King's Lynn chairman Ken Bobbins confirmed yesterday the prestige pre-season friendly against Norwich City next month will go ahead despite recent rain causing serious interior damage to the club's Main Stand re-development project.

King's Lynn chairman Ken Bobbins confirmed yesterday the prestige pre-season friendly against Norwich City next month will go ahead despite recent rain causing serious interior damage to the club's Main Stand re-development project.

Bobbins revealed hospitality lounges, changing rooms and the manager's office situated beneath the Main Stand have been gutted after ceilings collapsed following heavy downpours which penetrated the exposed roof - currently undergoing a £350,000 summer facelift.

Lynn's Blue and Gold function room is also set to remain shut for the next month while urgent repairs are carried out.

Bobbins is estimating the insurance bill will run into thousands of pounds for the Borough Council facility, but the scheduled visit of Peter Grant's team on Wednesday, July 18 will still take place.

"We'll just open the other three sides of the ground," said Bobbins. "But we may now have to restrict ourselves to just the one home pre-season game. The roof doesn't appear to have been sealed properly and the water has just flooded through over the last week or so.

"We've got water in the electrics, water in the lights - the whole place is totally unusable. To close the Blue and Gold for a month means cancelling a lot of functions which is quite a big blow. Hopefully the bars will be up and running for the Norwich game because that is a big revenue night for us. The incident is going to cost us a considerable amount of money - a point we shall be impressing on the insurers.

"Unfortunately the matter is beyond our control. It's in the hands of the council and the contractors. We are not part of those discussions."

Bobbins has also warned the Main Stand building work is set to have a major knock-on effect for Lynn's Southern League kick off.

"We've already been told the work will not be completed until August 28," he said. "The reserves kick off on August 11 and we start the following week. At this present time we are waiting on official confirmation before we make representations to the respective leagues. It's very disappointing. Everything we seem to do hits a snag. This should be a straightforward process where we all get to sit down in a new seat for the start of the season. That isn't going to be the case now."

Lynn's chairman insists the proposed delay will have no impact on the club's player recruitment drive.

Bobbins is set for fresh talks with a football league duo this week. Ex-Boston United skipper Ben Chapman has also been given an ultimatum over a possible Walks switch.

"We need to know by the end of this week or we'll look elsewhere," confirmed Bobbins. "We are speaking to a midfielder and a utility defender about dropping down from the football league. There's also a conference player we are working on.

"I don't for a minute expect we have a chance to land all three. If we could get one of those I'd be very, very happy because they are the type of quality player we need.

"One of the football league targets has two conference clubs and another football league club interested so that is what we're up against. We have to get over that perception they are dropping down three levels into part time football. It's about selling the place sufficiently well, so they are prepared to do that."

n King's Lynn will play Blue Square South outfit Cambridge City on Saturday, July 21 (3pm) at Milton Road in a pre-season fixture.