Duckworth rules out link-up with City FC

7:00am Friday 2nd January 2009

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WORCESTER Warriors chairman Cecil Duckworth has ruled out the possibility of a ground-sharing agreement with Worcester City Football Club.

The Sixways supremo insists he has had no contact with current City chairman Anthony Hampson about a proposed link-up and admits the idea is not feasible.

It has been suggested that the cash-strapped football club could ease their financial woes by selling their St George’s Lane ground and coming to an agreement with Warriors rather than pushing ahead with a proposed move to a new stadium at Nunnery Way.

However, Warriors benefactor Duckworth is not keen on sharing Sixways with the football club and he pointed out that Premier Rugby Limited’s (PRL) primacy of tenure rule could be a major problem if City ever reached the Football League.

“If the football club reached the Football League, there would be restrictions on when we could play games — a similar thing exists with the PRL regarding primacy of tenure,” Duckworth explained.

“That would represent a major problem with regard to any ground-sharing agreement. It is a bit of a non-starter really.

“I did approach PRL about it a while ago, but the point is we want to play our fixtures when we want to and not when the Football Association tell us to. There are many things to consider, like us painting the pitch for advertising purposes, which wouldn’t be allowed by the FA.

“Also, we like to play as many games on Saturdays as possible and that would be limited if we were sharing with a football club.”

The idea of a ground-share has not even been mooted to Duckworth for several years and would not get off the ground now as Warriors have gone a long way down the road with their own development plans.

The Warriors’ chairman said: “I had a number of discussions with the city football club, but that was a number of years ago and I haven’t spoken to the new chairman.

“It was some time ago when we looked at it and I met with officials from the football club, but that was before we embarked on our current development plan.

“We did suggest the possibility a while ago about them using one of our training pitches, but not the stadium pitch, and that came to nothing.

“There are no plans in place for a ground-share and I have not spoken to anyone at the club, so it is a non-starter.”

Duckworth also revealed he has never been approached to invest money in Worcester City Football Club.

He added: “I have never been asked to be directly involved with Worcester City.

“I support Manchester United, but I used to go and watch Worcester City from time to time.

“However, I obviously have a much bigger interest in rugby than football now.”