November 27, 2009
Need Insurance?
February 9, 2010
The longest outfield goal ever?
Al-Ahli Jeddah captain Mohammad Massad scored from 100 yards out during a Saudi League match recently, which is more than sufficient excuse to take a look at some other blinding strikes from distance. In case you haven’t seen Massad’s long-range goal yet, here it is:
February 7, 2010
Monster Muncher
The Monster Muncher
One of the classic adverts of the 1980’s was surely the Monster Muncher who was not satisfied by the Taj Mahal, The Leaning Tower of Pisa and The Empire State Building before he came across a packet of Chewits. As the credits rolled, the ad stated that “Chewits were chewier that Barrow-in-Furness bus depot”. (for a view of the ad click here). The Ad put Barrow on the map, just like Lorraine Chase did for Luton Airport, or Ian Rush did for Accrington Stanley. Ironically enough Barrow didn’t have a Bus Depot (it does now apparently)…but it does have a football team, which can claim to be one of the most northerly in English football.
Shadow encroachment
Barrow AFC have made a nice little home for themselves in the Blue Square Premier. They have actually quite a heritage in the Football League, gracing the old Third Division North in 1921 and then continuing in the leagues for a further fifty one years. In 1970 the club finished in 8th place in the third tier of English football, but the two following seasons saw the club slip down the leagues until they finished in third from last place in May 1972. This was the time of the Football League closed shop so there wasn’t any automatic promotion or relegation to the non-leagues. Barrow applied for re-election, and were pitted against Hereford United from the Southern League. Perhaps a few clubs were fed up with the long trawl up to Cumbria and that may be the reason why after a second ballot, Hereford were elected into the league at Barrow’s expense.
The club continued to play at the highest levels of the non-league game, and were one of the founder members of the Alliance Conference in 1979. In 1990 they went to Wembley for the first time, winning the FA Trophy against Leek Town. After a brief spell in the Unibond League, the club returned to the Blue Square Premier in 2008. Last season they made waves in the FA Cup, beating Brentford at home in front of the TV cameras and then narrowly losing to Middlesborough at The Riverside where their 7,000 travelling fans almost doubled the fickle Boro fans.
This season it has been more of the same really. At the end of January the club were in the lower reaches of the Conference, but with games in hand on all those around them. Another run to the FA Cup third round saw them again travel to the North East, this time at the Stadium of Light where Sunderland beat them 3-0.
The club have a large catchment area with only really Carlisle United and Workington (another old league club now in Blue Square North) to compete with. The club’s average attendance of 1,290 was slightly above average in the league, but they had started a campaign to raise this to 2,010 for the final ten games of the season…And first up was Luton Town, a club who would certainly bring a few hundred fans.
So why, you may ask was the TBIR extended team out for this game in Cumbria? Well, at the start of this season I vowed to CMF that I would do “all Blue Square Premier and South clubs this season”. The only one I didn’t get to last year was in fact Barrow in the top league. This season they have been joined by Hayes & Yeading (less than 20 miles from TBIR Towers and Gateshead) so it was always one I wanted to visit. Of course, Football Jo has a few “links” with Luton Town (see Taking The Mike), so we planned to use that as an excuse for a visit “up north”. Not fancying doing this one in a day (only a 645 mile round trip), I came up with the cunning idea of selling it as a “family” weekend away, and booked Centerparcs some 70 miles away in Whinfell. This would mean taking the girls out of school for a day (so teachers close your eyes now) but I figured that the school will close for the elections in May as its a Polling Day and so they would owe us a day.
Big Mick and part of the TBIR team
Now Luton Town. Hmmm. I was quite outspoken back in October about Mick Harford’s removal (see here), based on the club’s position and the high expectations set by fans and the owners alike. so when he left the team sat in 6th place, a point outside the play off zone. Coming into this game the club were in 7th place, a point outside the play off zone. New boss Richard Money had delivered some improvements, but I think the club, and the fans under estimated how difficult this league would be. Oxford appeared to be running away with it initially, but Stevenage had now almost matched them result for result, and York with one man goal machine Richard Brodie had opened up a big gap in the top three so in order to stay within touching distance of the Playoffs they would need a result “up north”.
