We have today been informed by the Football Association that they and the Ryman League have approved the transfer of our FA and Ryman League membership from Grays Athletic (1982) Limited to GAFC 1890 Supporters Society Limited. The Club has now become one of the first wholly supporter-owned football clubs in the country. Thank you to all those who have become members and shareholders of our new Community Benefit Society. You will shortly be issued with your share certificates.

The Interim Board of the Football Club, the Supporter’s Society committee and a number of fans – have been working very hard with the FA and the Ryman League and the Club’s advisers, Supporters Direct, since March this year to achieve this objective. We are sorry it has taken about three months longer than we and our advisers, Supporters Direct, had expected, but we were in the hands of the football authorities and had to satisfy their very thorough examination of our proposed constitution, financial plans and Interim Board personnel.

On behalf of everyone at Grays Athletic FC, we would like to thank Andy Swallow for ensuring the survival of our great club since we left The Rec in 2010 and for placing the club in a financial position that was acceptable for the FA to sanction the transfer to The Community Benefit Society.

We would now like to invite all of the club’s supporters to a celebration event in the New Year which we hope to hold at Chadwell Village Hall. The venue and date will be confirmed within the next few days. The interim Board will pay for the cost of this event and we would like to see as many people as possible attend and raise a glass to the new club.

We will also explain the next steps following the creation of the new company, which will include the election of a Board of Directors to run the club and the opportunity to buy community shares to support the financing of all activities. Supporters will be encouraged to ask questions about how this process works at the celebration event.
Meanwhile, we continue to invite new members to join us and hope our existing group of supporter/shareholders will help by inviting friends, family and local businesses you know to download an application form and apply for membership and community shares which can be found here:

http://www.graysathletic.co.uk/a/gafc-share-offer-47494.html

Everything we raise goes exclusively towards running the club, including the cost of funding the team.

COME ON YOU BLUES!