SHOLING chairman/team boss Dave Diaper admits “nothing is concrete” regarding which league the Boatmen will play in next season.

Rumours have been circulating that the Portsmouth Road club are planning to return to the Sydenhams Wessex League after just one season back in the Evo-Stik Southern One South & West.

And while Diaper says Sholing have made no decision to pull the plug on Southern League football, he fears they may not have a choice if ground-grading issues are not resolved and the planned VT Sports Ground development does not get the green light.

Quizzed on the rumours of an imminent Wessex return, Diaper said: “Nothing is concrete. People are just adding one and one together and making three.

“But what I would say is that getting the new facility is integral to where this club is going over the next three or four years and, without it, I can’t see us sustaining Southern League football.

“We want to be a Southern League side, but without the new facilities I don’t see the club progressing.”

As reported in last Friday’s Echo, Sholing are furious about having to hire in an extra toilet block – which no one uses, but costs £70 a week – at their Silverlake Arena home.

“What people don’t realise is we don’t get any money over the bar, we only get gate money and sponsorship,” said Diaper.

“We used what money we had to go up this year, but if we’d been told in the original ground-grading visit that our toilet facilities didn’t comply, we’d have had a decision to make – and that decision would most likely have been not to go back up to the Southern League.

“Another club made a fuss about us not having additional toilets for the clubhouse, which I can sympathise with because that particular club had to make improvements themselves.

“But we’d already passed the ground grading and when we put that to the league they said we should have read the rules.

“It’s very frustrating to be given the green light and then have the red light shown.”

Diaper is also fearful that more money will have gone to waste if the planned £1.1 million ground upgrade does not go through.

One of the reasons Sholing returned to the Southern League after winning the Sydenhams League and FA Vase last term was to get extra grant money for the ground.

But if the development hits a dead end, they will have paid higher travelling costs for nothing.

“By going higher up the pyramid there’s an additional £50,000 towards development costs,” Diaper explained. “But it costs an extra £8-9,000 to cater for Southern League travel, so we may have shot ourselves in the foot paying out money we didn’t need to spend.

“It’s an unsatisfactory situation all round and it’s hard to hide your frustration and anger sometimes.

“I must say, though, that the players have been tremendous. People say this doesn’t affect them, but it does. They all want nice facilities too and they deserve them.”

Sholing are back on home territory tomorrow against third-placed Evesham.

They have a score to settle after losing December’s away fixture 1-0 to a controversial late penalty.

Diaper has a near full squad available, bar skipper Bryon Mason, who needs another fort-night’s rest to cure an Achilles problem, and full-back Sam Olaofe (hamstring).