Saturday morning dawned with beautiful sunshine. Bloody freezing, but a crisp sunny winter’s day. After a game of Adventure Golf (what happened to the words “Crazy Golf”? I assume they felt that it discriminated against those with mental problems. There is no adventure in slotting a ball between the legs of a concrete Roman soldier anyway) where Littlest Fuller had a huge tantrum, resulting in a slamming-down-of-her-golf-club sort of action after she took 3 shots at the third hole we headed off towards Barrow-in-Furness. Now we had the “fast” route (69 miles and around 70 minutes down the M6) or the “scenic” route (65 miles or 125 minutes). On the advice of Stuey Nichols, one of Barrow’s top chaps, we plumpted for the latter, not having been in this area of the world before. So after a brief stop at the most scenic ground in England, Penrith FC’s new Frenchfields stadium (what other grounds can claim to be bordered by a stream, a 11th century castle, hills full of sheep and snow capped hills) we headed west past mountain, fell,glen, lake and all.
Grasmere
After two hours of driving up hill, down dale and along the lakes of Thirlmere, Gramere, Coniston and Windermere, we decamped next to Barrow AFC’s Holker Street ground and not a moment too soon. The countryside is beautiful up here but after avoiding walkers, sheep and dry stone walls for the hundreth time you get a bit bored and long for some litter, grafetti and traffic lights, so the run down council estates was a welcome site as we entered Barrow. After a mile or so the huge floodlights towered over the landscape – Welcome to Holker Street!
And what a proper ground it was too….ancient toilets, turnstile operators willing to give you ”the wink” on Lolly’s age, decent terraces and lovely big floodlights. Luton’s originally expected 700+ fans had somehow shrank in the wash and around 300 had made the 283 mile trip northwards in time for Kevin Nichols to lead the Hatters out. Many Luton fans I knew who had made the trip, including Football Jo still had the memories of Wembley still fresh in their minds from last April. Opponents on that day, Scunthorpe United were entertaining Crystal Palace today. Football can be a cruel game.
Barrow 0 Luton Town 1 – Holker Street – Saturday 6th February 2010
Barrow have quite a passionate following. They have their own Ultras group – Ultras Barrovia, who more recently had run into problems with the police and stewarding at the ground as it appeared that the local authorities did not want to see football fans acting like, well, football fans supporting their team. Now this is not a story for today (although it we have a deeper look into it soon) but it was interesting to see the fans holding up a banner before the game highlighting that passionately supporting your team is not a crime. Luton, on the other hand had left any vocal element of their support back down the A590, M6 (Toll) and M1 by the sound of it. They did start the brighter team though with Newton making use of some space on the right, but time and time again his final ball into Craddock and Hatch was poor.
Hatch got himself in the home team’s bad books in the tenth minute when his aerial challenge on Barrow’s Phil Bolland left the defender with a head wound that ended his game. Tempers were fraid for awhile, not helped by Mr Curry in the middle failing to show any consistency, Tikka’ing off players who should be booked and giving plenty of Korma’s when they should have been goal kicks (OK that’s my limit – I’m not as creative as Mr Last).
Sponsor my arse.com
Football Jo, our “nanny” for our trip away, has a bit of inside knowledge into the Luton team due to her “contacts” in the game (which I would say have “allegedly” proved right in the case of Mr Grant at Portsmouth in the case of his relaxation methods most recently) and spent the first half analysing the play, complete with one of the most shocking handbags ever seen at a football match. Barrow’s keeper, Tim Deasy provided the most amusement in the half, dribbling the ball around the on rushing Liam Hatch and essentially taking the piss whenever he had the ball. At one point he bent down in front of us to expose his “PremiumSolutions.co.uk” advertising on his bum. Surely a missed opportunity for a company such as “Peachy Cabs”, “The Bottom Line” or even “Talk Sport”.
