PLAYERS at the former Newcastle Jesters ice hockey club celebrated yesterday after an industrial tribunal awarded them about £148,000 in unpaid wages.

But question marks were raised over whether the cash will ever be paid, and top staff at the club such as coach Glen Mulvenna are still awaiting a decision on further claims totalling about £100,000.

The tribunal, in Newcastle, heard how 20 players had been owed up to three months' wages from the 2001 season, along with expenses for travel and hockey equipment.

Jo Collins, chief executive of the Ice Hockey Players Association (IHPA), represented the men at the hearing.

"We are very pleased we have finally brought this action to a conclusion and have an award for around £148,000," she said. "However, that still leaves us with the problem of recovering the money.

"It has been an absolute nightmare for the players. There is a feeling among them of despondency. It is a sizeable amount of money for anybody to lose and these are people with families and mortgages."

She said the IHPA was looking at forming a partnership with another party, also owed a substantial amount by Newcastle Jesters, in order to ask the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to formally wind up the club.

Ms Collins also called for a full inquiry into the club's financial dealings. "We will be contacting the DTI and asking them to expand their investigations to include Newcastle Jesters' activities," she said.

She told the tribunal that Jesters' directors were seeking a High Court hearing in October to try to recover about £380,000 from one of the main protagonists in the affair, Graham Gutteridge, who was the chairman of the Eye Group, the media arm of Fablon Investments, which owned the club.

A previous hearing at the High Court in London had already frozen Mr Gutteridge's assets.

Mr Mulvenna told how he had paid players with his own money, despite not being paid for several months himself.

"I basically ran this club out of my own pocket," he said. "I paid my guys myself and did not get a return from it and I want to set the record straight."

The tribunal panel, chaired by David Reed, heard the complex paper trail leading to the club's owners described as a "bowl of spaghetti".

It was complicated by several changes of ownership of the franchise to operate the club, based at the Telewest Arena, before it folded in February last year.

The tribunal also awarded more than £3,000 to club manager Joanne Hutchinson. But Mr Mulvenna was told he had to wait to hear the outcome of his bid to reclaim more than £40,000. His hearing was adjourned until November 11.