied to Tony Payne, our safety officer, and also one to Maidstone United who we were playing the following midweek. "These were not broadcasts, they were addressed to specific individuals at those clubs, stating that we had banned the Trump and North Korea flags at Victoria Road."
"Since that meeting we have heard very little more on the matter, until on Saturday, Glyn Hopkin was asked to visit the Supporters Club office, which he did after that game. Present there were Russell Elmes, Brenda Monaghan and the two flag owners, one of whom handed Glyn a photo of an email which looked like it had been sent by Steve Thompson, copy Tony Payne, to a guy at Maidstone United, but copied in representatives of the other clubs in the league," Dave told us.
"Glyn took the copy and advised the group that he would look into it and get back to them." Dave went on to say that Glyn was upset by the way this was raised, and felt a little intimidated to be honest. "He told me the atmosphere was triumphant and a little toxic."
So is the email genuine?
"The first issue we had with ot was that it wasn't an actual email, it was a photo of an email. If someone has a copy of it, why would they give us a picture of it, not just send it to us?"
"We looked at the photo in detail after this of course. It has clearly come from the genuine email which was sent to AFC Fylde, and Steve can show from the time it was sent that it doesn't match anything in his 'sent' folder. Tony Payne can also show this from his received folder."
Dave continued, "We have also had a couple of other people who are more IT literate than us look at this and there are a couple of other things that are suspicious and show that it is a cut and paste though.
"The clincher for me is who it is addressed to. The email addresses of the club representatives are genuine, but there are two clubs missing, Hartlepool United and Leyton Orient."
"Hartlepool missing was odd as they were our next away opponent after Maidstone," said Dave. "Then someone pointed out that the two clubs missing were the two relegated from the Football League at the end of 2016/17. If someone had an old copy of the National League handbook, the email addresses for officers of those clubs would be in it, however not those for the relegated teams. It is a fake."
"We had a long board meeting to discuss this and other issues yesterday, and at it we resloved to issue the statement that went out today. We have had enough of it now."
| 