If truth be told, as Nessa would say, it was a poor half and when the referee finally blew the whistle for the break, we headed upstairs to the Cross Bar for a swift pint and a chat to the locals. Jo had to admit defeat in her search for husband material, with none of the locals up to her high standards (Does he have two eyes – check, is he breathing – check, does he own his own gimp mask – check). Now earlier in the day we had been listening to Liverpool v Everton from Anfield where a “Sea Fret” had been causing problems for the watching millions on TV. I had never head of such a thing, but apparently in the North West of England such fast moving and enveloping fog was common.
And lo and behold fifteen minutes later when we returned to the terraces we could hardly see a thing. The fog had rolled in and for all intense and purposes the Luton fans could have buggered off home as they couldn’t be seen as well as heard, and quite frankly a draw would have been a fair result with Carlos Logan and Nick Chadwick going close for Barrow, and Liam Hatch missing a good chance for Luton.
Neither team would have been too sad if the game would have been abandoned as soon as it hit the magic game deciding 76th minute (why is this the cut off? Surely it would make sense for it to be the 3/4rds mark at 67.5 minutes?) but the referee didn’t see a problem, although for all he could see either goalkeeper could have walked off and we wouldn’t have noticed.
Luton take the lead....apparently
And where was the yellow ball? A white ball is hardly sensible in such conditions but Mr Curry didn’t feel it was an issue but then again he did not see most of the other contentious decisions all day so at least in that way he was consistent. With seven minutes to go the deadlock was broken, we believe. Apparently Liam Hatch headed in from a Kevin Nichols corner to give the visitors the lead when we head a muffled cheer and saw the players regroup for a kick off again after a minute or so.
The temperature had dropped to almost freezing point and we took our leave with injury time being played out, and after a final experience in the toilets of Calcutta for the girls (I laughed later when one of the Directors, Neil Chalker wrote in the programme that “we do understand that some of the toilet facilities are out of date” having seen them with my own eyes) we headed back to the car and up the road to the biosphere (Centerparcs) where CMF and Littlest Fuller were blissfully unaware of the Fretting we had experienced.
So another win on the road for Luton, which put the pressure back on the Play off teams, but more worryingly for Barrow extended their winless home record into a fourth month (the last league home win was on the 17th October versus Ebbsfleet). It is a shame that such a proper non-league club were being dragged into the relegation zone. The crowd was just over 1,500 which was some 600 short of their 2,010 that they had publically declared as their required average for the final ten games of the season. The worrying aspect here is that Luton would have been seen as one of a few teams who should have boosted the attendance to close to the required level. I cannot see the likes of Kettering, Crawley Town, Salisbury City or Histon bringing more than a couple of dozen all of the way here, so the focus must be on incentives to get more locals to attend. On a day that Mansfield Town annouced their “pay what you want” incentive for their home game with Gateshead and got more than 7,000 surely clubs have to wise up to some fresh ideas about how to engage with the locals.
So in summary…Barrow-in-Furness. No bus depot, sitting in the middle of some of Europe’s most unspoilt countryside, a bloody long way from home but decent fans, a decent non-league ground and its own weather system that can fool the best adventurer in the world. We salute you.
About Holker Street
Holker Street, whilst being home to the club since 1909 has also played host to Speedway and Rugby League. The ground has remained unchanged since the redevelopment of the main stand in the mid 1990s. Described as having “a traditional, old fashioned feel”, the ground has three sides of terracing and one all-seater Main Stand, the latter with a capacity of around 1,000.
The Main Stand, backing onto Ray Wilkie Road is raised above the central portion of the pitch, with flat standing on either side. The Popular Side now has the only covered terracing, opposite the Main Stand. The Holker Street end is the traditional base of the home support, though it is now uncovered and thus open to the weather which comes in off Walney Channel; this end is now sometimes given to away fans. Otherwise, away fans are usually accommodated at the steelworks end, which has the smallest and least used terracing. The only seating in this area is a small wooden bench. This end is dominated by the CrossBar which houses the club’s offices.
Holker Street’s facilities are rather spartan, and the ground would probably not be suitable for Football League Two, the level above which Barrow AFC currently play. Stadium share proposals with Barrow Raiders rugby league club are often mooted. The most recent plan was for the two clubs to share a stadium in Barrow’s redeveloped dockland, though no significant plans have ever been made and the Barrow AFC board currently appears to favour further improvement and development of Holker Street.
