Fans unite to keep football alive

The organisation fighting to Keep Barnet Alive (KBA) has organized a march through London in conjunction with Brighton fans. It is a keep football alive fans united march and supporters of Wycombe, Cambridge, Brentford, Chester, Enfield, Luton. Pompey, Palace and others will all be represented there. KBA have worked extremely hard to organize thisevent for all fans to air their own individual grievances and they need Oxford United fans down there in numbers with banners etc. They have organised a large media presence so this is our perfect op1portunity to do something positive to publicise our plight.
For further information call Roger Currell, march coordinator, on 0208 444 5346 asap. The march takes place on Sunday April 2 (mums day, they know, but the police insisted on this date).

Kassam to decide his position next week

In a meeting with members of the FOUL committee after the Notts County game Firoz Kassam had a mixed message for United's supporters. On the one hand he reiterated his statement, read out at half-time, that he would not leave United in the mire, but wanted to secure the medium to long-term future of the club, although he also said that he was actively looking for new sources of funding, although it is unlikely that anyone would want to invest in the club in its current uncertain state. He stated unequivocably that he would remain at the club at the very least until the end of this season. On the other hand he couldn't guarantee that he would be able to get the builders back on site until the Morrells covenant and the judicial review were sorted out. He did say that he would be deciding this week what his next course of action is to be but that he is naturally reluctant to risk another ten million pounds of his limited finances unless there was a good chance of recouping it.
United's future is really up to the Football Licensing Authority, who need to decide whether or not to allow the club to continue playing at the Manor next season without work having recommenced on Minchery Farm. Even if they permit this it might cost up to half a million pounds to get the Manor into a reasonable enough condition, although a successful evacuation exercise of the Beech Road after the match might well count in the club's favour.
Kassam explained that it was difficult to approach the out of contract players with new deals until the club knew which division it will be in next season, as it couldn't afford to offer the conditions which some of the players wanted if it was only going to be attracting division three crowds. However he did state that he had told Denis Smith that he should do whatever it takes to keep United in the second division and that if that meant spending money on new players then Smith had money to spend. He also revealed that the club had refused a written bid for Paul Powell from a first division club, as he didn't want United to lose its best players, although he didn't say how much had been offered. Powell is also said to have refused a move to a Premiership club which had come in for him because he felt he owed it to the club and the fans to stay with United in these trying times.