During the second half of this afternoons match a regrettable comment was made by a Welling Town official in the direction of a committee member of Deal Town which was unpleasant.

Welling Town would like to wholeheartedly apologise to the individual(s) involved, and Deal Town as a club, for the obvious offence this caused. In no way do I individually, or Welling Town as a club, condone or accept this sort of comment as was made clear at the time.

In recent years there have been numerous campaigns and initiatives about respect for referees, kick it out campaigns and numerous others to raise awareness of certain issues within football and life that are not appropriate. One issue massively missing from that list is foul language, and just being a decent person, and football would be far better were this sort of thing not to occur.

Since the club were founded, and even more so since arriving in the SCEFL league, for all ours successes but also faults, we’ve always tried to conduct ourselves in a manner that is respectful to our opponents and to match officials and league officers. It’s a shame that for a brief moment today that were not the case, and we hope this does not ruin the otherwise good relationship we’ve always had with Deal Town, who were it not for the geographic distance between our clubs, are sure would know us better to know this is not normal conduct for our club and its staff.

Our best wishes go to Deal Town for the rest of the season in their promotion push and we look forward to our visit over the Bank Holiday Easter weekend.

Our apologies again to the individual involved.

No further comment will be made.

Kevin Oakes

Chairman