It’s make your mind up time at Newport RFC. To back, or not to back, that is the question. Robin Davey sets the scene before Tuesday evening’s crucial vote.

 

D-day has arrived when the future of the three teams playing at historic Rodney Parade will be sorted one way or another.

A yes vote by 75% of Newport RFC shareholders on a plan by the Welsh Rugby Union to take over Rodney Parade means survival for Newport, the Dragons and Newport County.

But a no vote means the receivers will be called in tomorrow and Rodney Parade Ltd will go into administration, unable to pay its debts and unable to trade.

Main creditors Tony Brown, Martyn Hazell, Handelsbank and the WRU will call in their debts in the knowledge that Newport as a semi-pro Premiership club would be unable to maintain Rodney Parade, forcing a closure and sale to property developers.

It’s been a tense build-up to this evening’s crunch vote, a series of open meetings producing at times a hostile reaction and reception for the powers-that-be from angry Newport RFC members who feel they have been treated badly in this proposed deal.

As a result the WRU have made certain refinements to their original offer such as the provision of a room which had been used for video analysis to house the Newport museum and the use of the David Watkins suite on match days for a bar and fund raising facilities.

That raises the question of why those things weren’t on the table in the first place, it would have saved a lot of angst for sure. But we are where we are now.

Nothing can be done about providing Newport, or the Dragons for that matter, any certainty about playing at Rodney Parade beyond 2020 for that is when the current RSA agreement ends and no-one is sure what will happen after that.

And on the allegation that the WRU would be getting Rodney Parade at a knockdown price of £3.75m, they reply that they are spending well over that with the purchase, much needed ground improvements and a new pitch.

That thorny issue has been decided in the past few days after Newport County’s dramatic last gasp win against Notts County on Saturday.

That ensured the County remain in the Football League after an 89th minute winner when at one stage they trailed by 11 points at the foot of the Second Division table.

Welcome though that is, the outcome has a direct consequence on what happens to the pitch if there is a yes vote tonight. For

Football League rules don’t allow a 3 or 4g artificial pitch, and the provision of a Desso pitch –  like the one at the Liberty Stadium – with its ongoing maintenance, would simply cost too much.

So as WRU chief executive Martyn Phillips explained at a recent open meeting that County staying up and a yes vote would mean a new drainage system being laid and a grass pitch once again (with all the associated problems of three teams playing on such a surface).

Phillips also stressed time would be short to get the work done with County resuming fixtures in August.

The football club has a contract to use Rodney Parade until 2023 and whatever the preference of the WRU for an artificial pitch with members of the community using it as well, that now cannot happen.

Either way, everyone concerned is holding his or her breath waiting on the outcome.

Mark Jones, the well known and highly respected head of operations at RP and ex-chief groundsman, tweeted that he wished players, staff and fans a good night’s sleep last night.

For the future of all the Rodney Parade staff is very much at stake as well, for a no vote will means lots of people being made redundant.

The Dragons would survive, almost certainly resurfacing elsewhere for the WRU are contractually obliged to field four teams and Phillips has often said he wants professional rugby in Gwent to flourish.

But Newport would struggle to exist, certainly as a Premiership club without a ground, Rodney Parade would quickly become a building site – while Newport County would have to find another home.

The final word on what tonight’s vote means should, perhaps, rest with Ashley Smith, the former Newport and Dragons centre recently forced to retire because of concussion issues.

He tweeted this morning: ‘Imagine Newport as a city not having a rugby/football stadium. Losing Rodney Parade would be very sad, sport gives so much.’