Roll up, roll up – the circus being played at King’s Lynn Town Football Club

A travelling circus pitched just yards from The Walks Stadium has become an unlikely – yet fitting – metaphor for the unfolding drama at King’s Lynn Town Football Club.As Circus Ginnett returns with a thrilling new show, two hundred yards across the field, a very different kind of performance is playing out – one marked by boardroom battles (one man), financial turmoil, and a bitter power struggle that threatens to tear the club apart.Supporters and observers have been quick to draw comparisons between the circus and the off-field chaos engulfing the Linnets and the club’s very existence.The ringmaster, it appears, remains Stephen Cleeve – a man who arrived at the club under a cloud back in 2016.Waiting in the wings are Turn Sports Investments and the Blue and Gold Supporters Trust, ready to save the club and take it into a new era.Turn Sports Investments remain very much the support act and have done since they became involved with the club back in January 2024.Without the financial support of TSI, it remains very clear that the club would already be in liquidation for a second time in 15 years. Since Covid, the club has been operating at a loss of close to £300,000 a season – an extremely bleak figure from an outsider looking in. Mr Cleeve could do very little wrong in the eyes of previous manager Adam Lakeland – sacked on Wednesday – but you have to ask yourselves whose money it was that funded a promotion charge last season, Mr Cleeve’s or Turn Sports Investments?TSI decided to cut next season’s playing budget, not Cleeve, but their investment of £700,000 in 15 months was substantial enough for them to hold the financial cards.A Sport England loan – taken on by Cleeve himself – remains a major concern and the outstanding debt is proving a major stumbling block in a bid to save and restructure the club. The silence from the Lynn chairman has been deafening in recent weeks, although a series of posts appeared on X after the special general meeting involving TSI and the Blue and Gold Supporters Trust on Thursday night.Cleeve responded by taking a swipe at Blue and Gold Supporters Trust chairman Phil Ellis, a supporter of the club since 1967.Now is the time not to clown around; this is serious stuff with the club’s future on a tightrope. What happens next is anyone’s guess.