Earlier this week the Western Advocate contacted secretary/manager Vince Melton – who has been in the job about six weeks – to ask if the club had gone into receivership, a suggestion he vehemently denied.

However, the rumours have persisted and yesterday a classified advertisement ran in the newspaper urging members to attend a general meeting on Monday at 6pm at the Gilmour Street club to discuss the future of the St Pat’s.

Yesterday, Mr Melton refused to be drawn on the agenda for the meeting, saying only that it was to discuss teams and the club’s financial situation.

However, he admitted that all hospitality venues were doing it tough at the moment.

“It’s really important members come to the meeting to discuss the future of the club,” Mr Melton said.

“We need to have a serious discussion about our future.

“That’s all I’m prepared to say.”

Back in April the previous secretary/ manager of St Pat’s, John Dolbel, warned that proposed new poker machine legislation would threaten the future of many small clubs and the many sporting and community groups they support.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has been pushing to have mandated pre-commitment technology installed on poker machines by 2014 as a way of tackling the gambling problem.

“It will just about kill us off,” Mr Dolbel said in April.

“We’ve got the old technology in our 16 machines and to buy new technology machines would be $25,000 a machine.

“We simply can’t afford it given we’re a community club and put all our money back into sport, community groups and looking after our ovals,” Mr Dolbel.

Mr Dolbel said at the time that the club had only just recovered from the introduction of smoking legislation and he found it frustrating to see the industry again having to fight for its survival.

All members of St Patrick’s Sporting Club are encouraged to attend Monday night’s meeting.