Billingham Town live to fight another day after their court case was adjourned at Wednesday lunchtime.

The judge, sitting in Teesside County Court, agreed to a proposal to adjourn from the two parties ahead of a meeting between Town and Hartlepool next week. That means Town are still in business, and will be playing at Whitley Bay as scheduled on Saturday.

Here is a press release, in its entirety, from Billingham Town.

press release from Billingham Town (Martin Forster) I am authorised by Tom Donnelly, the sole director of BillinghamTown Football Club Limited to make this statement on behalf of the Company.

“On Monday (25th October) of this week Tom Donnelly was contacted by Russ Green, former Chief Executive of Hartlepool United Football Club, who informed him that an anonymous business from Hartlepool was prepared to pay the sum of approximately £10,500 demanded by Hartlepool. Tom immediately rejected that offer. Including legal costs it would now cost approximately £30,000 to resolve the disputed claim made by Hartlepool United.

Yesterday morning(Tuesday, 26th October) Russ Green attended the Bedford Terrace ground and later rang Tom Donnelly proposing that Hartlepool take over the lease of our club and forego the money that they claim to be owed. Our club would then have to pay to use the ground that we have built up.

We have always been willing to talk to resolve this matter and have agreed with the proposal that the case be adjourned to enable this to happen.

We remain committed to providing a service to the residents of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees and Billingham and will continue to work in order to do so.

We hope that we will be able to continue to do so and retain our home at Bedford Terrace.

We would like to thank the many people who have expressed support from our club, in particular those who have attended the court today.”

And here's the statement from the Hartlepool website: "Hartlepool United would like to make the following statement: Following discussions between representatives on behalf of Billingham Town Football Club Limited ("BTFCL") and ourselves earlier today, we have agreed to adjourn the hearing of the Winding Up petition against BTFCL for a period of eight weeks to allow for negotiations to take place.

We are hopeful that these negotiations, which are planned to take place in the near future, will bring about a resolution to this matter for the benefit of all parties.

There will be no further comment at this time.

_________________