COP A LOAD OF US NOW!
COPTHORNE chairman Andrew Beadle has a dream to bring the Sussex club back to their home village as they prepare for their first season in senior football.
The Southern Combination League side finished as runners-up in Division Two, behind Jarvis Brook who could not go up because their ground did not meet Step 6 regulations.
However, Copthorne, founded in 2004, did take the step up by virtue of their groundshare at Isthmian Premier Division Horsham’s Camping World Community Stadium.
They are one year into a five-year agreement with the Hornets and Beadle admitted he aims to return the club to their home village in the coming years, with hopes for a new multi-sport complex in Copthorne.
“I can confirm 100 per cent the ambition is to take Copthorne FC back to the village in the future,” he said. “We are still trying to acquire land to build our own premises and the plan is for a major sports ground.
Backers
“In Division One, you need floodlights, turnstiles and various other things and we can’t develop our own ground on Copthorne Bank so are ground-sharing at Horsham and have a very good relationship with them. It’s a happy marriage.
“We have a couple of prospective sites to develop and we should know later this year if any of our ideas will fall into place. Then it’s about feedback from Worth Parish Council and seeing what the objections to it would be, if any.”
The West Sussex club were playing park football just five years ago before making their leap into the county league.
Beadle is proud of their achievement and believes Copthorne can go further if they keep hold of their financial backers.
“I’m pleased as punch to be able to help facilitate this but the players, managers and coaches are the ones who are behind it,” he added.
Support
“As chairman, it’s a battle to try to keep one step ahead of the players as they have kept progressing up the pyramid to where we are now.
“I think we can keep going, we want to settle in Division One and we still want people from the village to be playing for us, which is about half a dozen of the first-team squad currently.
“We know it’s ridiculous for a village team like Copthorne to be at this level and we also know it’s inevitable more players will come in from outside as the level we’re playing at gets elevated further.
“Roffey went up to the Premier Division and have just come straight back down so we know it’s tough but we’re not racing ahead.”
Copthorne, managed by former Brighton forward Simon Funnell, are also keen to get villagers to follow them to their temporary home in Horsham.
They are hosting an open day at the ground from 3-5pm on Saturday, June 17 with all welcome in the hope they can increase their support for their maiden season at Step 6.
“We’ve got to push it more locally,” admitted Beadle. “We want to encourage more support from the village and it would be nice to see those faces next season.”