(The following speech was delivered by Brian Burgess before the Rotherham match on 1 October 2005
I'd like to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has supported the Back the Bees campaign.
A lot of people have put in a huge amount of time, energy and commitment into raising the cash and pledges which now total over £720,000. It shows how much you supporters care about this club and just what special supporters you are.
It's a tremendous achievement but of course the fact remains that the fund thermometer on the Braemar Road forecourt shows that we haven't achieved our target of one million pounds that we set ourselves by yesterday.
Yesterday was the day when the option to acquire our club expired. It's clear that we need more time. It's only recently become clear that the club is suffering a cash crisis and it would take even more cash than we originally thought to put it on a sound financial footing.
But this week there has been some good news.
Hounslow Council have given approval in principle to lend us half a million pounds. That's a really great gesture from the council and I really appreciate their support. It's a great vote of confidence in Bees United as a responsible community organisation.
And also on Thursday, and it was only on Thursday (so it's really gone to the wire this week) that Barclays Bank confirmed that they would lend us two million pounds on a fifteen year loan and a half a million pound overdraft. Altonwood confirmed they will lend us a million pounds interest free for three years and give us a million pound bank guarantee. All this good news has enabled us to do a deal with Altonwood which means that yesterday we were able to exercise the option on the basis that we now have until the 31st of January to complete our fundraising and to complete all the detailed legal and financial arrangements to enable Bees United to take over the ownership of this club.
It's a huge step forward but there's still a long way to go.
Yesterday we also arranged for two of our Bees United members, whose pledges are included in the seven hundred thousand to put in an emergency loan into this club so that it could pay its wages and avoid going into administration today.
The bottom line is that Bees United has met its deadline, we have exercised the option to buy the club, but we do have to raise another five hundred thousand pounds in the next four months.
It's a historic opportunity and it's one that we need to grasp with both hands because we will never be any closer than this. So everybody needs to get behind this campaign; everybody needs to give us their support and you can start right now by getting behind the team on the pitch today. Because the most important thing this afternoon is that we get three points. So come on everybody and give the players your total support, show them how much you care and how much you want to make Brentford your club.
Thank You.
Brian Burgess
Chairman
Bees United