HARWICH and Parkeston chairman Tony Armstrong is delighted after the club completed refurbishment of their grandstand at Royal Oak.

The club's donate-a-seat campaign, which has seen supporters donate £25 to sponsor a seat, has helped the club carry out renovation work on their main stand.

Vice-chairman Chris Smith and his son Albie took on the project to refit and revitalise the stand which was built in 1948, with a total of 230 people volunteering to buy a seat within 48 hours.

Harwich manager Michael Wallace and assistant Gary Kioussis came up with the innovative idea to see if the many supporters of the historic club would be interested in donating to buy the seats.

They wanted to make the stand the envy of many and enable the first stage of ground renovation to take place.

Harwich chairman Tony Armstrong said: "People from Australia, Nigeria, Holland as well as all over Britain came forward to join the many past and present supporters to donate with many seats being purchased in memory of many, many people no longer alive who either played for or supported the Shrimpers in the past.

"I'd like to praise everyone involved in this brilliant project and in particular the supporters, who have helped complete stage one of the preparation to get the ground up to the required standards again and be ready for the next generation of Shrimpers.

"More improvements are planned so 'watch this space'."