Walton & Hersham FC Xcel row: club offers to run the bars

Walton & Hersham Football Club has offered to take over the matchday bars at Elmbridge Xcel Sports Hub and guarantee the operator a payment of around £250 a game, in an open letter published on 13 August that puts a figure on a dispute with Elmbridge Borough Council that has been running for more than a year. Hours earlier the council had published its own statement saying the club “is asking the council to directly subsidise the semi-professional football club which is a private company”, and that it is “not in a position to do” that.

Both sides put their case in public on the same day, which is unusual and makes this one of the few local disputes where residents can read the primary documents rather than a summary of them. What follows is drawn from those two statements only.

What the council says

Elmbridge Borough Council’s statement of 13 August says it has been supporting the club into the new season, “including funding the recently completed new £300,000 3G pitch”, and that its leisure contractor Places Leisure “has also made an offer of sponsorship to support their growth”.

It then sets out the operational complaint. The council says it “has been disappointed that the club are refusing to re-sign their hire (Key User) agreement and are attempting to pass additional match day costs onto the council including stewarding costs for the first home game”. Those costs, it says, “have been met by the club, or any other external hirer since the facility opened in 2017”, and its position “has been endorsed by Surrey Fire and Rescue’s Sports Stadium & Spectator Safety Officer who has overall responsibility for match day safety”.

The council adds that the club’s existing hire agreement remains in place, or a short-term agreement can be arranged for the first few games while negotiations finish, and that as far as it, Places Leisure and the safety officer are concerned there was “no reason” the fixtures scheduled for that Saturday or the following Tuesday could not go ahead. It ends by asking the club “not to carry out a campaign through social media, the press and the clubs fan forum”.

Earlier entries on the same page fill in the year. On 11 June the council listed the support it already provides: a reduced hourly hire charge, covering all maintenance, cleaning, running and utility costs, help growing sponsorship and an exclusive banner sponsorship arrangement for the site. It noted the Sports Hub attracted more than 200,000 visits last year and “is a community facility used and valued by many local people”. On 24 June it confirmed the £300,000 synthetic turf replacement, tied to the club’s promotion to the National League South. On 4 August it said it welcomed “the strong support shown for Walton & Hersham FC through the recent petition”.

What the club says

The club’s open letter, published the same day, opens by rejecting the word subsidy: “Walton & Hersham FC is not asking Elmbridge Borough Council for a subsidy. We are asking to be allowed to help ourselves.”

Its argument is about bar takings. Supporters pay to get into the club’s matches, then spend money inside a council-owned building run commercially by Places Leisure, and the club says it “receives none of the bar income generated by those supporters”. As crowds have grown, it says, so have its own costs: security, stewarding, ground grading, compliance.

It puts three options on the table: Places discloses what the bars actually take on a matchday and agrees a share of the surplus; or the club runs the bars itself while guaranteeing Places an agreed return; or the council finally settles its position on a lease, a purchase of the relevant part of the Sports Hub, or a lease with a right to buy.

The £250 figure comes from the club applying a councillor’s own worked example to its own attendances. The letter says Councillor Simon Waugh, the council’s portfolio holder for leisure, culture and commercial strategy, illustrated his position using a crowd of 2,000, half of them drinking, two pints each, at a return of less than 25p a pint. The club’s average attendance last season was just under 1,000, so applying only the beer element of that example gives roughly £250 a fixture. The club is explicit that this is not the whole bar take: it says it will guarantee £250 a game as a starting figure, take the stock, staffing and commercial risk itself, and “if Places can demonstrate that its genuine existing contribution from all WHFC matchday bar sales is higher than £250, we are prepared to discuss guaranteeing that higher return instead”.

On the pitch, the club says it is “genuinely grateful” but objects to the figure being used as a conversation-stopper: “The Council spent money improving a Council-owned asset at a Council-owned sports facility. Walton & Hersham does not own the pitch.” It says approaching 1,000 local children take part in the wider club.

The letter also quotes council and Places Leisure correspondence, including an April 2025 council action list that examined what would happen if the Sports Hub were “leased/sold to the club”, an October 2025 reference to “the option of a lease with a right to buy with the club”, and a 28 July 2026 message saying Places had “drafted an outline proposal on a surplus share basis for the bar”, which the club says was replaced two weeks later by an £8,000 sponsorship offer conditional on positive brand exposure. Those quotations appear only in the club’s letter. We have not seen the underlying correspondence, and the council has not published it.

The safety certificate and Saturday’s game

The sharpest passage in the club’s letter concerns the days before its first home fixture. It says Places Leisure holds the General Safety Certificate for the ground, and that on the morning of 13 August, “shortly after 10am”, the club was given until 5pm the same day to produce an Event Management Plan for the Saturday match, with a warning that Places would otherwise consult the council and the Safety Advisory Group about whether spectators could safely be admitted. The letter’s opening line, in capitals, told supporters the fixture remained scheduled and to plan to attend as normal.

It went ahead. Walton & Hersham lost 3-0 at home to Maidstone United on Saturday 15 August, their first home game in the National League South, leaving them with two defeats from two, one goal scored and eight conceded, according to the club’s own match report.

What it means for you

If you were planning to go to a game, go. The next home fixture is Tuesday 18 August at 7:45pm against Dagenham at Elmbridge Xcel Sports Hub, Waterside Drive, Walton-on-Thames KT12 2JP, and the club is then away at Chesham United on Saturday 22 August before hosting Dorking Wanderers at the Hub on Saturday 29 August. Both the council and the club said the fixtures should go ahead. Nothing either side has published suggests otherwise, but the club’s own website is the place to check on the day, because it is the club, not the council, that has been telling supporters whether to travel.

If you use the Sports Hub for anything else, none of this is about you. The argument is over the football club’s hire agreement and the bar income from its fixtures. The council describes the Hub as a community facility with more than 200,000 visits a year, and the swimming, gym and pitch bookings that make up most of that are not part of the dispute.

If you want to follow what happens next, watch for two things. The first is whether the club signs a hire agreement, since the council says the existing one stands and the club says the terms need resolving rather than assuming. The second is whether Places Leisure discloses what the matchday bars actually take, because both sides’ arguments rest on a number that only one of them can see.

Sources

• Elmbridge Borough Council, Xcel Sports Hub, Walton & Hersham FC, statements dated 11 June, 24 June, 4 August and 13 August 2026, for the council’s position, the £300,000 pitch, the hire agreement and stewarding costs, the safety officer’s endorsement, the 200,000 visits figure and the petition.
• Walton & Hersham FC, Open Letter about Walton & Hersham FC, 13 August 2026, for the club’s three proposals, the £250 offer and the worked example it is derived from, the average attendance, the lease and relocation history, the £8,000 sponsorship offer and the Event Management Plan deadline.
• Walton & Hersham FC, Swans still looking for first point, 16 August 2026, and the club’s fixtures listing, for the 3-0 defeat to Maidstone United on 15 August and the fixtures on 18, 22 and 29 August.

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