No club can be happier to welcome the start of a new season than Debenham LC, who ply their trade in Division One North of the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League.

And that’s because Debenham were within just a few hours of folding, until they were saved by a hastily assembled new committee.

So instead of disappearing out of existence, Debenham LC will indeed be turning out for the opening day of the 2018-19 season, at home to Lakenheath today.

A couple of weeks before the end of last season, the club’s ex-chairman and all of the committee, bar one or two members, decided to stand down, at which staged it seemed as though the club was likely to fold.

But with new chairman Chris Conway as a driving force, a whole new committee was put together, with Pip Alden as the new vice-chairman. Conway and Alden are now hoping to get the club back to being a proper community club, backed by the village.

Over the last few weeks, the committee members have been preparing the facilities at the Leisure Centre for the new season, erecting advertising boards, replacing the posts around the pitch, and restoring the ‘Claude Chapman’ sign on the stand.

Chairman Conway said: “The previous committee tried and tried, but Debenham is a small village where it is hard to raise funds for the football team, and after two years they felt that they couldn’t do it anymore, because it was costing too much money.

“We therefore had a meeting, where we were told that if no new committee was formed within 24 hours, then the club would fold.

“I was fortunate in that I knew many of the previous committee members, many of them going back years. We have put in a lot of work on the pitch and pitch-side, working night after night, and have also raised funds. The World Cup helped with this.

“Hopefully, the club has enjoyed a new lease of life, ahead of the new season. We have an 18-strong committee and we have been very pro-active.

“Leon Moore is still the manager. We finished seventh last year, which was probably punching above our weight for a village club like ourselves, who average about crowds of 50,” added Conway, who has been associated with the Hornets for the last 20 years.