A football club president has been ordered to dismantle an "eyesore man cave" - complete with bar and TV - which he built in his suburban garden after a £100,000 neighbours' battle.

Justin Salmon, president of non-league Sutton Common Rovers FC, was sued after constructing a "garden room" and turning it into an outdoor bar for entertaining his guests.

Disgruntled neighbour Andrianna Neophytou dragged him to court, demanding that the unauthorised development - which she branded an "eyesore" - be torn down.

Mr Salmon fought to retain the structure, but now faces having to pull it apart after a judge rejected his claim that the bar room is in fact a mere garden pergola.

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.

He said Mr Salmon would have to do work to dismantle the garden room - which features a "man cave" sign - and turn it into the open-sided pergola for which he does have permission.

However, he rejected Mrs Neophytou's bid to have her neighbour remove the shed which is next to the bar, finding that that structure falls within Mr Salmon's rights.

And he also backed Mr Salmon's claim that a porch which Mrs Neophytou had constructed over the stairs which lead to her upper floors maisonette should be removed as it is an interference with his right to pass alongside the house and a "trespass" on the bricks in his wall.

Sitting at Mayors and City County Court during the trial, Judge Parfitt was told that Mr Salmon lives in a lower floors maisonette with his wife Karen, with Mrs Neophytou's own maisonette, which was her home but was recently rented to tenants, above the Salmons and her garden behind theirs.

Mrs Neophytou, who is also freeholder of the whole house and gardens, was approached by Mr Salmon for permission to build a pergola at the bottom of the garden in 2017, granting him permission to do so.

But having erected it, Mr Salmon then built a shed alongside, before developing the structures until they consisted of a roofed garden room, with UPVC windows and doors, plastered walls, carpeted floors, furniture, and "Man Cave" and "The Den" signs.

Giving evidence, Mrs Neophytou told the judge that the neighbours fell out badly in 2020, after which she brought proceedings in the Property Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, arguing that the "eyesore" structures were in breach of the Salmons' lease.

"When I looked out the back, I had that great big room and marquees and everything else," she said from the witness box.

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

After the tribunal found that the structures were in breach of the lease, Mr Salmon said he would do work on the "den" to make it comply, and went on to turn the left hand side into a garden bar, open on the front, with a "domestic shed" on the right.

But Mrs Neophytou, who has more recently let her maisonette to tenants, claimed that 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, save for a shed for domestic purposes.

He said the First-tier Tribunal had recorded the initial garden room as including "full-height UPVC patio doors, separate mains electricity supply, an electric doorbell, and exterior signs reading 'Man Cave' and 'The Den'."

However, Mr and Mrs Salmon claimed that work they did after the tribunal decision meant the structures now complied, since they had returned the development to a general garden pergola and shed.

"Mr Salmon says UPVC doors and windows, carpet tiles, the front and right-hand walls, insulation, plaster, soundproofing and an electric doorbell were removed, and that a wooden wall was installed to create an enclosed right-hand space," said Mrs Neophytou's barrister.

"The claimant's evidence is that the defendants made piecemeal changes but did not remove the garden-room structures. She says they placed signs stating 'Shed for Domestic Purposes' and 'Pergola with a covering to prevent birds mess'.

"The court should focus on objective character, not labels. If the retained footprint, roof, support, boundary relationship, base and overall mass of the earlier development remain, the removal of doors, windows or internal finishes does not necessarily cure the breach.

"The 2022 works did not remedy the breach. They removed some obvious room-like features, but did not remove the substance of the additional building or erection."

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."

However, as to the shed, he continued: "On the other hand, on balance, I do consider that the changes which have been made to

the right hand side have brought it within the ordinary and natural sense of shed."

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.

"The simple point is whatever is there must be a pergola consistent with the context created by it being placed towards the corner of a small garden at the back of a maisonette in suburban south London," he said.

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."

"The corner created by the stairs in the right of way down the side of the house is likely more difficult to negotiate now that the sides of the stairs are covered by the porch, not least if carrying awkwardly shaped loads, and the area of the stairs and landings have become practically inaccessible," he said.

"At the same time, the possibility of damage, whether through water ingress or otherwise, from the new structure against the defendants’ wall is also obvious, as is the actual trespass.

"I find that the porch is a wrongful interference and a trespass as alleged."

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.