Lawyers for Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur are pursuing a non-league club because their logo is too similar to their own cockerel crest.
Wessex League Division One outfit Fleet Spurs were set up in 1948 as a tribute to the North London side, but have now had to deal with a backlash from Tottenham's lawyers, who have written to demand they change their badge.
Tottenham, though, have given the penniless club until Christmas to remove the crest from their ground and allowed its use on their kit for the rest of the season.
A Spurs spokesman said: "If we do not take action to stop Fleet Spurs using our cockerel logo, it can undermine our ability to stop other unauthorised people who use our logo for commercial purposes, such as counterfeiters.
"We are very conscious that Fleet Spurs is a grassroots club. For this reason we have been very careful not to ask them to do anything that might incur costs.
"It was always the club's approach to deal with this matter amicably and with a large dose of common sense."
The alteration will cost the non-league side between £3,000 and £4,000, thus they will run a competition to design the new badge in an attempt to make the alteration as cheaply as possible.
Fleet Spurs chairman Bryan Sheppard told BBC Hampshire: "We haven't got a penny to our name, we couldn't afford to fight it.
"It's been quite stressful, we just felt really intimidated by the heavy-handed approach.
"But I can see where they are coming from."
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| Fleet Spurs have a logo similiar to the one used by Tottenham Hotspur |
Wessex League Division One outfit Fleet Spurs were set up in 1948 as a tribute to the North London side, but have now had to deal with a backlash from Tottenham's lawyers, who have written to demand they change their badge.
Tottenham, though, have given the penniless club until Christmas to remove the crest from their ground and allowed its use on their kit for the rest of the season.
A Spurs spokesman said: "If we do not take action to stop Fleet Spurs using our cockerel logo, it can undermine our ability to stop other unauthorised people who use our logo for commercial purposes, such as counterfeiters.
"We are very conscious that Fleet Spurs is a grassroots club. For this reason we have been very careful not to ask them to do anything that might incur costs.
"It was always the club's approach to deal with this matter amicably and with a large dose of common sense."
The alteration will cost the non-league side between £3,000 and £4,000, thus they will run a competition to design the new badge in an attempt to make the alteration as cheaply as possible.
Fleet Spurs chairman Bryan Sheppard told BBC Hampshire: "We haven't got a penny to our name, we couldn't afford to fight it.
"It's been quite stressful, we just felt really intimidated by the heavy-handed approach.
"But I can see where they are coming from."
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