GARRY Plant admits that repeated floods over the winter have “made life interesting” at Tadcaster Albion.

The Northern Counties East premier division club suffered their fifth flood of the season earlier this month after Storm Henk led to rising water levels in the River Wharfe bordering the So Trak Stadium.

Though the club were able to deploy their flood gate, areas of the pitch were left underwater. Thankfully, their clubhouse was unaffected by the deluge.

However, their rearranged JCP Construction NCEL League Cup clash with Silsden on January 2 was postponed as a result.

With their trip to the West Yorkshire club earlier that week also falling foul to the wet weather, the Brewers had to wait until last Saturday to return to competitive action at Golcar United - 11 days after their Boxing Day triumph over rivals Pickering Town.

“We get really frustrated because on the football side with the manager and the team, you start to get into a rhythm and then suddenly you’ve got two or three matches postponed and you lose that,” Plant explained to The Press.

“And then the fans are asking ‘well, is it going to be on, or should we do something else instead?’ 

“All the volunteers here put in a hell of a shift, and it’s disheartening. Financially, it’s tough as well because you’ve gate money, lost revenue at the bar, food revenue and so forth.

“Saturday fixtures that become midweek rearranged fixtures generally have a lower attendance and require the expense of floodlight from the get go.”

The chairman, who counts a successful spell with Harrogate Town on his CV, admits that once a flood warning is issued, it is all hands on deck to ensure that the club does not incur further costs due to the water damage.

“It’s all the preparation that goes into preparing for the match - catering staff, volunteers, getting the pitch ready - and then you get the warnings regarding the river levels and the flooding.

“We then have to move all the machinery and equipment, we have to put on the flood defensive doors, such as they are, and it’s a lot of hard work beforehand.

“Afterwards, it’s a lot of hard work in terms of the clean-up and getting people down to do that. It’s very, very tough.”

The floods have put a financial strain upon the club, who have lost out on gate receipts and revenue from both food and drink sales on matchdays.

Tadcaster have likely lost thousands due to the repeated postponements, but whilst he did not want to put a figure on the total revenue lost, Plant conceded: “It makes life interesting.

“It means that we have to be really, really careful with the books and making sure that we have got enough cash in there to make sure that we meet all of our bills.

“It’s not easy when you’re not getting the gate money and so forth.

“We just have to be extremely cautious and if we need to buy that, then we need to delay the push of whatever that is until such time as we have got sufficient funds.

“The club prides itself on running its accounts - we only spend what we have. It would be easy to run into overdraft, but that would be folly.”

Tadcaster issued a plea for volunteers to aid in the clean-up of their latest flood in order to give today's fixture against Goole the best chance of going ahead.

Plant thanked those who had turned out to help the club during the flood clean-up - which is often undertaken two or three days after the river has reached its peak - but said that they “can always use and need more people.”

“We’ve got some cracking volunteers that come down and really put a shift in, but we need more people involved in every aspect of the club, not just cleaning up. 

“We need volunteers for IT, media, everything. We have a blank canvas and we’ve also started our foundation this season to try and engage with the Tadcaster community and schools, the youth club, and local businesses. It’s the more, the merrier.

“We’ve got plans to stabilise the club financially and football-wise, then let’s see how we climb the leagues. 

“When we play good football, we play good football, and the league that we’re currently in, I think it would be fair to say that any team can beat any team.

“Get down to the stadium, watch the lads, and enjoy yourself!”