A little known fact is that after bomb damage in the Second World War, the main stand was repaired using reclaimed wood from unseaworthy ships found in the Irish Sea!
How to find Holker Street
By road: M6 Junction to junction 36, then onto A590 signposted Barrow. Follow A590 all the way to the outskirts of Barrow, entering via industrial route towards the Town Centre. Passing the fire station on the right, take the next left into Wilkie Road. The ground is on the right hand side. Post code for Sat-Nav is LA14 5UW.
The nearest Station is Barrow-in-Furness. On leaving the station, exit onto Holker Street. Turn right and ground is approximately ½ mile on the left.
How to get a ticket for Holker Street
Despite the club’s desire to double attendances to over 2,000, there are still plenty of tickets available on a matchday. Tickets can be bought in advance from the club in person or by phone – 01229 823061. Ticket prices for this season are Terracing £13 (concessions £10 – £3), Stand £14 (concessions £11 – £3).
February 5, 2010
The Lewes Beer Festival
In Sussex on Friday 26th February 2010?
Like a few beers?
Only want to pay £2.50 a pint?
Want a souvenir glass?
Want all the bar staff to look like Keeley Hazell?
Then get yourself down to the Lewes Beer Festival!
*Keeley Hazell may not be present due to other contractual arrangements
February 1, 2010
Bring the Stones back home!
In the 2002 Only Fools and Horses episode, Strangers on the Shore, Denzil and Trigger are sitting in a lorry in France, waiting for Del and Rodney and are chatting about life and woman. Denzil asks Trigger about why he hasn’t got married.
“I have always had this image of my perfect woman, my dream girl…”
“What’s she like?” asks Denzil
“She’s nothing to look at, very plain. Little scar on her chin where she had a wart removed.”
We all have our dreams, hopes and aspirations. Some will happen, some may happen and some are simply pipe dreams. We have focused on Maidstone United’s plight before our visit last wekk and their aspirations of moving back to their home town, some twenty years since they left, into a stadium of their own. Talk is cheap and the club have seen so many false dawns with local politicians making promises about “Bringing the Stones back home” which they have failed to deliver on (a politician lying? never!). So when something new is announced, everyone sits up and listens….So ladies and gentlemen I give you the Virtual Stadium. The what? The Virtual Stadium – and you can drink virtual beer whilst watching the virtual game. The concept is simple. The club are asking fans of football to buy a virtual seat in their online stadium to help raise money for the plans to build a new stadium. Press coverage so far has been very positive. Non League news picked up the story before Christmas (here) and in Kentish Football (here). Maidstone fan and creator of the scheme Jamie Barber takes up the story…
So what’s the Virtual Stadium in aid of?
“Put simply, we’re trying to return Maidstone United back to Maidstone. After 21 years of ground-sharing (including an unpleasant period going bust and reforming), the future of the club is hanging in the balance with no ground to call our own. We have planning permission and a long-term lease for a ground at James Whatman Way in Maidstone – we’re just short of the funds to build it. The supporters have been set the task of raising £250K and the Virtual Stadium is one of the schemes set up to try and achieve this. For more details, please visit the official Bring the Stones Home website.”
How does it work?
“Simple. You choose the seat you would like from the Virtual Stadium Seating Plan on the main page (maybe you want a seat next to one of your friends or a supporter of your club – you can search for friends or fellow supporters using the ‘Search Crowd’ link). Then follow the links through to the payment page and fill in the details, including the message you would like displayed on your seat. You can upload a message and image if you like – you can change either of these at any time. If you are an advertiser, just click on any of the ‘Corporate Sponsorship’ links and send us your contact information – we’ll be in touch to discuss the details like logo sizes and website to link to. If your company is able to provide a product or service that could be useful in building the new stadium or promoting the Virtual Stadium, we may even be able to do something on rates. We’ll try and get your company logo uploaded as quickly as possible.”
Why should I buy a seat or piece of advertising?
