Company boost for football club

The group finance director of Trifast, parent company of TR Fastenings, one of the town's biggest employers, has been impressed by a 'dramatic improvement' in the running of the club and believes it has the potential to progress to a new level of play.

Stuart Lawson said the company first stepped in to help the club after he saw headlines announcing it was on the verge of closure because of its debts.

'That seemed crazy and at that time we had about six guys playing for it so we put some money in to save the club on condition it did sensible things with the money,' said Mr Lawson.

'It was not particularly well run at the time but there has been a dramatic improvement since then and it is now running as it needs to, as a business.'

Mr Lawson said one of their employees, Chris Goodby, was heavily involved with the Grasshoppers and he would be getting involved with Uckfield FC on behalf of the company.

The club needed to continue getting good results, generate income and make ground improvements if it was to go up a rung and he believed the committee and the team were 'more than capable of doing that with a little bit of support from people like us and hopefully the council'.