Romford Raiders gone

ROMFORD,U.K- With a lot of uncertainty surrounding various English Premier League teams this summer, mainly focused on Bracknell Bees and Wightlink Raiders, it was the Raiders of the Romford variety that made the first move out of the EPL. 
A shock announcement on Wednesday evening that the club (including all the junior clubs associated with the Raiders and the Spitfires) would be withdrawing from the EPL and ENL and the whole club would be shutting down with immediate effect. The reasons given were that the new terms of the ice agreement with the Romford ice arena were unacceptable to such an extent that legal teams have advised the club management to “not sign that contract under any circumstances”. Various reasons given were things like the toilet upkeep would the responsibility of the Romford ice hockey club, even though public session and figure skating use the rink more than the ice hockey club, the ice rental costs were sent skyrocketing to unacceptable levels as well as the rink defending their staff to the extent of “any abuse of any of our staff members, of any level, will result in the arena cancelling the ice hockey contract immediately”. On top of that, any vandalism in the rink would be labelled the responsibility of the club, even though there is no history of fans vandalising the rink. It is not the most welcoming of rinks, but the fans are some of the most passionate and best in the league and are always first to buy you a drink after the game, win lose or draw. These points were brought into the public domain of various forums and text messages by fans at an extraordinary meeting of Romford hockey players and fans at the rink on Wednesday evening. No official word has come from either side in this dispute, other than that the Romford Raiders website has been shut down stating legal reasons. Long time manager and owner Allison Taylor made the announcement that; “With immediate effect, the club is no more and I and the other owners are pulling out of running and financing the club” The junior players received a letter from the club after their training session, leaving many in tears as their dreams of representing their local club no appear to be over. Not only that, the other local rinks are already fairly full with youngsters playing hockey so it will be tough to fit them in elsewhere. It’s a tough situation all round for all concerned and obviously work is still going on to resolve the situation, but at the moment the future of ice hockey in Romford looks very bleak indeed. More information on this story coming as interviews are being set up with the rink owners and Romford management representatives to get their views on the situation and how it may be resolved. Contact the author at Pete.lewis@prohockeynews.com