“The way we see it, there are four principal reasons:
a) Financial for you! Give yourself up to 49 chances to win £1000! Every time you purchase a seat you will be asked a simple multiple choice question. Get this right and your seat is entered into the Grab A Grand draw every time we reach a ‘Thousand-Seat Milestone’. You get entry into more draws the earlier you join (so if your seat is in the first 1000 sold, you’ll get 49 chances if every seat in the Virtual Stadium is sold). If you want more entries, you can simply purchase more seats from your Profile.
b) Financial for your company. The Virtual Stadium is a brand-new concept which hasn’t been seen before. Because of this we are hoping to generate a substantial amount of publicity. Purchasing advertising on the site gives you exposure to all of the visitors to the site (you can see exactly how many by checking the ‘Unique Hits Since Launch’ counter on the front page of the site (above the stadium image). We have different advertising options available giving different amounts of exposure to suit all budgets.
c) Interest. As a member of the Virtual Stadium community, you will have access to a whole array of online features, many exclusive to the site. As a taster, we are offering exclusive video highlights, interviews (some live) with Stones names both past and present, games to while away an hour or two as well as the opportunity to chat with fellow members. And we’re also running a Referral Scheme where you can win prizes if you refer the most friends to join the site.
d) Emotional. Be a part of internet (and football) history. Remember, you will be playing a key role in keeping alive a football club for which your efforts will be forever recognised. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Maidstone United regular, sometime away fan, an occasional supporter from the old days of London Road or even if you have no intention of setting foot in a football stadium, your role could be crucial in the survival of the club.”
How much of the seat money goes to the new stadium fund?
“£5 of the £6.99 goes DIRECTLY to the The Bring The Stones Home Campaign. This fund will be used to build the new stadium at James Whatman Way, Maidstone. Out of the remainder £1 goes into the prize draw pot, 50pence goes into the referrel pot and the remaining 49pence goes to Google Checkout.”
What are you going to do when the Virtual Stadium is full?
“The intention is to release funds for the construction of the new stadium at James Whatman Way as and when we reach critical milestones (for example, enough to build an electricity sub-station). Once the Virtual Stadium itself is sold out and JWW is built, we plan to put our feet up and have a beer.”
How has it gone so far since launch?
“What a great start to the launch of the Maidstone United Virtual Stadium with over £1800 raised in the first two weeks of launch! There’s been a lot of work going on developing the idea but it finally launched yesterday and has already attracted over 4,000 hits. This is the ideal opportunity to get the people of Maidstone involved in building the new ground, so get referring people to the site and we hope to follow this up by doing one or two roadshows in the town to further increase the profile of this campaign. The idea is pretty unique and we hope that it will not only attract the attention of the population of Maidstone, but also further afield and fans of other teams. So please do all you can to spread the word and the idea could teally take off.”
How did you get involved in this unusual and unique project?
“In terms of background, I accidentally got elected onto the Fund Raising Committee after a beer too many away at Canvey Island last season. I got together with some other friends (notably Jonathan Parr) who work in the online industry and we tried to come up with a way of generating money and publicity from internet users and fans of other clubs, as well as the people of Maidstone. The result grew from an online guestbook (though we struggled to see how it would raise the much-needed funds) to the Virtual Stadium you see today.
Then we had the issue of technical expertise. While we were able to come up with the concept, we had none of the requisite IT expertise to physically build it. By sheer luck, the club had been approached by a Database Designer and E-Commerce guru by the name of Steve Savage who offered his services if the official website needed overhauling. I was put in touch with Steve to see if he would be interested in helping build the Virtual Stadium and the rest, as they say, is history. The entire project was about 10 months in the actual building.”
We are pleased to back such a great scheme and have purchased two seats, and we urge all football fans to go to the website and buy your seat. £6.99 is the price of a beer (well , here in Copenhagen it is!) so forego that last pint and help a football club in need.
January 30, 2010
Surely it’s a wind up?
