Gateshead fans react to play-off problems

National World - LocalTV

At a protest outside the Gateshead Civic Centre, supporters of Gateshead FC have made their voices heard with regards to their club being barred from the National League play-offs because of stadium leasing issues. Daniel Wales reports.

Transcript

00:00 Basically a show of solidarity from the players.

00:07 Demonstrate our disgust at the way Gacy Cancell's treated the club.

00:12 EFL, the way they've handled this situation.

00:16 Basically just a show of losses to us. It's happened.

00:20 Yeah, just echoing what Stewie said, I think everyone's just still in shock after it's been a...

00:25 I mean, it was just about 24 hours and a bit ago that we found out that this was all happening

00:30 and a lot of people had already got their train tickets booked and everyone was getting ready to scramble

00:34 their way down to Birmingham on Tuesday, but now everyone's just very worried about the long-term future

00:39 of the club and the short-term future as well.

00:41 Literally, mate, we've played hard all season, right? We've worked our socks off all season.

00:45 Probably the best we've ever played in a long time, right?

00:48 And for the council to not say the new release on nothing like that is absolutely disgusting.

00:54 Me personally, I can't proportion blame to anybody in particular.

00:58 I think the whole protest, these young lads are...

01:01 Because the council wouldn't grant us a 10-year lease, that has basically prevented us getting into the EFL.

01:07 Got us kicked out of the playoffs.

01:10 But again, the EFL, because of the strict rules, which the club knew about, it just seems crazy.

01:16 You've got to have a 10-year lease to be able to play football.

01:19 I look at the EFL as well. It's like, it doesn't matter what...

01:22 Only because we don't own the stadium, we do rent the stadium.

01:26 But that's what most clubs do, they rent the stadium.

01:28 We're renting the stadium for what?

01:30 Why are we not allowed to thing it into the EFL next season?

01:34 It's not just that. It's the fact that they've moved mountains to accommodate a lot of clubs like Coventry.

01:39 I know it's been said and that thing, but it's the fact that you're meant to be there

01:44 as a representative of community assets in your leagues.

01:47 So support people who may be coming to be in those leagues the most you can.

01:50 It looks like the National League themselves have actually moved mountains for once to actually help.

01:56 God knows we've had our grievances with them in general over the years, but they've actually tried to help us.

02:02 The supporters then spoke passionately of how they, as loyal followers of the club,

02:07 were the ones to lose out because of off-field issues.

02:10 With a full season's worth of travelling to back their players,

02:13 has been made worthless with the hopes of promotion torn from them in the blink of an eye.

02:20 Because they love this club. Yes, only a small club, but the club means everything to them.

02:27 Non-stop, every game, every season we travel up and down the country.

02:32 I think it's just the fact that so many of our stupidly passionate fans have taken so much time off work

02:39 to go down to so many different London trips on a Tuesday night and stuff.

02:42 And the players who've been doing Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday for a lot of the weeks recently.

02:46 It just feels like it's all for naught really.

02:49 I've got no guarantees, no worries that they're not going to give completely 100% to them in the trophy final.

02:55 But it's just the fact that this club could have been there twice.

02:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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