Following last season being cut short, a period of lockdown and then one act of mindless vandalism and an arson attack, Budleigh Salterton AFC have picked themselves up, dusted themselves down and with some help from various organisations got back to business, writes Keith Wood.

The club’s Greenway Lane ground has been extended with new banking to giving the club three five a side training pitches, two are in action this year with the third to follow next year.

New grandstand seats have been installed to replace those vandalised with the help of a kind donation from Budleigh Lions Club.

A brand new fence now runs up Greenway Lane and that has been managed thanks to the help of RGB Building Supplies.

To protect the club against anymore incidents, a state of the art CCTV has been installed to cover all the ground and again this was only possible thanks to donations from Reflex Marine and Mortgage Supermarket.

The club has had board sponsorship from Sampson Butchers and Marco’s Italian to help with the floodlight maintenance, which will be good for this season.

Unfortunately the floodlights require replacing, twenty years of salt air and bird droppings have taken their toll.

The club is looking to raise £22,000 to replace the sixteen lights, which is not a huge amount of money considering it is the emergency landing site for the Devon Air Ambulance and how important this is to the town.

So we are asking if any local business’s that would like a advertising board and contribute to the fund please get in touch with the club via the website feedback page www.budleighsaltertonafc.co.uk

Finally Urban Earth have re sponsored the club for the coming season with the news breaking before the Robins launched a new Scott Richards Devon League North & East campaign with a 4-1 win over Chudleigh on Saturday.