The current most fashionable place to be seen as a football club is in court facing a winding up order. Virtually all of these relate to debts owned to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – i.e unpaid tax. So far in January we have seen Portsmouth, Crystal Palace, Cardiff City, Plymouth Argyle and Southend United from the league, and Lewes and Chester City in the Blue Square. So why now? Southend’s Chairman Ron Martin has a theory:-
“HMRC appear to be sending out winding-up petitions against football clubs like confetti,” Martin said. “The club may now need to apply to the court for an injunction against HMRC“. HMRC has indeed become more aggressive in its dealings with debtors after it lost its protected creditor’s status, meaning that once football debts have been settled in full in insolvency cases, the taxman must wait in a queue alongside all other creditors. HMRC refused to discuss the specific case at Southend, but a spokeswoman said: “We do not take these steps lightly.”
Chester City's Deva stadium
Winding up orders rarely lead to the end of a football club. We did see the demise of Kings Lynn in November 2009 when the courts took the side of HMRC and wound the club up for a debt of £77,000. Lewes, on the other hand have faced 3 in the past year, despite paying off most of their outstanding debt in accordance with a plan agreed with the Tax man. Unfortunately it appears a new man took over the case and got aggressive, giving the Blue Square South club just 72 hours to find £48,000 a few weeks ago, which they managed to do at the 11th hour. Chester City face a “final” hearing on 10th March where they need to stump up £26,000 otherwise they will go the same way as Kings Lynn.
Selhurst Park
However, winding up orders do more than often lead to Administration for a club. In the last 25 years, 69 Football League clubs have entered Administration, some more than once. This week we have seen Crystal Palace decide for a second time that they cannot afford Simon Jordan’s sunbed sessions and have appointed P & A Partnership as the clubs only hope of survival. The administrator, Brendan Guilfoyle admitted he was not a football fan to Talksport’s Danny Kelly. His stance was very clear - “I will do everything to ensure the long term survival of this football club.” It is no surprise that the club’s biggest asset currently is Victor Moses, the 19 year old utility player. Rumours of his departure had been circulating long before Guilfoyle was asked to try and rescue the club. The Administrators first act was to “ban” Moses from playing at Newcastle on Tuesday. When asked by Kelly why, his response was cold -
“One of the options for the administrators is to sell players during the transfer window,” he said. “Independent football agents appointed by the administrators to assist with player sales have reported that there is a great deal of interest from clubs wanting to buy Victor Moses.”
Wearing the shirt for the last time?
“I could not sleep last night worrying that Victor might be injured in the forthcoming match against Newcastle which could jeopardise the future of this long-established club. I therefore took the tough decision to instruct the manager that Victor Moses was not available for selection. The manager was very disappointed.”
Interesting enough, one of the liabilities of the club was payments to agents (Palace paid nearly £250k in agents fees in 2008 alone), yet here is the administrator using one (in this case WMG) to try and get the best deal for the club, and of course themselves.
Asked if a situation could arise when other players were under offers would be “banned” from playing, Guilfoyle stated of course, and even if the club were forced to field less than eleven players. Luton fans may remember Mr Guilfoyle from their time in administration last year.
But what is Administration, why do clubs do it, and why don’t any ever actually go out of business? Administration is essentially another world for Insolvency. A business is deemed as insolvent when its debts outweigh its income. A company can call in an Administrator at any time if it feels that it cannot continue with its ongoing business. The Administrator is there to protect the long term and secured creditors (such as staff) and will do everything within their power to ensure the long term survival of the business. In footballing terms it means as soon as a club goes “into administration” they lose control of the club.
The Administrator takes sole charge and can essentially dictate all affairs, apart from naming the team of course, within the football club. Their interest is to freeze all debts, including those to staff and players, and find a viable solution to the issue. Normally, a creditor will negotiate a settlement of x pence in the pound. Which means that if a club owes £100,000 and a settlement is agreed on for 50pence in the pound, all creditors would get half of what they were owed – but not immediately. This is where the Company Voluntary Agreement comes into play – the CVA. This is the reason that Luton were docked further points. They had what they believe was an agreement, but it was not ratified so by coming out of Administration they had no legal backing and the league thought they were naughty boys.
