Flood-hit football club urges fans to return

Finance director Jo Warillow, says the club has spent about £10,000 on the clean-up already

A football club is urging its fans to turn out to its game on Saturday, after flash flooding caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to its stadium.

Heavy rainfall saw water submerge some parts of AFC Telford United's SEAH stadium, last Friday - but the pitch is ready to be played on again.

The club has used crowdfunding totalling about £6,000 to help with repair costs, but wants spectators to to return for the FA Trophy clash against Cleethorpes Town on Saturday, in order to generate further funds.

"If we can get a good crowd, it all helps for us to recover," said finance director, Jo Warillow.

"When we had the play-off final here back in May, we had over 4,000 people here," she told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"If we could get half of them here, it would be fantastic, and it would help enormously with the recovery, it really would.

"Not only just financially, but for everyone's morale as well. Obviously, its been quite a difficult week for the staff."

Heavy rainfall at the SEAH Stadium last Friday left parts of the pitch submerged

Ms Warillow estimated repairs have cost the club about £10,000 so far.

"We are still finding things that are damaged," she added.

Dramatic images showed the entire pitch submerged, as well as water gushing into the club's gym and many internal rooms.

"We've had to have quite extensive testing on the electrics, to make sure that they're all safe," she said.

"The first aid room has suffered a lot of damage to the electrics in there, we’ve lost the heater, the water heaters, some of the sockets are redundant now."

Income was also lost after two games had to be cancelled because of the problems.

The ground is ready and repaired for Saturday's FA Trophy game

She added that the club had seen incredible support, especially from AFC Wimbledon fans, after their own ground suffered extensive damage due to flooding in September.

"We’ve had so many messages and support from them, and there’s quite a lot of their supporters that have also donated to the GoFundMe page," she said.

"They have been fantastic, especially when they’ve got so much to deal with themselves."