A football club president who built a 24ft 'man cave' has been ordered to demolish it after a £100,000 court battle with a neighbour.

Justin Salmon upset his neighbour after erecting what he has described as a 'den' – featuring a TV, bar, plastered walls, carpeting, furniture and an electric doorbell – at the bottom of his garden.

Neighbour Andrianna Neophytou dragged the president of non-league Sutton Common Rovers FC to court to demand the 'eyesore' be torn down.

She is the freeholder of the Salmons' ground-level maisonette, in Coulsdon, south London, as well as their upstairs neighbour.

She had previously secured a tribunal ruling that the sprawling 'man cave', built in 2018, was in breach of their lease, which gave permission for a pergola and a simple toolshed in the garden.

But she sued Mr Salmon to have the shed torn down completely after arguing that the work he did to comply with his lease did not go far enough.

Mrs Neophytou says he merely converted the 'cave' into an open-sided outdoor bar on the same footprint, swapping a sign on it saying 'Man Cave' for one reading 'Shed for Domestic Purposes'. 

Now Mr Salmon must demolish the entire structure after the judge rejected his claim that the bar room is in fact a mere garden pergola. 

In a case lawyers expect will run up legal bills worth more than £100,000, Judge Nicholas Parfitt said the structure is 'not a pergola' but instead a 'garden room entertainment area', for which Mr Salmon does not have permission. 

The judge ordered Mr Salmon to dismantle the garden room but allowed him to keep the shed next to the bar, finding that that structure falls within Mr Salmon's rights.

The judge also ordered Mrs Neophytou to remove a porch which had been constructed alongside the house up to her maisonette. 

Sitting at Mayor's and City County Court, Judge Nicholas Parfitt was told Mr Salmon lives in a maisonette with his wife, with Mrs Neophytou above the Salmons and her garden behind theirs.

Mr Salmon is president and senior secretary at non-league Sutton Common Rovers, having previously played for and coached the club that was founded by his father, Alan Salmon, in 1978. 

Mrs Neophytou was approached by Mr Salmon for permission to build a pergola at the bottom of the garden in 2017 and she allowed him to do so. 

Once it was built, Mr Salmon then added a shed alongside, before gradually developing the structures until they comprised a roofed garden room.

This featured UPVC windows and doors, plastered walls, carpeted floors, furniture, and signs saying 'Man Cave' and 'The Den'.

Mrs Neophytou had previously told the judge how the neighbours fell out badly in 2020, prompting her to bring First-tier Tribunal proceedings.

She argued that the 'eyesore' structures were in breach of the Salmons' lease, saying from the witness box: 'When I looked out the back, I had that great big room and marquees and everything else.

'There was nothing pleasurable about looking out of my windows and that did upset me.'

After the earlier tribunal finding that the structures did breach the lease, Mr Salmon said he would do work on the 'den' to make it comply – going on to turn it into an open garden bar.

But Mrs Neophytou says what was done was not enough, telling Judge Parfitt: 'It doesn't look like a pergola or a shed now. It's all one long structure. It's an eyesore.'

Her barrister, Dilan Deeljur, said a clause of the Salmons' lease prohibits them from having any additional building on the land without written permission, except a shed for domestic purposes. 

He accused the Salmons of only making 'piecemeal' changes without removing the garden room structures.

For the Salmons, barrister James Culverwell said whatever name is given, the building containing the bar at the bottom of the Salmons' garden was now a 'pergola-type' structure and therefore within the terms of the agreement.

Mrs Neophytou's barrister said that Mr Salmon placed signs stating 'shed for domestic purposes' and 'pergola with a covering to prevent birds mess' after the initial ruling. 

Giving judgment, Judge Parfitt said: 'Looking at the photographs, the present structure provides a garden room entertainment area on the left hand side and a storage area to the right. The two structures are contiguous.

'The garden room is laid out in a manner more like a bar/diner than anything else, in that it contains a counter with three bar stools and a preparation area behind.

'There is also a table suitable for dining with benches on two sides. While the front is open, with heavy curtains available to close it off, the other sides and the roof are blocked off in one way or another.

'I have no doubt that the left hand side is not what was permitted by the claimant's agreement that the defendants could construct a pergola.

'What is there is not a pergola, within any ordinary and natural sense of the word, because it provides less an opportunity to make use of the garden when it otherwise might not be convenient to do so, but rather remains the 'additional living space' which Mr Salmon described to the Property Chamber'.

He said the bar side of the structure would now have to be removed, unless more work is done to make it comply with the permission for an open-sided pergola. 

As to the porch which Mrs Neophytou had built to enclose the stairs leading up to her maisonette, he said it was an 'interference' with the Salmons' right to pass alongside the house and a 'trespass to their walls'. 

However, he said injunctions relating to removal of the garden room and Mrs Neophytou's porch should allow a period of several months for the work, which would enable the parties to instead resolve their row by agreement.

'In both instances, but for different reasons, the waste of resources in removing the entertainment room and porch may be mitigated by the parties coming to terms,' he said.

'In my view this would be a far preferable outcome. It is a matter for them.'

The judge has not yet made a decision on what proportions of the legal bills the parties will have to pay.