So why also dock clubs 10 points? Surely this will make it harder for their long term survival? Yes and no, but the sole reason for this lays in the Leicester City case. At the start of the 2002/03 season the club moved into their new 32,500 all seater Walkers Stadium. Unfortunately the club had run up monsterous debts of £30m and just ten weeks after the start of the season they went into Administration. The club was eventually purchased by a consortium led by Gary Lineker and creditors were forced to settle for a tiny fraction of what they were owed. The club were then free to start spending again, and off the back of this they won promotion to the Premier League just a few months later.
So the Football League (note – not the Premier League – we will get onto them shortly) decided to stop this happening again, where a club could essentially gain a competitive advantage on the pitch by wiping out their debts. So in came the 10 point Administration penalty. Now the rules are that if you go into administration prior up to and including 6 weeks before the end of the season you get a 10 point penalty there and then (as Darlington have done this season). If you apply for an Administration order after this date then you might get 10 points now, or you might get 10 points the following season – it depends where you finish in the league. If you are a no hoper and already relegated then you may think that heading off into Administration may seem like a good idea – wrong! You will get minus 10 points next season. However, if you are fighting for survival against relegation, or pushing for promotion then it will deducted there and then.
In the Blue Square Leagues it is different once again with points penalties ranging from 10 points up to 25 points as Chester City found to their surprise in the summer. They can also force teams out of the conference for other financial irregularities as well – just as Boston United – see Gary Andrews excellent article here. This season we have seen the first club in the top four levels of the pyramid go under for quite awhile as Kings Lynn lost their mid season fight against their debts in the Unibond Premier and folded, meaning the expunging of their records (is their an official expunger I wonder?)
And finally we have the Premier League. The top table, the creme de la creme. So what is the penalty for such misdermeaners here? Well there isn’t any actually! No Premier League club has ever gone into Administration and so they have never had to decide on a fate. There have been a number of near misses, most recently West Ham’s situation after the collapse of the Icelandic economy (in theory West Ham were in default of a number of long term commitments in 2008 and should have filed for Administration immediately, but appear to have forgot) and Portsmouth’s current situation is fingernails if ever there was one. Rumours circulate that the penalty will be 9 points, but any such punishment will almost certainly relegate the club, and with their precarious position it is hard to see them returning to the top table.
In 1923 the Football League consisted of 88 teams. Seventy Five years later 85 of those teams were still in existence. Simon Kuper in a recent article for FourFourTwo compares this with traditional business – how many theatres for instance that were in existence 75 years ago are still open today? And what about Airlines? Remember such greats as Pan-Am, Pacific South West, Danair or very recently Sky Europe? All no longer in existence. So why can football clubs “bend” the rules? Banks anyone? Lehman’s, Barings, Northern Rock – yet little old Rochdale still carry on as normal.
So in some ways football clubs are more solid than banking institutions. But why do they get into such a state. We can understand some of the debt at the top of the tree as clubs chase the impossible dreams of “breaking into the big four”, or even some Championship teams who gamble on getting into the Premier League. But what about the likes of Palace? Where did the £30m worth of debt come from? A club living beyond its means? Simon Jordan does not strike many as a reckless businessman, and indeed saved the club from oblivion in 2000 after their previous administration. Cardiff City – smart new stadium, playing at the highest level they have been for decades, yet all of a sudden the vultures are circling above the Cardiff City Stadium.
The club had raised around £3m from a season-ticket initiative to buy players in the January window, but it will no longer be used for that purpose. They will also be selling off “assets” which refers to land and holdings rather than the playing squad.
Cardiff's City Stadium
A statement issued by the club this week said: “The financial health of the club is the ultimate priority.” The Bluebirds face a second winding up order 10 February if they fail to pay an outstanding tax bill of £2.7m owed to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Chairman Peter Ridsdale made assurances earlier this month that the club was “trading as normal” and there was “no immediate threat” to the future of the club.
So how many more will fall foul of the taxman this season? Surely it is only time before a club in the league is wound up, and if that happens do we enter the forth age of football in England? Author Alex Fynn famously quoted that the first three ages were 1) The creation of the Premier League, 2) The first Sky TV deal, 3) The arrival of Roman Abramovich….All positive measures in terms of money creation…so now are we seeing reality at last hit the beautiful game? Maybe just maybe.
