Millers devastated by insurance blow

Carlton Town have been left reeling by an insurance company’s decision to leave them more than £8,000 out of pocket.

The Evo-Stik NPL First Division South outfit had only expected to pay a £1000 excess towards the cost of repairs and losses after thieves and vandals wrecked their clubhouse back in August, pictured. But insurance giants have told the club’s brokers that they won’t pay out and the devastated Millers are warning the rest of the Evo-Stik NPL to check the small print on their own club policies after the blow.

Millers Chairman Mick Garton says they are now redoubling fundraising efforts in the run-up to Christmas to help pay for repairs and considering all options to force insurers to reverse their decision after an appeal over a dispute with the fine print in their policy was rejected last Friday.

Carlton were also made to wait five week for a decision since lodging their appeal and say the delay only added to their plight when they most need help from their insurers.

Garton said: "I was pretty low after the incident myself but this has just rubbed salt in to the wounds. The fact the criminals are behind bars and unable to rob other properties means we have saved other insurance pay outs which would no doubt have followed if they had continued with their crime spree.

"The fact they were caught due to our fantastic CCTV system, which is not even an insurance condition, makes the decision even harder to accept. We await the follow up letter to find out the exact details but have been left devastated by this.

"We are mostly made up of volunteers at the club who put in our own time and money. We are a community football club and this decision ironically came a day before we held a family day at the ground. The timing couldn’t be more ironic.

"As for fundraising initiatives, well we're going to have to work extra hard on our Christmas draw and I will get together with the commercial team and various people at the club in the next few days to see where we go from here."

August’s raid also saw all the gate and bar takings from their preseason friendly match against Gainsborough, organised as part of the deal that took Terry Hawkridge to the Conference North club, stolen.

The Millers Chairman admits he's still struggling to get over the attitude of insurers. He added: "We really did not see this coming. I believed matters that we thought we’d cleared up after the appeal would lead to this being sorted out but that is obviously not the case. There has not even been a goodwill gesture, just a flat ‘no’.

"We are now left in a position where we have got to work harder than we already do to try to raise the money to pay these invoices so I would plead with our suppliers to please bear with us during this difficult time."