A BIZARRE coincidence saw a graphic design firm called GASP employed by Steve Hayes to brand his community stadium company – the same name used by a group of protesters against the project.

Northampton-based GASP Creative were asked to create a logo and 'brand identity' for Wycombe Sports Developments Limited last year, before the GASP campaign group was formed.

The protests by Groups Against the Stadium Proposals (GASP) campaigners did much to help topple the project, which was dramatically axed by councillors last week (see link below).

GASP campaigner Keith Francis said: “We didn't know this at the beginning and I guess we would have changed our name.

“We had done the branding and everything by the time we discovered the link. It was just a name everyone seemed to like.

“It's quite ironic really, we thought it was really quite strange when we discovered it.”

Wycombe Sports Developments Limited (WSDL) were formed by Wycombe Wanderers and Wasps, both owned by Hayes, to push forward the community stadium project.

A spokesman for WSDL said it has employed GASP Creative on a freelance basis for various projects and the shared name was a “pure coincidence”.